Thanksgiving Party Inspiration

This weekend Z and I hosted our fifth annual Thanksgiving party. What started as just a fun way to get together with friends before the craziness of the holidays sets in has now grown to one of our favorite days of the year. This year, more than 50 of our dearest friends stopped by our house for turkey and all the trimmings! Though I’m not much of a “party inspiration/craft blogger” (all of my photos from the evening are far from “perfectly styled”!), I thought I’d share some of what we did, in case you have a holiday party of your own coming up soon!

thanksgiving party decor(turkey prep, and last-minute centerpiece)

The day before the party, I realized we didn’t have a centerpiece for our Thanksgiving table. Z’s mom had given us some decorative gourds and, with a coat of white spray paint, they became our centerpiece. I also spray painted one of those cheap, comes-with-the-bouquet glass flower vases, popped in some flowers that were still going strong from a bouquet that Z got me the week before, and voila! At the very end of the table, holding the flat ware, are some milk glass jars I found at a thrift store (.79 each!) a while back. I remembered them after I spray painted the gourds, and they ended up fitting just perfectly. The burlap table runner is recycled from the wedding.

thanksgiving centerpiece idea

And, of course, what party is complete with a photo booth? Well, if you can call my ghetto-fab set-up a “photobooth” :) I downloaded Sofortbild about an hour before guests arrived, plugged my old D80 into my computer, faced it towards our brick fire place, and set it to fire by remote. The program allowed us to see the photos as soon as they were captured. Knowing there would be children at the party–and since we were just taking pictures for fun–I didn’t want to set up any lights, but you could, and have even better photos! (This is also second year we printed tshirts for the party [the “5 and turkey” shirts below]–Z and I designed the logo, then screen printed them with my Yudu.)

diy photobooth

We feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends to celebrate with us every year! :)