Happy To Help Husband Hazards-Birthday Party Edition

Men and Women think differently. We all know this (if you don't know that, you're in for an adventure). I think I first started to learn this in 1st grade when I was trying to build a pretty house in the sand box and my little guy friend just wanted to drive his rock car through it as he careened off the road as he swerved so he wouldn't hit the dinosaur. Both are imaginative, just in different ways. So when a guy and a girl work together on a project...it can be interesting. Even more...it can be interesting when one says "Here, would you put this together for me?" because they will both have different ideas of how it should be done and how it should look. For example...Emilee posted up a project we were sent around Halloween. 

On the left is the original pin that the wife saw and mentioned to her husband...the the right was the husband's interpretation of the description. 

Both are way fun...their visions just didn't quite match up. 

Well, we have another one of these for you today, courtesy of Lisa. It was her daughter's 7th Birthday and she was throwin' a party. We all look for ways to transform our ordinary rooms into cleverly disguised party areas of awesomeness, and this is what Lisa found and decided on:

The Original Pin:

http://www.cafemom.com/group/21665/forums/read/10070766/Rainbow_Unicorn_Party_Pic_Overload

Isn't that cute? I'd done this with streamers before but never thought about using those plastic tablecloths. 

Lisa told us, "I wanted to do this ceiling idea for my daughter's 7th birthday party. I went to the local Dollar Store bought 8 different colored plastic tablecloths then jetted over to Michael's for the Command Center Poster Adhesive so I thought I was set up to succeed. I couldn't have been more wrong.  When I got home my husband had a couple of his buddies over chatting over some yummy beer in the kitchen.  Since I also had to decorate the cake I thought it would be great to enlist their help. That was a BAD idea, let me tell you.  Men over-think things.  Instead of the simply elegant way it is illustrated they got fixated on having the bands overlap so you saw no ceiling.  What I thought would take less than an hour ended up taking them 3 and getting my husband pretty mad at me in the process. Here's what it ended up looking like:"

The Pinstrosity:

Lisa said, "I realize now that the tablecloths aren't as vibrant as the ones in the original pin.  And obviously I couldn't do the balloons in the middle because of the lighting fixture.  But the Command Center Poster Adhesive did hold well and was easy to remove.  They stapled the pieces together and that added to the extra weight and crumplyness."

So...it didn't quite turn out to match his or her ideas. I have a few ideas/thoughts on this:

• First, for his idea of covering the entire ceiling:
• You'll need way more tablecloths than you would in the original post. I don't know if what the pictures show is just where they stopped or if that was all the tablecloths they had. 
• To cover the entire space so the ceiling doesn't show through here are my ideas:
• First tape up the tablecloths around the perimeter of the room, or however far from the center post you want (taping up one short side to the roof or wall and let the rest hang down for now, we'll get to that), slightly overlapping the edges an inch or so. If you can get an even number of tablecloths up, that'd work best for the next step. Also, be sure you check your lengths...it'd be frustrating to get the tablecloths all taped up and the realize they aren't long enough to even reach the middle, let alone drape. If the tablecloths aren't long enough you'll either have to go find longer ones or bring in your radius a little bit. You could try taping to cloths together, but I'm guessing that will show through and add bulk that you don't really want. 
• Once that tablecloths are all taped up around the center post, take two neighboring cloths and cross the two loose ends and tape them up at your center post. Repeat with all the table cloths around the room. You may have a few gaps here and there, but they shouldn't be too big. If you really really don't like the idea of gaps, have extra table cloths on hand. I'd then slit one down the middle to make two long and skinny cloths. Hang those under the main canopy where the gaps are. 
• It can be so easy for tension to get high during something like this. Let me tell you a story from our first Christmas after we got married. It was our decorating night, so Cameron was putting the lights up outside our apartment and I was putting the lights on the tree inside. I just wound the lights around the tree like a garland, but when Cameron came in I found out that he liked the look better when the lights were wrapped around each individual branch. He wanted to take the lights off and redo it and I didn't want to. We got upset at each other and he went off to bed and I sat in the living room until well past midnight when I finally got tired and climbed into bed to sleep. In the morning we both woke up feeling a little sheepish for getting mad over something so simple as Christmas tree lights. We laugh about that every year now as we put up the lights. No two people think exactly the same, especially in a couple. Remember to breathe, to laugh, and to not let little things get in the way of building memories and happiness. 

Lisa sent us her Pinstrosity, but she sent a Pin Win along with it. Lisa said that while the ceiling decorations "may have been a Pinstrosity, the cake was a WIN.  I followed the recipe to a T and it was beautiful and DELICIOUS.  And most of all the girl was happy."

The Original Pin:

http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2011/11/purple-ombre-sprinkle-cake.html

So remember to breathe, to have fun, to give each other some slack, and to just enjoy life. Wonderful job on the party Lisa and thanks for sending us your pictures and story!