I'm on student congress and it is my responsibility this year to design the Winterfest dance at our high school. Well, since pretty much every idea has already been taken by previous classes, I am stumped, and the dance is just around the corner. The theme is Winter, and I would greatly appreciate it if you gave me some tips on how we could decorate the halls/cafeteria/and commons. Thank You.
Jessica from Michigan
This is more of a decorating idea. You can make ice lanterns from ice cream buckets. Fill the ice cream buckets full of water and place in the freezer. You can put pine branches and such in there also to add to the decor. You will need to freeze them for 12-15 hrs. Place them in a deep freeze with the lids on. When the 12-15 hrs have passed, open the lid and punch a hole in the top of the ice and drain out the excess water. The water should have frozen to the sides of the bucket and the bottom. Carefully carve out an opening on the top. Let it sit for a bit on the counter top and take it out of the ice cream bucket. These will need to be placed in the freezer to "cure" for at least 24 hrs.
If you live in a cold climate these are nice to line the walkway up to the door. Place a candle in each one and light. These can be placed indoors for decorations also. You will need to place them on a tray or cookie sheet to catch the water. You can also use disposable diapers under each of the lanterns on top of the cookie sheet to catch the water. Cover the diapers or cookie sheets with shredded paper and VOILA! A unique and inexpensive decoration! (12/27/2004)
By SAndy
We rented an archway and then draped blue shimmery fabric around the posts, and then strung white mini lights over the fabric and attached little silver snowflakes to it as well. It looked really good! (12/13/2005)
By allie
You could decorate the main dance floor as an ice rink. Blue lights, pictures of people as if they're looking over the guardrail, and a little "booth" where there's a picture of someone distributing ice skates. Or there's "the north pole," with polar bears, penguins, and other little winter creatures. It's pretty much a good idea for the more relaxed scene of a cafeteria, or dining area. (10/10/2006)
By janelle
Hey! Our school is having a winter semi formal in order to raise some money. Anyway, I'm really glad I found this. You guys have some great ideas! Here are some theme names I thought of:
Winter Wonderland (very cliche)
A Mid-Winter's Night Dream
Frozen in Time
Another Snowy Evening
Frosty Fairytale
Dancing in the Snow
Sweet Snowy Surrender? Serenade? Social?
Icy Impressions (10/16/2006)
By Mary
We as well are having a "Snow Ball" for Sadies. If your council has money, go to Stumps, it's a decoration place to buy stuff from and they have a ton of winter decor. For our dance we are getting fog machines for the dance floor so it's like dancing in the snow. Also, lights on the floor is a BAD idea. Students step on it and with girls going barefoot, it gets ugly. We also have connections with ice sculpting companies who are making us large ice snowmen for blockades.
Have a day where your council just cuts out snowflakes, you will need lots of them and making them yourself with paper saves money. If you have high ceilings, try draping it out of reach from the ceiling. You can use dowel rods to drape it over, it makes the ceiling lower and a little more homey. You can use a plastic table cloth which is cheap. Another thing we have learned is less is more. Don't waste time on small projects students won't see, but big things everyone will be amazed by. (11/29/2006)
By STUCO REP
Our Spirit Council is having a Semi-Formal dance before Christmas, and to decorate we're getting helium filled balloons and attaching long strings with tin foil stars at the end and letting the balloons float to the ceiling so the stars will hang down! We're going to have a balloon drop in the middle of the ceiling to drop about 100 balloons in the middle of the dance! In the entry way we're going to make a skating pond scene and have stars and lights everywhere. (12/01/2006)
By emily
In order to raise money, our student council has guys and girls sign up to run for Mr. and Mrs. Merry Christmas. The boy and girl who collect the most money are crowned at the Winter Formal. Last year we raised over $1,000 from this, not including ticket sales. (12/11/2006)
By Jan
Check out www.Shindigz.com They have great pictures for themed parties. I get a magazine at my house. It's awesome. (11/13/2007)
By Julie
I went online and printed off snowflake templates and had people cut them out. We had about 3000. I then hung 2-3 on one long string of fishing line and tacked them to the ceiling at varying lengths, so it looks like it's snowing. I also got beanbag filler (tiny little polystyrene balls) and covered the floor with it and sheets of cotton wool to look like snow and put that around doorways, tables etc.
By Michelle
Hello! I am a freshman in high school and we just got done with our Winter Formal. Our high school schedule is that the sophomores have to set-up the Winter Formal for this year. Well, this year they did a bad job. To make yours better, my tips are:
1. Don't have the decorations too dark, no one wants to be depressed while at a formal dance.
2. Have a casual theme like: Winter in Times Square or Winter in London, or something casual and classy.
3. Stick with warm colors for decorations: blue and white I think work the best!
4. Have a lot of hanging balloons and archways-they are cheap and fun!
5. Don't have black-out or white-out for a dance, if you have a tight time limit. The hardest thing to do is find a dress based on the theme of the dance. If you already have a black-out or white-out dance, post-it and advertise it soon. The sooner is better!
6. Have lots of people help and make the best out of it!
I hope I was helpful! (01/22/2008)
By Michaela
I am a 35 yr. old mom with five little children and I decorate for a lot of youth activities. I actually have a Senior from my church coming over today for ideas for their Homecoming. I saw your post so I just thought I would respond.
For a winter theme, you could do white batting from the fabric store (comes in rolls) for snow. An inexpensive way to add drama is rolls of vinyl table covering that you get at a party store. You can get it in any color on big rolls from about $13.00 - $16.00 per roll and it looks like fabric when you drape it (and it goes a long ways).
You could do whites, silvers, soft blues. Paper lanterns (they take batteries) could be hung from ceilings and they start at $2.50 per lantern. You could mix snowflakes among the lanterns.
If you want to go inexpensive, you could hang snowflakes around with glitter on them, just hang them from fish wire. Something that would be cool is hang strands of lights from the ceiling straight down throughout the gym. Most people would let you borrow them from their Christmas decor. You could cut branches from trees that don't have leaves and use plaster from the hardware store and find some inexpensive pots and put the branches in pots and cove branches with lights. You could also paint the branches white for a real white winter look.
Hopefully some of these ideas helped. If you need any more ideas I could think of some more. Good Luck! (09/10/2008)
By shanna
We did 'Superman's Ice Castle.' See attachment. This is the Ice Cave set design we did for Simon Posford and Hallucinogen after party in NYC 2001. Copyright Burning Elf.
Feel free to use inspiration. (01/09/2009)
By Lori NYC
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