How To Create Your Own Party Decorations

Last weekend, my cousins hosted a surprise party for their parents’ Ruby Wedding Anniversary and I was on the decorations committee!

I was tasked with making party decorations on a budget to fill a large room of 170 people –No pressure. Our mission was to be as environmentally friendly as possible; reduce, reuse and upcycle, while sticking to a colour scheme of red, white and silver.

We spent countless hours, trawling through old photo albums from the 70s, 80s and 90s and then of course, tagged photos on Facebook! This was the result..

Ballons!

These, of course, weren’t recycled. We had 2 bunches of 20 red balloons on either side of the stage, together with 2 big silver 4 and 0 balloons.

The cake table had red confetti sprinkled over it ..simples!

Photo wall.

This was long pieces of red ribbon, all different lengths with photographs (not the old, original photos!) stapled to them. So simple, but so effective.

My cousin Roshni had an old photo frame and I had a can of chalkboard paint. We sprayed the back of it and she wrote a lovely message for her parents as a keepsake.

The guestbook table.

I’d previously spray painted an old photo frame rose gold and hammered some short nails into the sides. I used old Christmas tree lights with pegs on them and wrapped them around the nails to create a lit up shabby chic photo frame. We rested this up against the wall on the guestbook table along with an old cardboard box, wrapped in red wrapping paper. We made a large slit on the top, sealed the edges with washi tape and wrapped some of the ribbon around it to create a bow. This was for guests to put cards into.

The guestbook was an old photo album from Selfridges. It came complete with photo corners, protective sheets and a grey pencil. We stuck some photographs on random pages, with spaces for guests to leave a message in between.

Table centrepieces.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of these at the party, but this was my favourite part of the decor. So effortless and everybody commented on how great it looked. In some old coffee jars, I put two photographs in each and used white tissue paper to fill the gaps at the base to keep the photos curved around the jars. I used a combination of string and red ribbon to tie little bows around the top of the jars.

It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to do these photo diaries every now and again, so here goes..