Home Parties - Get Creative!!

Last week, I was invited to yet another one of those home parties that one of my friends invited me and 100+ other people. I can’t tell you how many of these parties that I’ve been invited to in the last year, Lia Sophia, Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, Taste of Home, Partylite, UpperCase Living, Purse parties… the list goes on and on! Many of them, I’ve attended multiple times. I’m the person who, when invited to one of these parties, feels obligated to purchase something. Each time, I try to purchase a gift, so I don’t accumulate all of this “stuff” for myself. Anyway, the party that I was invited to last week was for UpperCase Living. In case you haven’t heard about this business, it’s basically words or decorations for your wall. They’re very easy to apply and very cute; however, once they’re stuck on the wall, you aren’t able to move them around. You can easily remove them, but they’re not re-usable.

I love decorating for holidays, so I really liked the holiday wall art. The fact that I wasn’t so ecstatic about was that you can only really use them for one season if you place them on your wall. So, I had to get creative. I found a package of 8 different designs that I could use throughout the year for a reasonable price. The designs were 20” by 4”, so I thought to myself, “I can cut and paint boards to use these over and over again!” That’s just what I did! I’ve included a few photos of a couple of the boards that I’ve completed.  As you can see, the imperfections in the board add to the character of it.

If you’re interested in doing something like this, I can give you more details as to what steps I took to construct this hanging wall art. Basically, I took a 1×6 board (which I bought from my local lumber yard) and used a saw to cut it into 2.5’ segments. I then took a drill and made holes 6 inches from each side and 1 inch down from the top of the board. I used the electric sander (sandpaper and a hand tool will work as well, it will just take longer) to make the edges and holes more smooth. I bought some craft paints and ribbons at my local craft store (just the cheap tubes that are usually around 97 cents), painted the boards, waited a couple hours, applied the letters, tied the ribbon to the board, and viola! I have 8 brand new wall decorations to hang throughout the year!

So, the moral of the story… if you’re a sucker for these parties like I am - get creative when you’re being invited to all of these home parties. Try to think outside of the box and you may just be surprised by your own creativity!