My son just celebrated his 7th birthday with a Basketball Bash. I choose black and white referee stripes with touches of orange as our color scheme. The invitation sets the standard for any party so I wanted it to be fun and unique.
I found these great black boxes and designed stickers for the tops with each guests name on them.
Inside was filled with white crinkle paper, the invitation, and an insert card with additional information PLUS a mini basketball. My son was very excited to hand deliver these to each guest!
Insert card letting guests know that dinner & dessert would be served and asking them to bring a swim suit and towel! You can't always fit everything onto the invitation so this is a nice option!
When guests arrived at the Basketball Bash they were greeted by basketball balloon pillars and wreath I made. For the balloon pillars I started with a basic pvc frame and layered 4 balloons that were tied and twisted together. On top sat these fabulous inflatable basketballs I scored in the clearance department. They are meant for the pool so this was a great time of year to snag them on sale!
The dining table was covered with black and white striped fabric that I cut to fit. The edges were raw but now I can re-use this for another project! For the centerpieces I took cheap basketballs and cut holes in the center, filled with foam, placed white crinkle paper on top and stuck in a wooden skewer with a round paper image I had designed.
Above the table I hung orange balloons and pictures of my son over the last 7 years from yarn (pssssst yarn is way cheaper than ribbon!). This was such a great way to fill up such a large space for very little money. It made an big impact in the room and I loved watching everyone walk around to look at each picture! I wiped a couple of tears away while hanging some of those pictures. It was a trip down memory lane for sure...sniff sniff.
My son's school shoes just happen to be black and white basketball shoes so placed on top of an orange box and set in the middle of the table was the perfect accent. The boys were gathered around those shoes like they were gold. Oh to be a 7 year old boy where the only thing that matters are your new school shoes! Simple basketball plates were topped with orange napkins that were wrapped in matching basketball napkin rings I designed.
I covered a small bookcase with black and white fabric and this served as a great place for the food. Cups of cheeseballs were "FREE THROWS", deli sandwhiches were "SLAM DUNKS", 3 melon balls on a stick were "3 POINTERS, and orange Gatorade was served up as "ORANGE TIME OUTS."
The dessert table featured a scoreboard backdrop that I designed with my son's birth date and age as the stats. I simply printed off the copy at Kinko's for $1.75, glued it to a piece of foam board, and hung it from ribbon.
I made the dessert stands by sticking foam basketballs onto dowel rods and gluing them into wooden discs. These made the perfect little display for all of my goodies! I could not for the life of me find orange plates so when I spied some orange Frisbee's I knew I could make them work. I simply flipped them over and filled them with my sweets. They had the perfect "lip" around the edge and sat flat like a plate.
I designed the dessert labels to look like clipboards that contained the name of each sweet: Orange chocolate covered popcorn served in orange swirl cupcake liners were "MVP POPCORN", Donut holes dipped in orange chocolate were "DOUBLE DRIBBLE DONUTS", Mini basketball cookies were "SLAM DUNK SUGAR COOKIES", and orange gumballs were "GAMETIME GUMBALLS". Then there was the cake that I dropped half way through decorating GASP. There was no salvaging it so without missing a beat I ran down to WalMart and picked up this basic white cake. Then I added some orange sixlets on top with the "7" sparkler candle and called it a day. No use spending time wiping tears over something I couldn't fix. No one was the wiser and the cake worked just perfect.
I planned this party back in July when here in the midwest we were fighting the deathly heat. So playing basketball themed games outside did not sound like a good plan. Instead I rented this awesome inflatable slide that had these not so cute dolphins coming off the sides, but whatever it's hot outside right?! Well the day of the party was the COLDEST day of the summer. Those poor boys were shivering, but toughed it out because the slide was so fun. Oh how we try to plan the perfect party, but no matter how hard we try we can't control everything...
The boys had a blast banging on the basketball pinata and walked away with bags full of goodies.
Favors were also basketball cups filled with trinkets that we sent each child home with! I sat the favors inside a basketball themed box my son uses in his room to hold his crayons in. The box was placed on top of my son's nightstand which just happened to be a basketball hoop table. I always shop around my house for items to use as decor for my parties before going out and buying something.
I hope you enjoyed my Basketball Bash. Please stop by Party Like Paula and let me help you make your next party perfect!
Vendor Credits:
Printables, Birthday Shirt & Styling: Paula from Party Like Paula
Photography: Taber Lacie Photograpy
Black boxes, foam basketballs, mini basketballs: Oriental Trading Co.
Mini Basketball Cookies: The Talented Cookie
Basketball Pinata: Target
Black and white striped fabric: Cali- Gal Stiches
Basketball Favor Cups: Dollar Tree
