Tonya Coleman here from Soireé Event Design, and I’m back with the “Look for Less” series sharing Part 2 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party featuring affordable DIY decor! In my Trend Alert earlier this month I shared how TMNT were making a HUGE comeback! There are TMNT parties popping up all over the web right now. If you missed it, click here for all the party details.

My own 10 year old daughter requested this theme for her birthday party this year and I was more than happy to take on the challenge of transforming our unfinished basement into Faith’s Sewer! For those of you who don’t know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live in the sewers of NYC. I created a design plan that would incorporate urban city elements like graffiti brick walls, streets and manhole covers and TMNT elements like turtle shells, pizza and green ooze!

Inspired by this, my assistant and I set out to create some affordable unique party decor that you can easily make yourself to make your next TMNT party AWESOME & unique AND in true “Look For Less” style, each item we created is a double duty decor piece!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle DIY Decor:

• 3D Sewer Manhole Cover Wall Hanging
• Graffiti Brick Wall Photo Booth Backdrop
• Sewer Manhole Cover Cupcake Stand
• Pizza Favor Boxes

3D SEWER MANHOLE COVER WALL HANGING

Supplies:

• 16″ styrofoam disk from Michaels
• silver duct tape
• black sharpie

---

Step By Step Instructions:

1. Wrap the edges of the disk with the duct tape and wrap the extra around the front side of the disk. You should have a good inch or so of overhang that will overlap onto the front.
2. Hot glue a 15″ circle manhole cover printable on the front of the disk
3. To give the edges that grudgy look, run a black sharpie over the duct tape in various spots and rub it with a paper towel while it’s still a little wet.

That’s it!
Get creative with it… Here I adhered it to the door of our basement with removable Command 3M strips to welcome guests to Faith’s Sewer!

Double duty decor!
Once all your guests have arrived, you can move this from the door and use it again as a prop in your photo booth!

GRAFFITI BRICK PHOTO BACKDROP

This one is SUPER easy! First of all, that fabulous brick backdrop is just a faux brick wall panel from Menards. You can also get them from Home Depot, Lowes, etc. They are 4’x8′ and come in different patterns and finishes.

Supplies:

• 1 faux brick wall panel ($23 from Menards)
• 2 graffiti 11×17 printables
• 1 sewer manhole cover printable (available here)

---

Step By Step Instructions:

1. Prop the brick wall panel against an empty wall
2. Cutout the graffiti and sewer manhole cover printables by hand
3. Adhere the graffiti and sewer manhole cover printables to the brick wall right above the height of your guests

That’s it!
Be sure to have fabulous TMNT dressup items available to get really cool photos. Here the kids dressed up in our DIY turtle shells (tutorial found here) customized with our Turtle Shell Medallion printables and colored masks that matched their assigned turtle.

Double duty decor!
Remember we used this turtle shells also as chairback decor for the kid’s dining table! So when they are done eating, untie the shells and the kids can now wear them for the rest of the party!

SEWER MANHOLE COVER CUPCAKE STAND

This was one of my favorites! I’m always looking for creative ways to display cakes and cupcakes and when you are in a sewer… a pretty cake plate just won’t do! So, we created a cupcake/cake stand from our sewer manhole cover centerpiece and chargers.

Supplies:

• 1 sewer pipe (tutorial to make these found here)
• 2 sewer manhole cover chargers (tutorial to make these found here)
• 1 sewer manhole cover printable

---

Step By Step Instructions:

1. Place hot glue along the top edge of the sewer pipe
2. Place one of the sewer manhole cover chargers face down on top of the sewer pipe. Be sure the charger is centered on the pipe.
3. Hot glue the second manhole cover charger face up on top of the other charger being sure to center it exactly on top so they edges are even with each other.
4. Adhere the sewer manhole cover printable to the middle of the top plate.
That’s it!
This is NOT food safe, so be sure to use a clear round plate on top of the cake/cupcake stand to place your sweets on as shown here.

Double duty decor!
Why not create a cupcake decorating station with the stand! I placed the cupcakes on the stand and placed a tube of Wilton’s cake decorating Sparkle Gel and the toy weapons that came with all the TMNT toys I had just bought and used in the party decor. Now, not only do I have a fabulous cupcake stand, but now I can use it as an activity for the kids! They loved dripping the “green ooze” all over their cupcakes and adding the toys!
TIP: Be sure to sterilize the plastic toys by boiling them in water for 5 minutes before you place them out for the kids to place on the cupcakes.

PIZZA FAVOR BOXES

This was a genius idea my assistant had! We looked high and low for somewhere we could purchase a small number of all-white pizza boxes that we could add our printables to to create a personalized party favor box with NO LUCK! Then AH-HA! She realized that all we had to do was turn a regular pizza box inside out! If you need alot of pizza boxes, you can purchase brand new ones from U-Line here.

Supplies:

• unused clean pizza boxes
• personalized pizza box favor label printables (available here)

---

Step By Step Instructions:

1. Turn an unused pizza box inside out. Our local Papa John’s pizza shop was so nice to let us have a few of these.
2. Add our personalized printable favor label with each guest’s name.
3. Fill them with all kinds of goodies. We filled ours with TMNT coloring sheets, a box of markers and TMNT toy weapons that matched each guest’s assigned turtle.

That’s it!
Now you have a custom pizza favor box that cost practically nothing!

Double duty decor!
Create a Pizza Favor Bar to hold all our favor boxes. This allows you to add additional decor to the room. Simply create a super cool centerpiece like this one made from a CD holder, printables and TMNT toys! I placed the favor table in front of the photo backdrop until it was photo time to get double duty from the photo booth backdrop too!

Our Ninja Turtle party printable collection is now available here.  We also have a tutorial on how to make the iconic Ninja Turtle Shells complete with personalized medallions available here.

Want more “Look for Less” tips and party inspiration? Click over to my blog “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Party Planning” for more party inspiration and tips!