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Our Lord of the Rings party was such a blast! You can find the full party post here, and now I’m breaking it down in more bite size chunks. In this post I’ll cover the decorations and the food for our Hobbit Feast! Our DIY Lord of the Rings Party Decorations guide is here to ensure that your event is nothing short of legendary. So, strap on your virtual elven cloak, ready your crafting tools, and prepare for a journey filled with creativity, laughter, and a touch of magic that only the world of J.R.R. Tolkien can inspire.
I’m actually going to cover both the food and the decorations in this blog post because they really worked together in this case. I think it would be so fun to host a hobbit feast like this to host a movie marathon, a graduation, a birthday of course, a bridal or baby shower or even a wedding! So let me tell you how I brought all of the elements together to transform our dining room into the Shire. And if you want to see a reel of the whole party room set up you can check it out here!
DIY Hobbit Tablescape
If you know anything about Hobbits, you know they love to eat. So I knew I wanted to make a big fancy meal a focal point of the party. I didn’t want to use anything plastic or paper, I wanted real, rustic and fancy! With some homegrown/farm/garden vibes. Starting with the main dining table, I knew I wanted to go with mossy green colors, ivory and gold accents as a color scheme. I started with an ivory tablecloth as a base and used a dark green cheesecloth table runner to add some color and texture. I actually wanted to do moss all down the center of the table but had a hard time making that vision into reality so we got a moss colored table runner instead.
For the most part I tried to use items from around my house but I did purchase a few items. I used gold chargers and white dinner plates with cloth napkins that matched the table runner. And one of my favorite touches were these DIY gold napkin rings that actually have the elven inscription of the ring on them. I used glass goblets and sprinkled moss around the table as a finishing touch.
Down the center of the table I laid out our feast. I started with a base of an array of wooden platters/trays/bowls that I collected between me, my mother in law and salvation army. I filled them with all kinds of finger foods that seemed hobbit-ish to me and again gave me those fancy yet rustic/farm/shire vibes. Once I had my serving platters laid out how I liked them (varying height and size) I filled them with all the hobbit food. You do have to wait until close to party time for this so things don’t get yucky. A few tricks to keep in mind: place parchment paper under greasy/messy foods, cover foods that might dry out with a dish towel or sarand wrap, and keep your cold foods in the fridge until it’s time to eat. (You can get them all ready on the tray and then just stick the tray in the fridge).
At our hobbit feast we had: fresh fruits (strawberries, grapes and raspberries), fresh vegetables (cucumbers and grape tomatoes), little single serve treats (cinnamon rolls, muffins, scones), meat/cheese/cracker board with some nuts mixed in. And finally some croissants so they could make little sandwiches if they wanted. I also finished by adding some lanterns and some loose carrots (get the organic kind that come in fun colors and still have the tops on!).
I think that covers all the details of our hobbit tablescape and feast. I was really happy with how it all came together, it felt like an authentic hobbit gathering with food gathered from the Shire. I think the kids had a lot of fun eating in such a “fancy” setting too. And we got to talk about fancy table manners and what to do with their cloth napkins.
DIY Lord of the Rings Ent Trees
Other than the dining table, the other element to our decorations was the dessert table wall. I had in my mind a vision of huge Ent trees on either side of the dessert/cake table. So then, I just had to figure out how to make it happen. I will say, they did not turn out as grand as I had imagined. I bet you guys can make even cooler ones. In fact, do it and send me a DM on instagram so I can see!
So I made the Ent trees out of regular brown craft paper that you get in the mailing section of Walmart. The hardest part was trying to get them to stick to the wall. I eventually resorted to using duct tape, which worked great, but stressed me out. Luckily minimal damage to the paint ensued. However, just a warning, it did take pretty much a whole roll of craft paper per tree. I started by just cutting a strip that I thought would be about the right length and just wrinkling it and twisting it up the best I could. Then I untwisted it and taped it up in a half tree shape. Then it was just a lot of twisting and adjusting for the branches.
I tried to wind some branches in front, some behind, some up to the ceiling to give it some depth but it felt pretty flat in the end. I draped as much moss as I could spare all over the tree to give it some greenery. And I did attach a strip about halfway up trying to imitate a mouth of sorts. This was my best attempt at creating a Tree Beard. What do you think?
Lord of the Rings Cake Table
The Ent trees flanked either side of our cake/dessert table. My mother in law made the most gorgeous Lord of the Rings inspired cake that is seriously worth of a wedding. So of course that was the focal point of our table. She used this cake topper to pull the theme together.
I used lots of hanging moss and spanish moss drapping down off of the table. I honestly wanted like twice that much but I snatched up all Walmart had and made do. On one side of the cake I displayed one of my favorite Tolkien quotes (that also seemed particularly appropriate for a 9 year old birthday party). I also put out our LOTR DVD sets because I think the covers of those look pretty cool. And then we had Frodo’s sword from when my son was Frodo for Halloween so I stuck that up there too. This printable Tolkein quote (as well as a few other of my favorites) is available as part of my Lord of the Rings Digital Party Bundle. This one reads “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future” Do you remember who said that? You can add the party bundle to cart with the button below.
They are sized at 8X10 so you can put them in frames. You can print them on this paper like I did, or you I also have options to print some that already have a weathered background so you can print them on regular paper as well.
On the other side of the cake we had the scrolls to start our quest! I found that fun vintage tool carrier at Salvation Army and thought it looked perfect. I share all about the quest we went on to destroy the ring in the full party blog post. But each of those scrolls is a letter from Bilbo (with a gold ring attached) for each party guest to open. For the backdrop I ordered a large map of Middle Earth. I actually ordered and returned several to find one that was more what I was looking for. I got the 50X60 size.
I also hung a banner in the green/gold/ivory colors with my son’s name across the map. I cut his name out of the hobbit font with gold cardstock. I also hung a green and ivory bunting banner around the room.
We started with our Hobbit feast so the hobbits would be well fed for their big adventure. If you want to read more about their quest to destroy the ring head over to read the full party blog post here.
And no matter what type of Lord of the Rings gathering you are planning my party bundle has over 50 pages of printables to help you out! Whether you’re planning an epic birthday bash, a movie marathon night, or just a whimsical get-together with fellow Tolkien enthusiasts, this is what you need to pull it all together! Just add to cart below.
