The theme for the party was a tropical island forest. This is the front of the office and one of the two check-ins. The clients loved this.

In addition to scuba diving, I wanted a lagoon, so I created this one.  I had fun building these panels.  The little fish are part of a centerpiece that was on the bar in the room.

I used teal tableclothes to match the water, and created lighted fish bowl centerpieces.

I ordered rubber fish and plastic coral and blue rocks.  Then I found Amazon also

sells balloon lights.  The are the white circles you see in the bowl above.

They last for days and days.  

Here is the centerpiece.  I used square wood blocks covered in the blue glass rocks.

I glued the poles to each board.  I ordered plush sea life on Amazon.  This was another

popular feature.

Above are the middle of the office check in panels.  This gave the allusion of

forest and tropical flowers leading back to the outdoor patio tent.

I used my two river rugs outside, along with "petaled" green table clothes, that I also

got on Amazon.  I already owned four green umbrellas.

I bought two bamboo panels for behind the buffet table.  I had wired screen that

I tied lush greenery and flowers to for the tropical feel.

I pulled out every tropical silk plant that I have stored in the office's party shed.

The I added tropical basket arrangements I made.

You can see my leaf runner I have used for over ten years.

Here is another look at the second arrangement and flowers on the screen.

For years, I used the rectangular tables on risers for a bar height bar in the garden.

We gave them away.  The round tables you saw above are the new kitchen tables.

I wanted two bar height tables (badly).  So I ordered a small bar height square patio table on Amazon, and had my hubby cut the legs down to fit  30" chairs, which office owns.

Then I found a round tabletop on Amazon that we screwed to the other table.  Add a petaled tablecloth and you see how nice it is.  I made two and had the other by the band.

The dessert bar is always a treat.  This year I hid ice cream sandwiches on the other side of the office in the freezer.  The guests had to fololw a "scuba trail" to find them  They loved this.

I also usually order cheesecakes and bundt cakes.  I found a bakery that just makes cake pops.  This was a BOON!!!!  I had the monitors set to "coral reefs" above the desserts. Each dessert label was a widelife creature you'd find on a reef.

A tropical island will have lots of birds. Every tree in the office garden had at least five stuffed parrots.  The guests thought this was hysterical.

A tropical island also has wild animals.  These were in the check-in area.  They ended up being donated to a local school.

Of course there were flamingos.

 

We had a pre-covid size crowd.  It was a beautiful warm day.  The band was great, the food was great, a desserts were fun, and everything was just as I imagined it to be.  The last photo is of my daughter.  Over the years, she has arranged to hire all of the bands, in addition to being my right hand.  She knows Hobby Lobby inside out.  Please note the pot behind her.  Someone on the staff asked who was watering these pots.  Job well done when people think they are real.

Grandpa's Farm Party

       

                                      

          After the pandemic, we held our first holiday party in December of 2021.  I wanted it to appear homespun after all that we had gone through.  I thought going back to Grandpa's Farm would be fitting.  In addition, I had a LOT of over-sized stuffed animals to use and then give away.

 I had already designed this farmhouse for another project, so it just needed to be reimagined.

       

These four panels were a first draft.  I am always on the hunt for great farm animal clipart.  See the ones further on for comparison.

  

Keep in mind that each poster is 34" wide by 72" tall.  These will fill up four windows in the office.  Meet grandma and grandpa below.

If you take note, the fence and grass have been updated, and the barn completed.

The above is the second sheep barn that was located in the office kitchen, with

a "Feed the Sheep" game.  I put an artificial grass rug under the posters with

a corn hole board.  I had glued three black buckets on it, which had various point values attached.  I bought felt food on Etsy, and added beans to each piece.

You can see from the size of the panels how big these are.  These

two panels were by two "cow" themed games.

This was an easy game to set up.  I already owned, and have used many times, the slotted white wood box.  I simply bought milk bottles on Amazon.  I already owned MANY many tossing rings, so this was simply a throw toss game.  Adding the cow (a prize) gave it more presence.

I also reused my game board with various holes in it that I use as a target for Nerf balls. I assigned clipart of flies to each hole, asking guests to help the

cows from the biting flies.  This is always a crowd favorite.

Since grandpa has cows, I decided to use a milk truck to post the rules

by each game. Each guest had a single sheet of paper with all of the ten games listed, and a column for their score at each game.  Then they totaled up their scores and submitted them for judging.  They went into a separate raffle box, the number of tickets awarded to a scale of all of the scores.

I bought an inexpensive wire cage at our local "used" shop, Luckett's. It has indoor/outdoor reworked furniture, etc. One of the stuffed animals came in a large box, so I used it to make the chicken coop.  This was a shuffleboard game using mop handles and lots of hook and loop tape.  Each colored opening on the bottom was a different point value.

This game was an Amazon purchase of curling.  The description was "There's more going on than the pigs' tails curling.  It is battery operated and was a good buy.  It was also given away, along with the pigs.

 

My pride and joy panels were Grandma's Kitchen.  I actually designed this kitchen to look like a 1950's farm one.  You see grandma sitting at the table during the break of making cookies.  This was placed in our second conference room for additional dining.  We had all of the monitors in the open spaces set to a burning log, so it was quite cosy.  The centerpiece was a large blue metal truck with toy baking pieces and a tree in it.

 

I created a General Store at Christmas time for the huge monitor in the main conference room. I used black and white gingham table clothes for most of the tables and matching ribbon bows on all of the Christmas trees.  Since we

had just come out of Covid lock-down, we had waiters and line barriers for

people to be served, so guests weren't going down a buffet line.  It worked perfectly.  I bought the stanchions on Amazon and have used them twice now.  (They will become a part of the gangplank for this years Cruise themed Christmas party.)

Above is a computer screen shot of the four panels that were also on the windows in the kitchen where the black and white cafe tables above were located.

 

Here are some of the animals waiting to be loaded in van to go to the party.

We use the building's lobby for games that need more space. Here is a screen shot from a movie of the archery target I made. The stand I got on Amazon is for holding display banners.  I just added plastic hoops with zip ties.

Here is another screen shot from movie of "The Goat in the Boat" game. See below for dog ring toss game I also got on Amazon. If you look in the background of the shot below, you will see the other standing target I built to fling artificial apples (softish) with my catapult guns.

I wanted to leave you with the panel with the red truck that I had to build from clipart pieces, since I couldn't find one at just this angle to fit in front of Grandpa's house.  Not only was this post covid party fun, but the staff and guests all loved taking home not only cash and prizes, but my beloved stuffed animals.  Since my hubby is nearing retirement, I have been slowly giving away a lot of the props.  I still have my favorites, like the dogs, donkey, and goats, but there era of farm props is over.  What's next?  New Orleans Margarita Party.  It's a good thing I saved my huge alligators.

                                         

Margaritaville Jungle Cruise 2016

I have not posted anything lately, because I have been so busy with multiple party preparations.  The biggest was this year's annual office Margarita Jungle Cruise office one.  I chose this photo as the first one because I have been taking floral arrangement classes at our local community college.  One of the sessions was about underwater flowers. This was my jungle themed version of a centerpiece.  I got the frogs from AC Moore and the iris and grasses from a local florist.

To set the theme I created these two large panels of an African River scene.

I created the boat from scratch. I built the people in Photoshop from different pieces of clipart.

Above are the two panels I created for the elephants watering hole for client check-in.

Over-sized animals set the scene.

The parrot tree was a big hit.

The animals seem to be liking the music at the beach.

Gorilla resting spot by the beer.

I put the tables on bed risers to make a bar.

I threw in large stuffed animals to keep with the jungle theme.  Most of the time, the snake above was wrapped around someone's neck. The beach rug went back down in front
of the band, and the giraffes kept watch. People got a kick out of the parrot tree. We bought eight large palm plants on sale to make the garden more plush.  Since it was a
beautiful day, we did not put up the sides of the tent in order to make the area more open.  I put the community raised table in the tent this year in order to have more circulation on the patio.  This worked great!!

The palm trees added another layer of lush to the tent.  I bought lots of leaves in bunches at Hobby Lobby on sale over the summer.  I used my pvc pipe stands as the tree bases.  Now that Rustoleum spray paint works on plastic, I just sprayed the trunks brown.  I still used the green umbrella leaves from previous years.  I think the dark green tablecloths blended everything in.  I had extra irises, which I placed in one of my antique pitchers.  It is hard to tell, but I made a cucumber snake on the veggie platter.

The theme of the Tiki bar this year was MONKEYS.  Most of the desserts were banana flavored.  I used Pinterest recipes to make cheesecakes, banana cake sushi, monkey cake pops, and key lime crack (lime jello and confectionery sugar coating cereal, candy, melted green chocolate.  At first, people were hesitant to try it.  Then once word got out,

it went first.  I did lower my standards for homemade goodies by having Costco's cream puffs because they are always such a hit.  On the second shelf, there were small candy- loaded brownie bites and elephant sugar cookies.

 

Since I love Disney, and their Jungle Cruise, I wanted Trader Sam at the party.  After much internet searching, resulting in mostly posters, I created one close enough to enlarge and make in fun foam on wall insulation.  He is over five feet tall.  I just love him. The poster above is a picture of his store I created.  There were over 200 people at the party, but since we could use the garden again this year, people could spread out and move around.  We had a table and chairs with an umbrella and a fire circle to the right of the garden.  I had a bear and stuffed skunk (that fooled a few people) by the fire pit,

because we traditionally make s'mores at this party.  All in all, I feel the party was a success.  Hmmm....I wonder where our palm trees will take us for next year's party.