the frame is part of their actual decor. it's normally empty, and i knew i wanted to fill it with something, so i cut out some letters and created a sign for the juice joint that hangs above the fireplace.
they have a winding staircase that leads up to a mezzanine (which was used for many a speech that night). originally, i had wrapped a super long sting of christmas lights around the railing, but when i got to the top we realized that the lights didn't work! bummer; it was going to look so amazing! i had this other set of lights that wasn't long enough to even go a quarter of the way up the railing, so i wrapped it around the post instead. not as visually stunning, but still added to the atmosphere. you can sort of see in the photo that i ended up wrapping a long stings of beads around the railing instead.
a sign for the bathroom, aka the water closet. this was a really minor but neat detail that only took a few minutes to whip up. i like the old fashioned hand instead of an arrow.
the mantel: pearls, framed photos of famous gangsters.
the welcome table. here everyone gets their character objectives.
i had very little to do with this set-up, except for...
the framed photo, and the confetti...
another framed photo, and the name tags--the graphics were provided by the game company (the murder mystery package was bought online), but i printed them out, glued them to cardstock (ie. a cereal box), laminated them with packing tape, and hotglued pinbacks. beats a sticky label that would likely fall off throughout the night!
and finally, i made this mugshot plaque (i traced fridge magnets for the letters, glued them onto black card, and then glued that onto a used thick card mailing envelope for stability). we had guests stand against a wall and have their mugshot taken when they arrived :)
i'm muggin'!
