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80's Party -25yr- Twister Marathon

May 2007

Janet in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

My friend was turning 25 and I needed to plan her a fabulous birthday.  I decided on an 80's theme, since that was the decade that we were born and grew up in. 

I spent about two months going around to local thrift stores and helping friends and family members sort out things in their basements and attics finding old toys and memorabilia from that decade.  I covered a large cardboard box in shiny metallic wrapping paper as a toy box, and filled it with old barbies, board games, play doh, mr potato head, barrel of monkeys, etch a sketch and other toys from the 80's.  At the party we put out the toy box, and after a couple of drinks everyone was reminiscing and playing with all of the toys. 

We decorated the walls with pictures from old tv shows and old movies posters I had found, and even some old children's sheets of the Smurfs and a New Kids On the Block t-shirt.  My friend's mother let me go through her old baby albums, and I photocopied pictures of my friend from the 80's and made picture boards to hang up at the party.  I bought a record at a thrift store, and glued a picture of my friend in the very middle.  Then all of the guests used a silver pen to sign the record as the guest book. 

For favours, I made every guest a gift bag, just like the loot bags that we used to have a birthday parties when we were little.  The boys had army camoflage bags, while the girls had Strawberry Shortcake bags.  In each bag was a bouncy ball, a Hot Wheels car, an army man, a friendship bracelet I made myself, a candy necklace and several other nostalgic toys from our past. 

The hands down favourite crowd pleaser of all though were the slap bracelets that I had special-ordered.  These stiff bracelets that  you slap on your arm are almost impossible to find in stores, and everyone was so excited that I had found them.  I bought them off a party supply store on the internet, and they took about four weeks to ship here. 

For food I bought a cupcake tower, and made two dozen french vanilla cupcakes.  I iced some of them green, some of them pink and some of them red, and drew strawberries on some of them with coloured icing.  I then wrote on six cupcakes Have A Berry Happy Birthday Leanne!" (one word on each cupcake) and put a strawberry shortcake novelty candle on the cupcake on the very top of the tower. 

We made fun foods that we used to eat as kids popcorn and hotdogs and pizza etc and put out an assortment of 80's candy such as bottlecaps pixie stix ring pops and pop rocks.  Some of the candy was hard to find but at a large specialty candy store in Toronto we were able to find most of what we were looking for. 

We made six or seven cd's of 80's music and cleared a large space in my friends living room for a dance floor.  All of the guests dressed up in 80's outfits neon and slouch socks and side ponytails and crimped hair some of the guys even came in leisure suits and sunglasses and loafers with no socks (like Miami Vice)! 

Everyone had a great time playing with all of the toys and games and once people had had a few drinks we held a Twister-marathon and gave prizes to those people who could stand for the longest.  It was a unique and fabulous party and everyone had a fantastic time!  I would definetly recommend it to anyone looking for a trip down memory lane!!"

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