I’m so excited to share with you guys these photos because I worked so hard on making my 23rd birthday celebration a beautiful and exciting little get together. Some may call it a party, some may not. I like quiet little gatherings because there’s more bonding and catching up time. As always, I like doings things on a budget. Ideally, if I were to buy all my decorations, it’d be really expensive. So, I looked to Pinterest, got some inspiration and make DIY Party Decorations for under $50 all together!
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If you would like detailed directions and visuals of how I brought everything together, I have made a DIY Party Decorations Video and a DIY Picnic Food video of all the food I made for this day.
When I was planning this event, I knew I wanted it to be pink. I’ve always wanted a themed birthday ever since I was little. Other kids had them with cool decorations and activities, but I never did. I don’t blame my parents for never hosting a themed birthday for me. I wouldn’t want the responsibility of a bunch of little kids under my roof and after going to party supply stores, it can be very expensive to plan a themed birthday if you don’t make DIY party decor. But since I am an adult now and I have some money, I can now host and make whatever themed parties I want (within my budget).
I also knew that in order to save money, I had to use up a lot of the props and extra craft supplies collecting dust in my basement. I actually found a lot of stuff I bought and never used. What a waste of money, blech. At least now, I know to always look through my basement to find whatever I can whenever I want to make a DIY or host a party. That way, I can work with what I have and minimize buying more things that I don’t need for a DIY party.
I guess let’s start off with the little things and work our way to the big photo booth and backdrop.
Gold Based Cups
These cups were purchased in a pack of 8 at the Dollar Store. I price matched some cups at the Party Store and these were a little lower quality, but considerably cheaper. I believe the Party Store had these priced at $3 for 6 while the Dollar Store had it at $1-2 depending on how many you wanted. They were a little plain as is, so as part of my DIY party adventure, I decided to use painters tape to tape off the bottom and add many layers of gold paint. The paint I had was from the Dollar Store that I purchased years ago, so normal paint would probably only take a few layers, but this one took many because of the quality. I think the gold added a nice accent to the DIY party decor.
Decorated Water Bottles
Okay, this DIY party decor is extra. I will admit, it is going beyond expectations and probably was not necessary at all. I just figured if I was going all out for once, I might as well just decorate the water bottles as well. I did not have to buy the dailies or ribbons because for some reason I have an excess of both in my basement. So this DIY party decor was pretty much free.
Party Food Toppers
I feel like party food toppers aren’t appreciated enough. They can be seen as cheap and cheesy. But the reality is, they add so much more and bring everything together. I made them with the intent that if anyone brought any food that was plain or ugly looking to divert attention with the toppers (LOL). They’re made with toothpicks and ribbon that I superglued and trimmed into triangles. The easier and cheaper method would probably be to use washi tape, but since I had ribbon, I might as well use it instead of buying washi tape.
Erasable Signs
This is a DIY party decor that I would recommend for big parties. It really wasn’t necessary for mine because there was only 4 of us, but it could serve many purposes for large gatherings. I made signs out of glass picture frames that I had previously painted gold. I also lined or cheaply laminated my white speech bubble photobooth props so when I used white board markers on all these things, the messages are erasable and people can make custom messages. I refrained from writing anything on any of these because my writing isn’t very legible and never was, haha!
Photo Booth Backdrop and Props
The photo booth back drop is my pride and joy. I had my friend Jessica help me make all the beautiful paper flowers. They were easy to make, but quickly became tedious when we realized how many we had to make. If you want the process of how I built the wall and made the flower, be sure to check out the video! I know a backdrop was definitely something I’ve always wanted to work on for the DIY party decor. Maybe one day when I get more of a budget, I can make it much larger with more extravagant things.
I also made props because what’s a photo back drop without props? They were all quickly and cheaply made with construction paper and shish kebab sticks. Super affordable. I even think I can use some of these props for different occasions as well! If you want a more permanent thing, feel free to make the props with more sturdy material like paint mixing sticks and cardboard or foam.
And also thanks for Jessica and Brenda for the gold balloons! They were totally out of my budget, so I didn’t think about getting them. They’re absolutely beautiful and brought the entire thing together.
Also please excuse the grain. It was borderline raining that afternoon and it did actually end up raining eventually, so the lighting was very hard to work with.
And finally, something that I always loved when I was a child, was party favours. It was always the thing to top things off for attending parties. Even now, it’s something I’d still get excited for because you really don’t know what you’ll get. It’s like receiving surprise birthday gifts! I thought about this long and hard because I did have a small budget to work with, so ideally, many party favours I found online did add up to be quite expensive. So, a compromise I thought of was to just make something home baked that looked very aesthetically appealing to make up for the lack of elaborate party favours. I went with a marbled sugar cookie.
This was my first time marbling anything and creating sugar cookies from scratch, so it was quite interesting. The sugar cookie recipe I used is from Katrina’s Kitchen, the icing is slightly altered from Tips From a Typical Mom Blog and the marbling technique is inspired from all the videos of people using marbled nail polish and water to decorate things. I simply made a large batch of white icing sugar and a small batch of pink. I think streaked some into the white, swirled it a bit with a toothpick, dipped, and shook off the excess. It was a really easy process!
Makeup
And finally, here is my makeup that I wore with my DIY off shoulder top. I made my makeup more natural and pinkish with some rose gold hints on my eyes.
MAC Studio Fix Powder C3
Essence Mosaic Blush 20
Benefit Cosmetics They’re Real! Mascara
Absolute NY Duo Liquid Liner
Urban Decay Naked 2
Nyx Cosmetics Cosmic Metals Shadow Palette
Maybelline Age Rewind Concealer Neutralizer
Benefit Cosmetics Gimme Brow Volumizing Fiber Gel Medium/Deep
