4 Ways to Personalize a Party with Photos

I recently threw my husband a party for his 50th Birthday and used some old photos to personalize his birthday celebration.  I reserved a space at a local restaurant and there wasn’t much time to decorate the area.  I also wanted to keep things simple and didn’t want to lug tons of decorations or balloons into the restaurant.   After all, the beauty of planning a party somewhere else is not having to do a lot of set up or clean up.  However, since this was the BIG 50 I wanted to personalize this milestone birthday.  I can’t think of a better way to personalize a party than with photos and so I thought I’d share four simple things you can do to personalize a party for someone of any age.

1. I almost got rid of the metal photo holder above at a garage sale until I realized that I could use it on the appetizer table at my party. I mounted my photos to black cardstock with scrapbook adhesive strips. I also added a few little stickers (from my mountain of scrapbook supplies) to a few of the photos.  The chalkboard clip is from Hobby Lobby. I bought several chalkboard clips and tags because there are so many uses for them.

2. There were four bar tables and three big tables to decorate.  I used large lanterns with candles and rocks at the bottom for the big tables. I tied coordinating ribbon around the handles, a photo and a chalkboard tag (Hobby Lobby) and wrote 50 on the tags with a chalkboard pen.  I borrowed four beer mugs from my friend Christine which I knew she had from a BBQ event.  There was already rope tied to the handles of the beer mugs and I just added ribbon, a wallet sized photo and another chalkboard tag.

3. This kindergarten picture of my husband is one of my favorite photos.  I decided to make it poster size 16 x 20 and mounted it on black foam board with scrapbook adhesive that way I can remove it from the board and store it easily.  The poster was on an easel by the entrance to the party and I added the clipboard with the message FIFTY the ULTIMATE “F” word.  I saw it on a cake while searching for 50th party ideas on Pinterest.  I was getting my hair colored and my hairstylist helped me search for ideas. How’s that for multi-tasking?

4. I also found an image of a jar filled with hot tamales and the tag “50 and hot “while searching Pinterest.  I had the perfect picture in mind to display with those words.  I printed the photo on cardstock and instead of hot tamales I filled the vase with Atomic FireBalls  I found at Sam’s Club.  I decided to be nice to my husband since I will be 50 in two years and I frankly don’t want Over the Hill or Old as Dirt written on my birthday cake.

More Helpful Tips

I learned a few things while planning this party.

1. It helps with your stress level if you don’t wait until the last minute to put things together.  This should be a no brainer, but the perfectionist in me causes me to procrastinate.

2. Give yourself a time limit for searching for ideas and then just go with your gut instinct. My instinct all along was to keep this party simple and add a few special touches. The more time I spent searching for ideas on Pinterest the more my mind was cluttered with ideas and I became stressed out.

3. Have a color scheme in mind for your party and then coordinate everything around it like ribbon, flowers, etc. My color scheme was pretty much black, white and tan.  I like a classic look especially for a man’s party.

4. Look around your home for things you can use like glass vases and jars or borrow from a friend who likes to entertain.

5. Invest in some flameless pillar candles and you never have to worry about dripping wax and candles burning out.  You can find them at Target or Walmart and craft and home decor stores.

6. I uploaded my photos to Costco, but had a few issues with the way some of my wallet size pictures turned out. In the end I just used picmonkey to size my photos to 3 x 3’s or 4 x 4’s and then printed them out on white cardstock. If you have a color printer this is an easy way to go and it will save you time and money.  However, for poster size prints I would recommend Costco or another photo service.

For more birthday party inspiration check out this Rustic Glam 50th Birthday party I gave for my friend.