4th of July Party

Hey party people!
You may be tired of hearing about the 4th of July but I wanted to show you some pictures from our 4th of July party because some of the ideas can be used for other parties.

I had a slight panic when I saw the weather forecast call for 100% thunderstorms! 4th of July is just not the same with torrential downpour…especially when you’re expecting 10 kids at your house.

I had planned for outdoor games to keep the kids happy. Now what? Our house isn’t exactly kid-friendly or exciting.

I pulled up my big-girl party panties and realized we could make it work by converting our garage into a little event space. After all, that’s what we did for our backyard wedding reception.

I had already made this little drink stand for our outdoor celebration using two beadboard panels (1 cut in two) and four hinges. The top was made with two pieces of extra wood we had laying around. I sanded and stained them & they were ready for serving.

Hint: You can slightly see all of our window screens peeking out from behind the drink stand. We had to be creative hiding “normal” garage accessories. 

The pinwheels behind the drink stand are so simple to make.

1) Take wrapping paper or recycle brown paper bags and fold a rectangular piece like an accordion.

2) Bend the folded paper in half. Where you see the bend mark in the middle, staple to secure. Now, fan the paper out so it creates a circle.

3) With double-sided tape (if light-weight wrapping paper) or a glue gun (if heavier paper like a brown bag), attach the edges of the paper.

We served lemonade, sweet tea, cokes, and this recipe for Sangria:

Red, White & Blue Sangria 

2 large bottles of Moscato wine

1 bottle of a white wine (of your choice)

Strawberry Daiquiri Syrup

Fresh Strawberries

Fresh Blueberries

Sliced Apples (fuji)

Mix all together and add the strawberry daiquiri syrup to your liking (depending on how sweet you want it).

You could also freeze the strawberries, blueberries, and apples in ice cubes to make sure it’s chilled.

I set up two long tables in the garage for the adults and three smaller tables for the kids.

At each place setting, I had a mason jar filled with a napkin, plasticware, a straw, sparkler, and a couple of after-dinner mints. Each mason jar had a little tag I created. The tag had a blank space where guests wrote their name, that way they could keep up with their drink.

At the kid place settings, I added a fun activity page where they could fill in all the states. I downloaded it from the 30 Days Blog.

However…I don’t think any of the kids tried to fill it out. Guess when you’re on summer vacation you don’t want to do schoolwork.

To decorate the tables, I found this denium tablecloth on clearance for $10 (at Target) and an Americana looking one at Cost Plus World Market (it was a little more than $10).

The centerpieces were vases I already had. I picked up a pack of rope at my local hardware store & used my glue gun to secure it in a couple places. It easily comes off, so my vases were back to their former plain selves in no time.

I cannot get enough of these adorable water bottles. Thankfully my hoarding ways came in handy because I was able to put a couple of these at each table.

Mike (my husband) and I provided the pulled pork BBQ (recipe here), corn, and apple pies. Everyone else brought a side.

If you’re looking for an easy recipe that will feed a crowd, the crockpot BBQ is perfect!

My apple pie didn’t turn out as great as the BBQ. I’ll have to keep working on it.

My tags also came in handy to label food and drinks.

If you’d like to use these for next years 4th of July celebrations, you can download them & print them off here:

4th of July Printable Tags

My sister brought these delicious cupcakes. Aren’t they adorable?!

This was a really creative dessert idea by my friend, Kim. She cut up pieces of pound cake and then served it with a dip consisting of berries and whipped topping.

I didn’t get a picture of all the dishes, but everyone did a fabulous job! We had guinness brownies, mac n’ cheese, a broccoli salad, homemade salsa, and a mandarin salad. Needless to say, we were all stuffed.

Another thing I didn’t get a picture of (I ran out of time to take a lot pictures of this party ) were the homemade ice cream sandwiches I made. They were a hit with the kids. I’ll have to do a follow-up post with the how-to.

If that patriotic bunting looks familiar, it’s probably because I did this post on it. That is made from brown paper grocery bags!

Even though it did rain a lot on the 4th of July, we were able to get in a few sparklers and other fireworks.

Notice the difference between sweet little Leah (pic above) holding her sparkler so gently…

…And the boys, who as soon as I was taking their picture said, “Heidi, look how close I can get my hand to the fire.”

The sad part was…I snapped away. Not sure I’m ready to be a mom, yet.

Thankfully, I was able to get a less dangerous picture of the boys.

Do you know what they’re reinacting?

I thought they were saluting.

Nope.

They are pretending they’re the statue of Liberty. Pretty patriotic, huh?

You can see by the soggy mess on our patio that it was less than perfect weather for the 4th of July.

We still had a great time, though!

So the lesson to this party story is…

…you can always improvise.

I strung some white lights all around the garage, added some tables, decorations and we had an instant indoor party room!

…Oh yeah, and one more lesson…

Don’t stand by & take a picture when kids say, “Look how close I can get my hand to the sparkler flame.”

 Did you have a beautiful 4th of July? Did your celebration get rained out?

Stop back in this Wednesday and I’ll show you a way to create your own custom party plates.

p.s. This is YOUR official invite to the party… join in on the Parties for Pennies Facebook page, Twitter, and Pinterest!