Party decorating

I was lucky that Spotlight's first birthday range for girls included a ladybug theme. I could have spent ages making everything myself, but it would have gone to waste and frankly I didn't have the time. I used their table cloths, fill in invitations, some strawers, bunting flags and serviettes. Then I forgot to get out the "pretty" serviettes at cake time, so if anyone wants 40 odd "1" ladybug serviettes for anything, they're here :)

I did buy noodle boxes from Riot Art ad Craft to do the lollie bags. Then put them near the front door and forgot to mention it to people as they were leaving until there were only 4 people left in the house. I will at some stage get them to their rightful homes, if only so the kids can enjoy the bubbles inside :)

I also made a garland similar to this
[img]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/jadeconran/IMG_9310-crop.jpg[/img]

I cut out the circles I needed from some cheap scrapbooking paper I got at Lincraft. Using a tape measure I spaced out the circles face down at even intervals. Next I put a dot of acid free glue in the cetre, and layed some ribbon down through the glue. To make sure it all stuck I then used a white circle sticker (bought a box of 500 from Officeworks for $6ish) so secure it all together.
Next I lay a spray painted piece of dowel and then used dress pins to hold my ribbons onto the wood. Not a permanent solution, but this was late at night the night before the party lol. Hung from the plaster using these decoration hooks. Here's what it looks like:

How perfect was this? and I got 2 packs of 5 sheets for $5 a packet. The pages werent all decorated, but I think it would have been overkill to be ALL ladybugs. And I absolutely didn't care that they don't match the purchased decorations perfectly. You can go insane trying to perfectly match papers and ribbons and the like, but I'd rather spend extra time with my girl than worry about these things

Here's a better view of the variety of papers

You can see some of the backs of the ribbons here, and they did/do still flat around in the breeze. Once we start decorating Charlotte's "big girl" room I'll move it all in there and change the fixture of the ribbon from dress pins to something more permanent. For the party I also had 2 plain pink plastic table cloths taped onto the back of the alcove to block out the view of the bar. Shane took them down before I got proper pictures of it all together, but I can't complain, he was just on a roll with the post-party clean up, and who am I to get in the way of a cleaning husband? ;)