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Just because your
budget is limited...just because you don't have much help...just
because....you can have creative and festive decorations at your next
Scottish event!
We'll share a few of our Scottish Weekend decorating themes with you in
hopes they will inspire you to take them a step further...or, lead you to
think of creative ways to celebrate next time you invite guests to come to
your organization for an "occasion" be it a Burns' supper or a Games
reception...or anything that you have to celebrate your Scottish heritage.
We usually make placemats to suit the occasion...a nice souvenir of the
event that's free. We always have our pins...and we always have hand-made
chocolate that is in the shape of whatever our theme is for the year.
(Thanks to Faye Gay - Mel's cousin - who makes our candy each year!)
For Saturday evening, we rent - that's RENT - greenery from our local
florist. He comes and sets up on Saturday afternoon...and then retreives
his material on Monday morning. This makes a wonderful difference when
you are transforming a sterile and pretty ugly room into a fairyland for
an evening.
Bear in mind that all of the decorations here were done for a group of
about 400. That's LOTS of tables.
You'll see right here - a few of our Scottish Weekend pins. These have
become collector's items! They all represent various themes we have used
for Scottish Weekend in Moultrie.
If you do an event each year, there are a few things you can do to
prepare...and that will form the basis of your decorating. Haunt thrift
stores and second-hand stores. There's decorating treasure to be found!
Garland is lovely and cheap. Buy all you find. We have green garland,
gold and silver and copper and red and purple...buy it all.
When Christmas ribbon goes on sale after the holiday...look for the
"plaid" ribbon and buy as much as you can. Anytime you can find the
"curling" kind of ribbon...buy a few rolls in various colors...you'll
eventually use any color you have.
In 2003, our weekend falls on Valentine's weekend...so, Friday night we're
going to have a Braveheart Celebration with - what else? - Valentine's!
We're inviting our Family Tree readers to send us their old
Valentine's...and we'll follow through on that theme for the Old-Fashioned
Dinner and Ceilidh. I already know that we'll use red and pink and white
tablecloths...with the same color napkins and dessert or salad
plates...but alternated so red tablecloths will get pink napkins and
plates...with hearts on them if we can find them...See? We'll figure out
a way to have something tall on the tables too...last year, we simply used
plastic champagne glasses with red, white, and blue napkins stuffed
jauntily inside them.
Just keep your next event in the back of your mind and buy what you see
that's on sale...votive candles, big candles...
Ask your local nursery to save baby food jars for you...great disposable
candleholders!
You can use plain plastic cups in the color that coordinates with your
decorations...just fill them with builder's sand or beach sand or other
clean sand...and poke a candle in the middle. If you want to be
extra-fancy, tie a plaid ribbon bow around the cup!
A garage sale produced a broken plastic castle about 10 years ago.
Repaired with cardboard...spray painted gold...it's always on the table
where our VIP folks are seated...along one bookend that represent some
kind of king...also sprayed gold.
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We found a treasure trove of 1999 and 2002
Scottish Weekend Pins. If you
would like to purchase one send $5.00 to Scottish Weekend Pins, PO Box
2828,
Moultrie, GA 31776-2828.
 What else have
we done?
Watch this section to see more photographs of Scottish decorations
we've done. We made 3-dimensional thistles that have been used at a dozen
events including an event at Sotheby's in New York City. We made metal
Scottish galleys that have been used numerous times...and even black
construction paper Scottie dogs...that have been used and used and used.
We made the cutest little Scottish people out of the old fashioned
two-legged clothespins... although they take 23-steps I'm told (I didn't
count) to make.
We made the cutest little pins for favors one year using a poker chip for
the backing...a little circle of tartan glued on the poker chip with a
tiny piece of that narrow, narrow ribbon sticking out...and one of those
tiny little chenille balls glued to the middle of the top...with a pin
glued on the back, it's a tiny Scottish bonnet...that anyone would enjoy!
The entire point of all this...is that you don't have to spend huge
amounts of money to make festive, beautiful, creative decorations.
Please send in photographs and ideas...
Aye,
Beth |
