Welcome to the Flock Bridal Shower - Kiss the Groom Game

As I mentioned yesterday, I put together two games for the "Welcome to the Flock" bridal shower I threw for my sister-in-law-to-be. The first one was called "Kiss the Groom":



A few weeks before the shower I borrowed the disc of engagement photos the happy couple had taken and picked out a nice close up. I uploaded them to costco.com's photo site and printed the largest size - 20" x 30" - that they offer - for just $8.99! The game is played like "pin the tail on the donkey", but instead of tails you use kisses - which I got in the form of stickers at Michael's (really cheap too! I think it was $2 for 3 pkgs!).

We hung the poster up on one of the large windows in the party rom and covered the surrounding area with saran wrap to protect the windows in case someone was REALLY off on their sticker placement - I didn't want to spend the afternoon chipping adhesive off the windows. If you want to re-use the poster, I suggest you cover that with wrap as well - the industrial kind will stick to the window on its own, you don't even really need tape.

I used a thin sharpie to write names on each kiss sticker, and guests spun around 3 times and then tried to stick their kiss on the groom's lips. I brought a mask, but it was just easier to have people close their eyes since we had over 30 to get through :) No cheaters as far as I know!


The winner, very pleased with her performance :)

It was really fun to watch everyone play, so it was a fun social game for a shower and the photos give it a very personal touch. I gave prizes both for the closest kiss and booby prizes for the farthest away (cute little travel sized sanitizer gel from Bath & Body Works in all sorts of fun scents). This is a really easy, cost effective, and fitting shower game I'd definitely recommend.

Welcome to the Flock Bridal Shower - prizes

We played two fun games at the shower, so I needed to have a few prizes on hand. I came across these adorable bags on Etsy and fell in love with the design, but I didn't realize quite how small they were till they arrived. So I took the bags into my local Bath & Body Works and walked around like a lunatic fitting little things into them to see what worked and what didn't, and I ended up going with some items from their aromatherapy line (shower gel, lotion, and a candle) in three different scents. I tied each set of 3 bags together with some bright colored ribbon I had on hand, curled with the scissors, and voila:

Welcome to the Flock Bridal Shower - Goodie Bags!

I've professed my love for goodie bags before, so you know I had to have them for this shower :) They turned out very pretty!



The glittery baskets were from Target, I found them on clearance and bought every one I could find - well before I had a use for them! But the colors were PERFECT for this event. I filled them with shred from the Dollar Tree, jewel toned eggs I scooped up at Walgreens after Easter and filled with Hershey and Reese's candy. Then the main favor was a birdseed heart from Etsy. The hearts turned out great, but I wasn't super happy with the communication from the seller, so I'm not going to link to the shop here.

The final piece of each goodie was a note of thanks. I made these with my Cricut, the Straight from the Nest cartridge (I think I set it to cut 6 per 12"x12" sheet - still learning how it works), and then used an acrylic stamp I had on hand to add the simple message in a handwriting-esque font.

Welcome to the Flock Bridal Shower - Tablescape

I had so much fun with place settings at this shower! Unfortunately, I didn't get any great shots of the whole tablescape before people came in and started sitting down, so bare with me. There were two long tables for guests to dine at, for a total of about 35 attendees, and of course I was rushing around setting things up until the very last minute!



The beautiful bouquets were from the St. Paul Farmer's Market and arranged in vases I already had. I re-purposed one from Halloween that I got to hold an octopus in the voodoo shop, I wish I had gotten a better photo, but here's sort of the back of it:



I found the green glittery bird picks at Setzer Pharmacy, I wish I had gotten a close up! We did a drawing at the end for the large arrangement, and I sent the two smaller ones home with each of the mothers.



The birdcages were a small craft project - they originally looked like this:



but I de-cluttered them, sprayed them solid gold, and adorned them with a bright pink feather pick.



I ordered bright tablecloths on Ebay. The strips of lame came on on a roll I found in a bargain bin at JoAnn's - I got green, orange and pink, not sure what I would use them for at the time. They were perfect! The pink faded on top of the purple linens, but the green and orange added a great little strip of contrast and shine.

My favorite part were definitely the place settings:



The large bright napkins I happened upon during our impromptu trip to IKEA, and the clear plates are from Costco (I also got clear dessert plates and soup bowls). The silverware (also clear) are rolled in napkins, and I could have sworn that my local party store carried the little sticky strips you use to secure them, but they didn't, so I improvised with a brand new package of colorful children's hair ties from the Dollar Tree. They worked perfectly, came 30/$1, and were quick to loop on. The crowning touch was clearly the little feather bird on each set of silverware :) They also came from The Dollar Tree, and each had a wire sticking out the bottom that I threaded into the silverware pack.



I love having menu cards! Maybe it's just because I'm a picky eater, or maybe it is because the midwest is the hotdish and casserole capital of the world, but knowing the choices before going through the buffet line is a big help to me. And menu cards are adorable :) I used the same design as I had created for the invitations including punching the corners and matting on bright cardstock.

Tablescapes are fun and some of the best places to spend your decorating budget, since people spend most of their time at these events EATING! (or maybe that is just my family?). You just have to remember to get some good photos of your hard work before the party starts - someday I'll have an event where I'm ready in enough time to get all the photos I want!

"Welcome to the Flock" Bridal Shower

My little brother is marrying a delightful young woman (AKA "The Other Heather" or "Brett's Heather")this fall, and months and months ago I volunteered to host the shower. Somehow that time just RACED by, and before I knew it the day was here! I chose a "Welcome to the Flock" theme, both since I love puns and because the guest list was mostly "our" family, the one she was marrying in to, so it seemed very appropriate for the occasion!

Unfortunately, I was so busy I didn't get great photos, and taking pictures of a lot of things all together, but hopefully I can share a few projects. I'll be labeling everything with the "bird theme" label (see bottom of post), so if you want to see all posts on this event, click on that. Now on to the projects, starting with:

Invitations! (click to enlarge)



The bird cage clip art came from a google search, and the font is my current favorite, "Harrington" downloaded from 1001Freefonts.com . I laid the card out in Powerpoint, printed in color on white cardstock, and trimmed & punched the corners so that I could mount on this colorful card & envelope set from Target. The bling are self-stick jewels from Michael's, and each one had a slightly different design. I even mixed and matched each of the envelopes so that they were a different color than the invitation. I loved the bright color palate, and it became my inspiration throughout the rest of the shower planning.



I made address labels using Microsoft Word, and another bird image found online, and paired them with some really bright return address labels some charity sent out. I don't get guilted into donating by free address labels, but I feel no need to throw them in a landfill - so I gladly use them up!

I even got really cute stamps to match the mood, if you'll remember this post (guess I didn't get a photo of the final product). Invitations are tricky business, while it is fun to make cards (or was, back when I had time) it often ends up WAY more expensive than buying, and if you need special postage the cost can really escalate quickly. When you start stamping, layering, and otherwise papercrafting, you can burn through materials and time before you know it. For this party I knew I wanted to stick to a budget AND that I wouldn't have a lot of time for crafting. I was able to meet both criteria with a single pane, standard size invite that was modern and bright.

State Fair Bridal Shower - MORE FOOD!

I may have saved the best for last when it comes to the State Fair food we served, and all the credit here goes to GrammyCupcakes and her support team who spent days peeling potatoes and assembling kebabs. Everything was SO YUMMY! Here's the "rest" of the menu:



Lunch on a stick! Everything that can be is on a stick at the MN State Fair, so beef and chicken kebabs were a wonderful choice. They were marinated in seasoning and grilled to perfection.





Next up was a mashed potato bar with all the fixin's:



"Champion Croissants", lightly toasted:



And my mother's famous turkey salad, clearly "Best in Show":



As usual, there was WAY too much food, so I got to take home a LOT of leftovers :) I forgot the signs for the beverages, but we stuck with the State Fair theme there too - "fresh squeezed lemonade" (not really) and "All the milk you can drink" (and you didn't even have to pay the $0.50!):



And there's some coffee in between there for good measure too :) The beverage dispensers were a great deal at Costco, but the real stars of the beverage station were the cups! Those are official MN State Fair cups, which the staff ever so kindly allowed me to purchase (for a GREAT deal even) when I called and explained the party. Thanks MN State Fair, you are definitely the epitome of Minnesota Nice!



And that brings me to the end of my State Fair Bridal Shower projects - by all accounts it was a rousing success and the bride was quite smitten with her unique and special day. If you missed any of my recaps, you can click on the "StateFair" label to see all of the posts related to this party, and please if you find any of this inspiring, drop me a line

State Fair Bridal Shower - FAIR Bingo!

I'm feeling a little full after all of the recent food posts, so before I get to the main food table I thought it would be a good time to take a look at the bingo game I created for the party. Since we were having a lot of people and didn't want to take up all of the time (and because I couldn't think of a 5 letter word with the categories I wanted) I scaled the board down to 4 X 4 instead of 5 x 5. Each letter in the word F-A-I-R stood for a category, Food, Agriculture, Interests, and Rides.



I created a bingo template on PowerPoint and printed boards with empty squares. Then I scoured Google images for all of my pictures. To ensure all of the boards were different I decided on 16 different choices for each category, which was easy for some (food) but harder for others (rides). Case in point, there was a SkyRide, Sky Glider, and Sky Wheel, all of which look totally different but could be confusing because of the names. I alternated between photos and cartoons and just basically chose images I liked. For the "interest" category I included all of the different things to see and do at the fair that weren't food, rides, or agriculture - everything from Butterheads to the Butterfly House, from FairDo Hair styles to Creative Activities contests, concerts, politics, you name it.



I printed out a bunch of each photo on white cardstock, cut into squares, and then used a glue stick to randomly paste pictures into the squares on my empty bingo cards. It went pretty quickly even though I made over 40 bingo cards.



Each guest received a sheet of colored dot stickers to use as markers, and the caller drew cards from a basket. It was a hit! Guests had fun reliving their fair memories while looking at all of the photos and discussing their favorite fair fun, and winners got a cute little prize from GrammyCupcake:



Canning jars full of candies or nuts and dressed in little gingham frocks. It was very country chic to choose from the giant basket of options:



If I ever learn how to post PDF documents I might come back and add my templates here - but sadly I haven't acquired those skills yet :( In the meantime, I might be willing to share if you email me at Heather@HeathersCreativeLife.com and promise to share a photo of your party! I'd love to hear/see if anyone is using any of these tips for their own State Fair themed event.

Stay tuned for a few more projects and click on the "StateFair" label to see all posts about this bridal shower.

State Fair Bridal Shower - Sweet Treats!

Any State Fair go-er knows the main attraction at the Great Minnesota Get Together is THE FOOD! Best way to experience the fair is to taste it, so we had a lot of fun defining the menu for this State Fair themed bridal shower. My favorite was the dessert table:



First of all, the signs were just laid out in PowerPoint - the rainbow is an option under "format background" and the font for both the large "FAIR FOOD" and the individual food signs is Coffee Tin from 1001FreeFonts (look under western). We kept the serving pieces simple in white and glass so that the food really stood out, such as:



Kettle Corn! This is one of my favorite fair (and ballpark) foods. My mom makes really good homemade kettle corn, but due to time constraints we "outsourced" with Amy's Organic Kettle Corn and holy cow is that good too. And a LOT easier. The large popcorn bowl we've had forever, and the smaller boxes are leftover from thehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Hollywood Halloween Party I held a few years back. We also set up a secondary kettle corn station downstairs to make for easy snacking:



The above popcorn box was actually packaging for the zebra popcorn I was forced to buy on sample day at Costco when I fell for it head over heels :)



There's an entire booth at the MN State Fair that sells only cereal bars in every flavor imaginable - Rice Kristie Bars - so we made rice krispie bars on a stick (just the traditional recipe cut into long strips and speared on grilling kebabs). Cotton candy was another must-have fair food, and while you can rent or even buy machines to make your own, we weren't quite ready for that mess, and mini bites would be more suited to the occasion. So instead I bought bagged cotton candy from Target (just $1 for two flavors!)I cut it into strips and carefully wrapped it around lollipop sticks (in the cake and candy making aisle of Michael's or JoAnn's). We displayed both treats by poking their sticks into a block of styrofoam wrapped in tissue paper and taped to the table for support.



Those aren't really Sweet Martha's Cookies, but I swear I've seen the dough in the freezer case - we just couldn't find it when we were shopping for supplies. So we faked it. Costco cream puffs were a bite-sized reference to the giant State Fair cream puffs, and the eclairs just seemed to compliment the cream puffs :)



And rounding out the smorgasboard were a selection of "blue ribbon pies", a fun alternative to cake, and a nod to the folksy baking competitions in the Creative Activities building. We cut the slices small so you could freely sample more than one :)

Mmmm, I'm hungry again just looking at it all!

Click on the "StateFair" label to see more posts related to this bridal shower, and stay tuned for more pics and projects from the event!

State Fair Bridal Shower - Fair Food "Appetizers"

"Appetizers" was GrammyCupcake's description of this table when she was planning her menu, and most of the cute cred here is all hers - namely this fantastic veggie display:



That's "Farm Fresh Veggies" and "Down Home Dill Dip," representin' the agriculture showcased at that thar State Fair.



"Make Your Own" Pickles on a stick - it's like a snack AND a game :) And the chafing dishes on either side held mini corn dogs and battered cheese curds, perhaps THE most iconic fair foods in convenient bite sized servings :)



YUM! And just like the State Fair, there's plenty more to eat...Keep watching for the "main courses".

To view all the posts to date related to this State Fair themed bridal shower, click on the "StateFair" label.

State Fair Bridal Shower - SkyRide Garland

Does this look like a party? WHOOO HOOO!


For decorations at our State Fair Bridal Shower we chose do do a few fun items that would have a lot of impact for our theme and fill the space with the fun fairtime atmosphere - and what evokes the State Fair better than the SkyRide:



We translated the iconic ride into a bright fun garland that zig zagged the party space:



Framed the windows:


And hung from the chandelier:


Sadly, there is no Cricut cartridge that cuts SkyRides :) So instead, I created my own template by blowing up a picture of the skyride, tracing the major lines of the silhouette, and cutting the shape with an Xacto knife:



I used that template to cut SkyRide gondolas out of red, yellow, green, and blue cardstock:





My mom used wire Christmas ornament hangers to suspend the gondolas along an old telephone cord so they still had some movement but hung securely over our heads. Midway style tickets purchased from the local party store made up the rest of our hanging decor:





The stage was set! Next up, check back to see the FOOD!
Click on the "StateFair" label to see other pics and projects from this State Fair themed Bridal Shower,

State Fair Bridal Shower - Name Tags

I think when you have a big bridal shower with several different "branches" of your family tree, it's always nice to have name tags. This shower involved the Bride's family from both her mother and father's sides, as well as friends from college and childhood, and there were so many guests it would have taken an hour to introduce everyone, so name tags were perfect. In keeping with the State Fair theme, I echoed the invitations with smaller rosette ribbons:

But THIS TIME instead of piecing them together, I cut them all out using my Cricut! I got one from my mother in law over a year ago, but haven't had much of a chance to use it until now, so I am having fun exploring the options. I have a hard time judging what each cartridge will do just from the pictures on the back of the boxes, but I just discovered if you go to the Cricut site you can click on each cartridge and many view the handbook in a PDF document, so you can see ALL the capabilities! Whoo hoo!

It was in searching like this that I came across the "Plantin Schoolbook" cartridge, and it's many award ribbon patterns. PERFECT!!!! Of course, this cartridge is not available for purchase and was only distributed as part of a bundle with the machine (and I wasn't buying another machine!). Ashttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif luck would have it, someone on my local Craigslist had one for sale, and I picked it up immediately!



I used a rainbow of papers from my existing stash and the Roly Poly setting, and cut 6 from each 12" x 12" sheet of paper. I used the same paper punch to cut the centers from white cardstock as I did for the invitations, and a glue stick to attach.



We laid them on a table in the entry way with markers and pins, and guests could choose their own color. We left one as an example so people would know to write their name AND relation to the bride, which really helps people to mingle and socialize. We even marked the back of two name tags with a star, and those guests won a door prize (pie!).



The Cupcake had so much fun she knocked herself out:



Click on the "StateFair" label to see more pics & posts about this party, and stay tuned for additional pics & projects!