Decorations

There are different ways to make the workshop look amazing. If you are a crafty type, preparing decorations would be very easy (but might take some time). If you hate this kind of stuff, we have some tips for you, too.

Balloons

  • Many of the Django Girls events order big, gold letter balloons. In on-line shops or on eBay you could find them for 2-6 dollars each (depending on shop and size of the balloon). Order in advance so it will come in time for your event. If you have smaller budget, instead of having whole “Django Girls” (or any other longer text), you could go for something shorter, like: “YAY”. If you’ve ordered a workshop-box, you don’t need to buy letter balloons: they come with the box ;)
  • If you are on tight budget - don’t use helium. Most of the time it’s pretty costy and you would need to order or rent a whole bottle and then return it. You could just fill the balloons with air and glue or hang them on the string from a wall or ceiling. Other problem with helium is that rubber balloons very often loose the helium much quicker than metallic balloons, so if you have perfect balloons for installation party, they might look sad next day at the end of the workshop.

Flowers

  • If you want some flowers at your workshop, don’t go to the florist - it will cost fortune! It’s better to find a flower market nearby and go there in the morning - especially if you want a bigger amount of flowers.
  • If you don’t have a flower market nearby, you could go for something smaller. You could buy a pack of small jars (normal jars for making marmalade or jams) - it should be possible to find very cheap and simple ones - and put one flower inside each jar. It’s not about the quantity, it’s about making a small, pleasant detail to show people you care.

Fairy lights

  • During winter months (but not only), nothing makes better impact than fairy lights. It should be easy to find and order very cheap ones on-line. If your workshop is after Christmas, you could buy the lights when they are discounted, too.

Bunting and garlands

  • A good and impressive way to decorate a space is to hang a bunting. You could buy one very cheaply, but you could also make one yourself: all you need is a string, paper, scissors and glue.
  • It’s also fairly easy to make a garland on your own. All you need is a nicely shaped punch hole cutter (star, heart etc.) and the sewing machine. Choose the big punch hole cutter: 3 or more cm in diameter - and use some cheap paper or old magazines and punch as many as you can. Than all you need to do is to sew through them (like shown here). If you don’t have a sewing machine - ask around, maybe one of your friend, your parents or grandparents have it? In organization of many Django Girls whole families where involved in making decorations.
  • If all above seems too complicated, you could also go for something easy, like buying crepe paper, cut the long pieces and hang them like this ones - to have this amazing effect, all you need to do is twist the crepe ribbon many, many times and it looks lovely.

Table cloths

  • It’s amazing if you have tablecloths on the tables, but it is very unlikely that you own so many of them to have enough for 10 or more tables. You could either have different tablecloth on each table, if you like it, rent it (but that costs a lot) or simply use something instead: like a brown paper you could decorate with markers: write names of participants and coaches, write some nice things like: “You can do it” and so on. If you buy white or gold markers - it will do the job. The good thing about brown paper tablecloth is that it could be also used as a place to make notes by participants or doodle.

Other ideas

  • If your budget is very limited you could use post-it notes and arrange them on the wall in a heart or other shape you like. It’s very cheap and it’s easy to make.
  • You could also use cut with punch hole cutter stars, hearts or anything else and sprinkle them on the workshop tables - it is easy and looks lovely.
  • Use venue wisely - is there something in the workshop location that could act as a decoration? Bin bags you could put in one location, creating a room for people to chill and to take a break? Or big black or whiteboard you could use to write or draw something?
  • If you are crafty, you would like to make bigger decorations, you could make flowers out of crepe like these ones. There are different tutorials available online that explains how to prepare something like that..

For inspiration check our Pinterest account.