Materials, Accessories for Terrific Tabletops & More

Once you’ve gotten your tables beautifully and cleverly covered, it’s time for centerpieces, tableware and finishing touches.

Candles

Use tapers, balls, and votives in a unifying color from your scheme. As long as they are out of the reach of small children, fill all the tables with various sized candles and keep them lit throughout the evening. Prior to the party, put your candles in the refrigerator or freezer, as cooler candles will burn longer.

To float candles, you might color the water with liquid food coloring. Mix colorings to obtain just the right hue. Another idea for floaters is to place a glass bowl, or several different sized wineglasses filled with water (colored or not) on a mirror. Add candles and colored or clear gemstones and enjoy the dreamy look you have created.

Confetti

A sprinkling of confetti here and there should be as a delightful little surprise, and ShindigZ has about 60 designs to fit many themes and color schemes. Not just for table tops, confetti can be used on floorings, in invitations, along pathways, or even inside balloons! This provides a unique touch at a great price.

Curling Ribbon

This is a must-have if you are working with balloons, but you can also use it to tie around a favor at each place setting, to bundle table utensils, or to put the finishing touch on wrapped gifts. Curling ribbon comes in a multitude of colors. Cut 8-12″ lengths of curling ribbon, and curl each piece with the blade of a pair of scissors. Scatter little “curls” over tabletops for an easy, whimsical, and very inexpensive decorative touch!

Garland

Garland can be draped and swagged like streamers can, and is absolutely ideal to mold around centerpieces, outline the edges of tabletops, and wrap around candle bases and votives. Use it to garnish gift packages and accent balloon bouquets. Entwine a garland with twinkle lights and wind it around a column or weave it through a gate. Look for silk floral, metallic, fringe, ivy and more today.

Streamers

While pretty much everyone is familiar with the traditional crepe streamers, they also come in gossamer, foil, netting, holographic and the exotic cracked ice! Streamers can be used to accent tabletops for a truly unique look. Measure the length and/or width of your tables. Add 12″ to each measurement, so that a 6″ length can hang on either side of the table. Place streamers on the table running lengthwise or across the width of the table, or in two directions in a lattice pattern. Streamers can be twisted after they are anchored to a table-end for more dimensionality. Two different colored streamers can be placed back-to-back, and twisted for a two-toned effect.

Party Table Basics

Whether you’re talking kitchen, folding, banquet or picnic, tables that reflect your event with distinction are a breeze with just a few fundamental decorating steps.

After you’ve chosen your theme, select a color scheme and work from there. Typically you’ll be working with a two- or three-color palette. Other times you may want to go monochromatic, and one way to do it is to work with two or three shades of the same color. Another is to select a single dominating color and choose an accent hue or two. You can create an especially dramatic effect by accenting one color with black, white, gold or silver. Think: navy with white, red with black, white with gold, etc.

Once the basic color scheme is worked out, you’ll be choosing materials based on theme, effects you want to achieve, ages of the partygoers and level of formality. For informal tables, bright gingham oilcloth, plastic table rolls, burlap or a patterned seamless or flat paper might fill the bill. More formal events might call for adding a matching or metallic skirting to a plastic or linen tablecloth, and/or use of taffeta, tulle, or fabrics that glimmer and shimmer.

If you are using a plain tablecloth, why not decorate it with fabric paint? Use a color to complement your theme to leave a special message at different angles all over the tablecloth. The same concept will also work with a plastic tablecover. As an alternative, stamp a fancy design onto the tablecloth with a pre-cut kitchen sponge.

Add table squares cut from colored cellophane for a whimsical look. Squares or other geometric shapes will add texture and depth to the appearance of the table.

If you have not had the pleasure of decorating with gossamer in the past, you are in for a treat. Gossamer is a wonderful, lightweight nonwoven material that creates fabulous decorating touches at a very reasonable price. It drapes, hangs and holds its shape beautifully. Ideas:

Swag gossamer on the edges of table skirting. Try twisting or braiding two colors together for a stunning look.

Cut gossamer into tabletop squares to place on the top of a plastic tablecover or cover the entire tablecover with an overlay of shimmery, sheer gossamer.

Gather the gossamer at the corners of the table, and tie with gossamer streamers, tassels, or satin ribbon.

One of the hottest trends today is to cover banquet or reception chairs with chair bows…and the trend tends to be quite costly! Do it yourself with gossamer! You can drape a piece of 19″ gossamer across the top of each chair back, and then tie a gossamer streamer bow around the back of the chair. The bows can be cut to any length, and even look lovely with tails trailing on the floor. The bows hold their shape just fine, and at a fraction of the cost of wired ribbon.

For more decorating ideas using this wonderful material, see our video presentation of “How to Use Gossamer” — and we hope you’ll check out our other selections of decorating fabrics, too!

Cake Basics: Mixes and Ready-Mades We Like

Our Favorite Cake Mixes

If you have a favorite family recipe, or just enjoy baking scratch cakes, our hats are off to you! However, if that’s not your scene, it’s good to know that many of the problems traditionally associated with boxed cake mixes have been eliminated. It used to be the main reason to take the extra time to make a cake from scratch was that mixes created cakes that were more tender and crumbly than cakes made from scratch. It was difficult to cut a “mix” cake into a creative shape, because the crumbs would infiltrate the frosting. Not today! We have tested and tasted all the boxed mixes on the market and can share with you our favorites.

The overall winner for great taste and ease in cutting and frosting is the Betty Crocker™ Super Moist Cake Mix™. A close second was the Pillsbury™ Moist Supreme Cake Mix™. Both have plenty of pudding in the mix, and they really are delicious.

If you are in the mood for something really different, make a Rice Crispies™ Treats “cake.” The shapes will work equally well, and it tastes delicious with frosting.

Our Favorite Ready-Made Frostings

In order to achieve that “bakery perfect” smoothness on your cakes, use a standard recipe for butter cream frosting. The downside of this type of frosting is that it generally tastes quite sugary, and uses either lard or shortening to give it a “stiffer” consistency. What’s the favorite of ShindigZ staffers? Not only is ready-made frosting easier, we think it tastes creamier and less sugary. Try Pillsbury’s™ Creamy Supreme™ frosting, or even Cool Whip™. Ready-made may not give a bakery-smooth finish, but they were all very tasty to eat! For best results, refrigerate the frosting first, and keep it chilled while decorating.

We Also Like Paste

We like paste colorings in frosting. They won’t thin your frosting like liquid colors can, and they usually give quite vibrant results with little effort. Admittedly, some strong colors can be difficult to achieve without changing the taste of the frosting. Look for “no taste” pastes, or start with a ready-made that already contains some of the desired color: for example, use pink (strawberry, raspberry) to obtain fire-engine red, and dark chocolate for a head start on black frostings.

Once you’ve selected your recipes or mixes, frostings and colors, why not take a spin around ShindigZ Party’s Birthday Candles and Cake Accessories pages for more ideas? We think you’ll be glad you did!

Parade Floats 101

There may come a time (or perhaps already has?) when your organization determines it wants to participate in a parade in your community, and works out a budget for building a float. Whether it’s for your school, business, or social club – and regardless of the size of the organization – the steps for putting together a float are pretty much the same.

Your first move, upon registering for the parade, is to obtain and understand all the rules. Some parades, for example, limit the size of the trailers that can be used, and many require approval of float design. If the parade has a theme, you’ll need to know that, too, before your group starts generating concepts for your float.

Once you know about any prohibitions, the theme, and the size of the space you’ll be working with, the committee can start brainstorming. Ideas that end up being serious candidates for consideration should be conceptualized in slogans, sketches, and a color scheme. When the creative work is completed and approved, develop timelines and deadlines, which are crucial if your group is to avoid having to work around the clock the last few days before the parade! Then it’s time for the physical labor. Tasks can be split up roughly as follows:

Building the foundation (skirt frame, deck)

Erecting the main structure/setting

Props

Costumes

Signage

Be sure to take a look at what ShindigZ Party has to offer when you are working out signage options, materials and even large prop pieces, which can provide polish as well as save a lot of time and labor. For this reason we suggest checking out our Theme Party Decorations and Banners as well as the Float Decorations catalog.

Our last tip for now is to work out the finishing touches that will best be saved for the parade site itself. For one thing, your float may be traveling a snail’s pace throughout the parade, but that probably won’t be true for getting the float to the starting line-up! Another reason is that some decorations you’ll want to use, such as balloons, will deteriorate fairly quickly outdoors even under the best of weather conditions.

We hope these tips are of use to you in your float-building project and that you’ll visit ShindigZ.com Party Supplies soon for more ideas.

ShindigZ Theme Decorations Great for Parade Floats Too

ShindigZ customers have found another great use for ShindigZ theme kits…decorating parade floats!

Because our theme kits are large, easy-to-use and great for adding that extra something special to any theme, they’re a natural fit for making parade float decorating easier. While we still carry the classic parade float supplies such as tissue pomps (tissue squares), pomps paste, floral sheeting, and festooning, our theme kits make creating outstanding float decorations easier.

Imagine building a gingerbread house float out of 2x4s, chicken wire and tissue squares. With our Gingerbread Theme Decorations, the Bidle Family was able to create this awesome float much more easily. Plus, the theme kits add an extra polish to the parade float.

Other great items for your floats include our personalized vinyl banners. They come in smaller sizes for adding to the back of your float or huge sizes for carrying in the parade—seven different sizes in all. The banners are printed on heavy-duty, weather-resistant vinyl and can be printed with your custom wording.

There’s so many ways to use Theme Party Decorations to create awesome parade floats. For more ideas on how to build and decorate parade floats, check out our Parade Floats Blog. We always love to hear about your parade floats and party ideas!

Personalize Your Decor for Valentine’s Day

Whether you’re hosting a Valentine’s Day dance, a big party, small get-together or just want to brighten up your home or classroom, personalized decorations would be perfect for adding a special touch to your Valentine’s Day décor!

For creating a personalized focal point try a personalized lighted heart column, a personalized Heart’s Delight Standee or a candy heart balloon arch. The personalized heart cut-outs are also good for adding a personalized accent to your walls.

Personalized banners also make great decorations. Use them to announce a party, welcome guests or send a Valentine’s Day message. These banners are printed on heavy-duty, weather-resistant vinyl that you can use year after year. Plus, you can order them with or without sturdy metal grommets and in one of seven sizes to fit all of your decorating needs. There are a lot of great Valentine’s Day designs such as the Do You Love Me Personalized Banner, the Letter Valentine Banner or the Bear Hug Door Banner! You can add your own custom wording to each banner design for a great personal touch.

For favors from your party or dance try a personalized mini jar candle or a personalized candy jar. You can add your own logo and wording for a personalized keepsake for all your guests. They also make great gifts!

Add a personalized touch to your table decorations. Debossed luncheon napkins can be personalized with your own party logo and details for a subtle touch your guests will love. Plus, they’re great for scrapbook keepsakes.

There are tons of other decorations, accents, decorating kits and favors for creating a party or home décor your friends, family, and guests will just love! Check out our other Valentine’s Day TipZ for more ideas and tell us your ideas too!