Midnight in Morocco

It has been busy busy here.  The scrapbooking lock in was a huge success.  The girls made some cute layouts, and most of us were awake all night!  Currently, we are knee deep in prom preparations and hoping to finish before the big day (April 16).  As promised, I am going to share photos from another previous prom.  In 2008, we hosted our Midnight in Morocco prom.  With it's deep purples, burgundies, and golds, it was amazing!  I hope you will agree...

I wanted the entrance to feel like walking into a tent.

Guests were greeted by Clyde, our paper-mache camel. Many students took pictures with him!

For more formal photos, they could meet with the photographers and have their prom pictures made in front of our Moorish arch and palm tree. It was simple, but made an elegant backdrop for the brightly colored prom dresses.

Inside, the dance floor was framed by more of our purple tent inspired draping.  Once again, I would like to point out what can be done with PVC pipes, buckets of sand, and fabric.  It truly set the dance floor apart from the rest of the room.  

The room at a glance.

The centerpieces for half of the tables were a variety of Moroccan lanterns that I bought at TJMaxx, Roxx, and Home Goods.  We set them on gold framed mirrors.  The other centerpieces were clear vases of large palm leaves.  The table numbers were made using purple and burgundy metal mirror.  We simple replaced the mirror part with the printed numbers.  I believe I bought them at the Dollar Tree (or at several Dollar Trees :) ).  As you can see, I am a bargain hunter.  I have to be in order to produce this type of prom on our small budget.  Besides, why spend a lot of money if it is not necessary?

As a take home treat, I bought several different apothecary jars from the stores mentioned above and filled them with candies.  I set them on a large gold framed mirror.  Students could fill a bag with candy as part of their favor.

The beverage table was also decorated with vases of palm leaves and palm leaves laying flat on the table.  I bought these two foot paper mache letters from Joanns to spell Morocco and painted them gold.  They made a great backdrop for the beverages.

To create this round table for the food, we rented four serpentine tables.  When fitted together, they form a circle with an opening in the middle.  It allowed us to put three palm trees in the middle that I bought at Sams Club.

Well, I hope you enjoy the pics of Midnight in Morocco.  Look for more photos of my previous proms and weddings!

MIM: Make It Mine Family Layout

Well.  I do not know about you, but many times I need a creative spark.  For example, I sponsor a club at my school: the Heritage Club.  Each year (usually in the Spring), I have a scrapbooking "lock in." We scrap all night from 10pm until 6am.  Last year, I put together some page kits for the kids.  I am doing the same thing this year.  I am always pushed for time due to a busy schedule.  So, I fall back on my trusty inspiration: layouts by others from one of my favorite scrapbook magazines or from one of my favorite scrapping blogs.  As I prepare for this weekend, I thought I would share a layout from the last lock in.  The inspiration was a layout that I saw online.  You can see it here. My page is entitled Family. 

One detail that I truly love about this page is that it will allow me to showcase 13-14 photos if I choose. With four kiddies, I always have many photos, and I like to use as many as possible!

The pink tab is a blank card that can be pulled out to hold another photo or to provide space for journaling.

This layout also allowed me to use the papers that I had.  Each girl got nine squares for her second page, but not the exact same nine squares.  Each girl's page was slightly different, which they loved!

After this weekend's fun, I will post some of our new creations.  Until then, keep creating and smile!  Life is tooooo short. :)