Parties | I Tri and Craft

Although we are approaching the end of summer Arianna from Arianna Knows Best would like to share with you some ideas on how to have a some celebrity style fun.

It’s amazing that summer is one of the most anticipated seasons of the year, yet it can be a pretty hectic time of year. Throw in a few family trips, and summer is almost as busy as the school year! My girlfriends and I were daydreaming about escaping to someplace luxurious and serene, where we could work on our tans while sipping on one of those fruity drinks with an umbrella in it. We thought that with a little creativity we could create lavish getaways right in our own backyards. We came up with some great celebrity-inspired party ideas that are sure to make us feel like real Hollywood A-listers!

Celebrity summer: Album Release Party

If you were Kanye West or Britney Spears, you’d be spending the summer promoting your new album by traveling the world via chartered private jet to exotic locales and attending glamorous, star-studded events. If you’re actually invited to one of these shindigs, don’t forget your dancing shoes, because you’ll be dancing with the stars all night long!

Image ~ Priority1Jets

Reality summer: Dance-Off!

Get your talented kids and friends together and create your own dance crew using your backyard as a stage! Split up into teams, pick some music, design costumes and practice. After the performances, have attendees cast ballots to pick winners in different categories, and award music-themed prizes like iTunes gift cards or headphones!

iTunes gift card from Apple

Celebrity summer: Elle Style Awards

This annual ceremony hails trend-setting, fashion-forward designers. Chic, modern fashion stars vie for awards in categories like “Next Future Icon” and “Contemporary Brand of the Year.” Bloggers, journalists and industry insiders agree that the stars must dress to impress on the red carpet for this event. Anyone who’s anyone in the fashion industry is sure to make a memorable appearance, donning a hip and stylish frock and dripping in stunning jewels!

Celebrity Bachelorette Party: Las Vegas Celebrations

Celebrities like Katy Perry and Vanessa Minnillo celebrate their last nights of single lady status in Sin City’s hippest clubs! But try not to feel too left out, because what happens in Vegas usually ends up in the tabloids, and you’ll get to read all about how these famous party goers celebrated their last nights of freedom!

Reality Bachelorette Party: Night on the Town

If the nightlife in your hometown doesn’t have much to offer, you don’t have to travel all the way to Vegas for an exciting bachelorette party! Just going one or two town’s over gives you enough of a change of scenery to create a memorable event for the bride-to-be. Dine in an exclusive restaurant for dinner, see her favorite performer in concert, or hit the dance floor at a hot club! Give her a night that will make her smile every time she thinks about it – at least the parts she can remember!

Reality summer: Clothing/Accessory Swap Party

Spruce up your wardrobe and party with your girlfriends. Have everyone bring gently used or clothing or unworn impulse buys, and have a swap party! Does your sister have gorgeous taste in shoes? Trade her a pair for that silk blouse she’s always complimenting. Sort items into categories like “dresses” and “handbags” for easy browsing!

Image ~ TLC

Arianna has written and submitted this article, the opinions expressed are all her own and may not be that of the owner of this blog.

Arianna is a full-time mom and a fashion-lover, world traveler, animal lover, and family woman extraordinaire. She loves to cook and bake, travel to new places, share great fashion finds, and spend time doing crafts and projects at home with her kids. She’s got a crazy busy life, but she wouldn’t have it any other way! Follow her blog at Arianna Knows Best!

Here is the long-awaited post about Ian’s 3rd birthday party.

I let him pick out his theme and this year he wanted Superheros. So I quickly started pinning ideas to my Pinterest Board.

I kept checking with him to make sure he didn’t change his mind about the theme. Every time I asked him what kind of party he wanted he would throw his fists in the air and shout “SUPERHERO BIRFDAY PARTY!”

I originally thought about taking some pictures of him in his superhero costumes and making a comic book for his invitation. Due to my limited time and his unwillingness to pose for pictures, I decided to make a newspaper cover as his invitation.

I used pictures I had previously taken of him. The hardest part was thinking of what to write!

I wanted the kids attending the party to decorate their own capes. This was a battle between my mom and I, she didn’t want a bunch of kids gluing stuff while in her house. I had originally thought of iron-on but then someone would have to man the iron. In the end we decided it was the best option.

I also decided to go with inexpensive so we used all felt for the capes, masks and decorations.

I think we ended up with 24 capes (big enough for a 7-year old), 24 masks and all the shapes for about $40. Which is less than two-bucks a cape! The most expensive thing was the binding web. We made the capes too large and trimmed them to fit each child. She used this pattern for the portion around the neck.

I printed out the shapes and my mom cut them all out, and the webbing to fit. She went a little overboard, but it allowed for each kid to have as much on their capes as they wanted.

This is one little girl’s cape

This kids placed the shapes and then a friend of mine, or my mom, ironed them on.

When making decorations for a party I usually find a digital scrapbook kit I like and use it. I could not find one for superheros. There were some available, but none that I liked. So I just used pictures that I found on Google. I tried to only use ones from Marvel or DC, but I can’t really say for sure where I got all of them.

What party is complete with out party hats?

I used Photoshop to make these and bought the string at the fabric store. It is elastic thread.

I wanted a night-time city scape behind the food table, I got the idea from this post and this one.

Of course Ian needed to help.

I just used a cardboard box and some poster paint.

I wanted some hanging decorations and saw this post that used pinwheels. I usually make decorations for the table dishes but decided to use the circles for the pinwheels.

I was so pleased with them that we used the same concept for a baby shower.

My Aunt made this wonderful cake! Ian was so excited about it.

I saw these suckers all over Pinterest, this post has a printable template, but I just made my own.

I printed them on card-stock and used a hotglue gun to glue the masks on.

I really like the idea this mom had about adapting the game “pin the tail on…” I photo-shoped a picture of Ian on a comic book city and had a poster printed. I did cut out little masks, but we never got a chance to play.

I used this posts idea about making a banner with the Superman logo that says “Happy Birthday”

(please excuse my mom’s gold mini-blinds…)

I loved the boxes in this post, so I decided to make my own. I was just going to make a few for decorations, but of course my mom said they had to be filled with candy, which meant I had to make 40 of them! They all had to be cut out, folded and glued together!

I made three different styles. They are my new favorite thing to make.

The gift bags we just got at Party City, we added a few things that we found along the way, plus a bottle of bubbles!

I made the food labels using the same circles on the pinwheels and on the party hats.

This Avengers Scene I downloaded from Spoonful.com. They had a number of printables that I didn’t get a chance to use. They had some great masks, like the Hulk and Ironman, but I didn’t get them made.

The other thing I wanted to do but didn’t get a chance to, was to turn my mom’s front porch screen into a red telephone both door. I just ran out of time.