I spoke at Alt on a panel about parties with Ashley Meaders, Victoria Hudgins and Brittany Egbert. I gave a talk about six tips to take your party to the next level. These are basically 6 things you could do to give your party a little more pizzaz. Just choose one or two of these to implement if you are out of ideas or feeling uninspired.

1. Invitations that Sparkle
Sending out special invitations sets the tone for the party. Evites are easy and practical but if you are going to the effort of putting a party together try to send out real invitations. If you do something unexpected then you will get a higher percentage of attendance–people will want to stop by and see what you are going to do. Below is a detective party invitation I made with tiny print and a magnifying glass to go along with it.

2. Pick a Theme
Committing to a theme makes it easy to make decisions about the rest of the party. It doesn’t have to be a generic theme, you can pick any random thing and just run with it. My friends threw a party where the theme was A Very Hairy Birthday Party. Attendees came wearing various wigs and facial hair. It was silly and fun and unexpected.

3. An Element of Surprise
I try to have an element of surprise in every party I do. I think it makes it more fun. In this treasure hunt party we did we didn’t tell anyone what was happening so it was a surprise from start to finish. We rented mini coopers and went all over San Francisco. At the end we had a surprise color fight in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

4. Group Participation
Give your guests creative assignments. This is something my friend Rebecca taught me to do. Give your guests some perimeters and it will surprise you with how creative they get. For her 30th birthday she rented a theater on a Tuesday night (when it was dirt cheap) and held a film festival. She invited everyone she knew to create a 3 minute short film and then we all watched them at her party. Complete with cigarette girls and red carpet.

5. Make Things Monochramatic
This is an easy way to make things look good. Commit to one color and make everything that color or variations of that color. This picture is from a church Christmas party I planned. We made a cheap party look swanky by sticking to one color.

6. Size Does Matter
If you get 5 balloons to decorate your party, it will look normal. But if you get a small room and fill it with 500 balloons it is going to make a huge dramatic impact. Take something cheap but do it on a large scale it will be more impressive visually. Here in this soda bar I made, its much prettier with all the bottles than if I had a few up on display.