Themed Parties! They can be even more fun to throw than to attend. But what if you can’t find ready-made party supplies for your chosen theme? What are the chances you’re going to find Supernatural party supplies? Or Doctor Who? Game of Thrones?! I have thrown a few themed parties for my nerdy child and last year my husband and I celebrated five years of marriage by having a nerdy vow renewal ceremony. It can be done, nerds! You just have to have a little bit of time, patience…and Pinterest!
Seriously, when I started doing my research for party decorations, the cake, and invitations I turned to Pinterest and just started pinning everything I liked. Even if it wasn’t directly related to my theme I pinned it if it sparked an idea in me.
For the purposes of this article I will use my daughter’s 3rd birthday party theme: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Let’s start with the first thing you need for a party: The invitations! If you want to make your own invitations from scratch that look like something you could have bought, this is the process I use. (Disclaimer: I produce all my graphic images in a program that is similar to Photo Shop called Corel Paintshop Pro X4. This allows me to work in layers. You CAN easily produce nice images in a default MS Paint program but you will not be able to work in layers, thus it may be harder to replicate this process. You don’t HAVE to buy the latest and greatest version of Paintshop Pro, you can buy a lower version from sites such as Ebay or Amazon.)
First I start with the background. You can have just a plain colored background if you so choose, but if you want to make your characters look as if they came right out of the world in which they belong then you can turn to Google. For the purposes of this article I Googled “Ponyville background”. Many DeviantArt users will post artwork that you can use for this very purpose. Here is the background I have chosen:
Whatever background you look for your invitation, go ahead and pick it. Next thing you’re going to want to find is Pony vectors. Vectors are images that are made with shapes rather than pixels so that the image can be resized without losing its integrity; in other words it will stay crisp instead of getting all fuzzy. But I like fuzzy ponies!!!!! Find vectors of the ponies you wanna use and apply them to the background, resizing them as appropriate. Add text, a border if you like and BOOM! You have invitations! Here’s an example of one I found:
Now onto decorations! You don’t have to go crazy and have everything at the party covered in My Little Pony! That can actually be overkill…All I did was find a table cover that was lavender (because Twilight Sparkle is her favorite pony) and get balloons that matched the colors of the ponies. You could even draw their cutie marks on the balloons with sharpies if you are so inclined! Add some streamers! See how you can make your decorations match your theme without having to buy officially licensed merch? You can apply this principle to pretty much any theme you’re working with really.
Next thing I did was make a banner. There are a number of ways to do this, but this is how I did it. You can easily print out your own banner by printing it in a series of different images and then matching them up to form the banner. Depending on how big you are making the text and how long the message will be on your banner is how many pages your banner will take up. I found more vectors of ponies and stuck them on different parts of the banner. I then added text to the pages as appropriate and then printed it out page by page, then taping the pages together. Another way you could do this is by printing each individual letter on its own page and cut it out in the shape of a flag. Below is an example:
Now onto the treats! I like the idea of having a grandiose cake along with cupcakes. I took a simple 2 layer cake and decorated it to look like grass with a waterfall in the middle, took some rainbow candy to make a border, then stuck my daughter’s blindbag ponies on it. I included elements that went along with each pony just for added detail.
I also made cupcakes to represent each of the main six ponies. I chose a frosting that matched the color of the pony and then recreated her cutie mark (or something that represented the cutie mark) out of candy.
Just take in that glorious image…
Now if you are lucky enough to have some ponies, a castle, and a Pinkie Pie train lying around your house like I was, use them! There’s nothing that says you can’t use your kids’ toys as party decorations!
Now stand back and look at what you have created….just take it all in…you made this you crafty nerd! Don’t forget to take pictures of all your work like I did… You can do it! Until next time, stay nerdy my friends.
~JW
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