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7,)(1' DIY Decor

Roll up your sleeves and dust off your glue gun for gorgeous,
professional-looking
homemade
simchah centerpieces and designs.

I Arts & Life Editor

o-it-yourself decor doesn't
have to look homemade —
unless you're going for a
rustic look, of course.
But it can also be as all-out fabu-
lous as you want it to be, and you
don't have to be super crafty to
design your own decor for a simchah,
from bat mitzvah to bris. It does
require a good dose of industrious-
ness and vision (easily helped along
by Pinterest and Google Images).

PHOTOS BY KRISTIANA ROSE

Lynne Konstantin

Whether you want to create just
certain elements or the entire look,
it is possible. "If I want to put the
effort into something, I will figure out
how to do it," says Mike Finkelstein,
who created most of the decor for
his daughter's bat mitzvah. "Plus, I
liked being able to show my kids that
it's about creating and putting your
mind to it. It doesn't have to be just
writing a check for someone else to
do it." ❑

"We didn't want to make this over-the-top, like a wedding,"
says Mike Finkelstein of daughter Lexie Kate's Nov. 15, 2014, bat mitz-
vah at Temple Israel. "We wanted it to be light and fun and youthful.
She's got a lot of great interests, she's well-rounded and she's got a
sweet life. Plus, she and my wife [Karen Merkle] really love candy. So
we went from there." Finkelstein dipped upwards of 500 rock-candy
swizzle sticks in Super Glue to create centerpieces on high-top cocktail
tables. The sticks were then inserted into a Styrofoam ball, held by a
wooden dowel inside a vase from Target.

TOP LEFT: Rather than a number, each adult table was designated
a type of candy (which corresponded to candy-box place cards).
Finkelstein found a plastics manufacturer in Saline who provided him
with a special bonding agent to affix vertical acrylic towers, which he
and event-planner Debbie LeClaire filled with candy. Three-foot-long
boxes of candy were perched on top; movie theater-size boxes filled
the acrylic stands.

LEFT: PVC tubes stuck into the base of Target wastebaskets hold let-
ters spelling out Lexie Kate's name on the kids' tables. Finkelstein
found a Styrofoam manufacturer online who built the eight-inch let-
ters, which Finkelstein then painted and covered in candy.

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celebrate! I March 201 5

