On June 12th was my husbands 50th birthday, so I give you a birthday decor article! This is also an homage to Canadian Dollar Stores!

I first designed a banner for the party. But without a theme in mind, it was difficult, but I came to the plan of red and turquoise! Big surprise, my favorite colours, of course.  They can be good for a mans birthday party too, right? But now I was committed to the red and turquoise theme, that is usually when it becomes impossible to match anything else. BUT in my visit through the dollar store, I found everything I wanted and more!!! I went there for tissue paper only, but ended up finding ALL my other decorations for the party too.

First of all, the Canadian dollar stores (Dollarama) are WAYYYYYYY better than the US Dollar Tree or Dollar General. I always find what I want, and there is much more selection of craft materials, and better quality items.  Ironically, 15 years ago, quite the opposite was true.

So here is what I found for the party.  It may be a small thing, but to find the colours I wanted without having to go to 15 stores makes me unbelievably happy.  Then to have it all for a $1, is bliss.

I love these Picks.  I put them into each slice of the birthday cake, and I was delighted with the kids that were at the party started collecting them off other peoples empty plates!

The biggest impact decoration was the tissue paper paper balls for which I made a video demonstration for you, however I still have to edit it.  I promise to post it soon.

I made 15 large tissue paper balls, and 6 small half ones that I attached on the walls, and hung the large ones over the house.  There were solid red, solid blue, and mixed colour balls.  Some were pointed tips, others were rounded chrysanthmum ones.  I got lots of compliments, and they really added to the party atmosphere.

***WARNING: I had my first crafting injury making the balls.  While cutting through too many sheets of tissue paper, I was really using a lot of force on the scissors to cut.  After cutting all the balls, my thumb was numb.  Hours later, my thumb was still numb.  Two weeks later, my thumb is still numb.  I apparently have damaged the nerve inside my thumb where the scissors were pressing, and the nerve has died off.  My doctor has told me that the nerve will eventually grow back, but it will take many months.  In the mean time, the annoyance of having a no feeling in my thumb was not worth the savings on making my own tissue paper balls!  Learn from my lesson, don’t cut through too many tissue paper sheets!

Anyways, here was another very economical decoration.  I bought vases at the dollar store and filled them with tinted water using food colouring.  By the way, it is impossible to find liquid food colouring anymore, so I had to use gel colouring.  The gel made the water kind of hazy, andit was difficult to dilute.  In the future, I would have bought red and blue gatorade, or drink mix colouring to tint the water.  I put floating candles (again from the dollar store) in each one, and placed them as the centrepiece on the buffet table.

We also bought a disposable helium tank at the party store and put red and blue balloon bunches all over the property.

I spent $60 at the dollar store, and $25 for the helium tank.  For as decorated as the house was, I think that is pretty amazing!  Call me Budget-Buster Martha!

And at the end of the party when the alcohol is gone, the ladies can dress up like Vegas showgirls!!!