Thursday, September 24, 2015

Bachelorette Party - decorations and favors

I was recently asked to host my friend's bachelorette party, and of course I turned to the world of Pinterest to help me with the ideas and execution! There were so many great ideas and I used many of them, so I thought I'd share all of them here in one post. I've never really posted this type of thing, so I didn't start taking photos until over half-way through the prep work - that means no step-by-step photos, sorry, haha!

The first pin that caught my eye was a hanging banner that said "CHEERS BITCHES" in pretty glitter paper. The pinner included a website to an Etsy page where it was being sold for $23. Yikes! It was very cute, but I didn't want to spend that much. Instead, I went to Michael's and bought my own glitter paper by Recollections. It was a pack of 20 sheets in 5 different colors, originally for $20 but it was on sale for $10!


I figured out which letters I needed, opened up a MS Word document, and typed in one of each letter in large print, about 300 font size. In order to save ink, I used the WordArt feature and only printed the outline. I printed the letters on lightweight cardstock and cut them out to make stencils (since the glitter paper was too thick and too large to go into the printer). I used scissors for most of the cuts, but for the curves in the S and the cutouts within the letters I used a boxcutter (didn't have an x-acto knife). Then I used a single-hole puncher to punch 2 holes at the top of each letter, and strung them together. I had so much fun making this sign so I ended up making other signs, including "OOH LAA LAA," "FANCY," and "TREAT YO SELF" at no extra cost, just extra time! I included a close-up so you can see the glitter. 


I loved the glitter paper, like, a LOT. So I didn't want to waste it! I made a few fun signs with wedding themed quotes on them using a paint marker and added some ring stickers and rhinestones:




I also made a few signs for a drinking game :


I wanted to make the night special, and there were only going to be 4 of us ladies total, so I threw together some Party Kits. I bought baggies from Party City, used the glitter paper from above to cutout the initials of each girl, and filled them with goodies.




 Essie nail polish, EOS lip balm, nail file

Cute detail: the name of the nail polish is Bachelorette Bash :)


TEAM BRIDE sunglasses and body stickers for when you go out (the diamond ring lights up!)

Special shot-glass necklace for the bride-to-be

 Sash and fun game dice for the bride-to-be


The next item I decided to work on was an OH SHIT KIT - basically a hangover kit for the next morning. I used fun baggies instead of the nice ones.



(These Annie's granola bars tasted like cardboard to me... so I replaced them with Lara bars!)


And these did not fit, but I planned to leave a Gatorade and a La Croix sparkling water by each baggy.



I ended up throwing in some Alka-Seltzer and Tums as well, and I wish I had thrown in anti-nausea medication. Luckily for us, one of the girls brought enough for everyone :D We needed it after such a fun party!

Here are some pictures from the hotel room:

I put up some cute caution tape that said "CAUTION: WILD GIRLS" - I thought it would be cheesy but it actually looked kinda cute!

We also used pink, white, and chevron streamers.


Here's a banner that I did not make, it's from Party City

The goodie table has M&Ms, Skittles, Starbursts, Boom-Chika-Pop popcorn, and a tiara with a veil for the bride to be. That was made by a friend, so I don't have a link, sorry!

 I also bought some shiny tinsel to use as a backdrop for a photobooth, and got some props on Amazon.

Not pictured: balloons! I got 50x 5 inch white balloons and drew diamond rings on them (You can see one sneaking in on the table a couple pictures up). I also got 6x each: 12 inch pink, black-white polka dot, and clear balloons. I wanted them to be easy to inflate once we got to the hotel, so I bought this fun contraption and it was easy-peasy.

We went to the fabulous Lips San Diego, a drag-queen show with dinner the first night!
The second night we went to The Shout House, a dueling piano bar, which was also super fun!










Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Queen's Cup rules (Bachelorette Circle of Death)

At the bachelorette party I threw for a friend, I wanted to play King's Cup. I renamed it Queen's Cup in honor of the bachelorette, and threw in a few non-traditional rules. We also decided to only play with half the deck (two of each card) because we didn't want to get super wasted and there were only a few of us playing.

I don't like playing with the actual King's Cup (explained below) so we played Circle-of-Death rules.
Generally, the way you play is as such: You take a deck of cards face-down and spread them out into a circle, making sure they are all touching at least one other card. You take turns in a clock-wise fashion and each player draws one card. Each card is assigned a different rule, as outlined below. The circle-of-death rule is that whoever breaks the connection between the cards has to drink their whole drink at once!

(Traditionally, in the middle of the circle, you place an empty cup and anyone who pulls a King pours some of their drink - whatever it may be - into the cup. Whoever pulls the last King has to chug the whole cup of mixed drinks!)


A: Snake Eyes
The person who pulls this card becomes the Snake. Anytime another player makes eye contact with the Snake, the player must take a drink. This person is the Snake until the next Ace is pulled, and then that person becomes the snake!

2: Give 2
Give out 2 drinks to whomever you'd like!

3: Take 3
Take 3 drinks yourself, ha-ha!

4: Drink Drank Drunk
The person who pulls this card cannot use any version of the words "drink," "drank," or "drunk" or else they must take a drink. They may use synonyms (imbibe, swallow liquid, take one, etc). This is in effect until the next person pulls a 4, and then that person is restricted from these words!

5: Drink If
As mentioned before, we cut the deck in half because we didn't want to get crazy wasted before going out. So I made 4 rounds of Drink If and assigned 2 rounds to 2 cards. When this card is pulled, if a rule applies to anyone in the whole group, they must take a drink for each one.

Round 1: Drink if you're wearing pink, have a tattoo, have a sister, or if your hair is up.
Round 2: Drink if you're wearing a dress, have gotten a speeding ticket, have a brother, or hair is brown.

(So for Round 1, if you're wearing pink and you have a sister, you take 2 drinks, etc.)

6: Drink If
See above...
Round 3: Drink if you're wearing black, not yet married, are an only child, or hair is blonde.
Round 4: Drink if you're wearing jewelry, have pets, hair is down, or are having fun ;)

7: In My Pants
The person who pulls this card must end each sentence, question, exclamation, or verbal utterance with "in my pants." If they fail to do so, they must take a drink. This is in effect until the next person pulls a 7, and then the rule applies to them!

8: Mate
The person who pulls this card gets to choose one other person in the group to be their mate. Anytime the person who pulled the card is forced by the game to take a drink, the mate must also take a drink. It does not go both ways, so if the mate has to drink, the person who pulled the card does not have to drink. It is perfectly acceptable to start a mate train or for 2 people to have the same mate!

9: Twerk It
This one is just to be silly, and it takes some prep work! Each player must have an empty rectangular tissue box and 3 ping pong balls (or however many you want to play with). To prep, each box should have a cut out rectangular hole that's just a bit bigger than the ping pong balls. Using masking tape, each player must put the kleenex box filled with ping pong balls on the upper part of their rump with the hole facing outwards. Everyone starts "twerking" and the first person to get all of the balls out of the kleenex box is safe - but EVERYONE else needs to take a drink!

10: Question Master
The person who pulls this card becomes the Question Master. If this person asks a question, anyone who answers the question must take a drink. This person is the Question Master until the next 10 is pulled, and then that person becomes the Question Master!

J: Pictionary
I just really like pictionary so I threw this in. I made a bunch of little papers with different wedding-themed words and put them in a baggy to draw from. The person who pulls this card has to blindly choose a word to draw. One minute is placed on a timer, and the player must draw the word and get the others to guess the word. For every 10 seconds that it takes the group to guess the word, the drawer has to take one drink. So if there are 30 seconds left on the timer, the drawer takes 3 drinks, if there are 20 seconds left on the timer = 4 drinks, if there are 50 seconds left on the timer - 1 drink, etc.

Q: Bachelorette Drinks
She is the guest of honor, so she gets her own drink card!

K: Everyone Drinks
... Drink up!!