Prom Decorations: Enchantment Under the Stars

 

Another prom is in the books. I had a great time figuring out how to hide the cafeteria lunch line with a wall of sets that were a series of photo ops. The lover head lighting fixture provided a structure for hanging clouds and stars on fishing line. One of the lightbulbs was removed so that a converter could be inserted to provide a power source for the LED lights that strung in and out of the clouds. I lost the remote in all of the things I had to move, so they stayed blue the whole night, but it would have been fun to make some purples and pinks appear in the clouds as well.

This is the first year I ever used balloon arches, but they left over from the previous Teacher Appreciation Week events and so I borrowed and rearranged them.

The Rocket and Paper moon photo booths were something I made in 2017 for a church prom, and kept in case the need would arise.

The hot air balloon hooked on to the top of the set. I added the burlap ribbon and rope at the last minute. Originally I thought the balloon would be twice as wide but I cut the angles to sharp and when it closed up it made the entire ellipsoid, instead of just the front half of the balloon. It looks a little more balloon shape this way than the bottom half of the balloon as I had first planned.

Seniors came in early for their pictures. The lighting was better before they went to dinner and came back for "senior lead out" and the dance. A simple color scheme sometimes is enough to have a big impact, but a coherent theme is the icing on the cake. After dancing and chatting with students all night, I have to say it was a pretty enchanting evening...under the stars.

Cloud 9: Making Clouds from Paper Lanterns

I never imagined how easy it would be to make home-made clouds that look like the real thing.

You can make one in a couple of hours. I used a hot glue gun with large hot glue sticks, and attached about 4 round paper lanterns together. You can cut small holes on either side if you want them to fit together a little more snuggly and have a large whole between each chamber so that you can easily string lights inside the entire cloud. But I like to keep them a little less like one blob and more like separate billows of the same cloud. I was able to poke my finger through the sides after they were glued. Use lots of glue in a circle about the circumference of an apple, and then old them together until the glue cools.

Then I put more circles of hot glue on one lantern on a time and held a handful of Poly-fil against the glue spots. bit by bit, you cover the cloud, going back to check on bald spots. I also used quilt batting to cover the wholes in the bottom and some of the cracks before adding Poly-fil stuffing to the top of the batting. The stuffing sticks better to the paper lantern than the batting though. Just kind of pull it over the holes to hide the fact that these are really lanterns. I made sure that the hanging loops were at the top, and plan on using fishing line to hang it from the ceiling for our Enchantment Under the Stars prom. I have some LED lights to help them glow pink or purple. The more varied the sizes of lanterns the better. Keep the small ones on top and sides. 

It takes about 10 large glue sticks and a little more than half a pound of Polyfil for one cloud. I made about six and still half half of my 13.5 box of stuffing left. (It was $35 a box).

Whether you are decorating a bedroom, or for baby shower or bridal shower. These clouds can create a really special ambiance that makes you feel like you are on cloud 9!

 

Painting a Night Sky Back Drop

We've got some fun events coming up at my school. A spring concert, and a prom, with the theme: Enchantment under the stars. A starry & cloudy night sky killed two birds with one stone, just like last year when the prom theme was Enchanted Forrest, and the spring program was Into the Woods. I love working smarter, so I can work harder on other projects. We started with a blue background, starting with the darkest blue at the top, and adding lighter blue to the paint pan, until it was a sky blue at the bottom. A couple of my students got a kick out of giving our stars of the silver screen (from our Hooray for Hollywood prom) some wacky features during the process.

As soon as that dried, I had two more students add the stars. The more the better. They wanted to space them all evenly, so I had to remind them to think in clusters and make some bigger than the others. Most of the stars were 6-8 feet off the ground so we tilted the sets down on a chair to make it more accessible.

When it comes to making clouds, it's easy to over-do it. Start with darker values. Just subtly shift the value from the background. And I used a brush that was about 4 inches wide to start.  Then I started adding lighter colors until there was some areas of white, usually around the edges and tops of clouds using a one inch brush. It would make more sense to have a moon reflecting light back onto the clouds, but I'm saving a big moon for another photo op. I like to use an almost dry brush and scrub it on in circular motions so that it doesn't come off as a flat, coloring-book-style cloud. It didn't take long, and it is gratifying to knock out what is essentially a 32 foot mural in a day.

 

Enchanted Forrest Prom

This year our school prom had an Enchanted Forrest theme, so the first thing I did was find last year's beach themed paintings to repurpose. I did a sketch on copy paper to trace onto plastic and then projected it onto the the old paintings for students to trace with chalk. I love the fact that a $5 roll of vynal wall paper could be used to decorate three proms. (If you were to flip it over, you'd see large black and white movie stars from our Hollywood prom.)

Next we did the underpainting. I have some students who can be trusted to paint large areas even with their visual impairments. And then came layers of bark, grass, and details like pink in the skies.

I freshened up the underside of the paper maché mushrooms from our Alice in Wonderland prom. The packing tape was hot glued along the stem and outter rim of the umbrella to look more fungal.

Our high school social studies teacher painted glasses and vases for stems, and hot glued class beads to bowls for mushroom tops.

And then I put battery operated candles inside the stems and viola! You have a mushroom lantern.

Woodland flower center pieces were made with details such as small animals, butterflies, pebble paths, and moss. When they were surrounded by tea lights, they felt even more enchanting.

Then came the big event, which for the first time in years, was off campus. The venue was beautiful and the senior lead out made me cry. Some of my students who are graduating high school have been my students since first grade. It is going to be extra hard to say goodbye to them.

 

The Stars Come Out for our Hollywood Themed Prom

It is no small task trying to convert your school cafeteria into a prom venue. Students had just eaten lunch there hours earlier and wanted to go some place special. In shopping around for a local venue I was finding that $4,000 was the average price for a space that wasn't much better than the one we had for free on campus...other than the fact that I was left with the task of trying to essentially make a wall to hide the 40 foot lunch line...all for about $250.00.  Here's how I did it.

I started with a large roll of vinyl that I bought at the local Rebuilding Macon store. People donate old home building supplies for resale and the proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity. I got a giant role of wall-paper like/ canvas like vinyl for $5.00 (normally it's $10.00). 

One roll was enough to paint a 12-foot long Hollywood sign, a 10-foot long Marquee, and 4 8-foot high paintings of stars. These were stapled to large boards. I taped dowels on the tops of the corners and hung black table cloths between two pairs to provide a background for the film decorations I made of laminated bulletin board paper and pictures of stars and students. 

I used about $22 worth of black and gold balloons to hang from the lights and make center pieces. These balloon towers were just wooden dowels wrapped in paper towels and black felt and to hold it vertically in some glass vases I had in my room. Two black balloons were tied together and the tie straddled the dowel, and then two more black balloons stacked perpendicularly on top. Then four gold, alternating black and gold until it reached the top with about 32 balloons per tower.

Gold fringe hung along the windows on either side of the room. Clapboards and gold stars were placed on tables and hung from the ceiling along with the 10 red and and 10 gold table runners which were $1.00 each. 

Of course food plays a starring role in keeping with the theme. Bags of popcorn,  chocolate covered strawberries that look like tuxedos, and "Hollywood" carved into a watermelon, all added to the festive feel. The marquee sign I painted, "Now Showing: Prom Starring: The Class of 2023" covered the try-drop window into the dish room

Buying photo props were worth the $12, because it served as an activity. Anything that helps people come together and be silly is going to make it feel more like a party. And of course our beloved AJ the DJ keeps everyone moving with his great play lists and personal touches. It really did feel like everyone was having fun!

Most of my $250 budget was taken up with our big Oscar cut-out, the red carpet, red curtain, gold fringe, balloons, and table runners.  Last year's Alice in Wonderland themed prom didn't cost nearly that much, because I had two years to do things like bring in broken umbrellas and newspaper to transform into mushrooms. Plus,This year I felt like I had a month to paint and glue. Thank goodness for online shopping, and a big shout out to the the maintenance guys who built the panels in two days!

As I was setting up I walked into the building, past this year's long wall mural, into the cafeteria lobby where my first mural remains, and peered into my latest "installation" a prom that would be dissembled that night, and realized that even though some of these visual moments are fleeting, I hope I helped make our school a more positive environment for years to come.

 

Prom: A Night in Wonderland

All the Wonderland decorations came together for one truly magical and wonderful evening of prom. We used the cafeteria, which was not a fancy venue, but it was free and easy to transport the decorations (except for the heavy wooden panels, which my paraprofessional and I moved three times this week, leaving bruises up and down my forearms.) Worth it. Here's how it all turned out.

Having a a second photo area away from the dance floor made it easy for couples to leave the crowd and have a private photo shoot.

Giant Chess pieces and an optional Wonderland sign helped bring the spirit of the theme into the photo backdrop.

More photo options: The Cheshire cat can either be used to show off your beautiful prom clothes, or hide it depending on which spot you choose.

One of our graduating seniors showed me his pocket watch which displays time in Braille, before I handed him one of our big pocket watch decorations to feel.

Draped table cloths and rose topiaries helped to hide the cafeteria food line.

We had about 5 to 7 student-made hats serve as the centerpieces for each table grouping of 8 seats. It fit with the Mad Hatter Tea Party. You can see Alice's legs in the background.

 There were also vases of half painted roses and playing cards "flying out" of the top.

Keys and doorknob decorations were practically free to make. If students don't get the reference, they can read the book. Let our prom open the door, to your heart.

Kristie, our amazing food lady knows what our kids will eat and still managed to dress it up and keep with the theme!

The local news station sent a camera man who is shown here shooting our decorations hanging over the dance floor.

We had the movie that inspired the prom, playing silently in the corner during the dance.