Margaritaville Fiesta 2019

I chose this photo first since it represents the theme.  The total theme was "San Antonio Fiesta."  I made two panels of 36" x 72" each to show the Alamo.  I used an old postcard clipart for the main building.  I found a lot of cartoon mariachi bands.  After an extensive search, I found a sketch of this band and dancer.  I spent hours turning them into clipart that could be enlarged to this extent.  The centerpiece on the high top, is a fish bowl with a smaller square container inside of it.  The straw paper confetti was inserted between the two bowls.  Soaked oasis went into the middle container and fresh flowers were inserted.  I made six of these.  Each high top had a different colored tablecloth.

The live band was on a patio area right by this poster.

Because San Antonio has their famous RIVER WALK, I wanted to include this idea into the theme.  I used my two water rugs end to end.  I had four low top 36" rounds in blue along side of the rugs.

 Here are the two large panels of my version of the River Walk. These were on two of the door panels leading out to the tent.  I have not used balloon poles previously at office parties.  But I found a FIESTA theme lends itself to them.  Take note of the different colored umbrellas in the left panel.  I used four different colors of umbrellas at the party to simulate this.

Since it is TEXAS, I felt the need to include a couple of long-horned steers.  If you follow my blog, you will recognize them as my cows.  I bought two child-sized costume horns for them.

Does this photo scream FIESTA?  I used medium sized (plastic) Mexican lace flags I bought on Amazon. I also put up my tiki bar in the middle of the buffet.  I used my four manzanita trees with battery operated candle lanterns.  I bought four strands of mini lanterns on a string of lights.  I did not use the lights, but inserted the candles in each one instead.  I made wire handles for each one. On the far right you can see tissue papers.  See next photo.

I used two old window screens to make these flower "flags."  I attached ribbon strips in fiesta colors to the bottom of screen.  I actually bought groups of ribbon wands on Amazon and cut the sticks off of them.  I tied the ends in a knot with wire wrapped inside the knot.  I tied the wire onto the bottom of the screen.  I bought large paper flowers on Amazon and tied wire on them before opening them.  Then I just wired them to the screen.

Here is a close up of the tiki bar I made with teak towel racks years ago.  It is actually a TEAK-y bar.  It has a teak shelf that spans the middle rack of the stands.  I put a rustic box on the shelf with 6 glass jars.  Each jar had a different color fork in it, and matching napkins in the middle.  There was a pinata on either side of it.  We ordered mini burritos from a local catering restaurant.  But we also catered a full barbecue meal. 

Here are four of the high tops, pre-centerpieces.  I have a collection of large cacti that we store in the office shed, along with my other props.  In the back you can see two of the balloon poles.

I made two more poster panels of historic buildings in San Antonio.  This is the famous Pearl Street Brewery.  I put them up on the glass panels next to the check-in.

This panel was in the same area, but no one had time to take a photo of it in place.  Here is my hubby on the left and his brother in front of the famous Margarita Restaurant and Oyster Bar.

 The dessert bar started with a runner of blue plastic petals I use regularly for water. It was built around the theme of the River Walk.

    

   I wanted to use boats for serving the goodies, but I also wanted to build my version of one of the tourist boats.  I already owned the large teal bucket.  I made styrofoam benches for the inside of it.  I bought a dozen BARBIES that looked like tourists.  The clients and staff thought this was hysterical.  Please note the extensive work I put into the graphics on the monitors.  These are LARGE screens, so they show every detail.  I had to build the boat graphic from scratch.

The staff had fun playing with the Barbies in the days leading up to the party.

Here you can see one of the boats filled with colorful sugar cookies.  Behind it are 3 dozen cake donuts that I hand-dipped in white chocolate.  I then added confetti sprinkles.  The chocolate dried hard, so they were easy to stack.  I bought the donut holder on Etsy.  I also bought the nice wooden cupcake stand behind it on Etsy.  I used 

nine ounce drinking cups to make key lime pies in a cup.

I used my sailboat to hold slices of pound cake.  The smaller metal boat had diced strawberries in real whipped cream.  Over the years, I have found this the best way to serve strawberry shortcake.  The blue boat to the left of the Barbies held homemade s'more brownies I made in cookie sheets. I converted a rustic box into a dock to which I tied the boats.  I used my grown son's building blocks for the legs.  I added two end posts to tie the ropes to. I served mousse cake on top of the dock.

I tried something new this year.  I had a taco bar.  I found this two-tiered rack this spring at Home Goods.  I purchased the six round jars for another party. The six jars fit perfectly in the rack.  I used sour cream, onions, lettuce, olives, cilantro, and guacamole in them.

I used the large punch bowl I bought for a baby shower to hold the chips.  I made a Velvetta cheese,Rotel tomatoes, and salsa recipe from Pinterest for the cheese sauce.  I cooked it on low all day in my crockpot, then transferred it to a chafing dish for the party. 

 If you are new to my blog, you will notice that I always use aluminum pans under any container using a STERNO.  It makes cleanup so much easier as there is very little mess on the tablecloths.

Because I learned how to wrap 260 balloons by watching a YouTube video, I do these at home.  Then I wrap the poles in plastic bags to protect them until they arrive at the party site.  I bring my air compressor at the party site to add the round balloon clusters.  

 What was the most commented item (after the Barbies)?  The yellow tablecloths.  So, do people really notice the color of tablecloths at a party?  You bet they do.

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.



Margaritaville Luau Style

For those of you who have been following me for the last five years or so, you know that
I have been trying out new palm tree props.  I have progressed from the cardboard tube ones to silk palms.  I wanted the office garden to look PLUSH.  The party goers told me
I had achieved that goal.  I purchased many silk palms on sale and put two or three in big pots that stay in the garden year round.  I added silk tropical flowers and palm leaf to the bottoms.  When we were setting up, it was windy, so we went and bought BRICKS to weigh them down.  This worked like a charm.

The garden itself is pretty green.  I bought the water fountain years ago for the office.  I brought over my red patio 9' umbrellas to give two extra pops of color to the event.

Normally I have the tables up on bed risers to make them into bars.  Unfortunately the rental company stopped providing us with bar stools that raised and lowered.  I will have to find a new company, as the only stools they did provide were too tall to even sit on.

I debated with myself about making this seal pool, but one of the clients brought her daughter and grandson, who LOVED the pool and played in the balls.  It was worth it.

I reworked the coral reefs from last years' Australian party.  I needed the chicken feeders for my tropical floral arrangements this year.  I found these two metal tubs at Hobby Lobby and spray painted them. The diver was Velcro strapped to the tree.  If this is your first visit, those are rubber fish I purchased online.

The high tops were covered in green tablecloths to show off the fish bowls.  I have reused these bowls for so many events.  They were so worth the purchase.  I put them on the
candle stands I made, added blue rocks to the bottom, and  I added tropical garland strands I'd made.  The best touch was the hollow ceramic koi fish I found in a California gift store.  The fish floated around in the water.  The staff and clients really took note of this.

The office is growing rapidly.  They put up TWO monitors in this kitchen area to have
extra conference space.  I now design computer posters for both of these to match my dessert bars.

Every single log/wooden serving piece I've bought or made fits into my themes.  I actually created the pattern on the hula dancers and made these Polynesian people bit by bit in Photoshop.  If you enlarge this, you will see that the girls are triplets.  Ha ha.  The hotel in the background actually took me hours and hours to design.  I wondered if anyone would even notice.  They DID.   What was really a difficult job was making ocean waves.  

 Above is the Tiki Bar I designed for this scene.  I originally wanted people sitting on the sand at a luau.  I couldn't do it, so I put them sitting at a bar. This was weeks and weeks of work, but worth it.  In the photo you can see my little chairs again.  They also get used a LOT.  They are in the tray filled with crushed cookie sand and sugar cookie flip flops.  I made the straps with fondant.  The flamingos are sitting on lemon pound cakes.  The glaze looks a little sloppy, but no one cares, because the cakes are delicious.  I have found that guests don't like to be the first one to slice a cake, so I always start that first slice right away.

In the front of this photo take note to the palm leaves I cut out for doilies.  The tiny pies are key lime cheesecake filled.  I REALLY wanted to make tiki god cake pops, but I'm not that talented.  So I used big candy eyes, m&m noses, white cane sprinkes for mouths.  I finished them off with paper umbrellas. The guests found them hilarious.  The pineapple cake pops are actually made with pineapple cake.  I dipped them in yellow chocolate and added yellow jimmies.  I struggled for two weeks as to how to make the leaves.  I ended up cutting rectangles of green fondant, rolling it into tubes, snipping one end and bending back the leaves.  They dried overnight.  I poked holes in them and slid them onto the sticks. 

 The other pies were just okay.  I ended up going to a funeral the afternoon of the party.  I learned a VALUABLE LESSON.  When you make a cheese cake filling and have chocolate in it, and you put it in the refrigerator overnight, everything stiffens up.  It takes HOURS to defrost.  I spent those hours honoring someone.  NO REGRETS.

What about the beach rug you always put out?  You were thinking that, weren't you?
Well, the big turtle made it back.  We moved the band farther into the garden, so there was more room for it. This photo shows my parrot arrangement and one of the chicken feeder floral arrangements.

 Yes, the tiki hut I made from bookshelves was back.  See all the barbecue sauces the caterer brought on the shelf.  The stuffed parrots are a BIG HIT every year.

Here's a closer shot of the chicken feeder arrangement with orchids (silk).

Here is my sister-in-law who comes to both client parties every year and works and works and works, so that I can talk to clients and keep things moving.  She is standing in front of one of the Waikiki Beach check-in posters and my captain made from wall insulation.
We really liked this area for check-in since it was close to the party, but I made four posters (since I thought we might be inside with the hurricane coming).  I learned that I can only use two in this area.  This is hubby's office with sliding doors, so posters don't really work here.

Lois made Charleston's Ultimate Coconut Cake because we couldn't have it shipped up due to the ----Hurricane.  It was fabulous.  They actually post the recipe online.  

I wanted guests and clients to check-in at Waikiki Beach.  I have four posters representing that.   You can also see Hawaii's famous pink hotel and people on the beach behind the check-in table.  There's the yacht on which the Captain and his first mate arrived.

We moved the band farther into the garden under their own tent this year.  

I wanted to cover one of the partner's messy computer chords, so I put up these two posters.

This worked great, but when we found out my animated pig centerpiece danced to the band, that was PERFECT.

I am going to end with this beautiful LIVE arrangement one of hubby's partner's wives made.  Isn't it gorgeous.  I am now beginning to plan for next party.