Party Ideas Blog Post Fail

I am not a very organised blogger. 

I love those posts where people show you lots of great party photos, themed food and decorations, lots of ideas and inspiration. 
So when it was our son's 18th, and we had family & friends dropping in all day and evening I took the chance to photograph the things I prepared, thought I'd make a nice "party ideas" post for you. 
Sadly I was so busy putting food out, making drinks, chatting (imagine that!) that I took zero photos of the finished things. I asked our daughter to take photos during the day and we have great shots of family & friends and not much at all of the lovely table laden with beautiful dishes of goodies.

I'll just share what I do have and try to do better next time!

We went for a Gold and Silver theme. I bought 2 metres of inexpensive gold satin from our local market to use as a table cloth £1.99 per metre so almost as cheap as a disposable cloth but this one we get to keep. (Could have run the iron over it couldn't I?- see photo above - honestly in real life it looked WAY less wrinkled!)
I borrowed some nice silver platters for most of the food and looked for some inexpensive gold bowls for crisps, popcorn etc. In the end I bought some clear plastic bowls, £2 for a pack of 3, and spray painted the outside with gold. 

That way the food doesn't touch the paint but the bowls look pretty. (The grass grew and the gold was mowed off - it's all good)
I made cup cakes using gold and silver paper cases, iced them with vanilla buttercream then sprinkled them with gold and silver pearls. 

I also made some little cupcake toppers based on all Joe's favourite things.
I took images from the internet and just printed them out on nice thick paper.

I've not done this as a printable for you as it is a very personal list of likes, but if you do happen to like Heroes, Maths, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Spiderman, QI, your name is Joe and you are 18 - just ask and I could email it to you!

Some I cut out and some I punched with my circle punch.

Then I just stuck them to cocktail sticks with a little bit of sellotape.

So here are my party post highlights:

And see how nice the table looked late afternoon! I think the grape stalks in the foreground look especially fetching along with an empty glass and green plastic Ikea bowl! It's like the kids didn't know there was a sophisticated colour scheme! And we all know that a party isn't a party without a tube of Pringles on the table.

The banner was free and came out pretty well, I've done a proper step by step on that now in case you fancy making one yourself. The cake was also a hit so I'll be sharing some better photos of that soon too.

So expert party planner/blogger - not so much. I do love it when other bloggers share their less than perfect moments though so now you have seen (one of) mine!

You might also be interested in:

Using Sketches for Card Making

Cake making for absolute beginners

Washi Tape Berry Baskets

School Reunion Cupcake Toppers

I'll be linking up this project at all these lovely link parties