My two gorgeous boys are born 3 days but 3 years apart so one was turning 11 and the other 8 so we really had to come up with a theme that made them BOTH happy! My littlest likes anything NEON and so that was his choice for one half of the theme. My oldest loves old time Westerns and also the culture and believes of the American Indians and thus the NEON POW WOW was born. I’m not sure what it was about this theme but it pushed my creative juices up about 100 knotches and I went crazy creating NEON everything forthe event. It was my biggest DIY to date – I went DIY bannanas!
I had used a super cool image of my boys for their invitation and I knew that I wanted to incorporate the image at the party. I took the raw image and saturated all the colors in photoshop and it turned all the colors neon which was perfect! I used two large blown up pictures in the main room and then two for the patio table. I surrounded the photos with ribbon in the main room and I loved the effect it created.
I had also seen a very simple image of a teepee on a t.shirt on etsy and so I had my husband tape it out on the wimdows of the main room. I also bought two t.shirts with the teepee image for my boys to wear during the party to tie everything together. I love white as my base when creating parties and white with the NEON accents made everything pop. I spray painted (neon) some fantastic American Indian molds I found on ebay and then spray-painted the doilies to place on the plates that were the base for the Indian molds.
I knew I wanted an activity for the little ones on the outside patio so I went about finding a large piece of wood and painted a large neon bullseye on it. The kids loved using it as target practice and it was super fun. I also handmade a table runner of feathers that was originally going to be used for the main table but it wasn’t quite neon eneough so I used it outside. The drinks table was so fun with Big Chief cocktails and a neon rattlesnake that I painted with some glitter so as not to scare the kiddies!!
I spent the morning of the party downtown at the flower mart and created two very colorful flower vases and then I spray painted some 99cent store little vases to add pops of color. I colaborated with the AMAZING Julie of Blue Cupcakes and I was thrilled with the cakes she created that fit perfectly into my theme. I mean the little cactus cupcakes were to die for! I also requested some white and neon cookies with a hole in the center to place on top of the little bottles I had spray-painted white.
For my outside patio I wanted to create a scene out of one of my son’s favorite Westerns so I set about painting a teepee neon and making a Buffalo banner to put around it. I also created a little fireplace from sticks that I had found in my garden. My son loved it! It was important to my son Dashiell to remember the wisdom of the Indians and to honor them so we made little signs with American Indian quotes and placed them around the party.
For the goodie bags I hand painted Buffalo heads on each bag using a stencil that I found on etsy. The effect was simple and cool. I then added a little sac of Indians a headdress and a bow and arrow as my party favors.
The big attraction at the party was really the mechanical bull that we hired – the kids went crazy for it and I would really recommend it for any party!
The NEON POW WOW Party will forever live in my boys hearts and my jeans as they are covered in neon spray-paint!”
