Nobbies Parties Blog: Plan a 50's Sock Hop Party

Invitations

Invitations are a great way to reflect the spirit and theme of your party. Nobbies offers many different types of invitations.

Hand-made Invitation Suggestion:

Create your own mini 45 records for invitations. Using a compass draw several (invitation size) circles on a piece of poster board and cut them out. Cut out some smaller circles on white paper (to resemble the center of a 45 record). Glue the smaller circles to the black circles. Write the party information: "Let's Twist At Wyatt's 30th Birthday Bash!" or "Let's Rock Around The Clock!" etc.

Serve deluxe hamburgers and fries in a vintage style basket or in a cardboard 50's car.
Milkshakes with whip cream and a cherry on top.
Coca-Cola or root beer floats.
Use plastic ketchup and mustard bottles on each table.
Dress like a roller skating car hop to serve your guests.
Use LP records as chargers under each guests plate.
Drive in cake: bake a 9x13 cake. Remove from pan and place on a piece of foil-covered cardboard. Frost with light brown frosting. Scan a picture from the movie Grease and make it the size of a graham cracker. Turn the graham cracker on its side and frost one of the sides then place the picture on top of the frosting and place it in the cake. Take some toy Hot Wheels cars and line them up in front of the picture like they are at the drive in.

Cover the walls of the party area with 50's scene setters. They will transform a whole room in seconds.
Cover the tables with black and white check table clothes. Place a plastic record in the middle of the table and then create a balloon arrangement with pink and mint green balloons. Attach the balloons to a napkin weight and place in the center of the record. Use individually wrapped pieces of Bazooka bubble gum as confetti on each table.
Hang music notes and instruments on the walls.
Cut out silhouettes of sock hop dancers, classic cars and music notes out of black poster board and hang around the room.
Place an inflatable juke box in the corner of the room and place a CD player behind it playing 50's music or Grease soundtrack.
Hang plastic records from the ceiling.
Hang 50's light sets(records & juke box set) around the room.
Get a life-size cut-out of Elvis, Marlyin Monroe, James Dean or Danny Zuko to have your guests take pictures with.
Hang strings of rock and roll records (sold as a premade set) in the doorway as a curtain.
Hang large cut-outs of old fashion pink Cadillacs and other cars around the room.
Make a pink Cadillac cut-out for your guests to sit behind and take Polaroid pictures of each one. Then give them the photo as a party favor.
Order a balloon arch from Nobbies and hang "45" records from the center of the arch. (Use pink, white & mint green balloons)

Hula hoop contest: See who can keep a hula hoop moving the longest or spin the most hula hoops at once.
Dance contest for the following dances: Twist, Limbo or the Stroll
Bubble gum blowing contest: you will need lots of Bazooka bubblegum for this.
Straw cover blowing contest-See how far they can blow the covers on the straws using the straws to blow them with.
Create a quiz for them to take from the movie Grease. Then have them watch the movie and then take the quiz.
Lip Sync to the songs from the album Grease
For a girls sleepover, have the girls put their hair up in old fashion 50's styles. Try to find some old hairstyle books at the library or thrift stores.
Drag Race: Give each guest a toy matchbox car and line them up on a table. Assign one person to start the race by waving a scarf. Then each guest is to blow their cars across the finish line. The first one across the finish line wins.
Fill a juke box pinata or record shaped pinata with candy and toys. Have each guest wear a blind fold and try to break open the pinata.
See who can do the best yo-yo tricks and keep it spinning the longest.