Pink Peppermint Blogger

Well, I finally did it. I threw one of the MANY non-birthday related parties that I dream up.

Yea me!

This time, we were celebrating the addition of sweet Miss Buttercup to our family. Seemed like as good an excuse as any to have friends over and eat junky food, no?

I felt a bit of urgency to have the party quickly before we got swallowed up by fall commitments and she didn’t look like a puppy anymore.

She is gaining three lbs a week, and is already quite the hoss.

Anyhoo, I just bit the bullet and distributed invitations one Tuesday to force myself to kick things into gear. We had it on a Friday after school but before dinner time.

Here’s the invitation if you missed it.

Guests were invited to come “smooch our new pooch” and to please respond to “the alpha female”. (That’s me.)

Note: when folks at Milk Bones say, “Mini” they mean it. Are those the cutest, tiniest things you’ve ever seen?

Door sign: because our doorbell is pitiful and things were loud.

We had several small pawty tables set up on the back patio.

The kids used frisbees as plates and drank from these cute bone straw sippers.

I made these little tags for everyone’s cup so we could keep up with whose drink was whose. I think they kind of look like dog tags! Must be my subconscious keeping tightly to theme.

Inside we had all the pawty food set up. Here’s the doggy-themed topiary I made for the table. My husband balked at the use of the word “topiary” here, but you see it don’t you?

Never question the alpha female.

You know I love a thematic food selection, and our puppy is a yellow lab named Buttercup (who we sometimes call “Butter” because, let’s face it, “Buttercup” is a mouthful when you’re pleading for mercy with a puppy to let go of the very last pair of yoga pants you own that she hasn’t already bitten holes in).

We served Butterscotch Blondies and Puppy Chow, that yummy mix with Crispex, chocolate, PB and powdered sugar.

For a little something salty we had Cheese Nips and Buttered Popcorn. I made this super sweet and completely addictive Lemon Bark.

We also had Butter Cookies, which make me smile. As kids, we used to eat them off our pinky fingers in Sunday School. Anyone else?

Since my son is named Reese, and we sometimes use the word “peanut” around here as a term of endearment, I set out a bowl of Reese’s Peanut Buttercups! I wonder if I can make that her registered name. Hmmm…

Any finally, drumroll please…

My very first (and probably last) attempt at cake pops.

Or as we called them, “cake pups.” Not too shabby if I do say so myself. The kids really liked them, and my boy immediately requested I make some for his birthday. Whoa, there tiger!

The stand, if you can call it that, was a Wilton cardboard number that you can use to hold them during the dipping and drying process.

I reinforced it with some hot glue and dressed it up with a large lime green paw print cutout.

Confession time: I don’t care for the taste of a cake pop. Gasp! This is why I will likely never make them again. That and the sizable PITA it is to bake, cool, crumble, mix, cool, roll, cool, stick, cool, dip, cool and so on. And these were just regular plain ol’ balls of cake. I am in complete awe of all of you cake pop making phenoms out there even more so than I was before! I am very pleased with the fab tips from my FB fans on how to avoid cake pop disaster. Thanks, y’all!

Back to the pawty…

We served sparkling lemonade. I dressed up the drink dispenser with a ribbon and some D-rings to mimic a dog collar and threw on the new tag for Buttercup that we haven’t put on her yet.

And what’s a pawty without music? Not much of a pawty at all, if you ask me. Among other songs, we played:

George Clinton – Atomic Dog

Baja Men – Who Let the Dogs Out?

Rufus Thomas – Walkin’ the Dog

The Foundations – Build Me Up, Buttercup

George Thorogood – Bad to the Bone

Arrested Development – Wag Your Tail

Widespread Panic – Walkin’ (For Your Love)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse – Hot Dog!

Here’s our girl on the prowl. Estimated number of Milk Bones consumed that day: 752.

I know that furrowed look on her brow. It can only mean one of two things:

1) I don’t like this at all.

2) You should run. I am going to eat you now.

This particular time, it was No. 2. Lucky me.

When guests left, they each took home a frisbee plate, bone cup, an XL bone cookie and a doggie bag of assorted goodies for their S, M or L pooches–a sWAG bag, if you will.

Terrorizing all those kids makes a pooch bone tired.

Welcome to the family little girl!

I love to share Lauren’s parties. They are so chocked full of thoughtful detail, and this one is no different. Her oldest boy just turned three, and he is a Buzz Lightyear aficionado. OK, that may be an understatement. Since his last birthday, The Children’s Museum of Mississippi has opened. There’s a retro rocket right in their logo, and the kids absolutely LOVE to spend a day there immersed in the hands-on activities. Plus, there is A/C, which in Mississippi in July, is a game changer.

Lauren already had the venue, the rocket theme and a color scheme in mind when we started talking birthday, so I whipped up this invitation.

The party was right at noon, so the idea was to get the kids in the party room first, knowing they’d all be chomping at the bit to play. We fed them some lunch, had cake and released them into the museum as they were ready to play until they dropped. I created some large-scale printable party signage, a Pink Peppermint first. The first stop was the Party Room.

When everyone arrived it was lunch time, so the boys and girls settled in and went to work at tables covered in dark blue butcher paper. They ate from silver star-shaped plates and enjoyed UFO PB&Js, star shaped graham crackers and fresh fruit.

To drink, there was Zimbi Super Alien Juice. It’s awesome, because not only are the bottles cool looking and shaped like rockets, but also because when the drink is gone they fly! Seriously? Yes!

The kids also got these awesome alien cake pops from Mom’s Killer Cakes.

I love the way these alien pipe cleaner napkin rings turned out. Super cute, inexpensive and right on theme!

UFO sandwiches were made using Uncrustables, alien finger puppets and the clear base from gumball machine containers. Adorable!

Here’s the fresh fruit skewered on these cute silver star picks.

And here’s one of my favorite elements–a little craft pack of stickers, crayons and glitter glue that invited guests to decorate their space. How creative is that? They went to town too. Right on the butcher paper. It was great because it gave those waiting for others to finish eating something to do before the cake was served.

And while the kids ate, moms and dads had a chance to fuel up too.

There were chicken nuggets, fresh fruit, chips and other goodies like Orbit gum, starbursts and starlight mints! Love it.

And since everyone was likely to stay and play in the museum for a couple of hours, they also got these awesome space age to-go packs of Black Holes (mini Oreos), Nuts and Bolts, Shuttle Smoke (popcorn) and freeze-dried Fruit in Space. The sign read “Take Me to Your Leader.”

And when they were done with their plates, they knew where to find the trash can, labeled “Space Junk.”

There was also a chance to play Pin the Tail on the Comet. I was excited about this one. It’s Pink Peppermint’s first ever printable party game!

Finally, the moment they were all waiting for. Cake. How cute! I love the cloud effect of the icing. The bakery matched it to the invitation.

And here’s the birthday boy making his wish! They turned out the lights while he blew out the candles, and the look of pure magic on his face watching everyone sing was priceless!

Only a couple more pieces of business to attend to before turning the kids loose on the museum. Party favors were made from these great, oversized candy capsules. We added some simple paper rings to turn them into goody-filled flying saucers.

Included were toy laser guns, starbursts, bite-size milky way candy bars, glow-in-the-dark stars, spring-loaded martians, suckers and other treats.

The message read “Hope you had a stellar time!”

Guests also got a sticker to wear and filled their pockets with take-home snacks before they left the party area.

Out in the museum the kids pushed, pulled, moved and squirted, loaded, built, digested and then did it all again.

What a great celebration! Happy 3rd birthday, buddy!

My Caroline is the princess-loving tough as nails variety of little girl. A sweet jumble of contradictions. The kind of girl you only get from having an older brother in the house. It’s hard to predict what she’ll come up with next, but when it came to her 3rd birthday celebration, she and I decided we’d combine two of her current faves–princesses and snow!

In case you missed it, here’s the invitation. We handed out the majority of them so I got a little playful with addressing them. There were Ladies, Dukes and even Barons on the invitation list.

Here’s the glitter embellishment on the envelope.

Guests were welcomed to Castle Touchet with these grapevine wreaths spray painted silver and flocked with snow.

Inside where it was warm, the royal banquet table stretched out underneath a sky of falling snow.

We had snowflake crowns for the boys and tiaras for the girls.

Princess Caroline’s birthday throne at the head of the table was all wrapped up in a bow and set off with her royal portrait.

Laid out on a blanket of snow down the center of the table were snow globes filled with a different royal and snowy scenes.

A royal crown, a snowy church, a silver slipper, and a Victorian ice skate among others.

The princess one turned out to be my favorite!

After everyone checked out our stash of toys, it was time to eat!

Our centerpiece was made up of sparkly winter branches embedded in a vase of snow.

We had simple breakfast foods like sausage balls, mini muffins, pigs in a blanket and fresh fruit on these snowflake skewers.

The crowd favorites were these donut snowmen.

And look. There’s our dainty little princess enjoying one now!

The kids also really went for these marshmallow pops.

They had juice from these sweet little cups that come with snap on lids so they don’t spill.

I decked them out in royal fashion with some ribbon and scrapbooking embellishments.

And for the adults we had hot chocolate and coffee.

The mantle was decorated with a glittery snow village and castle.

And since it was a surprisingly mild January day {naturally}, we set up a play table of snow outside.

We had a few scoops and buckets and those kiddos went to town!

Then everyone headed back inside for cake. The birthday girl was feeling unusually shy as everyone sang.

Then there was more playing in the snow before everyone said their goodbyes.

As party favors, everyone got snow powder so they could make their own snow at home.

We had a great time celebrating with the birthday girl and a sweet group of friends for her first big girl party. Happy third birthday sweet Caroline!

Sources:

Large/Small Ripple Cups, Clear Favor Boxes – Think Garnish

Invitations, Paper Crowns, Cup Wraps, Favor Tags – Pink Peppermint Paper

Cake – Dream Cakes

What a wild and crazy year for Pink Peppermint Paper! We finished our first full year of blogging and celebrated our fourth year in the stationery business both in late October. I worked with lots of great folks who make me feel so appreciated and creative even when I don’t always see those things in myself. Somewhere in there, Lauren and I started a party planning gig–Pink Peppermint Parties. Bought a house. Sold a house, and my family and I relocated to Mississippi. Well, all except for that “sold a house” part. Ugh. No worries. 2011 is the year. I can FEEL it!

I was taking a look back at all we’ve shared with you this year. Here are some of my faves (for one reason or another) with links back to the full posts if you’re new or just missed them the first go round.

Little Girl’s Birthday Brunch – silhouette artwork and party favors inspired by my favorite little girl

High-Flying Birthday Adventure - L.O.V.E. working this super creative mom (and my former boss). Airsick bags to hold party favors. “We’re sick to see you go”!?! Yes, we did.

Hole-in-One First Birthday – The cake. The activities. THE WHEAT GRASS. Seriously.

All in Due Time Couples Baby Shower – Eight or so hostesses all living in different cities. This had no real hope of working, but it did anyway! I love it when a plan comes together.

Backyard Birthday Carnival – Fun colors. Games. Carnival food. Yum! This post gets a LOT of hits. I think it’s because of this awesome ceiling drape!

Feather Her Nest Baby Shower – Lauren hosted this for a dear friend. Love the elements from nature as well as the pops of color inspired by the baby’s nursery. RicRac, how do I love thee?

ARTy Party Lots of colors. Fun invitation. All-time favorite themed regrets line. You’re welcome.

Lifesaver Party – Our first Pink Peppermint Parties customer celebrating a big grant for a small not-for-profit, StopSMA.org. Someone wants to pay us for this?! Yea!

Hungry for more? The bugs were too at this Bug Out Birthday – the fabulous Lauren schools us on throwing an uber creative venue birthday. Where to begin…

Heroes and Villains – I’m still tired from this party in early October–my boy’s 5th.

Setting the stage for a battle of good versus evil.

Good guys and bad stand defiant atop cupcakes, capes whipping in the wind. The industrial cupcake stand was made of dampers and such from Lowe’s gutter/roofing section. Score!

Some of the good guys watching carefully from above.

I like to include elements of fun for the adults, too. C’mon now. That’s good stuff.

Neighborhood Halloween Bash – a great mix of spooky and fun at my sister’s house!

Another Fab Golf ParTee – Here’s another fun golf-themed birthday with lots of creative touches including the sought-after Sippy Cup Trophy! Man, I love a pennant banner. And argyle. Don’t get me started.

And last are these recent bottle labels. Whip a few up for NYE!

In 2010, I also saw my business double, which is due, in no small part, to those of you who follow me, leave comments and share links with friends. Many thanks! I am truly blessed to do something I love. So looking forward to new and exciting things in the coming year! Happy New Year!

Eleanor

We return for the final installment of our story to find our super friends eyeing the fantastic candy buffet.

A stroke of creative brilliance by no other than, you guessed it, supermom. Super candy with an element of danger and complete with superhero toothbrushes? Seriously, it doesn’t get much cuter than this.

Except for maybe this. Cityscape cake wrappers with hero and villain cake toppers. Complete with flying capes!! How did supermom make this work? Let’s just say, there is nothing Eleanor can’t make happen in her lab. A little fabric stiffener, a cup, a rubber band and BOOM! Perfection.

And yes, these cupcakes were as good as they looked thanks to Kristen of Crumb Gourmet. Check her out even if you are not local to the Jackson area. She also does cookies, and she ships!

There was even one specially designed for the birthday boy and placed on his own mini version of the industrial cupcake stand.

As this super day began to come to a close, guests were asked to fill their bags with goodies from the candy bar. They also grabbed a beginning reader comic book favor. Hero and villain options available, of course.

Truly, no ordinary day indeed. Bravo supermom and Happy 5^th Birthday to our hero, Reese.

Don’t miss the other installments of our heroic adventure.

Tables and balloons

Decorations and food

Invitations

As we return to the story, we find our team of heroes and villains heading back outside….

Our super friends were greeted with tables perfectly outfitted (and caped) for both the good and the bad to pump up their muscles and enjoy some of that SUPER hero sandwich.

WOW! Even the balloons were perfectly outfitted for the occasion.

Let’s pause our story for a minute and talk about how adorable these Pink Peppermint Paper balloon costumes are. A perfect accompaniment to the theme. And our supermom stashed them everywhere—inside, front door and food tables. AWESOME!

About as awesome as the super weights holding them down. GENIUS!

But that’s not all…

Tune in next time to see what sweet surprises supermom has in store.

Click here if you missed the super food and drink or here to see the invitation. And for pity sake, if you’re reading (and we know you are) be one of the good guys and leave us a little comment. Thanks and have a super day!

Hi there. Lauren here again. Back with more from the big day…

Our party begins on an unusually warm October day in the metropolis of Madison. Our birthday hero and his band of super friends began gearing to meet and celebrate Reese’s big day. Why, even our villains were excited about this extraordinary meeting of both the good and the bad.

Outside, the stage was set for the caped tots to face off in supermom’s awesome box village. WOW! What an awesome way to use old moving boxes and guarantee literal squeals of delight from heroes of all ages. In addition to painting and adding the great window details, Eleanor even cut a path through the middle so the kids could hide and play inside, while some super tunes from the birthday boy’s own heroes and villains iPod playlist filled the air.

Opposite the life-size village was a mini creation for some of super boy’s favorite plastic heroes and villains to duke it out in.

Meanwhile, back inside…

Supermom laid out a spread for our hungry heroes and famished villains that consisted of what else—a 6-foot hero sandwich and ONE-TWO Punch to drink. YUM!

Not to mention the plates and napkin sets. Will you eat with the good or dine with the bad? Make your choice….

To Be Continued.

Miss the invitations? Check them out here.

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.

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?