Pink Peppermint Blogger

We had a great response to our photo submission contest. We received 75 entries for use in our online holiday card catalog! There was no limit to the number of photos you could submit, and the winner was chosen at random by random.org to receive a $100 Pink Peppermint Paper gift certificate. A HUGE thanks to all who participated. Remember now, this was not a photo contest, but it’s a shame because look at some of these beauties!

submitted by Kim Alexander

submitted by Rachel Wiley

submitted by Ashley Kerth

There are a TON of others that I love too, but I can’t show them all to you! You’ll just have to wait and see them in the holiday card designs. Thanks again to everyone who participated. I am just thrilled with the result.

Oh, I guess you still want to know who won. Drumroll, please…. the winner of a $100 PPP gift certificate is Carol Alford! Congratulations! Email eleanor@pinkpeppermintpaper.com to claim your prize.

Not once, but twice this week our parties have been included in the Party of the Day feature over at Catch My Party! What else would we be, but tickled pink? A big thanks to Jillian for featuring our Carousel First Birthday and our All in Due Time Couples Baby Shower. If you missed them the first go round, why not check them out now. You can leave a comment, then pop on over to Catch My Party where you can share details from your own soirees or get inspiration for parties in the works. Happy Friday!

The holidays will soon be upon us, {sigh} and it’s time for me to start working on a few new card designs for this year! Problem. I need some sweet faces to feature in those holiday cards. For all of you photographers, aspiring photographers or folks with a camera, mostly willing subjects and a good eye, here’s your chance to have your photos featured in card designs in our online store, www.pinkpeppermintpaper.com.

“What’s in it for me?” you ask. Submit your pics for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to Pink Peppermint Paper. Use it for your own cards or for any of our other paper items–invitations, announcements, custom work. Heck, we might even be sweet-talked into working on a party for you. Here’s the deal:

• Email your high resolution photos to eleanor@pinkpeppermintpaper.com. If you want your real names to be used, please include those as well, just as you would on your own cards, e.g. “…from the Fords–Grant, Sara, Will and Anna”. If you do not include names, we’ll just make some up.
• Each separate usable photo that you submit will get you another entry for a new chance to win. Send in as many photos as you like. Couples, singles, group shots, with our without adults.
• By submitting photos, you are certifying that you have the rights to use/distribute these photos and that you are not infringing on anyone’s copyright to those images. If you’re not sure, PLEASE ask. We don’t like to break the rules.
• Photographers, please include a link to your website or Facebook page, so that we can feature it at the bottom of that card design page on our website. If you submit photos of subjects who are not members of your immediate family, you must also have their permission. If they agree to participate, we’ll also submit their names to enter the drawing–that’s one for you, one for them per picture ’cause we’re just that nice!
• Winner to be drawn randomly on Monday, August 30, 2010. That gives you two weekends to pick through your files!
• If you are a photographer and are interested in offering your clients a discount on Pink Peppermint holiday card orders, please email me at eleanor@pinkpeppermintpaper.com and we’ll get you set up.
• Questions? Don’t be afraid to ask. Email me at eleanor@pinkpeppermintpaper.com or post your query on our Facebook page.

Send this year’s pictures, last year’s, or the year before that! Thanks for participating. Now, go get busy!

I’m giving Lauren a much-needed break, so I’ll be the one to tell you about her son’s second birthday! Quite frankly, there’s some gushing to be done, and it’s much easier to gush about someone else’s party than it is your own. The party was so very cute, and I have so many pictures that I don’t even know where to begin, but here goes…

Pink Peppermint Parties has been all abuzz over the details for Lauren’s son’s 2nd birthday. No flies on us, for sure. For those of you who don’t remember or weren’t following me very early on, this is the adorable party she worked up for his 1st birthday.

This year’s theme was Bugs, and the challenge was to make it a party any boy would be proud of but also keep it sweet for a birthday boy still knee high to a grasshopper. We set the mood with this invitation design.

The munched edges turned out to be one of my favorite little details! Lauren even munched the flap on the envelope. Love it.

Party goers handed over these sluggy buggies to gain entrance to the Museum park. Now onto the BIG day!

The festivities were held at an outdoor pavilion. Each table had a sweet, grassy centerpiece complete with all types of creepy critters centered around these pint-sized, colorful arrangements of fly swatters and a butterfly net–all planted like flowers in large Mason jars.

Every kiddo had a place set with these stinkin’ adorable bug boxes that were personalized in buggy fashion with their names.

Also, waiting for them were butterfly nets, magnifying glasses, Build-A-Bug gummies, and these bug-eyed party hats.

There were bug-themed coloring sheets and crayons too!

How sweet is the little ladybug on that bunch of crayons? Swoon. I ran to get my camera when I saw them. I am SUCH a sucker for little details like that.

There was also an adorable game table with bug-themed puzzles, a bubble machine  (aka “the Fogger”) and COOTIE! Remember that game? Ahhh, memories…

Before lunch and cake, everyone enjoyed a bug hunt on the lawn. The kids grabbed their nets and had a great time searching for all the different kinds of bugs. Here’s the birthday boy in action.

Then it was time to munch. Note the hand sanitizer in that adorable buggy dispenser. Lauren really thought of everything!

I love the munched plates and the napkin rings too. I held one out to my two-year-old to take and she jumped a foot when she saw that spider on her napkin.

There were Slug Sliders, Roly Poly pinwheels, P, Bee and Js, Ants on a Log, Grub Worm Fruit Skewers and Bugs in a Rug.

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On such a hot summer day, the kids cooled off with what else but Bug Juice!

The adults enjoyed their drinks from these adorable homemade bug jars.

I designed the butterfly, bee and ladybug straw critters and cut them with a newly acquired piece of equipment. I was so excited by how they turned out! Rest assured there is much more party stuff along these lines shaping up!

After lunch, everyone made a beeline to the dessert table, which was highlight by delightful mosquito netting that had caught paper butterflies and ladybug hairclips, handmade by the birthday boy’s grandmother, for the girls to take home.

We also made a birthday banner with our new equipment and hung it with grosgrain ribbon behind the dessert table. It’s a little hard to see here, but it read “Happy Bday” and had a cutout of a bee in place of the letter.

The cake was a yummy chocolate bumblebee. How cute is that? I loved the antennae.

We did these cupcake wrappers with a sweet little plaid bee buzzing along for the delicious vanilla cupcakes.

And what dessert table is complete without a few grub worm gummies?

The birthday boy made his wish and everyone dug in. Look at that big boy in his buggy outfit. Too cute!

When kids and parents were all bugged out, they all headed into the Museum to cool off and have some more fun before heading home. Here’s the sticker they got before leaving.

Happy 2nd Bee-day sweet Wright!

I’ll get to the fab party shots in a sec, but first a little background. I have known Tish since I met my now husband ten years ago. Two kids each and a work-from-home job later, she gave me a buzz for some party inspiration in celebration of a big research grant award.

A couple of years ago, her brother’s little girl, Evie, was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, the number one genetic killer of children under the age of two. Later, her brother and sister-in-law’s nephew, Reese, was also diagnosed with SMA–a disease for which there is no cure. Rather than sitting around feeling helpless, their family set out to form Stop SMA, a nonprofit organization to fund research toward a cure for the various types of this disease–a cure that would have implications for other diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS and others.

Stop SMA recently won a cool $250,000 to fund research from the Pepsi Refresh Everything Challenge!  They worked for it too with a lot of behind the scenes help from friends and volunteers. They got the vote out every day for a full month, climbed steadily in the rankings, and did not stop ’til they reached the top. They pledged every cent toward research for a cure, so once they recovered from all that hard work, they dipped into their own pockets to throw a party for all the friends who helped them reach their goal.

Lauren and I got busy spinning out ideas. Here’s the inspiration board we did for the Stop SMA $250K Celebration.

Image Sources: Plates and Napkins, Paper Lanterns, Decorative Soap, Shot Glasses, Cocktail, Wonderworld Stacking Rings, Inflatables, CD Cases, Candy Buffet

The theme: Thanks! You’re a real lifesaver! It’s fun and playful but hints at the serious side of the truly lifesaving work they all did.

Tish was excited and got right on board with the lifesaver theme. She mixed in some of her own fantastic party magic and a few weeks later, she threw on her party dress and threw this super fun party! Enjoy.

The invitation was a custom-designed Evite using this color-themed artwork.

Here’s a new twist on party inflatables–using blow-up pool rings as decorations!

And later (much later) they hammed it up for the camera.

These cheerful flowers added a pop of color to the tables.

They had heavy hors d’oeuvres and drinks, including that  fun green lifesaver cocktail pictured above in the party plan, and enjoyed a much-needed night among adults. I’d have parked it next to this sweet and colorful candy buffet all night long. How fun!

The play list included fave thematic songs about life and friendships,

and as party favors everyone took home a CD.

To remind everyone why they were celebrating, the favor table held a sign with some literature from Stop SMA. Those two sweeties are seriously cute!

Thanks to Tish for letting us help with the party and to her fab photographer friend, Ashley Warren, for sharing these beautiful shots! Check out her work at www.ashleywarrenstudios.com.

For more information on SMA and how you can join the fight, visit their website at www.stopsma.org.

Life Savers Candy is a registered trademark of Wrigley Company.

My friend, Lesley, touched base with me several months back. She was throwing an art party for her daughter’s upcoming birthday. None of the invitations she had seen were doing anything for her so she asked me to do a custom job. I worked up several options, and here’s a sample of the invitation she chose.

The party was at a local art studio. What a fun idea! And perfect because they can get all messy and you don’t have to clean it up. Awesome.

There was painting,

and sand art.

They strung beads and enjoyed all sorts of other fabulously messy creativity. There’s the birthday girl in deep concentration over her masterpiece. (Either of mine would be sticking their tongues out just so. It’s a genetic marker on my dad’s side.)

Drumroooooolllllll please…

Magnificent! And speaking of which, what a super colorful spread! I love the use of different colored solid plates for this.

Check out this artful display of cupcakes!

Can you stand it? She used an assortment of these tilt-a-whirl baking cups. So festive!

I love these super colorful homemade crayons too. Lesley said she and her sister did this a lot as kids. My mom was pretty stinkin’ crafty, but we never did this that I recall. The only thing I was melting crayons into was the floor mat of our car.

I hope some of theoe cutie crayons were included in the party favor pails. Take a look. What else but paint buckets?

Man, oh man. Look at all that good arty loot. And how about these sweet favor tags? Paint swatches. Love it!

And finally, here are the thank you notes I did for them.

Looks like much fun was had at Ella’s 6th birthday party! What a cute party theme too. I love the idea of getting back to basic fun with art! Thanks to Lesley for letting us share in the fun.

I shared this around Father’s Day last year, but it was before I started blogging so I thought I’d change it up a bit and share again. My son had done one for me for Mother’s Day, and the answers were hilarious! It’s the kind of thing I will look back at in 20 years and still laugh over. [My personal favorite: Q: How much does Mommy weigh? A: "She's BIG! She's 636 lbs."]

Since school here lets out well before Father’s Day, dads usually get the short end of the stick on the creative kid crafts, so I decided to make one for my boy to fill out for his padre. (Props to Mrs. B this year for completing a Dad’s Day goodie and sending it home well over a month in advance! You rock.)

This one has questions like, “What does Daddy do at work?” and “How old is he?” You can imagine the answers. My two-year-old is quite the Chatty Cathy this year, so I may try her out on it too for my own entertainment. Hope you enjoy! Download your free Father’s Day Printable here.

Meet My Dad 2010

I have the unfortunate character flaw of believing that I can do anything. OK. Not anything. Mostly making stuff. I regularly find things for purchase, balk at the price and think to myself (or aloud) “I could TOTALLY do that myself.” and I give it a try. Or I can’t find what I’m looking for anywhere and decide to just make whatever I have need of as was the case with this shower curtain for my guest bathroom.

The list goes on.

Curtains for my son’s room – weird length with super strength to block out the light and heat of a thousand suns streaming in from an oversized window.

Artwork for my son’s room – refusal to pay $30+ a piece for artwork that he’d be over in two years.

Dust ruffle, curtains and paint job in my daughter’s room – meager attempt to repurpose unisex nursery bedding for a girl because I swore to my husband when we overpaid for it that I would use it again for future babies. Drat!

And now that I really think about it, that’s kind of how I started my stationery business. Couldn’t find what I was looking for. Got fed up and decided to make it myself. I’ve pretty well got this stationery thing licked. I think. The problem with the rest is that I have the skills to get by, but much of this stuff requires practice, practice, practice. If I sewed or baked or decorated all the time, I might really start to get somewhere. Oh, if only there were more hours in the day. Sigh.

Other things I think I could be above average at if I did them more than once a year:

Cupcake decorating. Cakes scare me, but I’m itching to try–especially since we’ve now gone into party planning. And fondant. Burning desire to play around with that. I’m pretty sure I have a compulsive eating problem with sweets though, so while I’d love nothing more than to have spare cupcakes lying around my house all the time, I really can’t trust myself. Or would that be like some form of immersion therapy? Hmmm…haven’t looked at it that way before.

Photography. I so need to take a class. Had to have a fancier camera when our first was born–problem being I still use it like a point and click. See photos above. Case in point.

Sewing. I can thread a machine and sew a straight line, but it’s one of those things you just have to keep at to get really good. Plus, I have no problem with leaving an ugly stitch on something that won’t show. Plus, I need my mother to sit there watching me so we can work through the mental logistics of having everything match up, back up and line up as necessary.

Calligraphy. I took an after school enrichment class on this 24 years ago. I dust it off every now and then, but you have to get going again to have it flow without thinking.

I’d love to hear from you! What could you be really fabulous at doing if you only had more opportunities to practice, practice, practice?

I have a treat for you today. A guest post from Lauren, my accomplice at Pink Peppermint Parties. Enjoy! And don’t forget to leave a comment!

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A couple of weekends ago, several friends flocked together to celebrate the upcoming arrival of a tweet baby girl. This brunch shower stole its theme from her adorable nursery, which features a brown, pink and teal color scheme, polka dots, green gingham, lots of rick-rack ribbon and, of course, birds! It made for a fun and festive way to celebrate the nesting mommy-to-be.

First things first, here’s the invitation!

Birds seem to be all the rage in the party world this season. Go ahead…I dare you to Google bird shower. It’s overwhelming! However, Eleanor and I wanted this event to be as unique as the guest of honor, so we created lots of touches all our own. Take this “bird on a wire” giftline for instance. A spin off the common clothesline version, this one was crafted out of grapevine twine and had paper birds attached to clothespins perched on the line and holding the gifts. Please note that many of the birds are replicas of those found on the invitation—the paper patterns, too. I love consistency!

And a big thanks to a certain retailer for having the PERFECT assortment of precious bird inspired clothes to hang on the line.

Next up…the food! The table featured a beautiful floral arrangement in a copper container, bird statuettes and fun “nest” bowls for jams and jellies. We certainly did not eat like birds will all the delicious options this brunch buffet had to offer.

Each brunch item was labeled with these festive bird menu cards.

The table also featured napkin and flatware sets dressed with a gingham ribbon bellyband, an actual twig (spray painted white and crackled) and finished with a paper bird cut out.

Some of our paper bird friends were also found perched on drink glasses.

One of the hostesses took the invitation to her baker and together they whipped up this fantastic (and super delicious) cake which announced the little chick’s new initials.

Decorating the cake table was a square glass vase filled with birdseed and two long branches also spray painted white and crackled like the twigs on the napkins. Scattered on the branches were an assortment of feathered friends cut from the same paper and in the style as those found on the line. They were attached using mini clothes pins.

Remember these adorable paci mints Eleanor made for the “All In Due Time” shower? Well, they made the perfect addition to these mint nests, which were placed in gathering areas around the home.

Can you spot the adorable little nest the florist added to the arrangement for the drink table?

Finally, since no one should leave a party empty handed, we created these little favors for the guests. They were set up next to the door in a galvanized tin bucket on a stand so it didn’t take someone with eagle eyes to find them. Inside the bucket, birdseed anchored the favors and a lone branch with one bird holding a card let the guests know to take a favor to their nest. At the base stood a wooden birdhouse

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Inside the brown paper favor bags was a birdseed ball crafted from bird-friendly foam, peanut butter and birdseed. A piece of pink rick-rack ribbon was fashioned as the hanger.

And finally, the bag closed with a coordinating paper bird perched on a mini clothes pin. On the outside, a thank you message to each guest on a 2×2 card that matched the invitation.

What a fun celebration for a mommy-to-be who is truly a rare bird and a friend like no other. We wish her all the best as she nests and waits for her tweet baby girl to arrive.

It’s hard to believe that the end of the school year is upon us. In fact, here at the Pink Peppermint house, school’s already out for summer! They both really loved their preschool classes this year, and I know when we relocate later this summer that they’ll miss seeing those friends. So, we gave everyone a little something fun to get them ready for summer time.

Our two-year-old friends got a set of these fun sand tools from Target. I think they’d also be great for summer garden fun.

The tag said, “I really DIG being your friend!”

And the four-year-olds in the Monkey class got this super cute polka dot sidewalk chalk. I remember having one chalk holder when my sister and I were little. Seems like both of us always wanted it, and I’d never seen a chalk holder for fat chalk, so I thought this was extra fun.

The tag says, “Chalk it up to another great year!”

I think either of these work well for a sweet and inexpensive take-home from a summer time party too. But, I have to say my most favorite summer party favor is this:

How about gifting a roll of these sliding popsicles at room temperature? They come stuck together and perforated to separate.  Just freeze and enjoy. What a fun way to ring in the summer season! This is about the most fabulous idea ever, and I so wish I could take credit. The truth is I saw a boy at my son’s preschool toting one of these last year, so there’s some other mom out there who gave birth to this fantastic idea. Hats of to you, whoever you are! Our tag read, “Stay cool this summer.”

Hopefully these ideas will spark those of you who are planning to entertain kiddos this summer or who are looking for a little something to give to classmates as the end of school approaches. My kids aren’t old enough yet for me to be relieved that there’s no homework for three months. Instead, the pool’s not open yet, and we are looking for ways to entertain ourselves. Wish me luck!