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Step 1
A fun trick is to serve a clear drink (i.e. Sprite, 7-up, sparkling water, etc.) with Kool-aid or fruit punch flavored ice cubes (using yellow, green and purple colors.) As the ice cubes melt, their flavor mixes with the drink. You can serve several colors together in a bowl as ‘jewels’ so that your guests can choose which cubes they’d like for their drinks!
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Step 2
Play some Mardi Gras themed Bingo. These are a great way to award prizes by slowly offering spaces throughout the evening! For a Mardi Gras themed downloadable Bingo set, see the RESOURCES section below for a link.
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Step 3
Hide gold coins throughout the party area. Your guests will have fun casually finding/searching for them throughout the party as they mingle with the other guests. At an appointed time, allow each guest to turn in their coins for raffle tickets. It's a good idea to make sure that every guest is given a coin as they enter so that when the raffle comes, even if a guest hasn't found any coins, they can still have a chance in the raffle.
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Step 4
Remind your guests what the Mardi Gras colors mean: Purple (justice), Green (faith) and Gold (power)
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Step 5
Use party masks as invitations! Write on the white part (the inside) all of the party information. These are a great way to start the party spirit before the party even begins!
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Step 6
Dig through your Christmas supplies (or ask around among your friends) for strands of green and/or purple Christmas lights! These look great hanging around anywhere.
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Step 7
Festive balloon columns are easy and fun to make...not mention they look fantastic at the entrance! Tie helium balloons to a thread (strong enough so that it won't easily snap) and wait the string down with something heavy (set on the floor.) You can either have solid color columns of purple, green and gold or you can pattern them among all three. These are also great because they can be easily moved if needed and fill a large area of space!
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Step 8
Mardi Gras is known for bead necklace throwing. Well, give your guests a chance to test their bead throwing skills! Set up bottles, coins and other Mardi Gras themed items on a table, wall or the ground and see how well they do throwing beaded necklaces around them! Award different point values for different objects (the more difficult the object to land on, the more points.)
