Pink Peppermint Blogger

I’m excited to have gotten my amazing photos back from my sweet friend, Rachel, and to have finally gotten through all of them so that I can share my daughter’s Barbie: The Princess and The Popstar birthday party with you all. The movie is a classic “grass is greener” tale of a princess and a popstar who each think the other’s life is so fantastic that they trade places for a day and learn some valuable lessons along the way. Hey, I could write DVD sleeve copy. My Sweet Caroline was introduced to the movie by some neighborhood friends and quickly became obsessed with being “Keira,” the popstar.

Here’s the invitation and the envelope in which it was delivered. We kept the guest list to a few girlfriends and invited them to come in costume for an on-stage performance.

Most of them were hand-delivered in the neighborhood so we were able to embellish them a bit.

We kept things simple with the party entrance this time, opting for a sparkly door sign and some backstage credentials.

Backstage passes hung from a guitar stand on the front porch. I wasn’t happy with the materials I found for ID badges at the local office store, so I printed 4×6 cards and had them hard laminated, adding a lanyard to each.

When guests entered, our Stage Moms were directed to the left into the “Green Room.” We had earplugs on hand just to be silly. Purple, of course.

Our “Talent” was directed through the lit doorway to the concert stage.

We also had directional signage for the “Green Room,” “Wardrobe” and this one for the bathroom.

C’mon. That’s funny.

There are my kiddos “tuning” the inflatable guitar before the party started. This is the only photo I have of my son at the party because he hightailed it down to the neighbor’s house when he heard he’d be outnumbered.

We built the stage with a piece of plywood and some scrap wood from our playset.

I painted it purple and added a short shimmery curtain to hide the legs. It fit right over the fireplace hearth, and gave the girls a few square feet of room to get their popstar on.

We covered the fireplace and mantel with pink and purple goodness and lit it up with Christmas lights.

Overhead was an over-sized tree ornament we used as a disco ball. It even had a pink tiara on its head.

Guests passed from the stage area to the “Green Room” through this sparkly pink curtain, which was a source of great entertainment for the girls.

(Read: they ran back and forth through it until it bit the dust.)

We kept the food light with items you might find in a real Green Room.

Maria from Love & Sugar Kisses made these AMAZING fondant topped Oreos for us. I swear to you that they were so perfect, people felt bad biting into them. Ha!

The pink Princess versions featured crowns and magic hairbrushes and the purple Popstar versions had guitars and magic microphones.

Since most everyone walked to the party, we offered mimosas to our stage moms. In keeping with our color scheme (and because I don’t really love a classic mimosa) we mixed 1 part champagne or sparkling juice, 1 part orange juice and 1 part V8 Fusion Pomegranate Blueberry juice. The concoction was a beautiful pink color, and the sweetness of the different juice really cut the usual bite of the drink. Two thumbs up.

The girls drank regular juice out of these easier to handle cups.

I made this centerpiece for around $10, wrapping boxes with matching table coverings and using inexpensive princess and popstar props from a party store.

I told the birthday girl she could eat when her guests arrived, so five minutes in, she was ready to chow down.

The girls ate and then took their time warming up to the stage. We had a small craft area where they could make “rock band” bracelets using stickers, rhinestones and leather wrist bands.

I was sure if the parents made themselves scarce, the girls would be fighting tooth and nail for a turn so I made these names to draw from to see who was next. As it turned out, they were pretty shy about getting up there. Who knew? We had a karaoke machine with songs from Barbie: The Princess and The Popstar movie and other faves the girls could choose from like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Call Me Maybe.”

Everyone wanted to be on stage, but very few wanted to sing alone. Safety in numbers. That’s my girl at the mic rockin’ and rulin’.

They had cake, the birthday girl made her wish and everyone took the stage again.

When it was time to head home, everyone left with one of these light-up wands, which I thought looked a lot like microphones.

I hoped they would sing into them in the mirror like we used to do as kids!

The tags said, “You royally ROCKED it, girl. You really did your thing. Take home this magic mic, look in the mirror and SING!”

After the party, I snapped a pic of Caroline in her purple Keira wig and we used the photo on these hilarious thank you notes, designed to look like autographed headshots.

Every time I look at them, I laugh all over again.

My baby is five. Wow. When did that happen?

Special thanks to Caroline’s Nana and Mrs. Lauren, as usual, for their hands-on help and party inspiration, and a special thanks to Mrs. Stacy for taking me in her giant truck to the home improvement store and staring blankly with me at a wall of plywood varieties. How could there be so many?!

Photography: Sweet Magnolia Photography

Cake: For Heaven’s Cakes

Oreos: Love & Sugar Kisses

Invitations, Paper Goods and Party Planning: www.pinkpeppermintpaper.com

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!

Lauren and I recently gave our friend Sarah a little inspiration for her son’s first birthday. Her youngest boy, Caleb, just turned one, and mama had a sweet and simple clutter cutting celebration on the brain. Sarah introduced us to the Milk + Bookies Birthday Party, a concept that has party goers bring new books in lieu of gifts to donate to the charity of the host’s choice. I, for one, have always had a hard time choosing gifts for kiddos with older same gender siblings.

Sarah used a color scheme of brown, white and red and used children’s books throughout the party areas to tie in the Milk+Bookies element.

Look at these cutie pies in their milk and cookies shirts from the kizart Etsy shop.

Here’s the cute table she did using coordinating fabrics and featuring the main course–COOKIES! Chocolate chip, sugar, OREOS, animal crackers and more. What kiddo wouldn’t love a party full of cookies?

Next to the cookies, there were plastic “pints for your half pint” in 2% and chocolate from the local University dairy. And in a separate area, the milk bar had carafes of plain, strawberry and chocolate milk on ice.

Also hanging out at this station were the most fab drinking straw ’stache sippers–one of my most fave things I’ve seen in a long time! These cuties were spotted over at It’s Toile Good, and Lauren had the idea to use them as {swoon} milk mustaches for this event! So what’s it gonna be? Plain white milk mustache or chocolate milk mustache?

A purist, I see. An excellent choice! I beg your pardon, sir, but you seem to have a little something on your chin. Too funny!

There were cookies all over!

And even a few bookworms.

And here’s Caleb, the birthday boy, enjoying his smash cake, which was made by a local cake shop to look like a giant chocolate chip cookie.

Happy 1st Birthday Caleb!

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

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

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 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!

………

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

.

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.