Party Recap...

This Christmas I hosted our family dinner. It was my first and I was incredibly intimidated with the parties I have seen on other blogs. Since I am not the crafty type and have honestly no tools in my stash, it felt like a big challenge. I have used simple materials and tools to create a good looking and budget friendly Christmas dinner, I picked French damask theme and silver, glittered accents.

Here are step by step preparations.

Dinner table decorations and crafts – Materials from Micheal’s

* 8 damask 12×12 scrapbook paper
* Damask ribbon
* Metal silver ribbon
* 2 sided craft adhesives
* Scallop Scissors
* Paper Knife
* UHU – stick
* Round and Rectangle labels
* Ruler ( I did not even have one)
* 2 packs of Glittered Snowflake stickers
* 1 pack of Wood sticks
* Gartner Studios Damask Place cards

I got some craft material from Micheal’s to use as place cards, decorating jars, labels for the food and toppers for salad. A lovely Happy Holidays flag is done by hand as well.

Happy Holidays Flag Creation: Please download the template HERE.
http://www.mygrafico.com/freebies/happy-holidays-flag-freebie/prod_4141.html
Instructions are enclosed.

After cutting all the letter pieces with scallop scissors from template given, simply use adhesives to stick the printed papers on Damask Scrapbook papers (cut scrapbook paper with the large template given) punch 2 holes on both upper ends and use any type of ribbon or wire to hang the design on your wall.

Here is all the place cards, toppers and menu creations.

I got Martha Stewart’s round labels, just perfect and fancy enough to create lovely toppers for my dips and salads. Simply glue the wooden sticks to round labels and write your content. I also added a small snowflake sticker to each topper , label and place cards. It really made difference.

To create the place cards , I got actual place cards ( Gartner Studios Damask place cards) comes with rectangle name plates so you can glue them together . I used glittered snowflakes (big ones) on these as well. They looked so fancy and expensive this way.

I designed and printed out the menu as 5x 8 inches, then cut 1/2 inches larger rectangle from scrapbook paper and glued behind the menu to show off damask borders, matching with my Happy Holidays Flag. I have these nice damask plates to go with my whole theme so everything perfectly matched.

Last of all, I did one big investment for this dinner, the table runner. Got a nice black lace fabric from Fabricland and created 17 feet runner (my table is 16 feet long to fit 12 people ) It looked awesome on white tablecloth. Oh and black napkins are the final touch on my table. Everybody absolutely loved it.

Dinner was a success. I have planned and created everything in 1 week . This theme can be used for Bachelorette parties, fancy bridal showers, New Year celebrations and so on. For the kids I wanted to also add a small candy tree and goodies on a separate area. Ended up creating a medium size table as desert station with pastry, cakes, candy and cookies. Filled up the jars with candy and chocolates. Decorated my Jewelry tree with mini candy canes and small ornaments.

Desert & Candy Station – Materials from Dollar Store:

* 2 glass jars
* 2 angel sculptures
* 1 box of mini candy canes with ribbon.
* Variety of desserts, cookies and candy
*

Used the piece of damask ribbon with Uhu stick on the jars and added a label with the name of contents . Used the angels on the side of jars to create accent. Kids fell in love with these. It was an utmost challenge for me but I think I did a good job.

You can find some Damask Designs to use on my Mujka Chic Store.
http://www.mygrafico.com/mujka-chic/aff_1.html