A Bilbo Baggins Birthday pt. 1

For my husband’s 30th birthday, we decided to go all out and have a Bilbo Baggins’ themed party. The idea was to recreate his actual party, of course while throwing in some classic hobbit decor. I DIY’d all of the decor to save money, but I did start about a month before the party!

The first step was to send out invitations. I found a free template online and downloaded it. I’m not sure where I found it, otherwise I would attach it! It included the conditions of merriment, which was a cute touch. I had one guest say they typically don’t attend parties but had to check it out based on the invitation alone!

After invitations were sent out, I started picking out main decor pieces that were essential to facilitating the hobbit theme. In the birthday party scene, there was a giant tree with pennant flag banners and lanterns strung throughout the space, as well as picnic tables and hay bales. I wasn’t going to put hay bales in my house, but I did create a tree with the help of some extra hands. I ended up using normal kraft paper, staples and tape, and greenery vines purchased from amazon. I measured out my ceiling height and then left a couple feet for the branches. Looking back, I might’ve carried the trunk all the way to the ceiling to give the appearance of an even larger tree. I then cut the strips and then crumpled them up and straightened them back out to give texture. I stapled the two strips of trunk together on the ground before securing to the wall. I chose to put my tree in a corner so I didn’t need to stuff the inside. I pinched the edges under and then stapled the paper to the wall due to my walls being textured. You might be able to get away with strong tape if your walls are smooth.

Part one of building the tree

After the trunk was secured, I started cutting smaller, tapered strips, and repeated the crumpling process. This time however, I only widened the base and I twisted the ends to be more branch-like. These were all stapled into the trunk and then the wall or ceiling to ensure they wouldn’t fall. I did use tape to secure each individual branch in their rounded and crumpled shape. I then took vines and wrapped it around each branch, making sure they connected back to the trunk to add fullness. These were also taped and stapled into the branches for extra security. Once each branch had two or three vines, I then began crisscrossing them between branches to create the illusion that the branches were touching like real trees.

Part two of the tree

From here, I kept adding vines until I was happy with the look. I also knew the party was going to be in the evening so with lamps and candles it wasn’t super important for the tree to look perfect. I found someone in my local neighborhood giving away hundreds of feet of pennant banners for free in the exact color scheme I was looking for, so I then hung those and then purchased a few strings of outdoor lanterns to also hang from the ceiling. With some leftover vines I decorated around the windows and the table.

I continued the pennant flags and some vines into our dining room, but the lanterns didn’t provide enough light to make sense putting them in there. In case you’re wondering, yes everything was stapled into the ceiling and it did indeed leave holes when we took it all down. We were okay with that due to wanting to repair other items in the long run! More of how this party came together will be in the next blog post!