About a month ago, I posted a tutorial for making paint chip bridal shower invitations. Since then, the shower has happened and I am excited to share the details about it with you today!

CAKE & DECORATIONS

First up, the cake table. I should note that her wedding color are black/cream/red so I used that color scheme wherever I could, in addition to the overall home improvement theme. The table cloths at the party were all painter’s canvas drop cloths that Little Jo and Mini Me were more than happy to make splattered in the wedding colors.

To decorate the wall, I used a piece of blue art paper as my background and then used painter’s tape to put up some house plans. Those plans happen to be the ones we used to build our house! The table was decorated with tools from the hardware store and some from my own stash. For an edible decoration, I put red and black Sixlets candies in wine glasses placed around the table. I like using Sixlets over colored M&M’s because they are SO MUCH cheaper when you need a large volume.

I bought a new red paint tray liner to hold the flatware. My party minion came up with the cute idea of outlining some of the table items in painter’s tape.

The bride-to-be’s fiancee’s name is Tommy, so I added his name to a mallet for just a little married humor. I used the extra paint chips and tools to decorate everywhere. Convenient that I found that utility knife in red!

I printed out a whole bunch of blueprint images I found online and used them as place mats throughout the party. I also used them as a special part of lunch that I will show in in a minute. Chica made the cake to look like a classic red metal toolbox. The cake was one of my favorites recipes of hers — chocolate with a peanut butter filling and buttercream icing. YUMMY!

While at the hardware store, I picked up some paint stir sticks to use as decoration. Little Jo had the idea of using them to label everything at the party, and I mean everything!

The best use of the paint sticks were as labeled stirrers for the two drinks I made, strawberry infused lemonade and peach sangria. Another fun decoration came about by accident while I was decorating for the party. I had originally purchased some stainless steel flat washers to use as napkin rings, but even the large size I bought was still too small for the napkins to fit. Instead, I threaded them on fishing line and hung them flanking the entry into my dining room.

SHOWER GAMES

Every bridal shower must have a few games! For this one, I wanted to take it up a notch and really get my guests involved. I asked them to design the couple’s bedroom in their new home. I gave them two tables full of design inspiration and the tools to make a mood board.

I went to a local furniture store and asked them for any fabric swatches they might not need. I hit the jackpot because they were just getting rid of loads of them. I expect you will be seeing projects made from these swatches a lot in the near future. I also asked for any old furniture brochures they might have and to add to that, I had everyone I knew cut images out of magazines and ads for a few weeks. We ended up with a huge selection!

The guests had such a fun time doing this game that nobody wanted to stop! I put them into teams of 5 people each and one member presented the mood board to the bride. She ended up picking a board that included one of her dogs in the design. She’s a sucker for her puppies! There were quite a few of the mood boards I would have loved to have translated into my own bedroom!

We played two additional quick games. The first was called “Name That Tool”. Chica was in charge of that game and found some very obscure tools in her garage and asked all the guests to identify them. It was a lot of fun trying to guess what they all were. The next game was a pricing game called “Rank the Tool Prices”. The guests had to rank the tools from the lowest to the highest price. I’m happy to share my tool pricing game with the answer key if you would like to print it out and play.

One of the prizes I awarded the winners was a standard hammer tied with ribbon. The party favors were red and black tap measures that I put in a red metal tool box by the front door.

LUNCH

I ordered some new, clean gallon paint cans to serve as lunch buckets. Little Jo helped me fill the buckets right before the party. Since I was serving cold items like ranch dip, we first placed a Ziploc baggie of ice in the bottom of each can to make sure the items stayed cool until they were eaten. They looked great on the table with the lids on and until I announced it was lunch time, the guests had no idea what we were going to do with all those paint cans! Because I wasn’t positive who would attend the shower, I didn’t personalize the cans with names, but I did label a few of them that we made special for our Jewish friends. If you were having a smaller gathering, you could definitely personalize each can.

Remember the blueprints I mentioned earlier? Well, I used them to wrap around the outside of the wrap sandwiches that were in the lunch cans. I first wrapped the sandwich in wax paper and then the blueprint paper. Everyone used the blueprint paper as a place mat. I also used zip ties to hold a bunch of carrot sticks together in each lunch. They were a big hit and I encouraged the guests to take the cans home to use for storage. Everyone had great crafty ideas for how they would use them.

This was such a great party and I really enjoyed throwing it for my sister-in-law. It was certainly a new party theme to everyone, so if you’re looking for a really unique party theme for someone who loves home improvement, give it a try!