Thanksgiving DIY Decor

A month ago, one of my son's teachers asked me if I'd be willing to help coordinate one of their holiday class parties.

I thought, oh……this new school really gets their parents involved…..

And sure, I'm happy to help.  

I used to coordinate large events for Nike for goodness gracious.  What's a small class party?

Since I'm now a stay-at-home mom.   Isn't that what stay-at-home mom's are supposed to do?

Anyway, I thought that having a little project at my son's new school would be fun.

Well... lemme tell ya….  it wasn't all fun, and the project sure wasn't little.

Since being assigned to coordinate my son's Thanksgiving party, I've obsessed over the whole darn thing.

From food…

To decorations…

To communicating with other parents…

To managing expectations…

You name it, I obsessed over it.

It also didn't help that my son's teacher would do periodic checks every week to touch base on the party, which would freak me out.

I mean really, it's just a Thanksgiving party for kids.  Right?

Well….thankfully the party happened today and it was a pretty great event.

The kids all had a great time and so did their parents.

Thank the good Lord!

Now I can finally take a deep breath, put up my holiday DIY decorations, and stop thinking about all this Thanksgiving stuff.

Oh wait, Thanksgiving is next week...

Good grief!

Well, at least I have some really nice decorations this year that are now ready to go….which is a positive.

So, if you happen to still be planning for Thanksgiving and are in need of some inexpensive and easy DIY decorations, I'd like to share a couple of the ones that got rave reviews from both kids and their parents.

A "give thanks" banner that I made out of grow-grain ribbon, felt squares, letters printed off of my printer (cinnamon cake font) and stapled to each square.

This hung nicely in the party room with two thumb tacks.

It also was great for taking a beautiful Thanksgiving class photo.  Parents just loved this picture.

For place cards, I made these little boats out of scrapbooking paper, tape, popsicle sticks, round labels, a sharpee, orange curling ribbon, glue stick, and mini chocolate cupcakes (no icing). 

Here's what they looked like on the tables.  The kids loved them and thought they were pretty awesome.

The absolute BEST part of the party for me was when one of the kids screamed out as he was leaving, "That was the best Thanksgiving party I've ever been to!".

Granted, he's only four and probably only started speaking in full sentences last year, but his enthusiasm works for me.

Happy Thanksgiving Ya'll !