As I’ve mentioned before I really love party decor….like a lot…hence me setting up this good ol website! I love planning party decor even more when it involves friends! Our good friends, Kusala and Marcus, were planning their adorable son’s Theo’s 1st birthday party and I had the opportunity to help with the decor setup! There was a large area in the venue where we wanted to fill space and create a photo zone that people can mingle around and take pictures at. I came up with the idea of making some life size ABC blocks that would occupy the empty space but also fit well into the children’s party theme.

These were so much fun to make! Overall there were not may steps involved but they did take some time to paint them. Since they are quite large you do require a big enough space to spread out and I ended up taking over my garage for a few days. I am super thankful for my husband who is always on board with my crazy ideas because he helped paint them in the garage….and when I say garage I may as well call it our -10 degrees walk-in freezer because this was in the middle of winter and there is definitely no additional heat source there! I’m not saying this is a summer project only but I would suggest bundling up or finding an available basement!

The boxes were purchased from Home Depot and were the XL Size which worked perfectly and are just $5 bucks! I purchased three because I knew I wanted to do the A B C letters but you can also spell out the child’s name, paint numbers for their age etc. Once I got them home I taped them up with painters tape (I knew that the tape would be easy to paint over), figured out my colours to fit the theme and started painting! We did two full coats on each box to ensure nothing was coming through (there is writing on the boxes) and to ensure the colour would pop.

JMS TIP: Depending on the paint you are using you may need to prime/layer your base. For the blue and minty green boxes I used regular paint from a can and it was thick enough to cover any letters on the original box. For the gold I could still see everything underneath after the first layer so I quickly did a coat of white paint on the box and then spray painted over this. This helped tremendously as the spray paint did not provide the same thick coverage as the other colours. 

Once the boxes were dry, I sketched out the letters I was adding to them (on all four sides) and I painted them in carefully. They were not 100% all even and the same size therefore do not stress – no one will look at them that closely! You can stack them anyway you like and also add whatever letters/numbers work best for your theme.

This DIY was a lot of fun to make and really makes a statement in the room for low cost. It also provided some entertainment for the kids in the end which was a win-win! Also how cute are those balloons?! The party was a blast and the theme they went with (Oh the places you will go by Dr. Seuss) turned out amazing! Such a great time for all!

Have you ever created a large than life size decoration?
Comment below with your ideas!