As each of our three daughters continue to grow up finding ideas for fun birthday parties seems a little more challenging. I feel like we’ve done them all. The tea-princess-chuck.e.cheese-bounce-house-hayride-nail-painting-sleepover-cake-baking-pinata-breaking-parties.
So, coming up with something unique for our daughter’s 13th birthday party felt impossible.
But thanks to some combined ideas on Pinterest we were able to come up with a pretty fun and unique party:
A DIY Outdoor Vintage Movie Party
[“DIY” is parental lingo for: cheap.]
The Set Up:
The weather ended up being perfect for this! But my plan B was to set it up in the garage. Thankfully we were able to set up on the deck.
I remembered we had some left over wainscoting in the garage. Thanks to a handy husband, we were able to create this cute little set up.
We thought it kinda looked like a counter you’d find at a movie theater.
We displayed the Popcorn maker [which we borrowed], individual candy boxes [found at the dollar store just like the ones you buy at the movie theater!], the punch, old fashioned Coke bottles and some snacks.
The Decorations:
Purchasing vintage signs would have cost a LOT. So we made our own. Next week I’ll have a how-to blog post on making these fun vintage signs. So easy! And…you don’t have to be artsy.
These little mason jars were one of my favorite touches to the decorations. We tied some twine around each of the jars and they instantly became punch glasses.
I found the mason jars at the Dollar General store for $2/12!
We also hung party lights throughout the yard and used bales of hay for the seating.
The Photo Booth:
This was by far one of the funnest aspects of the party!
These cute photo booth props were found at Walmart in the party section for $3.
Everyone, even puppy Herman, had fun in the photo booth!
The Movie:
To be quite honest, there wasn’t a lot of movie watching at the party. Everyone was having so much fun just hanging out but a few did sit and watch it.
Making the movie screen was pretty easy. I purchased some stretchy white fabric from Hobby Lobby for $5. And I suppose the right way to do it would be to sew the screen but ahem, we were in a hurry. So hot-glue totally did the trick. [smile]
We did have to purchase a movie projector but we figured we’d use it again. And we have! But if you didn’t want to buy one, I’m sure someone would let you borrow one.
Once it got dark we all did smores, they were a HUGE hit with the kids! Plus the smoke helped keep the mosquitos away.
I did also try out this product to help with mosquito control, it seemed to work very well:
This was such a fun birthday party! It was a lot of work but so worth it. I know it will be one we remember for a long time.
12 Comments
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I love your ideas. I have a dilema my grand daughter will be 13 in December, so can not plan anything outside. She loves Micheal Jackson stuff was wondering if you could help with ideas for something indoors with that theme. Thank you A proud Grandmother Judie
Hi Judie!
Thanks for your comment! I think you could have SO much fun with this theme.
I think a Disco ball is a must. You could have white gloves for each of the girls, for one hand like he used to do! 🙂 You could do the dance Thriller.
Interested to see if anyone else has ideas!! 🙂
Beautiful party and every details looks perfect because is made from a great mom and everything you make with love is just beautiful.
I did my daughter 13th birthday with 35 kids it was a success
With a small budget. She loves to dance so I did a disco party
I have a buffet pizza chicken niggets and salad and macaroni and cheese
Table of colorful candies she want all color except red
35 cup cakes with a colorful frosting I borrow a big cup cake holder
Borrow some diaco lights photo boot I got glasses crazy hats etc after holloween everything is so inexpensive it was on my living room (no funiture)everything in there so no body can’t go outside so all the kids where dancing and singing the whole time long hour 6 to 9
But.4 moms help me to take care of many kids until this time everybody said that was the best party every. I was so tired but it was with it,
Have a good night !!! God bless u always !! San Antonio Texas is wating for u
Love this!! Thanks so much for sharing. xoxo
Nicki, that’s awesome! I used to love to do themed parties when mine were younger! I’m going to pass this idea along. How did we live without Pinterest????? 🙂
Oh I know. 🙂
Very cute ideas! Love it!
Thanks! 🙂
What was the black part of the movie screen made out of? This was an amazing idea, that can be tweaked and used for our youth group at church. Thanks
Just plain black fabric, it was super cheap! 🙂 Hope you can figure it out for your church, that will be fun!!
Great party. You are such a beautiful mom with a beautiful family. Very inspiring to me. We have been researching projectors for our church and I was curious about what projector you used. Any info would be helpful. I too envision movie nights outside with popcorn and smores. I concur…how did we live without Pinterest!!!
Nicki,
I’m still trying to figure out the nutz and boltz of that movie screen. What was it constructed with? I understand you used black and white fabric. What was the frame made of? I’ve never done any kind of parties outdoors like this. All I’ve ever done is the Summer bbq/picnic.
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