Pinterest Party Ideas: What Works (and What Doesn’t)

Pinterest party ideas – what works and what doesn’t

Have you ever tried anything from Pinterest, a craft or a recipe?

I’ve tried many different things and half of the things worked out wonderfully and the other half, not so much.

Here’s an example.

For Eden’s 7^th birthday we had a winter wonderland P.J birthday party (her birthday is in Dec.)

Some Pinterest ideas work exactly as promised.

These full-size chocolate bars wrapped as snowmen were simple, affordable, and a total hit.

Even though it was a little sad to see them ripped open so quickly, they were one of those details that made the party feel special without requiring a ton of effort.

I love these..it was so sad to see them all ripped open…

 We saw this one idea that I thought would be fun for the living room.
You buy a bunch of plastic party tablecloths in different colors and tape them to the ceiling, giving a kind of circus feel.

We decided to get this project up and ready the night before the party since we had a feeling that it would take some time…
This did not go over well….

We tried using masking tape, that didn’t hold well enough, then we tried using some grey duct tape…that held or so we thought.

We came down the next morning and the entire thing was on the floor with both cats jumping, rolling and shredding it all up…and the ceiling had tons of sticky grey spots from where the tape was. We actually had to repaint the ceiling it was that bad.  All for nothing….so that failed!

Not every Pinterest idea survives real life.

This one looked fantastic online — colourful tablecloths taped to the ceiling to create a circus-style effect. In theory, it was fun and creative. In reality, gravity, tape, and cats had other plans.

This is looking straight up at the ceiling

By morning, everything was on the floor.

The tape failed, the cats went wild, and we were left with shredded plastic and sticky residue all over the ceiling — bad enough that we actually had to repaint.

Lesson learned: not every idea is worth forcing, no matter how good it looks online.

We also tried to make elf shoes out of napkins, that turned out nicely and they were really cute.

These were a win.

The elf shoes were easy to make, held their shape, and added a festive touch to the table.

Sometimes the smaller, simpler ideas are the ones that actually translate well from Pinterest to real life.

I look like Vanna White holding these don’t I? 

One of my favorite ideas that we didn’t get a chance to use as it turned out to be a rainy mild day in December.  Filling balloons with food colored water and letting them freeze.

Then you remove the balloon and line them in the drive way or walkway. They look like glass, colored Christmas ornaments.

The last idea from Pinterest, was the water bottles, we relabeled them with stickers that read “Melted Snowman Juice” I was surprised at how many children we had to explain to what this meant. (encase you don’t get it, a snow man melted would be water…)

This idea needed more explaining than expected.

The water bottles were relabeled as “Melted Snowman Juice,” which made perfect sense to adults — less so to some of the kids. Still, it added personality to the party and gave everyone something to laugh about.

I blew the candles out before the kids arrived, it was to make the house smell festive

 We made rainbow fruit kabobs (also from Pinterest) they were fantastic and looked beautiful.

We had Christmas Crackers that you snap and get prizes, tissue hats and jokes out of.

I warned the kids that it would make a loud popping sound but some of them were a little terrified….Oops..

Eden heard all the ‘all you want for Christmas is your 2 front teeth’ jokes over Chrsitmas

So we had 26 friends over for Eden’s birthday party.

The girls (my teen girls) wore Santa’s hats and they were Eden’s little helpers and we all had a fantastic, exhausting time.

Pinterest helped give me great ideas that I would not otherwise have thought of and also made this little girls birthday party that much better.

But the real reason is we sit 4 days away from Adam’s 6^th birthday party that we are holding at Cooper’s Marsh, a marsh land with a boardwalk where we are having an animal themed party with animal themed costumes and an animal parade for 20 all by the request of my little guy.

Pinterest isn’t about perfection — it’s about inspiration.

Some ideas work, some fail spectacularly, and some never even get the chance because life gets in the way. But trying them is part of what makes these moments memorable.

So here we go again, to the extremes of making wonderful parties with details that are more geared for us parents to enjoy and ‘wow’ over, in hopes that it will make for the most memorable of birthdays for our children.