Professional party prep guru and queen of craft Alexis Teasdale from The Festive Co. has given us her top tips for turning the dial up on your DIY for a party at home! Sometimes a big vibe can be created by the small details, and of course the occasional outsource to a professional for the WOW pieces.
Party favour flavour
Little decorated cookies are such a sweet (pun intended) take home gift or addition to a party bag. The birthday kid might even help you make them in the lead up! Simple letter cookie cutters are easy to find and if you stick to basic icing and sprinkles, little hands can help without too much fuss or mess.
Streamer wall
Crepe paper streamer walls are easy as pie to whip up and look so gorgeous behind a cake table. Look for sets that include everything you need, from the streamers to tape, string and maybe even balloons, which will save you money.
If you can’t find a kit, head to your local party shop and select your streamer colours, some double-sided tape and twine or rope. Then layer the streamers over the rope, holding each piece in place by adding the double sided tape to the inside of the streamer as it touches the rope.
YAY balloons
Don’t underestimate the basics when it comes to party decor. It’s so easy to find these small letter balloons now, they’re even at the supermarket. Instead of battling to hang them on string or stick to the wall, just add them to balloon or baking sticks and sit them in jars of sprinkles, glitter or even rice!
Party hats
Why not have a party hat decorating game at your kids next party? Buy plain party hats and have tubs of all sorts of crafty bits like old lego pieces, lollies, cotton wool, feathers, shells.. anything really! Just make sure the children are big enough to know not to put anything in their mouth as they create!
If you have older children, a low-temp glue gun makes it super easy to keep pieces adhered to a party hat.
Party plates
I love finding unique party plates to suit whatever theme the kids are having. They can get expensive though, so my trick is to stock up on plain paper plates as a base and have one fancy, themed one sitting at the top when I style a kids table.
Lolly themed cupboard
Work with what you have! I have a couple of glass cabinets in our dining area, so I utilise them and swap out our everyday glassware for themed party bits and pieces when the big days come around. This was my daughters ‘candy’ themed first birthday party, and I used a mixture of real lollies and printed ones, to avoid having a really epic amount of sugar in the house.
Piñata cake
This glorious creation was whipped up by Sweet Mama Cakes for my baby shower but would work just as well for a kids birthday bash. I had never seen a piñata cake before then, and they are SO much fun for kids! Simply cut out the middle of your assembled cake layers and fill with lollies before you finish icing and decorating. Then enjoy their reaction!
Jumbo daisies
I made these for my daughters christening. They were basic cardboard creations with overlapping petals and frayed cardboard centres. I added some wire to the back of them to make it easy to hook onto a screen. To save some money (because big sheets of cardboard are exxy!) you could use a big roll of white craft paper as the base.
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