totally awesome 80's party

my husband was born in 1980 so for the past few months i've been planning a "totally awesome" 80's birthday party to honor the year of his birth & years of his childhood. the party was a hit. thinking back to the 80's was hilarious! so here's his 'radical' night...

shown in the above pic: mr. t, mr. t, mr. t...i found a huge life size stand up of mr. t online. we used him as a photo op and backdrop. for drinks i had capri sun's (capri sun's were the bomb in the 80's...remember?) and water in plastic spiderman cups..oh, and you can't forget the neon straws :). scooby doo adorned my food table (we had pizza by the way), along with neon plates/napkins and old school comic books.here's the invitations that i sent out. i found these neon wallets on ot and just had to get them! i put the invite inside (also neon) along with an uno card (great 80's game). the invite read, "uno you wanna' be cool, right? so totally come to celebrate the year of ben's birth! it's a radical 80's birthday party! come ready to have a tubular time! don't give any bogus excuse! dress in your 80's getup and be the bombdigity!" i attached the recipients names to the wallets with an 80's friendship bracelet. they turned out awesome :). and this was the bithday cake...i brought back the rubik's cube baby! the cake took forever but was well worth it :). i even made the middle layer a neon swirl :).

ah, the days of cassette tapes!! i wanted to incorporate cassette tapes (as well as vhs tapes..which are shown below) since that's what was hip during the 80's. i painted them (neon colors of course) and hung them from the ceiling fan. it was a really fun decoration, i was actually pretty pround of myself :).

i purchased a bunch of candy that screamed '80's'...poprocks, bazooka gum with comic strips in each wrapper, flinstone candy sticks, tom & jerry candy, and scooby doo candy packs. all of it was in a spiderman bowl (spiderman was one of my husbands favorite shows when he was young by the way). you can also see slinky's in the background. i hung a bunch of them from the ceiling behind the cake table & above the bar. and there's one of the vhs tapes i was talking about..i painted them in neon colors as well :). oh, and you can also see the neon table cloths that i had all over..i used some as back drops and some as actual table cloths.

do you remember these glasses?! they were the COOLEST in the 80's! i was so happy when i found them online! i set them out for the guests to wear :).

i also set out neon glow bracelets (above in the spiderman cups)...

and here's a close up of the SLAP BRACELETS and 80's character pins!!! the neon slap bracelets were the best...and the pins were rainbow brite, my little pony, alf, karate kid, and she-ra/he-man! here's some of the party goers in their 'getup'...EVERYONE looked great!!! you can also see the authentic old school xmen poster i found online..and of course, our photo op, mr t :). i had our polaroid camera out for anyone who wanted a polaroid pic...we took a bunch of 'em with mr t and all the other 80's decor.

more of our 'totally awesome' guests :).

this is an inflatable boom box that i found on ebay...it has an ipod dock so it actually plays music (i had 80's music that i purchased on itunes playing on and off throughout the night). it was awesome!

i bought a used old school nintendo machine! does this say 80's or what?! we played pac-man and mario bros throughout the night. it brought back so many memories!

here's my make shift stage. one of the best parts of the night took place here..and it may not be what you think. poetry readings faded out in the 80's...but i decided to bring one back! i asked each guest to write a poem to ben/about ben to present to him at the party (this part was a surprise). IT WAS GREAT! everyone was SO creative!! some poems were hilarious and others very touching...all of them were SO clever. i got video of everyone reading the poems (no pics) so i need to upload one of the videos to post.

here's some more of the 80's decor. i decorated my whole upper bar with 80's memorabilia...spiderman books, connect four games, scooby doo snacks, whistles, gelly bracelets, glitter bracelets, friendship bracelets, koosh balls, uno cards, garbage pail kid cards, aqua net hairspray, slinky's, rainbow brite, transformers, and more...

i also had trivial pursuit totally 80's out on our coffee table for guests to play. some of the questions were a riot...

i found some old school looking t shirts at target for my boys to wear. they had 80's cartoon characters on them. they worked perfectly! here they are eating their pizza on the kitchen floor.

here's a closer look at some of the 80's stuff....gotta' love it!does anyone remember trapper keepers?! i found most of these things on ebay. i had a trapper keeper exactly like this one! and the alf luchbox and thermos...wowsers...now that was cool!

Here's the birthday guy and our two little guys as we were singing happy birthday.

rock on! here's one more polaroid for you all :). i bought inflatable rocker guitars that fit the theme.

i also played a tv trivia game..i downloaded a bunch of 80's tv theme songs (again, on itunes) like mash, muppets, carebears, hawaii 5 0, doogie howser, alf, stairway to heaven, love boat, and a lot more, and played them for guests..first one to guess the tv show got an 80's whistle keychain or a hulk paddle ball. it was a really fun game!

all in all it was a great party. my husband loved it. happy birthday babe!!!!