Party Favors - Birthday Cigars

Cigars are a great party favor when you have men at your party.  Plus, a lot of ladies love them too. 

The Task: Make an alternative party favor for my "Fabulous" birthday party.  The first favor was a fabulous feather boa.  

The Ingredients: good, not-too-expensive cigars, clear zip bags for each cigar (the shop will give you these for free if you just ask), card stock, scissors, computer, printer, some type of computer program that allows you to do graphics (I used Microsoft Word), stapler, glue stick

The Purchase Locations: A Cigar shop in Downtown LA (referred by a friend who frequents the place, so the owner gave me a good deal), an office supply store

The Cost: Approx. $6.00

It only took me: about 20 minutes

How to:
1. Make a template for the cigar wrapper in your graphics program.  Create a 3 x 1/2 inch long rectangle.  Then, place a 1 inch oval in the center of the rectangle.  Add whatever graphics you choose to the center of the oval. (I added a star, my initials and the year).  Copy and paste as many wrappers as you can to each sheet of card stock. 

2. Print out the wrappers, cut each one out, then wrap each one around the center of the cigar.  Add a little bit of glue to the end of the wrapper to seal it around the cigar.

3. Place the wrapped cigar into the zip bag and seal the bag.

4. Make a template for the "Thank You for Coming" tag in your graphics program.  Create a 2x3 inch rectangle. Add whatever graphics you choose to the bottom of the rectangle.  (I added a star graphic and a "Thank You for Coming" phrase).  Copy and paste as many rectangles as you can to each sheet of card stock. 

5. Print out the "Thank You for Coming" tags, cut each one out, then fold each one in half and staple it over the top of the sealed cigar zip bag.

T-Shirt & Wine Glass Party Favors

If you live in LA, you know that pole dance fitness classes and parties have been popular for a while.  This particular party was held at Allure Dance & Fitness Studio (http://www.alluredancestudio.com/). 

When coming up with party favor ideas, I always think of what my dad tells me whenever I want to get him a gift.  He always says,"Don't buy me any junk." Because of this, I am a big fan of giving guests party favors that they can actually use.  So, the favors I came up with for this party were favors that the guests could not only use, but that they could use during the party.

Guests were given their favors as soon as they arrived at the party.

The party consisted of a 30-minute reception period that Allure calls "Mingle Time".  During this time, guests were invited to enjoy wine in their "Keep Calm and Drink Wine" wine glass favor. 

There is also certain attire required for such parties.  So, tank tops were decorated with a "Keep Calm and Dance On" logo.  Guests were encouraged to wear their shirts during the party.

The stencils for the t-shirts and the glasses were made using a friend's Cricut machine (www.cricut.com) that she forgot she had.  This machine is the best for cutting out perfect stencils in seconds.

The image was applied to the t-shirt using my same friend's at-home screen printing machine (they run about $100.00), which she also stumbled upon as she went through her craft closet.    She had so many cool crafting things I didn't want to leave her house.  I was there for two days straight...going craft crazy.  It was great.

The image on the wine glass was applied using glass frosting paint.  This paint was so cool.  I never even knew it existed.  You can get it from just about any craft store.  It makes the glass look frosted by just painting on the glass surface, letting it dry for a few minutes, then rinsing the glass with cold water.  I wanted to frost all the glasses in the house after I discovered this stuff. 

I added my signature touch - a pink rhinestone - on top of all the crowns on the tank tops and the wine glasses.  I used E-6000 glue to make sure the stones wouldn't fall off.      

Finally, I tied each shirt with a pink bow and tucked them into the wine glasses so they could be properly presented to each guest.

NOTE: Applying the stencils to the glass was pretty tough.  I had to apply each word separately (and evenly), and adhere it to the glass with pieces of tape. Then, I had issues with the stencil slipping 'cause the paint was making the glass slick.  So, if you do decide to stencil glass, keep the stencil simple.  Don't try to get fancy and stencil a whole sentence AND an image like I did.  It's no joke.