Start with a great invitation. Invitations are the first thing your guests will look at so be sure that you have a fun invitation to share. You can make hand-made invitations or purchase ones that have a 50’s theme.

Another important aspect of sock hops is the costume choices. 50’s attire is mandatory to pull off a successful sock hop. This means wearing bobby socks, saddle shoes, cuffed jeans, leather jackets, poodle skirts, and cat glasses.

Dances need really good music to dance to. Stick to the popular classic choices with your music. Elvis Presley and Bill Haley will definitely liven up the dance party.

You could hire a choreographer to teach some fun 50’s dance moves to people who are interested. There are quite a few fun dance steps including the bop, the hand jive, and the cha cha. Some people like to have the choreographer teach guests the dance moves an hour or half  hour before the dance starts so they can use those moves during the dance.

Food and refreshments are also a necessity. If you want to keep it light you can choose to serve ice cream sundaes and milkshakes. For more of a meal you can have the famous 50’s meal of hamburgers, French fries, and coca cola.

Dances need good decorations to keep them fun. Transform your dance location into a 50’s hangout spot. Hang up music notes, records, silhouettes of dancers, and classic cars.

Make your sock hop a fun place to be. Planning ahead can really help make everything come together nicely for your dance party. Brainstorm what you would like to see and make it happen.

Costume makeup really makes your costume come to life. People are constantly looking into your face and if your face plays the part, then so do the rest of you. The time you will need to spend on your costume will depend on what your costume actually is.

Many costumes portray people as different animals or creatures. The make up that is worn with these costumes should be done to fit the specific creature. There are different techniques that can give the make up the appearance of fur or hair. There is even makeup that can give dimension to your face and other parts of your body.

This dimensional makeup is also used to depict injuries like scars or skin lacerations. It can even change the shape of a nose, cheekbones, or mouth if that is required. It opens the door for so much creativity and accuracy that really adds to the costume and character.

Many times make up is done just to give a stage presence to characters in a play. Most semi- professional and professional acting groups require their actors and actresses to wear makeup especially mascara and/or fake eye lashes. The reason for this is to add distinction to their faces so people in the audience can see more detail in the play. It also accentuates facial expressions and emotions.

Generational makeup is done to give the costume a look from a specific time period. Throughout the years, the way women have worn their makeup has evolved and changed. Having the correct time period makeup will add that much more accuracy and life to the costume you are wearing.

For example, a 50’s costume may entail a poodle skirt and bobby socks but there is also a certain makeup style that goes along with that costume. A 50’s costume will not be complete without the dramatic purely feminine look of a 50’s girls makeup. These details may or may not be important to the person wearing the 50’s costume but for a complete and accurate costume they are necessary.

Costumes are used for so many occasions and can have so much meaning. They can depict anything from an animal to a black eye and everything in between. They give the costume it’s final touch that will really make it come to life.

It is important to know how to dress up in a poodle skirt. You should know what items go with the skirt and how to wear your hairstyle. It is also important to know what shoes go with a poodle skirt.

Dressing up in clothing from the 50’s can be fun. Choosing a poodle skirt to wear brings you a few options for accessories and complimentary clothing attire. For example, you can wear saddle shoes, oxford shoes, or white tennis shoes with the skirt.

Saddle shoes usually were in two main combination colors. Those combination’s were white and black, or white and navy. These two combination’s were the most popular options, though they were not by any means the only combination used.

Socks of the time were bobby socks. Bobby socks are white, ankle socks that have a ruffle of lace around the top of the sock. Bobby socks are no longer available for adults, but they can be purchased online or made by sewing lace to the cuff of an ankle sock.

Poodle skirts look best with a nice blouse. Button-down blouses look great with them. Top the blouse off with a nice, soft cardigan sweater.

Hair can be styled in a few different ways. The most popular way of wearing hair back in the day was in a pulled-back ponytail. Scarves look great pulled around the ponytail holder.

Short curly hair is also another hairstyle choice. Tiny hair clips, such as flowers, can bring a nice touch for a shorter hairstyle option. When wearing jewelry, try to keep it simple. A good choice would be a strand of pearls.

Greaser – Men can dress up as the ultra cool grease dude. This costume consists of wearing a white t-shirt, slicked back hair, and rolled up tight jeans. Don’t forget the bad boy leather jacket to pull this look off.

Elvis – Elvis is a popular 50’s costume choice. There are a lot of costumes already put together for this famous music icon. If you want to piece the costume together on your own, find a good Elvis wig with side burns and move to finding clothing options that work for the rock-n-roll mega star.

Business Man – You can find a lot of inspiration for this 50’s costume through the movies and TV shows of that age. Men in the fifties often wore flannel suits with fedora hats. When you add the two together with a briefcase you have a great 50’s costume.

Housewife – We can’t forget the famous fifties housewife. A full dress that goes a little below the knees and some classic heels work great for this look. Be sure to wear crinoline underneath the dress to make it work.

Grease Babe – The grease babe is someone who hung out with the grease dudes. Wear a tight blouse with form fitted capris that go to mid-calf. Add a warm up jacket and make sure hair is big and curly.

Sock Hop Girl – Sock hop girls loved to dance. Find a poodle skirt and cardigan, and match it with white tennis shoes. If you want to go with a carhop themed costume you can throw on some roller skates.

Tourist- Grab your dad’s Hawaiian shirt and some tacky shorts. Top it off with a goofy hat your dad also probably has, and wear a camera around your neck. Don’t forget to pull your socks up as high as they can go.

Scuba Diver – If you have some snorkel gear take advantage of it. They make for a fun dress up costume. Put on your wet suit, snorkel mask, and if you want you can incorporate the flippers in some way as well.

50’s Sock Hop Dancer – Find that sock hop dressing attire for this fun 50’s costume. Girls can wear a cardigan with a poodle skirt and guys can wear a letterman’s jacket with jeans. Greaser outfits, such as a white t-shirt and leather jacket, also make a good sock hop costume.

Good Ol’ Grandma – Use a dress that is a few sizes too big for you and use pillows to fill it up. Use granny glasses and a scarf to use over your head for a shawl. Be sure to wear knee high socks that show underneath the dress and wear with granny shoes.

Witch – This is a classic costume because it is always so fun to do. Dress in black and carry a broom. You can wear a pointy black hat if you want, or wear a cloak too. You can have a lot of fun with makeup with this costume by doing your best to come up with the face you want to match the costume.
Overweight Farmer – This one is an easy one to do. Dress up in your overalls and put a small pillow in the middle. Put on a straw cowboy hat and chew on a toothpick. You could even draw a gap in between your teeth if you want to be silly.

Ghost – The ghost is one of the easiest costumes for Halloween. All that is required is a white sheet and cut outs for the eyes. You can purchase sheets now very inexpensively so you can throw the costume away with out feeling too guilty when you don’t want to save it.

As far as specific clothing choices that were popular during this time, women typically wore blouses that were tucked in to their poodle skirts. They also sometimes wore Capri pants and jeans. They also liked to wear cardigans to go with their blouses.

Bathing suits were usually one-piece suits. These bathing suits were halter tops or strapless. Women liked to wear saddle shoes, pumps, stiletto heels, or penny loafers.

The men also had snazzy fashion choices. They usually wore white t-shirts with jeans.  They topped those off with leather jackets, lettermen jackets, or bowling jacks.

The 1950’s were the age of the sock hop. A lot of these fashion choices were used because they worked well with dancing. Poodle skirts were a classic example of this. The full, circle skirt offered a fun effect for girls when they were dancing.

50’s fashion was unique. It was classic for that specific time period. If you want to have fun with that time period, put on a fun sock hop or 50’s party. A lot of people are searching for the perfect party plan, and a 50’s party may be the perfect choice for you.

Sock hops are a perfect dance for friends, high school dances, or even family reunions. 50’s parties are great costume parties as well, and can be a great theme. Incorporate the great fashion choices of the 50’s in your costumes to tie everything together.

Have fun with your decorations. You won’t have to deal with the hot sun during this time, so you will have a little more freedom with what you choose to use for your sock hop food and decorations. Things won’t melt or get ruined because of the hot sun this time.

Incorporate the 50’s theme with your decorations. Place pictures of 50’s Hollywood stars around the room, hang old records, and have an inflatable jukebox. 50’s cars are also another great decorating choice.

Get the student body involved in the planning. They can come up with some pretty amazing details that you might overlook. Students are wonderful party planners.

Be sure to advertise the dance for a while before it is scheduled. You want the high school students to know about it in advance and talk with their friends about it before the day of the dance. The more advertising you do, the better chance you have of a good turn out.

Your school dance team may also want to be involved with the dance. Invite them to come up with their own suggestions. Perhaps they will have volunteers to teach the rest of the student body certain sock hop dance moves or 50’s swing steps.

The main thing is to plan an activity where students can mingle with one another in a safe and fun environment. A 50’s style sock hop dance is perfect for this type of activity. Add some great music, food, and entertainment and you are good to go.

Think of what you would like to do at your Halloween party. Incorporate the holiday and mix it with the 50’s theme. Everyone wants to dress up for Halloween, so what better way than to include all your friends in with the same type of costume ideas and styles.

For party favors you can buy inexpensive sunglasses from a dollar store. Place an orange napkin in between the folds of the sunglasses. For girls, you can add pearls on their table setting. Your guests can use these party favors as an accessory to their costume.

For the meal, include a burger and fries. Instead of serving coca cola, make homemade root beer. The dry ice can make quite an eerie decoration for the party, and you will impress your guests with your delicious homemade root beer in the process.

Do a mixture of songs for your music. Mix rock and roll with Halloween songs. You don’t want to just play Halloween songs, since you want your guests to get out on the dance floor and dance to come good, classic, 50’s music too.

Incorporate a good balance with decorations. You want to include the 50’s theme and the Halloween theme. Try to use the color of black and orange as the color scheme, but include other 50’s decorations like hanging old records from the ceiling or on the walls. Add a real or inflatable jukebox for a great decoration choice.

Don’t forget to include activities and games with your party. Dance contests are an amazing way to get everyone up and moving. You can also hold a costume contest, 50’s trivia contests, or other such activities. The main thing to remember is to keep everyone involved so they have a good time.

The most important thing to consider in starting a blog is your topic. As we go through this tutorial, we will focus on how you can create a blog about summer car shows or car hops. However, the instructions can be applied to all types of blogs.

Step 1: Assuming you have already decided on the topic of your blog (which we have), the next step is to choose a blogging platform, or the site that will host your blog. The two most popular platforms are Blogger and Wordpress. Either platform would be great for starting a summer car show blog, so choose the one that is easy for you to use and that you feel fits best with what you will use it for.

summer car shows

Step 2: After you have decided on a platform to use, it is time to customize your blog. When doing this, you want to make sure that your blog accurately portrays your subject matter.

With our chosen blog topic, we would be able to do this by displaying pictures of car hops. You can add it in the header and on the sidebar of our blog. You can also display the theme by choosing a name that included something about summer car shows.

Step 3: The next step is to create your first blog post to explain what your blog is about. You could write a post explaining the history of car hops, what goes on during the events, anything you think your reader needs to know about the subject. This first post will serve as the building block of your blog so it is good to include the most basic information about your blog’s topic.

Step 4: Now that you have officially done everything to begin your summer car show blog, all that’s left to do is to keep posting! The only way to get dedicated readers interested in your blog is to be dedicated to it yourself! Be consistent with your blog posts, make yourself a blogging schedule if you need to, just make sure you post often and regularly to keep readers coming back.

And don’t worry about running out of things to write about: the more  you write, the easier it will become. It also helps to be very involved with your subject matter so that you have a greater pool of experiences to draw from. Go to as many summer car hops as you can and become very involved in them and you will have plenty to talk about on your blog!

In California a group of Red Hatters celebrated a Red Hat Society Day. Visitors from 15 Red Hat chapters came to celebrate the event, and even had visitors all the way from Indiana. These women celebrated the day by crossing the Sundial Bridge, in Redding, California.

Not every Red Hat event needs the involvement of the entire Red Hat Chapter. One woman, Delores Barton, from Kawaiisu, Indonesia went on a Cruise and kept her Red Hat sisters involved by sending them updates and pictures of her cruise. She cruised around the globe, and thanks to the Red Hat discussion boards they were able to be a part of her fun adventure with her.

A chapter in St. Louis, Missouri decided to have a luncheon at the St. Louis Science Center. The Red Hat Mini-Makers really enjoyed learning new things with the science exhibits there. They especially enjoyed the newest exhibit “Sue, the T.Rex”.

Red Hat ladies in England decided to host a historic tour for one of their Red Hat events. The Brighton Belles visited the Brighton Dome in their colorful garb and full poodle skirts. They were even able to be extras in a program that was being filmed at that location.

Red Hat Society & the fifties

21 Chapters across Europe decided to host an event that lasted 4 days in Italy. They were able to attend cooking workshops, visit the opera “La Traviata”, and exercised with evening walks. They especially loved the attention their purple poodle skirts and bright red hats got them.

Australia sisters of the Red Hat Society decided to go the artistic route. The Small Talk Red Hatters, from Mount Cootha, Australia, decided to attend the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia. Their favorite art work being showcased there were the red, dramatic pieces.

There are plenty of additional stories shared on the Red Hat Society website. Every story comes with a fun picture showing women in their fun, colorful outfits, poodle skirts, pearls, hats and feather boas. These beautiful women definitely know how to live life.