12 Totally Rad ’80s Party Decoration Ideas

When I close my eyes and imagine stumbling into someone’s living room on a random Saturday night in the middle of the 1980s, I see a Rubik’s Cube on the coffee table (never completely solved), people dressed in colors too bright to exist in nature, a boombox on the bookcase next to stacks of cassette tapes and a television tuned to a station that is showing music videos all day long.

I turned 30 in 1980, which means that I spent the entirety of the raucous, unsubtle 1980s in my own raucous, unsubtle 30s, old enough to purchase cassette tapes and young enough to know every single song on those cassette tapes. It was a great decade, and an ’80s-themed party today is still a blast.

Here are 12 things that were wildly popular in the ’80s, along with some ideas for recreating them in your own party plans. Some can be purchased from the companies that make them today. Some can be purchased from big party retailers. Some can be crafted from poster board, a pair of scissors and tape right on your own kitchen table. And, hey, nothing about the ’80s was subtle. So, if yours doesn’t quite measure up, that’s OK. We’re going for energy and spirit here.

1. Neon Colors and Memphis Squiggles

If the 1980s had a color palette, it was hot pink, electric blue, lime green and yellow, preferably all at the same time. A lot of it started in Milan, where Italian designer Ettore Sottsass and a group of younger designers formed the Memphis group in December of 1980. Their first big show was at the 1981 Milan furniture fair. Much of their furniture was made from the same plastic laminate you’d find on a kitchen counter, except Memphis laminate was brightly colored or covered with crazy patterns of squiggles and zigzags and dots and confetti. Sottsass even designed a black-and-white wiggle pattern called Bacterio.

Decoration idea: Cover the table with a sheet of white or black paper, then cover it with confetti (read: squiggles, zigzags, triangles, dots) cut out of neon-colored poster board. Tape some of the cutouts to the wall. Add hot-pink napkins and lime-green cups.

2. A TV-Frame Photo Booth for the MTV Generation

At 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981, the words ‘Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll’ were spoken and MTV was born. The first video it played was aptly titled ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by the band the Buggles. At first it was limited to a lucky few households (it was only available in parts of New Jersey), but MTV went on to shake up the world of music. I was in my early thirties at the time, slightly older than MTV’s target demographic, but you didn’t have to be a teenager to notice what it was doing. Here was this medium that took music, something that could be listened to, and made it visual.

Decoration idea: Create a photo booth for your guests. Grab a large cardboard box, cut out the screen, paint it to look like an old-fashioned TV complete with knobs and antennae (made from pipe cleaners) and hand-letter your own channel name on it. Your guests will love taking pictures in it. You can also leave the TV on all night and create a playlist of ’80s music videos (be sure to start with ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’).

3. Boomboxes, Walkmans and Mixtapes

The Sony Walkman was first made available for sale in Japan on July 1, 1979, and made its way to the U.S. in June of 1980 under the name Soundabout. It became an accessory that millions of people carried with them everywhere they went. Remember those giant boomboxes? While the Walkman allowed people to listen to their own music, boomboxes were more along the lines of broadcasting to the world at large, and your entire block could listen to your musical choices. Mixtapes, which are a collection of songs lovingly recorded from the radio (or another tape) onto a blank cassette, were often given as tokens of affection.

Decoration idea: For an easy nod to all this, try displaying an inflatable boombox on your snack table. Oriental Trading sells an Inflatable Boom Box for parties. It’s approximately 18 by 12 inches and has a solid plastic base so it stands up on a table. It’s printed with a boombox design complete with cassette deck, speakers and knobs. Another idea is to display old cassette tapes (thrift stores usually have them) across a snack or gift table. Blank cassette labels can be written with party guests’ names and used as place cards.

4. Rubik’s Cube Centerpieces

Hungarian design teacher Erno Rubik created his original cube, dubbed the Magic Cube, in 1974. The toy company Ideal Toy renamed it Rubik’s Cube and put it up for sale in 1980. It was an instant hit. Within just two years, 100 million Rubik’s Cubes had been sold, which made it the most popular puzzle in history, and it was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2014.

Decoration idea: For a giant Rubik’s Cube centerpiece, cut squares of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white construction paper and glue them on the sides of a square tissue box or small cardboard box. Relax, we’re pretty sure nobody wants to figure out how to solve this baby. It’s purely decorative. Spin Master, which owns the Rubik’s brand now, sells Rubik’s Cubes, including a version that maintains the classic design but has an improved, smoother-working mechanism (Next Gen 3×3 Cube). Get a few of those as favors, leave them around the party and see if anyone can solve one. Throw in a timer and make it official.

5. Pac-Man and His Ghosts

Pac-Man was created by programmer Toru Iwatani and released by video game publisher Namco in 1980 in Japan. It was released by Midway in the U.S. It went on to become the best-selling arcade video game ever, costing a lot of people a small fortune in quarters. Its four pesky ghosts are named Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. Even the song ‘Pac-Man Fever’ made it into the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 in March of 1982.

Decoration idea: Use yellow paper plates and make them into Pac-Men by cutting out a piece of the plate (like a slice of pizza) to make it resemble Pac-Man. Place Pac-Man plates all over your table, then use white paper and make little circles to line up in the middle of the table for Pac-Man to chase. Use red, pink, light blue and orange felt or construction paper to make ghosts. Place them at each end of the table. For something real, Paladone makes an officially licensed PAC-MAN Ghost Light. The light plugs into a USB port and changes through 16 colors. There’s even a Party Mode, which reacts to the rhythm of music.

6. A Trapper Keeper Guest Book

As a newspaperboy for the Dayton Daily News, I always felt a close connection to Dayton, and this item came out of Dayton too: the Trapper Keeper. Mead (which was headquartered in Dayton) first test marketed it in August of 1978 in Wichita, Kansas, and began selling Trapper Keepers country-wide during the summer of 1981. The little folders within were aptly named Trappers, and the binders themselves came in an array of themes and colors over the years from Lisa Frank artwork to cars and even unicorns. While some schools banned them because teachers did not care for the Velcro sounds, Trapper Keepers were all the rage, more than 75 million have been sold, and Mead is still making them today (in Colorblock, Paint Splatter, Shapes, Glow and Palm Trees designs).

Decoration idea: It shouldn’t be too hard to locate one to fill with some loose-leaf paper and set by the entryway at your bash as a one-of-a-kind guest book. It’s an easy, no-brainer way to engage your party-goers who remember Trapper Keepers.

7. A Lisa Frank Sticker Station

Lisa Frank launched her company, complete with rainbow-colored animals on everything from stickers to folders to anything else imaginable, back in 1979 in Tucson, Arizona. Her designs ran from sparkly unicorns to dolphins in DayGlo colors, and from Hunter the leopard to Forrest the tiger cub. From 1990 to 2005, the company racked up more than $1 billion in retail sales. Lisa Frank makes this list because she belongs to the tail end of the ’80s (and the years right after).

Decoration idea: For an easy (and interactive) nod to Lisa Frank, set out blank sticker books and sticker sheets, including puffy stickers, scratch-and-sniff stickers, the kind of thing kids decorated during free time in grade school. Adults will enjoy making use of their creative sides. Cover the snack table with a leopard-print tablecloth and rainbow-colored paper napkins for a Lisa Frank-inspired snack station. If you’re looking for more stickers, Lisa Frank’s own website sells a Sticker Collector’s Pack of puffy stickers.

8. Valley Girl Slang Banners

This one is a nod to the 1982 Frank Zappa song ‘Valley Girl.’ The song features Zappa’s teenage daughter, Moon Unit, providing the spoken vocals. It was Zappa’s only Top 40 hit and was Grammy-nominated. The song was responsible for introducing many grown-ups, who’d never set foot within the confines of the San Fernando Valley, to some choice Valley lingo.

Decoration idea: Reproduce some of this lingo in giant bubble letters and post them throughout the room. Post ‘Gag me with a spoon’ over the veggie tray and ‘Grody to the max’ by the garbage can. Write them with neon-colored markers atop black poster board, and the words will really jump off the page.

9. A Jane Fonda Workout Corner

Jane Fonda’s first exercise video, ‘Jane Fonda’s Workout,’ was released on April 24, 1982. Her bestselling workout book was published the year before. On the video’s cover, Fonda sported black tights and leg warmers, and leg warmers became part of the whole aerobics look. Her workout videos helped fuel the aerobics craze of the ’80s, with many people working out in front of their VCRs.

Decoration idea: Recreate an ’80s workout corner in your living room by leaving out a basket of neon-colored leg warmers, terry cloth headbands and wristbands for guests to grab upon arrival. Target’s website offers Wrapables 80’s Style Neon Fluorescent Ribbed Leg Warmers, which are made for theme parties. Leave an aerobics video playing on mute in your ’80s workout corner and see which guests join in once cake is served.

10. A Cabbage Patch Kids Adoption Corner

Remember the Cabbage Patch Kids craze? The original dolls, designed by Xavier Roberts of Cleveland, Georgia, came with their own adoption papers and birth certificates. Roberts made his first soft-sculpture doll in 1977. In 1979, he opened BabyLand General Hospital (a converted clinic) where customers could come to “adopt” one of the dolls instead of just buying one. For Christmas 1983, Coleco made 2.5 million Cabbage Patch Kids in its Hong Kong factory, but that didn’t come close to covering the holiday’s demand. One Zayre store in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was mobbed by about 1,000 customers. An assistant manager stood on the counter with a baseball bat. All 240 dolls were sold within 30 minutes, and five people were taken to the hospital.

Decoration idea: Set up a basket of dolls at your party and let each guest “adopt” one for the evening. For an authentic touch, BabyLand General Hospital still sells toy Cabbage Patch Kids on its website, and the larger styles with removable clothes come with a birth certificate and adoption paper. Alternatively, you can create adoption certificates yourself. Fill them out with funny ’80s baby names.

11. A Video Store Movie Shelf

Blockbuster opened its first video store on October 19, 1985, in Dallas, Texas. A trip to Blockbuster on a Friday night to select our form of entertainment for the evening is one of my favorite memories, especially paired with a Domino’s pizza and a two-liter bottle of Coke (or maybe a glass of wine). Renting meant walking down the aisles and perusing the backs of VHS tape covers, hoping the movie you wanted to rent was available.

Decoration idea: To recreate the Blockbuster experience, fill a bookshelf with old VHS tapes (thrift stores are great for these, and they often still have their plastic cases). Then turn the bookshelf into your own Blockbuster by adding a couple of signs (a hand-lettered New Releases sign will do) and, of course, the classic ‘Be Kind, Rewind.’ Serve a couple of pizzas and grab a two-liter of Coke, and those who want to stay after the party to watch an entire movie will be thrilled.

12. Scrunchies and Slap Bracelets at the Door

Scrunchies originated in the mid-1980s when Rommy Hunt Revson was looking for a new and improved hair band. After observing the elastic waistband on her sweatpants, she took note of the way it puckered when it was pulled and realized that a similar effect would work well in a hair band. She dubbed her creation the Scunci after her dog.

Slap bracelets came right at the end, technically just after the decade ended. A teacher from Wisconsin named Stuart Anders was the creator of the original slap bracelet, called the Slap Wrap, which consisted of a nine-inch strip of stainless steel wrapped in decorative fabric. When slapped against the wearer’s arm, the bracelet would curl and cling to the wrist. Some schools in New York and Pennsylvania banned or restricted them by fall 1990 after Main Street Toy Company of Simsbury, Connecticut, started shipping the flashy new fashion statement that summer at a price of $2.50 apiece, sparking an onslaught of less-expensive copies. The New York Times referred to them as “a Venetian blind with an attitude.”

Decoration idea: Set out a basketful of scrunchies and slap bracelets at the entrance of your party so that all of your guests will come through the door dressed for the party. You could snag a 36-piece multicolor assortment of scrunchies from Oriental Trading or raid your drawer. Oriental Trading also sells packs of checkered slap bracelets, and you can never go wrong with those. Bonus: Scrunchies make adorable napkin rings.

Now I really want to know which ’80s item you would put on your party table first. Did you have a Trapper Keeper, wait in line for a Cabbage Patch Kid, or master solving a Rubik’s Cube? Tell me in the comments below so we can have a laugh!

More trips down memory lane: 12 Things Only People Who Rented From Blockbuster Will Remember and the things inside every ’80s mom’s purse.

Top photo: A Philips D8444 cassette boombox, the kind of portable stereo that carried a party from room to room. Photo: Retired electrician / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0.

Photographs are in the public domain or used under Creative Commons licenses, as credited in each caption.