Mad Men theme birthday party- short notice and quick!

This party was for my mother Beverly.  I chose to surprise her with a little Mad Men themed dinner.  Let me start by saying it was very short notice and put together in a few days.  The dollar tree is my best friend and I recommend going there before any other craft store.   My skyscrapers were made of black poster board and I glued white foam paper to them.  Martini glasses were placed around the area filled with red ice cubes or as candle holders ( red candles).  My color scheme is obviously the opening theme colors to the show: red, black and white.  I made the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce sign as a fun touch out of foam paper also.  The bar backdrop was a photo I found online and bought poster board to draw it and make it life size.  I made sure the serving liqour glasses fit my theme as well and bought, for very cheap , at the dollar store, lots of plastic wine glasses and tumblers to substitute the expensive glass ones.  I could not find plates to match my theme colors so i bought a set of each color plate and cut them out and combined them to make one plate. The cupcakes were my favorite since the mad men were such chain smokers. I made chocolate cupcakes with white icing and crumbled oreos on top to look like ashes and rolled up fake cigarettes to make it look like the cigarette had been put out in the cupcake!

Boy Baby Shower Ideas

This was my first party where I made my own decorations.  I feel like I did well for my first time.  I had a lemonade bar, sweets bar, and taco bar ( since that is what the mother to be was craving). The lemonade bar had a stork I made on it out of paper and a flower arrangement stand. It also had different lemonade glass pitchers filled with lemonade I had colored with food coloring.  There were lemons sliced for their drinks and different colored sugar to dip the rim of their glasses in.  The sweets bar had marshmellow pops ( easy to make- marshmellows on a stick dipped in melted chocolate and colored sugar). It also had cute cupcakes with babies in blankets made of fondent.  The diaper cake was a castle!  Easy to make, just add paper cones on top!

Pin Up Girl Bridal Lingerie Shower

Remember all my decorations I do on a very small budget.  Therefore I made and decorated my own cupcakes and marshmellow pops. My cupcakes I put different lingerie items on.  My pops are marshmellows on a stick dipped in melted chocolate and colored sprinkles.  Everything for this party is sparkly, feminine, and pink.  My banner on the fireplace was made with string and paper. I also bought the wall decals of the women on etsy.  I made a few pinup girl posters myself, not all in the pictures, and bought lots of feather boas.  We had a panty decorating bar for entertainment.  I put out all my craft stuff and supplies on the bar for the women to choose from with glue and scissors, and then bought panties in solid color packs at walmart in varies sizes.  It was a huge hit!  I also made a huge cardboard boustier cutout which is only slightly pictured under the panty banner on the fireplace.  Her drinks were margaritas in a bowl with floating light up flowers and pinup girl napkins.  Of course i decorated her own wine glass for her for the evening and to keep.  It was very fun!  My streamers also covered the walls and ceiling and were sparkling. They helped make it feel like a different world when you entered the room.

Fast theme without much time- Country Girl

I realized my best friends birthday was coming up and nobody was doing anything for her.  Therefore, I decided to have her and a few close friends over and feed them dinner and drinks before going out to party for the evening.  She is a country girl at heart so she got a cowgirl/country theme.  I had one week to put the decor together and had to make quick choices.  I knew mason jar sweet tea would be a big part of establishing the theme and easy to do and found a pack at walmart for like four dollars.  next making a WANTED sign for her for the old west with funny pictures on it was easy and essential.  The rest was a matter of borrowing and gathering an assortment of items to help with the theme...baskets, metal bowls, boots, and cardboard to make my food labels. It all came together nicely for the short amount of time I had and concidering it was all a surprise to her that there was even going to be a theme~!  I especially loved the cowgirl boot as a flower vace. 

I also love to come up with creative costumes! Please share with me new ideas for how to dress my husband and I or more party themes.  Here we are the last three years at halloween: the grinch and cindly loo hoo, avatars, and borat and pamela!  I made and put together our entire costumes especially all the make up work, jewelry and accesories. and yes in our costumes my husbands arms should have been painted but he is very hairy and it hurts him and makes him mad. Im just lucky he lets me paint him at all...im sure you all understand how husbands can be.