New Year's Eve Party DIY Guide
Decor
All that glitters is gold when it comes to New Year's Eve Parties. Pay homage to a classic NYE with black, gold and silver. You can go even further with your decorations by adding a theme, such as, The Great Gatsby. To start, hang a few three-tier tinsel chandeliers from the ceiling using fishing wire, gold and/or silver tinsel and three metal rings in small, medium and large. Attach three even pieces of fishing wire onto the first ring and knot the top for easy hanging.
The next step is to hot glue the tinsel to the large gold ring and cut the first layer short. Attach a second slightly smaller ring with another three pieces of fishing wire so that the ring hangs above where the tinsel ends from the first ring. Hot glue more tinsel and repeat for the smallest ring creating the last layer. Once you've hung the chandeliers, it's time to break out the bubbly! Not for drinking, for decoration!
Use champagne or sparkling wine, they also make great party favors. You'll need super 77 adhesive spray and gold craft glitter. Don't forget latex gloves and something to spray the bottles over, such as, newspaper or an old sheet. Wearing a pair of gloves, spray the bottles with the adhesive over the newspaper leaving the top third of the bottle adhesive free so that you can still pop bottles at midnight. Next, sprinkle glitter all over the bottle until two thirds of the bottle is covered in glitter. Shake off any excess glitter before using as a display. This will act as the base for your balloons.
These aren't just any balloons though...these are easy to make confetti balloons. Instead of popping confetti cannons at midnight pop these balloons. To start you'll need a package of clear balloons. Next use the extra gold and silver tinsel from the chandelier and cut the extra pieces into small strips. Open the mouth of the balloon, add a handful of strips and inflate with helium.
Use ribbon to attach the balloons to the champagne bottle and place them around the house. When midnight strikes everyone will be popping bottles as well as balloons. This confetti blizzard will feel like something out of the movies.
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Instead of a traditional New Years Eve sit down dinner, try a buffet style with finger foods and a bar where guests can come and go as they please. Try chicken cordon blue skewer bites with breadcrumb and fried chicken, ham and cheese, sausage bites in a blanket, hamburger sliders and raw veggies in a plastic wine-cup with ranch or humus for individual portions.
When it comes time for dessert, lay out several strawberry shortcakes in a plastic wine-cup, cake pops and black and white cookies. To create a display buffet, use a black table-cloth and put the table against a wall allowing the tablecloth to be longer to the floor, side opposite the wall. Add boxes of various shapes and sizes on the table and lay a second black tablecloth on top. This will act as platform to place trays displaying food. You can also use cake stands.
To create a DIY cake stand use a wide dollar store vase and place a flat round dollar store mirror on top. Create a champagne bar instead of having someone tend bar all night. If you have an actual bar or bar cart you can use that, if not, use the same method as before to create a buffet style bar with a table, some boxes and a black table-cloth. Set out bottles of champagne, champagne glasses stacked in a pyramid, strawberries on a tray, rock candy on a stick for a sweeter taste and pink cotton candy in champagne flutes that dissolve when you pour bubbly on them.
Every good party needs a photo booth these days! It's easier to make your own photo booth then you'd think. Hang some gold tinsel on the wall, add some NYE themed props like a printable sign. To top it off, add some top hats, a few silver necklaces, some noise makers and a gold frame that guests can hold to make it seem like they're posing for a painting.
No soirée is complete without a friendly game of poker, with candy as currency of course! Use a real poker table if you have one or order green felt or a simple board to lay on your table. For the kids, have games like gold-fish, old maid and Yahtzee. For an easy DIY game, have create an area where guests can fill out a sheet of paper with their new years resolution on it and place it in a bowl. Before you count down into the new year play a guessing game where you see if you can guess which resolution belongs to whom.
Another fun and easy DIY game is 20 questions. Make your own cards by printing pictures of famous celebrities from 2016 on 4x4" squares. Your guest then has 20 questions to ask for clues as to who their celeb is. If they guess correctly before the 20 questions are up they win. The guest who has the most cards by the end of the game wins!
2017
After midnight, when the confetti has been popped, the food has been devoured and all the fun has stopped you can send your guests home with a little something to remember the party of the year by. The bottle of sparkling wine or champagne, you can even use the ones we made as decorations, make great 2017 thank you's.
You can also send your guests home with a mini recovery kit. Attach these recovery bags to a bottle of water and add two individually packaged Tylenol inside the bag. Another fun idea for a parting favor is chapsticks. Something everyone can use before and after twelve o'clock.
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