My oldest, Cassidy, turns 14 this week. It seems insane to say that! I remember when she came to live with us at just three years old… the sweetest little thing in the world. For her friend party she said she REALLY wanted to have a Taylor Swift party, but not all of her friends were TS fans and she was on the fence about actually going with that theme. So I came up with the “Club Red” idea. Taylor Swift really acknowledges that her fans are why she is where she is and has been hosting “Club Red” parties during concerts. She invites select concert attendees back for a meet-and-greet and has a whole room all done up with food and swag, etc. So that is what we did for the party! Here are the invites I put together:
Vermont in October is unpredictable, so I dedicated our basement to the party site. Turning it into a full club atmosphere wasn’t an option, but I added some fun, inexpensive elements that set the scene and made for a fun time for the girls.
I set up this corner for the girls to use as a photobooth backdrop. I downloaded the Pocketbooth App and they used my iPad as a camera. After taking picktures with the app they sent the photo strip to my printer to print so they could bring it home. I made the props with my Cricut Explore. I also printed pictures from Taylor’s Instagram account and added them to a frame. I made the light up “RED” letters out of Styrofoam and spray paint – I made them similar to the way I made my Foam EEK Letters, except I glued them to a foam base and then wrapped that with mini Christmas lights. As you can also sort of see, I hung Christmas lights throughout the room.
I also blew up some of her images and used them as subtle decor.
I turned my craft table into a food table and covered all of my craft supplies with red plastic tablecloths. I served sandwiches, chips, popcorn, strawberries and Shirley Temples. I love the tulle tassel garland I put together for the backdrop. It was super easy and I’ll share a tutorial soon! The branches with clips are borrowed from my Hot Cocoa Station.
Did you see that awesome cake? It came from Cakeistry, a local Vermont bakery that does amazing cakes! She did an 8″ round red velvet with buttercream frosting and fondant decorations, including that spectacular TS face!
I hung these mini disco balls all over the ceiling. The best part? These were my two younger kids idea! I made them out of styrofoam balls that I spray painted silver, glittered and then hot glued rhinestones too. I was using supplies on hand so I didn’t have enough rhinestones to cover the whole ball, but we thought these turned out great!
The girls seemed really happy with the favors! I picked up .25 notebooks at Walmart – I got the purple ones with butterflies, totally Taylor Swift style! I also bagged some ring pops and topped them with a “You’re a Real Gem” topper. Lastly I added some red nail polish and tied everything up with a black ribbon. I used Avery Printable Bag Toppers with Bags for the ring pops. I’ve made the bag toppers available as a free printable below – they’ll fit standard ziploc sandwich bags.
Download the You’re a Real Gem Bag Topper.
I didn’t plan any activities for the girls – they had the basement to themselves – they listened to music, chatted, took pictures, etc. I think everyone had a great time and the party turned out as I hoped.
