Creating a Bubbly Bar

Champagne and New Year’s Eve go hand in hand, so a fun focal point for a NYE party is a Bubbly Bar, where you can have champagne, champagne flavored items, and festive treats.

New Year’s Eve decorations seem to be an after-thought for me. With the busy-ness of Christmas, it’s always something I feel like I’m scrambling to put together. This year was no exception. And with just one week between the two holidays, I am limited to what I can find locally. Fortunately, my local go-tos did not disappoint when it came to creating the Bubbly Bar!

I went to Target and Party City, and both spots have darling items for NYE celebrations this year. I was really impressed! For the Bubbly Bar, I wanted to hang a champagne bottle balloon from the wall, then have cascading balloons that mimicked bubbles coming out of the bottle. My vision was ambitious, but I was determined to make it work, so off I went 🙂

First step was to blow up all the balloons I’d gathered at Party City and the champagne bottle balloon I got a Target.

I blew up 15 of the white and gold balloons in various sizes, then used the balloon decorating strip (pictured above, commonly used to make a balloon arch) to bunch them together to create a bubbles effect. The balloons punch through the plastic strip, making it really easy to work with. I left a little excess strip on either end so that I could easily attach it to the wall. Next it was time to hang the champagne bottle. Tape on the back of the balloon did not work, so my next idea was to create a sling using thread. I had some light pink thread on hand, and that worked perfectly. I created a sling around the base of the balloon, then two around the neck. I used scotch tape to hang the string from the wall, and it seems very secure.

We don’t have a ton of table space in our house, so I repurposed a dresser as the bar area. It’s the perfect height and depth, so with a quick fabric cover it was ready to become a bar for NYE!

I found the “Bubbly Bar” banner at Party City as part of a set of decorations. Admittedly, I don’t know if I’ll use the other items, but I’ll definitely keep them on hand just in case. I set out my cake plates, glassybaby, and a couple champagne flutes, and the bar was ready to be set.

The gold and silver confetti were part of a pushpop of confetti I found in Target’s Dollar Spot (you’ll see those again in tomorrow’s blog post!). When I’m buying something like a confetti push pop to be used by the guests, I always buy one or two extra to be able to use the same confetti in my decor. I also filled the champagne glasses with confetti, as they would be vessels to hold candy for the night.

I filled each cake plate with NYE goodies, and the Bubbly Bar was ready!

The festive party hat sugar cookies are from Jenny Cookies Bake Shop. The champagne cupcakes are from Simply Sweet Bakery, and I topped them with gold number candles from Party City. The rock candy is from Party City. I got the confetti champagne flutes from Target, and I set out a variety of champagnes.

Start to finish, the set-up took me about an hour, and honestly most of that was working on the balloons. I’m really pleased with how it all came together and I hope it inspires you to create a festive bubbly bar for your NYE celebration. If you have little ones at your party, you could replace the bubbly with a variety of sparkling ciders for them to sample.

Come back tomorrow for details on my tableware and centerpiece picks for NYE!

Party on!
JW