NAUTICAL PARTY DECORATIONS

Tabletop centerpieces.  These were a work in progress when this picture was taken.

The photo prop.  The sand filled buckets were topped with seashells later.

My niece asked me to help her decorate for her son's first birthday party, she chose a really cool Nautical theme.  She had decided on how she wanted the table centerpieces and bought pre-made Styrofoam cutouts of anchors, sailboats, lifesavers, lighthouses, letters for the wording, and one large #1 and smaller #1's at a nearby floral supply place.  We glued a strip of sailboat printed ribbon around the top rim of the buckets then painted and glittered the #1's and hot glued them onto the fronts of the buckets.  Red #1's on the blue buckets and blue #1's on the red buckets, then we filled up the buckets with sand and painted wooden skewers yellow, skewered them into the Styrofoam cutouts and inserted them into the sand.  I made the little "Happy Birthday" signs on my computer, printed them, cut them out and glued them on a skewer and inserted that into the sand too.  We scattered some purchased seashells on the sand to and attached one helium filled balloon to each bucket.   So cool!!
The photo prop was a little harder to create.  A ready made Styrofoam blank frame at a floral supply place was expensive, so we opted to purchase an 8ft x 4ft Styrofoam Panel at Home Depot for $13.00.  My sweet hubby cut it down to 4 feet wide and 3 feet high then cut out a square opening in the center leaving an 8 inch border all around.  We glittered the frame and attached all the cutouts, we had previously glittered the letters for the wording.  I used LOW temp hot glue because the hot temp hot glue will melt the Styrofoam.
The party was awesome and lots of guests took pictures of themselves in the photo frame!