Handmade Birthday Decorations: How to Plan a Whole Room

The hard part of handmade birthday decorations is rarely the making. It is deciding how many pieces a room needs and where they go, so that an evening of cutting and folding shows up as a decorated room rather than a scatter of small things on every surface.

A room reads as decorated when four places are dealt with: one wall, the space overhead, the table and the entrance. Everything else is optional. This guide sets out what to make for each zone, how much of it, and the order to make it in.

The four zones of a party room

Stand in the doorway and look at the room the way a guest will. Then sketch a quick plan and mark four zones on it:

• The focal wall: the wall people face most, usually the one behind the table. This is where photos get taken.
• The overhead piece: something hanging near the middle of the room that fills the empty space above head height.
• The table: where the cake and the food sit, and where guests spend the most time up close.
• The entrance: the door or hallway, which tells arriving guests they are in the right place.

Walls that are not the focal wall can stay bare. Spreading decorations evenly around all four walls thins them out until none of them makes an impression.

What to make for each zone

The table below gives a realistic number of pieces per zone for an ordinary living or dining room. Treat the counts as starting points and adjust them to the space.

Zone	What to make	How many	Guide
Focal wall	A banner plus a cluster of rosettes	1 banner, 3-5 rosettes	Pennant banner and paper rosettes
Overhead	Tissue pom-poms or a garland	3-5 pom-poms in two or three sizes	Tissue paper pom-poms
Table	A centerpiece and toppers	1 centerpiece, 1 topper per cupcake	Centerpiece and cupcake topper guides
Entrance	A sign or a short banner	1 piece	Party signs guide

The focal wall has a second option. Instead of a banner and rosettes, hang a curtain of crepe paper streamers behind the table. It covers a large area quickly and makes a good photo background; the paper streamer ideas guide shows how to build one on a length of string.

Scale: big and simple beats small and detailed

Decorations are seen from across the room, and from that distance fine detail disappears. A rosette 12 in (30 cm) across in a single color does more than a dozen intricate ones the size of a hand. The same goes for pennants: the standard 5 x 7 in (12.7 x 17.8 cm) triangle suits a normal wall, while a long wall or a high ceiling calls for a larger triangle rather than more small ones.

Save the detail for the table, where people sit close enough to notice a layered topper or a hand-cut star.

Repeat the colors in every zone

Pick three colors and a neutral such as white or kraft, then use all of them in every zone. If the banner is pink, turquoise and yellow, the pom-poms, the centerpiece and the entrance sign should be too. Repetition is what makes separate handmade pieces look like a single scheme.

It also simplifies buying paper. A small stack of cardstock and tissue in three colors covers the whole room, and the offcuts from the large pieces become toppers and tags.

What to make first when time is short

With limited time, work down this list and stop wherever the clock runs out. Each step adds less than the one before it.

1. The focal wall banner. One banner behind the table changes the room more than any other single piece.
2. The table. A centerpiece and toppers are small, quick and seen up close.
3. Rosettes or a streamer backdrop to fill out the focal wall.
4. The overhead piece.
5. The entrance.

A room with only the first two steps done still looks ready for a party. A room with a little of all five often looks unfinished.

A make-ahead order

Paper decorations do not all store equally well, so the order of making matters as much as the list.

• One to two weeks ahead: flat cardstock pieces. Banners, signs, toppers and tags stack flat and take up almost no room.
• A few days ahead: rosettes and fans. They are sturdy but bulky, so stack them carefully with paper between them.
• The day before: fold, tie and trim the pom-poms, but leave them closed.
• On the day: fluff the pom-poms, hang the streamers and put up everything else. Fluffed tissue crushes, and crepe streamers sag if they hang for long.

Hanging without damage

Use removable methods wherever possible: removable mounting putty, low-tack paper tape, removable hooks, or string tied to things that are already there, such as curtain rods and picture hooks. No tape or putty behaves the same on every surface, so test it on a hidden spot first and leave it overnight before trusting it with the whole wall.

Light pieces need less holding than you might expect. A cardstock banner hangs from two points, and a tissue pom-pom from a single thread.