Outside the Box

I wanted this office party to be an "Italian Cruise" themed one.  I created this three window wide cruise ship (each panel was 37" x 72").  These windows are right by the office check-in desk.  Party goers were each issued a games card to record their scores.  I have several stand-alone sign posts to give directions for various things.

                                     Here is an example of the one by check-in.

This opening into the conference room was the "gangplank" leading into the buffet area. I ordered Italian food from a local catering company, and it included waiters and waittresses.

I always have MANY Christmas trees in the office.  The one in this room is not shown in the photo.

I used red and white bows with silver and gold balls to accent my tree. Here by the seating area were four panels of the Almalphi coast I created.  My hubby says these were his all-time favorite ones.  I will post the actual posters below.

                 The ship needs a pool deck, so we used the building's lobby space to do this. If you follow me, you've seen my river rugs many times.  Here they are as a pool.  I placed a shark in the pool and a net.  Each of my beach chairs had a nerf gun and balls to try to shoot at the shark.  Yes, the large nerf balls went through the net.  Notice the umbrella and life guard chair.  We added the life guard's sweatshirt to the back of the chair.

Behind the pool, in the hall running 90 degrees, was a mamma flammingo.  I put 6 small

stuffed baby flamingos in a 12" square painting canvas. I velcroed this to a gym scooter.

With a mop handle and the soft side of velco to save the floor, the object was to push the babies to the mom under three pvc stands like the one above.  You got three chances to

get all six babies to their mom.  If one or two fell off, you could put them back on a start

again.  This was VERY popular.

Across from Flamingo Game was Tante's Farm Game.  A wolf was trying to get at her

border collie and farm goat.  Here was target practice to get at the wolf. The target was

a poster stand I bought on Amazon.  I bought wooden hoops and hook and looped them to the stand.

An easy fishing game.  I bought a child's wooden fishing pole on Etsy.  It has a hook at the end.  I bought half circle metal rings on Amazon and sewed them to about a dozen

stuffed fish.  This was a timed event.  Any simple game timed makes it fun for adults.

I made a kitchen stove out of black foam core from Michael's.  I found metal food warmers at a discount store and used them as burners.  I bought two big pots, heating pads, salt and pepper, even a paper towel holder, and two sets of tongs.  The object was to get the lobsters, and/or veggies into the pots.  The winner won the whole game.

 

 Since it was Italy, I brought out my precious hand crafted with that hangs on a broom (not pictured).  She played La Befana.  She had turned something into frogs.  It was a basic toss, but very popular.  The frogs and targets ended up in an employees' wife's pre-school. The targets were cheap wooden disks I painted green.

Above are enlarged chefs by the tossing game.

There is usually a game just for employees the week before the party. Since the Almalphi Coast grows a LOT of lemons, I had LOTS of lemons in all eight of the office ficus trees.  I also bought a TON of soft white large lemons on AMAZON.  The adult trikes came out of storage. I added baskets.  The employees had to race down the "coast" and back tossing lemons at targets.  Much fun ensued.

Here is the office kitchen area they raced towards.  I placed a small thin tree for them to go around on their trikes. ( Not my first time doing this). You can see more of the coast villages on the back windows.  You can also see Grandma's (Nana's) blown-up poster with the wolf.

She is in her garden.  I enlarged garden items and pests as targets for the disc guns you see in the photo above on the bar.  These shot disks RAPIDLY, so I had a broom and dust pan there to sweep them up for the next contestants.  I head a LOT of laughter at this game.

Here is sample of another one of the signs with directions for the game that was up by the pool.

Here are the babies in their "sled." You can also see the mop handles and my collection of "shooters."

Finally, we also had a dessert competition.  The partners and their wives all gathered in another of the conference rooms (with Christmas Italian decorations) and read and tasted all of the entrees.  Yes, I said read.  Part of the competition was to describe your Italian themed desserts.  You got points for doing so.  You got points for theme.  You got points for presentations.  You got points for taste.  With ten judges, we had a great time with the FABULOUS desserts these talents architects in interior designers presented. The top prize was $500, so they go out in their efforts.