Zombie Prom Party Decorations!

Yesterday we hosted a Zombie Prom themed Halloween party at our house. So today, while I start taking DOWN all the decorations, let me show you all that we did!

When you entered, we had a balloon arch! My husband made it, while I was being negative and telling him it wouldn't work. (he's a saint!)

We wanted zombies, lots of zombies, so I drew some on large sheets of white paper. Friends and family members painted them black like a silhouette and then hung them in just about EVERY window.

Here's PJ taping a zombie to the outside of the French doors in our sunroom.

More zombies, and this is still in our sunroom, but check out the gym floor! The whole idea of the party was that our house was a zombie high school. The prom was, of course, held in the gym! Since our sunroom floor is still unfinished subfloor, it wasn't a problem to paint the floor orange. This was all my husband's doing. He even laid down black duct tape lines to make it authentic! Way to commit to a theme, Honey!

Also in the Gym, we had a bar with a skeleton bar tender. The best part is that the bar is a COFFIN!!!! My sister MADE it for me!!!! Best early birthday present EVER!

Ok, next to PJ making a basketball court and my sister making a life sized coffin, this is LAME. I made some SIGNS! Ha! They seemed cute until everyone in my family started showing off! They are zombie themed and cute if that helps. One says there is a blood drive on Tuesday and another announces an all you can eat blood buffet on Wednesday! Cute, huh? (have I mentioned that I am sleep deprived from nursing a baby all night?)

The signs were taped to "bulletin boards" that I made. I covered every large mirror and framed painting with paper and then taped up the signs. The cafeteria bulletin board has a zombie food pyramid (all brains)!

Next to the gym, I created a wall of school sports team photos. I found a bunch of vintage team photos and then photoshopped dark eyes and stretched out parts. I even used the clone stamp to sever a few limbs!

Speaking of photos, we made our empty (about to be renovated) bedroom into the backdrop for prom pictures. Our ideas for the backdrop never really panned out so hubby bought a plastic wall decoration from the party store. It was pretty cool and way easy! My sister took the pictures and printed them during the party. She even created a Zombie Prom 2012 banner to superimpose on the pictures! She's awfully talented!

That's me and my date.... Till death (or the zombie horde) tear us apart! And that's all for the Zombie Prom decorations!

Eyeball Cupcakes

Our Halloween party with the Zombie Prom theme is happening tonight. I am spending the day decorating and cooking all sorts of human/ meat/ flesh themed foods.

I am SO happy with the things that I have finished so far that I wanted to share them. These are my eyeball cupcakes!

I got the idea when I found these gummy eye balls at the dollar store.

I made my cupcakes and started with some peach colored frosting. Then I unwrapped and placed a gummy eye on each cupcake.

Then I used a frosting tip with a long thin slash. I am pretty sure it's the one you use to make roses. I used it to make a long thin strip of frosting where the top and bottom eyelids go.

Finally, I used melted chocolate in a piping bag to add eye lashed and eyebrows.

This did take a pretty good understanding of the anatomy of the eye AND of frosting techniques. They also took some time to get the details right, but thats OK. Who needs sleep? My eyes are wide awake!

Watermelon Witch

At this moment, this picture is getting a HUGE number of re-pins on Pinterest and driving a lot of visitors to my blog.

Unfortunately, at the time I posted that picture it was as a footnote to a blog post about carving a watermelon to look like a brain.

If you want the details on the watermelon brain, click here. If you want the details on the fruit salad vomiting watermelon witch, I now have a DIY on the Fly video where myself and Margot Potter demonstrate how to make one.

Looking at them side by side, my witch (on the left) doesn't look nearly as nice as my husband's (on the right). Mostly, I was simplifying to fit everything into a three minute video. (Although I must pay respect to the fact that PJ is a master melon carver!)

Here are the details that were left out of the video. Carve the face just like you would carve a pumpkin. I just made triangles. PJ left slits in the center like cats eyes. He also carved eyebrows and used a toothpick to attach a grape as a wart!
After the face is carved turn the melon upside down and scoop most of the fruit out through the cut at the bottom. In the video I just scooped a little from the mouth. Mix the watermelon with some grapes and strawberries for a red fruit salad and full a bowl with it. That way when you elevate the witch head, the bowl goes right below the mouth. We didn't have a bowl for the video and I realize what a difference that makes in both the illusion that she is vomiting and in the ability of your guests to spoon the fruit onto their plates.

Four and Fabulous Party Activities

To wrap up the party posts, here is a look at all the little activities that were available for party guests throughout the event.

One of the first tables that guests saw was the "swag bag station". The kids were going to be getting lots of party favors and I wanted them to have a place to put them. I also wanted each kid to be able to recognize their bag, so we set out blank name tags and stickers to personalize the bags. Each bag contained a feather boa to get the party started.

Later, after all the kids got their bags, I used this same table as the "sunglasses decoration station". We gave out sunglasses as a prize for the "pin the sunglasses on the superstar" game. I threw out some more stickers and let the kids personalize their sunglasses.

We had a table full of Barbie and Car themed coloring pages with crayons.

I got two older friends to run the "beauty shop" where guests could apply eye shadow and temporary tattoos.

I also set up a "jewelry shop" full of beads, string, and glittery pipe cleaners so the kids could easily make a bracelet or necklace.

The kids had plenty to do and I think they had a fabulous time!

Eiffel Tower Paper Project

It has now been two weeks since the Four and Fabulous birthday party and I feel the need to finish up the posts from that event. Sorry about the delay, but I have a really adorable excuse!

When we last discussed the party, I was sharing the group games and mentioned these paper Eiffel Towers that I made. They turned out so well, that I wanted to share how I made them. I really think something similar could be done to make lots of other 3D paper sculptures.

 First, I selected an image of the Eiffel Tower. I opted to use the same image that I used in the invitation to the party. I decided how large I wanted my finished tower to be. When I inserted the picture into a word document, I adjusted the size to those dimensions. The image was now bigger than the page. Copy the image so that you can paste more later and the size will be correct. Now, select a section to crop the image to. You want a section that will fit on the page, but also a section that will easily line up and fit together with the other sections you are printing. 

 I ended up using the three horizontal dividing sections if the tower as edges to crop to. Once you have cropped the image, paste the original again and crop to the next section. 

Allow some overlap for glueing. I ended up with three pages, each containing a third of the picture. Print four of each page so you can make four sides to your tower. Glue the sections together to create the complete tower.

Once you have the four sides assembled, it is time to trim the tower. Cut two of the shapes close to the edge. Cut the other two with about an inch margin before he edge. Cut the inch margin into tabs as shown.

Fold the tabs and apply glue. Line up the matching parts of the picture and glue the tabbed side to the inside of the non-tabbed side.

Glue all four pieces together and you have a 3D paper replica of the Eiffel Tower.

I made these two towers from 24 sheets of card stock paper, printer ink, and glue. I used them as a game and as decorations. They were easy, inexpensive, and they looked MARVELOUS!

Group Games

This was the first year that Lydia's birthday party guest list included friends from school. We always have about twenty family members and friends of the family, some of whom have kids, but they are all older than Lydia. This year, we were expecting about five preschool students.

Up until now, we have just had some independent activities, the buffet, and some adult beverages hidden in the kitchen. Suddenly, with five or so four year olds in addition to our usual group, I felt the need to plan some group games.

The first game involved balloons. Anytime I throw a party, I tend to skip the helium and just scatter regular balloons on the floor. Without any prompting, kids seem to gravitate to throwing, kicking, and catching the balloons. So I came up with a game that was basically musical chairs with balloons. (For our party theme, I related it to a fabulous and girly bubble bath.)

Gather your group and have one less balloon than kids. Start the music and have the kids bounce the balloons in the air. When the music stops everyone grab and hold a balloon. If you don't have one you are out. I wish I had bubble bath to give the kids but I bought the prizes long before I thought up the games. So the prize for this game was a small bottle of nail polish.

Next we played "Pin the Sunglasses on the Superstar" using the Marilyn print and a sunglasses shape that I printed and cut out. The plan was to put a loop of tape on the back of the glasses and then each kid's initials on the front. (It took too much time to deal with the tape and the initials as each kid came up for a turn, so plan ahead on this one and get that part ready early!)

The prize for this game was a small pair of sunglasses. I then had a table full if stickers so each child could decorate their own pair of glasses. This bought me a little time to get the next game ready.

The last game was the Eiffel Tower Ring Toss. I actually saw a painting (john Singer Seargent, maybe?) where kids in the early 1900's were throwing rings at a souvenir Eiffel Tower statue. I thought it sounded like fun, but did not want to buy a replica tower.

Instead, I made two towers out of paper! (tutorial coming tomorrow) I was worried that they might fall over because they weren't weighted, but they were wide at the bottom and so it wasn't a problem. Because I made two towers (I'm a sucker for symmetry) We had two lines of kids playing the game. The rings were a couple of those glow in the dark plastic necklaces.

We gave each kid 5 tries and just counted how many times they got the hoop on the tower. I suggest a helper if two kids are playing at the same time. I also suggest tape lines to keep the kids from standing too close. The prize for each kid in the ring toss was a ring pop candy.

For each of our games there was a prize just for playing and then I gave out the cupcake wrapper awards to the actual winner. I only had one kid break out crying and that happened mid game. Other than that, the kids who were out were happy to select their treat and move on.

The last group activity was opening presents. There has to be a less chaotic way to do this, but I haven't figured that our yet! The little kids were so excited to see what toys Lydia got and to have her to open their gift next. Lydia still wants to open a gift and play with that toy right then. I was trying to keep up with who gave her what, but that was hard because she kept getting up and moving and then tearing into packages. Gift wrap, tissue paper, cards and gift tags all went flying. Maybe next year I will figure out a better way..... but there I am, in the midst of the chaos, 8 months pregnant, on the floor, in a skirt and heels, wearing a feather boa. Craziness, I know!

Gift Wrapped Bistro Buffet

In addition to using inexpensive engineer prints from Staples to decorate our venue, I had one other secret craft supply. Since I didn't have access to the Michael's craft closet, I used something inexpensive and easy to find in tons of different colors..... GIFT WRAP!

I bought two rolls of plain pink gift wrap and one roll of black polka dot gift wrap.

I started with this really ugly metal gate. It separates the kitchen from the reception space, necessary but not attractive.

It took two widths of wrapping paper and several tape loops to cover the gate. Before cutting the gift wrap, I was able to use the roll to measure the space. By the way, a roll of wrapping paper is almost the width of a standard door, so covering some of the extra doors that we didn't want guests going through, was also super easy.

Above is the window completely covered in pink gift wrap and below you can see the finished product with the Staples engineer print sign glued in place. Because each element was so easy and inexpensive, I planned on just throwing away the paper at the end of the party, so no worries about gluing it together.

The other gift wrap decoration that you can see at the buffet are wrapping paper pinwheels. I have seen this idea for folded paper decorations from multiple sources, but this was my first time trying them. Ive not read any actual directions do the whole thing, including using thin wrapping paper, was total experimentation. First, I cut a rectangle that was twice as long as it was wide. The ones I made are as long as the tune of gift wrap and half as wide.

Then I did an accordion fold, back and forth, down the entire length of the paper. I LOVED that the gift wrap had those measurements on the back to make the folding easier! Your paper should go from a long rectangle to close to a square shape.

Next, turn your accordion folded square so that the fds run vertical. Pinch it with your fingers in the center. Begin folding one side so that the two edges of the square touch. Glue the two edges together.

Now you can probably let go without the whole thing falling apart. Glue the other edges together to finish the circle shape.

I ended up with a few folds in the middle of the circle that were loose enough tho pull apart. The rest were held together just by the tension from the folds. I simply added a little more glue and everything was fine.

Because these were made from wrapping paper, they were so lightweight that I was able to use two tape loops to hold them to the wall.

If I needed pin wheels that hung from the ceiling, I would probably try using two pieces of wrapping paper sandwiched so that both sides have the design. This would make them twice as strong and a little heavier. I definitely plan on making more of these and even think I could do the folding and glue that first side ahead of time and just keep it feed like a fan until I am ready to decorate. With so many gift wrap options, the possibilities are endless!