Monday, October 19, 2009

Get Your Interns Thinking.


Elissa gave me a exercise to do one day in the office. It was; if I was an event planner and stuck on a deserted island and all I had with me was my tool box, what would I put in it and why.

A few items I have on my list are pens, paper, glue of all types, scissors. and a hammer. Why did I pick these items. A pen so I can write with and draw a floor plan, paper so I can write on. I choose glue types of super glue, Elmers glue and Modge Podge (its amazing) and I choose them so I can make things and hold object together. Scissors to cut things down in size or cut string or rope. A hammer would be in my tool box because you can use to put things together or break things down. Some other items are a tide to-go pen, travelers sewing kit, and band aids. You truly never know when any of these objects will come in hand but it is always a good call to have them at every event.

After making the list of items there were a few questions she wanted me to answer. Why am I completing this exercise, what did I learn from it and How would I apply this exercise into my work as an Event Planner?

My answer to the first question was that I was doing to the excercise to test my knowledge on how to pack for all events and what is necessary to bring incase anything goes wrong, I will be prepared for all situations to my best ability.

The second question of what did I learn, I said that I learned that there are many items that you need to have on your packing list as an event planner,you must think of all situtaions that can go wrong and prepare for them before hand.

And lastly how will I apply this to my work as an Event planner. I said in the future I will use this exercise to help me pack for my events and be ready for any situtaion that may occur. It may seem silly to have a few of the items on me at all time but it is smart to be prepared for anything.

Friday, October 9, 2009

How to Make your Halloween Party a Howl!

Are you throwing a Halloween Party and want to get creative? Well look no further I have some fun and easy Halloween projects for you to decorate with.

Make your punch and finish it off with floating hands. Just fill up rubber gloves ties the ends tight and lay them flat in your freezer over night. When your ready to add them to the punch just remover the glove and let them float away. You can also put your punch in a witches cauldron, elevate it and add dry ice under it. It will look like fog and create a spooky feel.

When it comes to the decor, you can get very creative and make a cemetery scene anywhere in your house or at a venue. Just get green felt, lay it flat like grass and get a small wooden fence, lastly cut tombstones out. Small creative ideas that you can also do is take Halloween spider webbed woman's nylons and use them as slip covers to candle holders. Then add a little orange ribbon and fake spiders crawling up them. More candle ideas are taking small skulls and put them in the bottom of an old jelly jar and add water and floating candles. Add spider webs and fake spiders to candle sticks.

When creating a menu for a Halloween you party you have to get creative. Use simple recipes but give the dishes spooky names. For example fried pus and blood sauce, fried mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce for dipping. Using creepy names gives everyone a conversation topic and add a little spook to the whole party. You can also spice up your menu by adding the Puking Pumpkin. Take a jack-o-lantern and a thick cream cheese or sour cream based dip and have it run out of the pumpkins mouth and onto a plate. Give the guests chips and dip away!

All these ideas used together and you and your guests will have a Halloween to ralk about for years.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Plan a Themed Dinner Party

Your busy schedule has you too busy for your friends. Dinner parties are a time to get all your friends together and catch up. The same old dinner party with drinks and dinner can get a little boring after a while. Add some pizazz and make it themed. Create a theme that everyone will get into. Some ideas I thought of are;

Decade Party, choose your favorite decade and have your guests dress accordingly. For example through a 50's party and have the women wear poodle skirts with hair in pony-tails and the men in varsity letter men sweaters or leather jackets, cuffed jeans and sleeked back hair. The menu should be cheeseburgers and fries, milk-shakes and root beer floats. Decorate with records, checkerboard patterns and old coke bottles.

Another theme could be Casino Night. Make your home into a Las Vegas Casino, turn you dinning room table into a poker table, and get out some poker chips. Play cards, have a few drinks and chat away with friends. Instead of a sit down dinner, make a buffet table. Vegas buffets are all about variety so have a little bit of everything on the menu.

What about a Murder Mystery Party. Have the guest get involved in the game. Create a character for each guest to be then create clues around your house and let the fun begin. While playing the game you can have appetizers and drinks, after the game is done and the murderer is revealed all sit down and chat about them game and other topics over a delightful meal.

Not Sure What a Great Hostess Gift would be?

The Hostess of a party goes to great lengths to make sure everything is perfect for their guests. It takes a lot of time and preparation to make an event happen. Reward them with something nice and thoughtful. As I researched I found that giving food and wine was the most common. I thought it would be better to give something more memorable. Ideas that I found were items such as;

Wine Glass top appetizer plates. They make socializing easier as you walk around.

Wine Glass Top Appetizer Plates - photo

A great gift to give to someone you are close with are custom picture coasters. You can fill the coasters yourself with pictures of you and your friend or leave that to the hostess.
Glass Photo Coaster Set

Those of you out there that always have that friend that is asking for your recipes for your family secrete sauces. Why not make some bottle it up and give it as a gift. Then they can have the sauce without you having to reveal the secretes. Just package it up in a glass jam container and label.

Thursday, October 1, 2009



A centerpiece is the central or outstanding point or feature at an event. In the Event Planning Industry the centerpiece is what draws the eye; it is what expresses the theme of the event. When thinking about centerpieces the initials thought is flowers! Today, my mission was to find three unique centerpieces without using flowers. This was one of the coolest projects of mine because it allowed me to explore other aspects of the Event Planning Industry. When I was first assigned the project, I thought well this is going to be difficult; how on earth do you make a centerpiece without flowers? As I researched this is what I found.







The first, was a pirate themed centerpiece; it incorporated the skull head with a sword and a treasure chest, the essentials to a perfect pirate themed party.















The second unique centerpiece I found was a New Years Eve centerpiece. The base of the centerpiece is a black party hat with gold and black bows off to the left side and a gold balloon on top.







And the third, most outrageous, cool, funky centerpiece I found, was a Tiffany themed centerpiece. It looks to be an engagement party centerpiece with the base has an green engagement ring with Tiffany boxes, gold watches and gold braclets around the bottom.


Stay Tuned! As I will be writing again to report back about the work of an intern at Perfect Productions.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Hi, My name is Shawna and I am the newest intern here at Perfect Productions. So, have you ever heard of the event planning program, SketchUp?? Well, today was the first time I have ever heard of the program. Actually, I guess you could say yesterday was the first day I heard the word SketchUp but today was my first day to use it and boy was it difficult. Its a great program and a lot of fun but let me tell you, it may look easy but it most certainly is not. I had to make a model of a bridal table I am designing for a bridal show coming up in October and putting the "components" (plates, tablecloth, chairs, silverware) in the perfect position was the most daunting of tasks. I had to make sure the plates were on top of the table perfectly and of course the silverware had to be close to one plate but not too close to the other and the centerpiece had to be right smack in the center if the table. Although, it was a long day, the model is coming along very well and is looking great might I add!


Anyways, It has been all in all a great experience so far! So stay tuned as I will be writing again to report back about the work of an intern at Perfect Productions!


Shawna

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Make Your Guest Tables Look Like A Wedding Gown.


Have you looked at a Wedding dress and the bottom was fluffy and scrunched in a way, as seen to the left? Elissa thought it would look great if you took that dress style and made a table cloth flow over that table just that way.

Although it took some time and much effort to get the cloth even at the bottom it was worth the hard work. It adds a little pizazz to the look of the table and will give the room a little more elegance. So forget just throwing on a decorated cloth and be creative and make it look just like a wedding dress. This will not only make the decor look great but will give all your guest something to talk about and I am sure you will see it at one of their events. You can do this a simple pattern cloth or a solid color. If your using a solid color you could put a flower or bow at each scrunched area to add little more.


Now you ask, How did I do it? It's simple yet difficult at the same time. I took rubber bands and scrunched the material up and then used the rubber bands to hold the material together. For the second layer of scrunched material I took the cloth and brought it up to the first rubber banded material and then used another rubber band to hold all the material together, you can do this as many times as you'd like. The only difficult part is that you have to watch for is the bottom of the cloth being even all the way around the table. To the right is a picture of the table I set up in the office with the scrunched table cloth bottom.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Inside Scoop on Interning at Perfect Productions!

My name is Tasha and I am the new Intern here at Perfect Productions. I attended Johnson & Wales University majoring in Event Management. I got my first Events this week from Elissa and Brian. I am working on a Halloween party and the Holiday Party. They are very helpful and only being here a week and a half I am already learning a lot.

I will be posting daily, so stay tuned!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

2009 Hope for Heroes Kickball Tournament

Hello Everyone!

This past weekend Perfect Productions and Liberty Bank sponsored a Charity Kickball Tournament for veterans. It was the first time this event was being held and overall it was a great day. Even though the weather was not the greatest, we made it happen as a team. The planning of the event was done by Kelly Tracey. It was her first event and she did a great job!

Six teams played in the tournament; Paw Play, Ingenix, Inovative Fitness, Perfect Productions, First & Last Tavern, and Liberty Bank. The Champions of the tournament was Liberty Bank.

Great music was played while the teams played a game they most likely have not played since gym classes in grade school. To end the day we had an amazing BBQ chicken dinner.