Hello Kitty Birthday

Hello Kitty Party! Fun colors and sweet little details - I had a lot of fun working on the invites & accessories for this event!

Cute little cupcake toppers made by Tulip!

Sugar Cookies & Brownie Cookies with Hello Kitty Decorations on top! You can get these at Party City

White chocolate drizzled popcorn and rice crispy treats!

The favors were mason jars filled with trail mix!

Sweet little name banner!

Sweet Inspiration

Ice Cream Socials - need I say more?

Summer is almost here! School is winding down, trips are being planned and the heat is already oppressive.  Pretty soon those summer parties will start cropping up and while pool parties are fun can you really beat and ice cream social?

I have had the fun, recently, of designing some darling invites and accessories for an ice cream social for a friend of mine and I scoured the web for some fun inspiration. Have a look at what I came up with - and if you are planning something icy, creamy, and delightful this summer - email me and I can create invites, cone wrappers, favor tags, thank you notes, etc. to go with!

She chose the last one and I whipped up some darling labels to go with them!

Check out more darling inspiration on pinterest!

Spiderman Baseball Mashup Party!

Ok - let's get this out of the way first, this is  a party that Tulip supplied the products for, but this is not  a party for another lovely customer.  This party was my  boys' party! I will post a picture of the invites soon as soon as I can get a non-washed out photo of them ( I am admittedly a terrible photographer ).

Another disclaimer, my boys are not twins.  They are 11 and a half months apart.  At this point in their life - it hardly seems practical to have two birthday parties 14 calendar days apart.  Since they are 3 and 4, the invite list is virtually identical - neither boy is school aged which might allow for friends of their own.  For now their friend list is, confined to the offspring of our friends and neighbors and we refuse to ask people to show up twice or worse, pick one!

But because my conscience has a booming voice I had to reconcile the fact that the boys each deserved their own party.  After all, it was not their fault that they were born so close together!  So, I decided to each let them have their own party, just on the same day, and at the same time.  I let each boy pick his theme - and tried not to cringe at the idea ... and that is how we ended up with a Spidey/Baseball Mash-Up Birthday Party. So if you are planning a spiderman party, grab ideas - if you're planning a baseball party help yourself.  Until the boys care, or they get their own friends I will have a yearly mash-up to report on! So enjoy!

Let's start with baseball - We decided to make the food table somewhat of a concession stand feel - think ball park! So we threw some ice and soda in one bucket and popcorn in another and fruit, fries, and mac salad stuffed in between! On the counter we had nachos & hot dogs and all the fixins. Grossly unhealthy, delicious fare!!  I bought crummy little foam baseballs and chopped of the bottom with a serrated knife (so they would sit flat).  Then I poked a hole in the top with a letter opener (the old-school kind) And voila, a darling stand for the food labels.

The husband made a darling stand to hang these on!

Tied with twine!

These buckets were from target for $15 and I am know I will get plenty of use out of them!

Bought these bags at Michael's with a coupon!

Green grapes & strawberries - fun, punchy color and most kids love em both!

Good shot of the stands AND this is a fantastic way to serve fries in clear cups, tad bit of ketchup in the bottom! So portable, so delicious!

I am still eating left overs!

These were a total hit!

Bought the hot dog wrappers on amazon for super cheap!

Onto the sweets - I called around to get sugar cookies, cupcakes & cakes made for the boys and GOOD GRAVY, people want a lot for sugar, flour, butter & a little elbow grease.  Couldn't bring myself to do it - so I rolled up my sleeves and managed to eek out a few sufficient sweet treats!

I bought this baseball cake mode 2 years ago, love it! (Michael's) And yes I had to build a nest of Twizzlers around it to hide the mediocrity of the bottom of the baseball!

These are not as gorgeous as the professional ones, but boy were they delicious!!

Oreos + cream cheese + white chocolate coating = tiny heavenly baseball treats!

What kind of baseball party would it be without crackerjacks! We even gave boxes away as favors!

Spiderman took up the left side of the table also was crouching by the door to dress up the entryway a little bit!  I did make a Spiderman cake (did a dry run the Friday before) and actually, it wasn't that hard! Followed the directions and it turned out ok! I had planned to make Spiderman cookies, but by the time I got the baseball cake, cookies, cake balls, candy, crackerjacks, pretzel sticks, and Spiderman cake out there - I thought it might be overkill. 

Streamers were from the 4th of July section at party city! And there are little Spiderman masks, napkins, and plats on the table!

This balloon was $11 but totally boss. And as for the boys' opinion of if? mind. blown.

Pretzel sticks - they had little spiders stuck to them but they fell off! (fail)

The kiddos got to keep these Spiderman toppers! Are they frosted to perfection? Well, no. But is that magically delicious Rainbow Chip vanilla icing on top? You better believe it. These were instantly gone!

Shout out to Rachel - cashier at Michael's who encouraged me to try this! It wasn't too hard and turned out pretty cute! 

Next time you have a mash-up, or any party for that matter, email me - I love to brainstorm and my intellectual property is free!!

Cinderelly Party!

Remember these invitations? I'm not one for tooting my own horn but really - are those not the cutest glass slippers you have ever seen?

 Well, I thought I would update you on how the party turned out!

Here is the table set up - love love love these oversized balloons (all though, these days it costs an arm and a leg to inflate them) - I use them all the time! And the tulle on the table was on sale at Joann's a few weeks ago (the plan is to turn this into some dress-up clothes).  And the weather I ordered (sunny and breezy) was perfect!

Here is the name banner for the birthday girl!

More giant balloons and then we hung tulle poms too - have you seen these? - here is how to make them, they were adorable and way less stressful than the tissue poms that we've been making for years!

 On to the popcorn boxes - couldn't resist tying in those darling shoe embellishments at the party somewhere and I had left over ribbon from the favors and banner! We filled them with fresh, popped popcorn and drizzled with blue tinted white chocolate. A hit with the kiddos since they could grab a box and walk around with it - and the boxes were only 4 or 5 inches tall so they didn't hold too much popcorn (which makes moms and dads happy too!)

Here are the little tent cards we used to tell people what they were getting!  Pardon my sad handwriting - I do print these sometimes, but sometimes I love the feel of handwritten touches (until I see them in photos that I am going to add to a blog post)

 And finally if I had to pick one item that I thought was the cutest - it was the favors!  These darling shoes had a little favor tag on them and they were filled with nilla wafers dipped half way in white chocolate - Delish!! Scroll down for close-up!

So, the next time you are planning a Cinderelly party - remember Tulip Invites - we've got everything paper you need and can give you great ideas for pulling it all together!

Customers I Love: Kennerly

I want to tell you a little bit about some of the customers I love. Today's feature fam will be the Kennerly family.

I don't know Megan that well - although, we email each other in two and three sentence emails which makes me feel like we are old friends.  Truth be told, she is a friend of a friend - who has used me for a number of occasions, for which I am grateful! She is the perfect customer.  Emails me with plenty of time, sends me links to things she loves, tells me changes without putting fluff around it ("I like B, but not that color, etc"). And just look at how cute this fam is!! (I had the pleasure of doing their Christmas Cards this year!)

This is a party that we did for the littlest Kennerly! Megan emailed me a link or two to some things she liked and we made some designs for her to choose from! Here was the invite she chose!

Favor tag

Name Banner

Another reason Megan is one of my favorites - is she is always kind enough to send me pics of the things I make in action! Here are a few of the photos from the actual event.  I love, love, love, seeing how things turn out!

Name Banner

Cute favor tags, and powdered sugar donut holes as "snowballs" - Love it!

Even a picture of the cake she had made to match the invites!

So, thanks Kennerly family, for letting me in on some of your fun - I am looking forward to all the parties in the years to come!