Disney Cars 2 Birthday theme

It has been a while since I have posted to my blog...My goodness times just gets a way. Some exciting things have happened....we moved to Tennessee in the beautiful foothills of the Smoky Mountains to a quaint little town about 15 miles outside of Pigeon Forge. Just close enough to the fun but far enough away not get caught in the tourist stuff. Did enough of that in Florida with Disney for 7 years.

The party store is doing so well! We are busy keeping up with orders and trying to create new products at the same time! NOT always easy to do as I do work full time but my daughter Kelly is running the party business full time so that is a relief.

Today I thought I would just show our newest addition in honor of the recent Cars 2 Movie release. I know its been a couple of weeks and I did have my items online in time for the premiere but just getting around to sharing with my blog family. We are so loving making the 3D cake toppers. My husband cuts all the styrofoam pieces and paints them for us. That in addition to the die cuts and adding the name for personalization has made these cuties very popular!

This weekend we are taking the Cars theme in kind if a new exciting direction and I cannot wait to share the update on this party theme (if it all works as planned lol).

CLICK HERE

Rubber Ducky your the one....

It's been a while since I have had a chance to blog and create a new birthday party package for my online store but Kelley and I are so proud of our Ernie and Rubber Ducky party decorations we just had to share pictures with you!

This package was created for a lady whose son is turning 2. They live in Texas and apparently little Andrew is obsessed with Ernie and his rubber ducky. The best part of handmade decorations is the old saying, "if you can dream it, you can create it." When she explained what she was looking for, the ideas started to pop out of my head and the more we did, the more ideas we had. We HAD to get these decorations in the mail no later than today because Andrew's party is this Saturday but even at 11:00 PM last night, Andrew's mom was thinking of things she still needed and we were busy creating them for her....

We are very proud of this creation and you can see details here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/72799812/ernie-and-rubber-duckie-birthday-party

Happy 2nd Birthday Andrew!!

So is it all going to look good when I am finished?

I have spent a lot of time creating party decorations for people in the themes they dream for their child's special day and very rarely do I get to see the final result. A centerpiece here, a few party favors there but I often wonder how do they put the whole package together and how does it look the day of the party?

We spent about eight weeks creating this Tinkerbell and Friends party package for a little girl turning three. Before we packed it all up and shipped it out, we decided it might be fun to set up the decorations the way we envisoned it for the party. With the help of a few extra picture props, we put together this adorable Pixie Hollow right in the middle of our livingroom.

Instead of traditional balloons and streamers, we recreated Tinkerbell and all her friends in a 3-D "mobile" that could hang from the ceiling (or in my case the ceiling fan) just above the party table. We did some butterflies and found this adorable paper lantern globe that was perfect for the color scheme. Bought a plastic table cloth in lime green that matched the decor for about $1 and added some artificial purple flowers at the tablecloth corners to dress up the traditional plastic cloth.

I wouldn't mind being a guest at this birthday party!!

You know what you want to do but....

I think one of the most frustrating things when planning a birthday party is when you know you have the perfect theme or idea but finding the supplies and decorations you need to pull it off is near impossible. It just isn't out there.

Came in touch with a lady over the weekend who wants to do Paul Frank's Julius the monkey for her daughter's first birthday party. She contact me through my Etsy Store and asked if I could do decorations for this.

Well after I figured out who Julius was, I set out to come up with some ideas. Sometimes when you look closer at something, you will see that it is much easier to recreate than you might think and Julius is one of those characters. He is basically just a few simple shapes and very easy so we recreated his shapes and put a birthday hat on him and there we had it! Needlesss to say the lady was thrilled.

My advice today is don't give up on your ideas, ask for help, seek out someone who makes things handmade (like me!) and you will succeed at having that perfect party come together to celebrate that special day you worked so hard to plan!

Today I celebrate a very special birthday

Today I celebrate one of the most important birthdays in my life. It is that of my first born son. He is 26 years old today. We are not able to spend today together but that is okay. He is finishing up his military training and in a few short weeks we will be celebrating his graduation together from military training. It will be so worth the wait to see him. When I look at the pictures from his first birthday celebration, I had no idea the man he would become or that I could fill my heart with any more love or pride for who he was. At age 1, he already had filled my heart to what I believed was overflowing but little did I know there was always room for more.

In the meantime, today I have memories of his past birthdays to make me smile. One of the best memories I have is of his first birthday celebration and that is what I want to share with you today. Twenty-six years ago I didn't have a fancy diecut machine or a computer to create my designs that I can today. Really all I had to work with was a box of crayons and a couple of pieces of posterboard but I should have known way back then that my passion to create memorable birthday party decorations was in my blood forever.

One of the birthday themes that has lasted for generations and I believe will be there for many more is Sesame Street. What a perfect theme to celebrate a child's first birthday party. Since opening my online store, Sesame Street has been my most popular birthday party decorations sold. Even though my son's first birthday wasn't quite as exquisite as I am able to make now, no less love went into my drawings on that posterboard than go into the decorations I create for others today. I believe that is truly what it is all about. Yes, its a business but the joy that you receive from having other people tell you how special their celebration was because of the help you gave them in creating the perfect birthday for their child's special day fills the heart more than anything monetary could ever do. Birthday celebrations bring families together in love to celebrate a life and I believe there is no greater time we could spend together than sharing that love.

My advice today is to make your birthday party celebrations special. Go all out if you can and that doesn't mean you have to spend lots of money to do it. Just make it special and memorable so that 26 years from now, you can remember the special time you shared with your child and celebrated with your loved ones like it was yesterday.

Welcome to my Blog

I am really excited to create my second blog. I decided that I needed a way to share why I create the projects I have been making for the past year. I enjoy creating handmade projects. I especially love creating birthday party decorations for children. It has become a very rewarding ambition that started as a hobby but is fastly becoming a growing succesful business. I am amazed and intrigued by how people have been drawn to what I am creating with my birthday party decorations, birthday party favors, and birthday party centerpieces. I love the comments and feedback I get when they tell me they love the items they ordered, they love the ability to personalize birthday party favors and decorations to make their child's day so much more special.

So I am dedicating my second blog to specifically birthday party decorations that are handmade, have a theme, and the ability to share ideas that will make your child's next birthday party full of special memories for all of you!