Creative help/ideas for a "good-bye "party needed.

[pjlla]

I've been asked to be in charge of decor and such for a good-bye party in 8 days. But it is a touchy situation. The party is for DD's swim coach who was fired by the Y very unexpectedly (although, according to the Y, it was a year in the making).

The kids were devastated and the parents decided to have a good-bye party for this beloved coach. I love the coach and I am totally onboard with the party and all that. Most of the actual party planning has been done, but I need to come up with decor and a banner. I'm concerned about the wordage of the banner. Since she didn't leave of her own accord it can't say anything like "please don't go" or "We wish you would stay" or anything like that. And just "Good-bye Coach" seems too sad! How would "You will be missed" or "We will miss you!" do?? Or can anyone else come up with anything clever to say??

Also, we have a small number of picnic tables to decorate. I've decided to NOT use the team colors, as I think that this needs to be more about the Coach than about the team. I'm thinking of going with just fun summer colors (yellows, oranges, turquoise maybe).... it will depend on what I can find for decor and such. Any color combo suggestions that are outstanding for an outdoor late spring/summer party? And how about centerpieces? I was thinking initially of balloon bouquets, but this is an outdoor party and I am concerned about wind taking them away! Potted flowers maybe??

I'm planning on doing balloons and streamers in the rafters of the outdoor pavilion, plus the big banner I mentioned up over the food table along one wall. I'm probably going to create the banner with Print Master and "pretty it up" with some scrapping stuff.... maybe cut out some tropical flowers with the Cricut??

Anyhow..... any suggestions, ideas, etc to throw out there???? I'm open to anything that I can do/buy on a tight budget (i.e..... there is no budget.... anything I buy is coming from my pocket).

Thanks so much to all of you super-creative folks!..............P

 

[Reddy]

I know Dollar tree has lots of Luau stuff that fits the colors you were saying
(oriental trading does too but I'm not sure if you want to pay the shipping cost)
what is the phrase for good-bye in Hawii?? that might work if you go with this theme

 

[morgansmom2000]

"Just keep swimming!"

 

[mommy2mrb]

how about "thank you" hawaiian is Mahalo or thank you very much is
Mahalo nui loa... "Aloha" is hello, good-bye and love..

think a beachy/hawaiian theme would be cute, definately hit the dollar stores, you could get little sand buckets for centerpieces and then a drawing to give them away

 

[pjlla]

I KNEW I could count on you ladies! The sandpail centerpieces would be great (provided the littler kids keep their hands out of them! ). And going with the whole hawaiian good-bye is great. Maybe even a banner with good-bye in a handful of different languages and then it could say.... "no matter how you say it, it's still hard to say good-bye" ?????

I will be checking out Dollar Tree, Ocean State Job Lots and Christmas Tree Shops (NE folks know about these last two) tonight if possible!........P

ETA: First I'm going to check out the "party" shelves in my basement. I'm big on themed birthday parties and usually end up with things like centerpieces leftover. DD has had several different summer/beach/swim themed parties and I'm sure I have some shells, pails, etc downstairs. I'll check when I get home!

 

[morgansmom2000]

CTS has some cute Flip Flop stuff in their current ad (paper products and the chip and dip bowls), CTS ad

 

[Crashley234]

Something that might be fun and create some conversation:
Get together pictures of the team and coach, then put them on floral pics in the sand-buckets. We did this for a grad. party and the guest loved it.

(I know at our local Sam's club you can grab a handful of floral pics in the flower area - since you there maybe buy some flowers for yourself since you doing all this work planning a party!)

 

[pjlla]

THanks again for all of the ideas.

I hit the Christmas Tree Shop yesterday and bought a bunch of vinyl tableclothes that have a fuschia background and lots of flip-flops all over. They didn't have quite enough of the sizes I needed, so I am also using some rather plain yellow ones. So our colors are fuschia and yellow. I managed to find napkins with flip-flops, so that will do it for paper goods, as the team is donating plates and cups from their concession stand supplies.

I also bough a few packets of flat decorative sparkly cut-outs of flipflops and tropical flowers that I will use as part of the centerpieces if I can brainstorm it enough. Probably turn them into picks and put them in the sandpail/flower centerpieces. Plus I'll use some on the good-bye banner to keep things cohesive.

CTS did not have any sandpails that I could see (which really surprised me) or balloons or streamers, so I will head out for those in the next day or two. I did find some sort of decorative "streamer" that matchs the cut-outs.... orange and fuschia with a other bright colors. I'll probably hang that with yellow crepe paper streamers and yellow and fuschia balloons.

I also managed to grab a couple of large plastic bowls in fuschia and yellow that I will use for chips and pretzels.

I think we're good for now (unless anyone has any other brilliant suggestions!). Thanks for ALL of the help !.....................P

 

[mommy2mrb]

sounds perfect! bright and happy!!!

 

[pjlla]

Okay..... I got the banner done and it came out great (except for the typo I have to fix ). I printed the word "goodbye" in about 10 different languages (Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, Swedish, French, Spanish, Italian.... can't remember them all... tried to cover all of the nationalities on the team). I cut out each word and matted it on a bright piece of cardstock and then made a collage of them at the start of the banner.

Then I bracketed the phrase with clip art of a bright pair of flip-flops on each end. As soon as I fix the typo I'll try to post a photo of it. Not sure if I can get the whole banner in one photo though.............P

 

[pjlla]

Here are two pictures of the banner. It was too long to get all in one photo. Thanks again for all of the ideas!..................P