There are some things that, for me, make a party.
One of those things is decor. The other are the party packs but that’s another post.
I’ve been slightly addicted to party blogs for the last 2 – 3 months – I’ve found there are literally hundreds all over the internet.
Some are better than others of course and these are the ones that found themselves permanently lodged in my Google Reader.
I found that a lot of graphic designers who sell things on etsy have beautiful blogs that feature a free printable or two so you get a taste of their style.
Rather like my free Time Management Purpose Pack š (BTW, have you downloaded yours yet? What do you think? Have you used it?)
Anyway, so after trawling these blogs for awhile, I decided that we needed to buy a set of printables from someone to “pull” the theme together.
I happened upon Linnette’s Paper Glitter blog and I was hooked. I just love her style.
Here is her etsy shop.
We had the challenge of thinking up a gender neutral theme because of our boy/ girl twins.
One that was non character-based as our kids don’t watch TV and I have issues with being “enslaved” to the marketing around Disney and other characters.
So we decided on a garden theme with ladybugs, worms, caterpillars and other bugs. I like to choose something I can easily add to in terms of current things in my house as I am not one for buying things for one purpose only. I had lots of yellow and green things I could use to supplement.
When I received the PDF files, I was truly amazed.
This lady totally OVER delivers.
68 pages of printable PDF goodness.
Truly, I honestly only used about 20 pages and even those 20 pages were well worth the price we paid because they pulled the whole party together.
The pages I used:
- 3 different types of banners/ bunting – I am a banner-loving freak (seriously – instant happiness!)
- “Happy Birthday” banner
- cupcake toppers
- tented cards
- food labels
- invites
- thank-you cards
- goodie bag designs
- water bottle wrappers (I used to decorate old jam jars for tea and coffee)
- A4 sign with “Happy Birthday” on it
- 4 inch circles which I made flowers by attaching craft sticks (ice-cream sticks)
I hope you’re interested in all the detail!
All I then did was get a cheap red table cloth (from Pep for R30), bright green paper plates, yellow and red plastic glasses and green straws.
So let me end off this post by saying there is no reason to not have a cute party anymore with all these wonderful things out there.
Go to http://etsy.com and type in party printables plus your theme if you have one in mind, and shop shop shop.
Have you used downloadable printables from etsy before?
How do you decide on decor?
P.S. top pic from the designer’s etsy shop; the rest were taken by me of our actual party
Decor hasn’t really been necessary up to this point as I never have parties at home. I love the idea of free printables though. Must see what I can find for the next party that I’m going to have. Am planning something smallish and intimate for end-September. Obviously to make up for July. Am actually looking forward to it. Thanks for the cool links in this post. LOVED your decor.
Julia, if you tell me what you’re looking for, I’ll see if I have any links that would work. I went about crazy pinning ideas before…
It’s an adorable theme indeed! Thanks for the links! As far as my parties’ decor goes, I’ve made up mine since I’m a digital scrapper. My birthday is on October 31st so I often had a Halloween-themed party and we had a blast. I created invitations, tags for the gifts, and the gifts containters (a huge candy, created from empty toilet paper roll and crepe paper). I also put candy spiders on every plate, and one of my friend is so scared by spiders that she couldn’t even touch it! ROFLOL