Birthday Decorations Tips

Your Birthday Party Supply List

If you're throwing a 50th birthday bash, there are a lot of details and party supplies to remember. Coming up with a birthday party supply list for your big event is easy if you just remember these main items:

Guest List – For a large affair, you want to make sure you have the correct spelling of everyone's name, current address, and contact information.

Invitations, Stamps, and Envelopes – You can order invitations and have them printed or hire a designer to create them for you.

Catering List - Figure out what will be on the menu, from hors d'oeuvres to dessert and cake.

Decorations – Whether you're having a table buffet or occupying several tables, think about adding centerpieces. They can be elegant and simple or fun and festive.

Flatware, glasses, and more – Will you provide all the dining equipment or will the caterer provide them for you?

Favors – Have trinkets, chocolates, or engraved mementos to hand out to your guests.

Music – Have a selection of songs if you're not going to hire entertainment like a band or DJ.

Guest Book – Make sure you mark the event by having a guest book as part of your birthday party supply list. Have everyone sign in and write their well wishes.

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Guidelines For Playing With Piñatas

Kids love seeing a piñata at a party because it's two doses of fun. They get to destroy an inanimate object with their parent's permission and eventually it looks like the sky is raining candy. Pinatas come in all different shapes and sizes. Girls might like a princess, purse or pink pony piñata, while boys would rather have a train, tank or sports piñata. There are also plenty of piñatas shaped like children's movie or television characters. Be sure to use a piñata that is large enough for your party. The last thing you want is to run out of candy and leave some kids to go without.
If you're concerned that the children at your party are too young to use a bat to break a piñata, there are safe alternatives. Pull-string piñatas have ribbons flowing from the bottom and once they are pulled a few times, the bottom falls out and candy showers down on the children, just as it would with a traditional piñata. This style piñata is also great if the party has to be taken indoors unexpectedly since no one is swinging a bat. The selection of pull-string piñatas is broad and you can most likely find one that will fit your child's interests.

If you're planning on playing with piñatas during any celebration, follow these few guidelines to keep everyone safe and happy.

1. Find a sturdy place to hang the piñata from, like a tree or basketball hoop.
2. If the kids are old enough, provide a blindfold and stick. Then spin them around a few times and let them hit the piñata a more than once before moving on to the next child.
3. Very young children should go without a blindfold.
4. Always keep several feet clear around the child who is hitting the piñata. You don't want anyone to be accidentally struck.
5. Consider pull-string versions of piñatas for an indoor birthday event or with toddler aged children.
   

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Three Easy Ways To Make Your Birthday Party Look Smashing

No matter how large or small the birthday party, it takes some amount of planning. If you're looking for a theme, decide on that about a month beforehand. Around the same time, determine the guest list, the date of the birthday party and order any supplies you may need. Two or three weeks before the party is enough time to send invitations out and expect a response from guests. It's better to know how many people will be attending so you can prepare the appropriate amount of food, place settings and favors. To coordinate the look of your tabletop birthday party decorations, try colored party ware for your guest to dine on. From lime green to hot pink, you can pick and choose from tabletop birthday party decorations like table covers and placemats. Don't forget you can coordinate the color of items like plates, spoons, and napkins too.

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Ideas For Elegant Birthday Party Decorations

If you're throwing an upscale birthday party affair, the key to elegance is to keep things simple. Here are some ideas for elegant birthday party decorations for your next swanky affair:

• Use Candles. Keep the color of your candles neutral or have a colored theme and keep all your luminaries within the same hue.
• Choose some framed art pieces. Place them in your entertaining venue. Remember, they don't have to be pieces by Van Gogh or Picasso.
• Add a rich fabric runner to your table. It's an easy way to create an upscale look for your birthday party.
• Add silver and crystal pieces. Glasses, platters, vases, and bowls arranged just so will make your event more lavish.
• Create a floral centerpiece. A floral arrangement can add instant refinement to your birthday party decorations.

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Your Birthday Party Supply List

Depending on just how formal you make your affair, you may decide your birthday party supply list will include flowers or balloons for decorations. If you decide to put balloons on your birthday party supply list, choose two carefully coordinated colors. You can bunch helium-filled versions with curled ribbons as an attractive table centerpiece. Towards the end of the event, a balloon drop from the ceiling makes a grand finale. Throwing a much younger birthday party? You'll need birthday party supplies for that, too. You probably won't forget the basics for a birthday party, like the cake and balloons, but if the kids at the party will be playing any kind of games, you want to be sure to include prizes in your birthday party supply list. The prizes don't have to be extravagant since most kids will just be happy to "win" something. Keychains, coin purses, notepads and other small items will suffice as prizes for games. Another way to ensure you didn't forget any supplies is to get a party pack, which includes things like party hats, crepe paper, invitations, cake toppers, wall decorations, themed activities, even thank-you notes for after the party is over. Having a luau party? A party pack includes flip flops, coconut cups and leis. Having a pre-historic party? Dinosaur party packs contain dinosaur candy eggs and bobble head dinosaurs.

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Birthday Decorations That Double As Favors

When planning a birthday bash, you have enough details to worry about – guest list, food, venue, and more. Why not put together some snazzy birthday decorations which double as favors? Your tabletops will look pretty and your guests will leave won't leave empty-handed.

Miniature wrapped gifts – Place a small wrapped gift at each place setting or gather them at the center of the table. Wrap each gift in the theme of the birthday decorations and send one home with each guest. You can place small chocolates inside each present.

Crystal Confetti – Who says confetti has to be made of paper? For tiny baubles that's sure to please at your next girlfriend's birthday bash, litter your table with crystal beads. Send each guest home with a little sachet of shiny gems. Get together again and turn the pieces into jewelry.

Casino Décor – Turn some casino chips and a deck of cards into centerpieces by arranging them in a colorful tin pail. Place the favors with each guest or arrange them in the middle of your table.

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Birthday Party Decorations For Tabletops

If you're going with the balloon and streamer decorative theme for your birthday party, you don't need to stick to just solid colors. You can decorate your birthday party with balloons in a range of prints and translucencies. Choose from clear balloons with a star print and layer it with a solid balloon on the inside for added effect. Going black and white? Get a white balloon with a cow pattern to decorate for your next birthday party. For an ultra feminine décor, go with a magenta balloon with a flower pattern. Balloons and streamers are some of the simplest birthday party decorations. They may be simple, but they immediately create a festive atmosphere in a room. Use a variety of colors to liven up the party or stick with a few colors if the party has a particular theme. Attach balloons to light fixtures, hang them in doorways and around windows. Streamers can run across the ceiling by attaching them to opposite wall corners. For a more dramatic effect, twist them before attaching. Use balloons, streamers and ribbons to denote where the party is by placing some on your mailbox, fence or near the corner of your street where guests would be driving by. Make the birthday boy or girl feel even more special by putting balloons and ribbons on their chair. If you're using helium in your balloons, wait until the day of the party to inflate them so you'll have the best floating effect. At the end of the party, clean up is easy. Pop the balloons, gather the streamers and ribbons and toss!

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Balloons and Streamers as Birthday Decoration

One of the best birthday decoration tips is to look to balloons and streamers when you need an inexpensive birthday decoration idea. Want some others? Try these:

• Crepe paper streamers, twisted festively from the center of the room out, in alternating colors, are beautiful.
• Hang bunches of balloons from light fixtures and then run streamers to the corners.
• If you have doorways or arches, attach bunches of balloons, tied with colorful ribbon.
• Fly a bunch of balloons from your mailbox or some other significant visual spot in front of your home to guide guests to the proper house.
• Gather two different colors of crepe paper together and twist them as you string it from one spot to another.

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Birthday Party Decorations For Tabletops

If you're having a sit-down birthday party celebration, dressing up the tabletop makes the scene more festive. Birthday party decorations can be simple or elaborate, depending on how much time and effort you want to spend. If you're looking for some ideas for tabletop birthday party decorations, read on:

Wrapped candy and confetti – Quick and easy, all you have to do is buy or create your own colorful wrapped candy pieces, add confetti, and throw it on top of a table. If you want you can add a solid colored tablecloth underneath for a dash of color and to help clean up messes quickly.

Floral bouquet – It can be as simple as a few daisies in a small vase or a large arrangement you handpick from the florist. If you favor a minimalist look, get a simple rectangular vase, fill with some large rocks, and add a single calla lily.

Illuminated tabletop – Warm up your birthday party event with an illuminated tabletop. Use a clear string of Christmas lights and wrap it in a gauzy cloth or table runner. Add some additional soft light with the use of several small, white LED candles. For variety, you can try colored lights and candles as well.

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Guidelines For Playing With Piñatas

Piñatas come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You can choose from character piñatas like Elmo or Hello Kitty. Or pick piñatas in the form of a bulldozer or pink poodle. Fill your piñata with candy treats or small toys. The most important part of the piñata is what's inside. You can fill piñatas with your own combination of goodies. If you don't want to include all candy, try filling with non-edible surprises, like stickers, small figurines or shiny, metallic pencils. If you would rather have the filler already done for you, buy pre-packaged candy and treats, usually called piñata fillers. The store-bought fillers may include both candy and small toys, like yo-yos, kaleidoscopes and whistles. Be sure to make sure that your guests are old enough to have any of the toys because some may be too small and pose a choking hazard. To stuff, look for the removable sticker on the opening of the piñata and push through gently. Before you throw a bunch of candy, toys and stickers into the piñata, consider dividing the treats into small bags so each child gets an equal amount. This also helps avoid any fighting or tears after the fun is over. For an easy solution, purchase a filler kit, which would give you an assortment of small toy favors as well as sweets to eat.

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Use Birthday Balloons to Decorate Quickly and Easily

Birthday balloons are a great way to decorate for a party without a lot of effort or expense. There are so many ways that balloons can be used to make a room look festive. To get the most from birthday balloons, try one of these tips:

• Use several Mylar balloons with birthday messages to create a focal point for the room. If the celebration has a theme, look for a balloon that matches it to tie everything together. These balloons work well attached to the chair that the birthday honoree will be sitting in.
• Use inexpensive colored balloons to send a message. Write the message on the un-inflated balloons using a permanent marker and then blow them up using a helium machine. Tape or tie them into place in order, so the message is easy to read.
• Disguise an ugly ceiling with a mass of balloons that have been inflated with helium. The entire ceiling can be covered in one color of balloons for an easy fix, or you can choose to create patterns using different colors. Release them as close to their final resting place as possible and carefully nudge them into place.

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Finding Happy Birthday Graphics

If you are thinking about making your own invitations, making place cards, or creating birthday cards, you are going to need some nice happy birthday graphics. There are several ways to find the graphics you need.

• Look for graphics with a birthday theme in your word processing software program. There is usually quite a nice selection available. If you have desktop publishing software on your computer, you should have many more options available to you.
• Check free stock photo sites, such as Stock Exchange, for graphics with a birthday theme. Although most people only think of photographs when they see these sites, there are some very nice graphics available through them as well.
• Shop for clipart packages with a party or birthday theme. These packages offer many graphics around a similar theme for a low price.
• Ask a graphic artist to make the perfect personalized birthday graphic for you. While busy, established artists can be pretty expensive, those who are just starting out are much more reasonably priced because they are putting together a portfolio of samples and are looking for client recommendations.

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Pinata And Party Decorations

Whether you're planning a birthday party, a Halloween party, or a baby shower, your choice of party decorations can set the mood. Browse through some stores, either online or down the road, to get some ideas of what's out there that fits your budget. In addition to the usual dinnerware and streamers, look for unique pinatas, posters, balloons, and centerpieces. Consider using a party decoration that can double as a favor. Small tableside potted plants or flower arrangements are welcome souvenirs for adults. Balloons and other fun toys can be sent home with children. A party shop is likely to give you a wide variety of items that fit your theme.

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Birthday Party Decoration for First Birthday

For a first birthday party decoration, remember that you're really decorating and having the party for everyone but the birthday child, who will have no memory of it. Of course, they will enjoy looking at pictures of the celebration when they get older. Decorations can be as simple as large number 1's cut from brightly colored paper. You can even use smaller number 1's for invitations, writing the date, time, and address on the number. Keep the party short and have it in a location familiar to the child so they will be comfortable and at their ease. Try to time it around naptimes. For most children, that means a morning party works better than an afternoon one.

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Getting the Most for Your Money With Birthday Flowers

Birthday flowers are such a nice gift to give, especially if the recipient is far away. However, sometimes the arrangement that arrives is a bit of a disappointment. How can you make sure that you get an attractive arrangement for a budget friendly price? To get the most for your money when you are buying birthday flowers, you should:

• Follow up with the recipient to make sure the flowers arrived when they were supposed to and that they were in good condition. You may even want to scan in and send a photo of what the arrangement should look like to the recipient to make sure what they got is what you sent out. This is because the large flower delivery companies often have a local florist make up the arrangement and the florist doesn't always make and deliver what you purchased.
• Consider finding the number for a local florist and bypassing the big flower delivery companies. This can really save some money, since you will not be paying the markup from the flower delivery company. If possible, do some detective work by visiting florist shops near friends and family when you visit to see what the shops are like and keep the numbers for the different florists that you preferred in a safe spot so you can call in an order around birthdays.

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Birthday Supply: Unique Invitations

If you want to throw a fun young birthday, supply unique invitations. You can cut brightly colored numbers matching the child's age out of construction paper and write the details of the party on that. You could also take a favorite photo and get copies made, then write the details on the photo or on the back of it. Remember that if you're mailing invitations you're limited to standard sizes so make sure your invitation can be easily mailed. If you're hand-delivering invitations, you can go multi-dimensional and use containers that match the theme of the party. For each invitation for a birthday, supply the address, the phone number, date and time of the party, and an RSVP deadline.

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Birthday Decoration as Craft Activity

Why should you have to do all the decorating yourself? To create a fun birthday decoration, get a tablecloth that can be decorated. For kids, even a piece of butcher paper can be fun. Set some crayons in the middle of the table and let them decorate the paper and write happy birthday messages. For adults you might consider a special keepsake tablecloth. You can let people write messages with permanent markers. If you can sew, you might go over the messages with thread to create a longer-lasting memory.

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Birthday Banner

On a child's birthday, consider making them the king or queen for the day. Make or buy a special birthday banner and hang it up after the child goes to bed the night before their birthday and let it be the first thing to greet them in the morning. Have other family members pitch in to do the birthday child's chores for the day. Make each meal a bit special somehow. If they're off to school for the day, pack a special treat or note in their lunchbox. Let them pick their favorite dinner, of course.

*In addition to the birthday banner, find a special birthday crown the child can wear at dinner!

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Using Happy Birthday Confetti Without Making a Mess

Happy birthday confetti is a lot of fun, but it can also be a big hassle to clean up. Luckily, there are a few ways to enjoy confetti without having to spend three or four hours picking it up off the floor. To use these cheerful little bits without making a huge mess, you should:

• Consider creating a shaker card to hold the confetti pieces. A shaker card is a card that has a piece of plastic glued to a piece of foamboard with the center cut out. Confetti is put into the center hole and then the whole thing is glued to a blank greeting card.
• Place a warning on the outside of any envelope or package that has confetti in it that tells the recipient to spread a piece of newspaper on the table before opening the card or gift. This way, the confetti will fall from the package onto the newspaper. Clean up is as simple as gathering the sheet of newspaper at the edges and carrying it to the trash can, where the confetti can be poured in.
• Glue happy birthday confetti all over the front of a piece of cardstock that is folded in half to make a colorful birthday greeting card.

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Birthday Supply: Welcoming Activities

At the beginning of a party for a child's birthday, supply some welcoming activities to help the kids settle in. Easy crafts, such as name tags or decorating gift bags, are good because everyone can start as soon as they arrive and no one will feel left out of a game that's already begun.

*You might have a larger piece of poster board with your child's picture on it and have each guest draw or write a message on it. This makes a fun keepsake for the birthday child. Later you can add photos of the party itself.

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Birthday Party Decorations for Young Children

Wants some easy birthday party decoration tips? Include ribbons, balloons, and streamers. Curl pieces of ribbon by pulling it between the blades of scissors, then lay the curls on the tablecloth. Tie curled ribbons to the balloons as well. String colorful crepe paper streamers around the room. It's important to keep things organized. Make place cards for kids ahead of time to eliminate last minute scrambling for seats and hurt feelings about who gets to sit next to whom. If your child has small action figures or toys that fit the theme of your party, use them as table decorations and on the cake itself if they fit.

*If you're planning a birthday party for young ones it's in your best interest to think about damage control. Place a protective covering on your table for your children's party so nothing gets damaged by spilled beverages.

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