new collections

July 25, 2011 2 Comments

deep blue sea & beach cookies

Today I’m sharing just a small peek into our Splash Bash and Deep Blue Sea party collections shoot from late June. My sweet and super talented friend Angie Arthur of Angie Arthur Photography captured the day and all the fun that came with it!

I have tons to share, but I thought I would kick the week off with the custom butter cookies from our partners at Sweet Tooth Cottage. You’ll notice our crazy crab, fish and starfish (he was so simple, but so pretty!) from the Deep Blue Sea collection and the beach ball from our new Splash Bash collection.

All of these will be in the shoppe later this week. Happy Monday everyone and as always, I hope you’re inspired!

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ice cream social dessert table

I LOVE ice cream… and sherbet… and milkshakes… and popsicles… you get the idea {wink}. But it is such a fragile treat that it’s really difficult to serve to a group without winding up with puddles.

So for our new Ice Cream Social collection I challenged myself to come up with some tips and ideas on how to serve this yummy treat. My very first conclusion: go mini.

And my second conclusion: keep it simple. Don’t try to serve too many choices.

We made mini ice cream sandwiches using Kellogg’s Chips Deluxe minis. They were incredibly yummy!

And instead of large buckets of ice cream, I chose to buy individual portion sizes. Like these Edy’s Slow Churned minis,

Klondike Mint Chocolate Chip Bars, and old fashioned push-ups!

There are four HUGE advantages to serving individual portions: (1) you can serve a ton of flavors, (2) you can keep some in the freezer and replenish your table easily, (3) it’s largely self-serve, and (4) you can offer a number of different serving options.

For instance, guests can just grab the single serve options and go. Or, they can scoop it into a cone. We dipped Kellogg’s Sugar Cones in yellow chocolate and rolled them in sprinkles.

You can serve the cones upside down, but I picked up these cute little snowcone stands at Target, along with the white front opening beverage bucket (LOVE that guests can easily see what’s inside, plus you have a bit more surface area), and the colorful service tray below.

We also set up a banana split bar using dainty little sundae cups topped with wooden ice cream spoons embellished with each child’s name (just handwritten with a Sharpie), bananas of course, and

some super yummy toppings: M&Ms, Keebler Mini Fudge Stripe cookies, butterscotch chips and chocolate chips.

And what goes great with ice cream?! Cake! Our cupcakes are embellished with our Ice Cream Social collection cupcake picks and wrappers (the paper underneath is also part of the collection) and sugar paper rounds (provided by our bakery partners at Sweet Tooth Cottage).

And our fabulous baking partners at Sweet Tooth Cottage made ice cream cone and popsicle (melt-in-your-mouth soft) butter cookies to complement.

They were a crowd pleaser! And not only with the kiddos…

For more Ice Cream Social party ideas, read my other posts & visit the collection in the shoppe:

As always, I hope you’re inspired!

Photography by the talented Angie Arthur Photography. Whether you’re a novice or a pro, make sure and visit her for photography tips, ideas and tons of inspiration!

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host an ice cream social

I shared our new ice cream social collection invitation and thank you notes with you a few weeks ago and today I’m sharing one of my favorite childhood ice cream treats along with the collection’s printables. I mean seriously, don’t these push-ups take you back?! For me they conjure up memories of my sweet grandmother and long summer walks. {teary smile}

Throughout the rest of this week I’ll share the entire dessert table with you including some tips and ideas on how to serve this fragile treat, I’ll share a fun and inexpensive favor idea that the kids just loved and even show you a few DIY crafts.

Our ice cream social printables collection offers ice cream cupcake picks with coordinating orange cupcake wrappers,

ice cream subway art beverage wrappers… these just make me smile!,

…and the kiddos liked them too!

ice cream cone napkin rings on our new bright dot napkins (square plates and beverage napkins carry the same colors, but in various patterns),

large square dessert tags (two pre-filled sheets and one blank so you can personalize your own),

cello toppers, perfect for 4″ mini cello bags and shown with sugar paper round butter cookies from our partners at Sweet Tooth Cottage,

a blue strip with orange chevron border banner (This is a perfect example of how you can introduce a new color. Our printables are aqua and orange, but I really wanted to use yellow, so I picked up this striped yellow and white fabric from the fabric store and used it to cover my backboard, then I hotglued my banner to yellow ribbon and finally I covered my dessert table in a yellow tablecloth. I love how it all came together.),

an ice cream subway art mat,

and last, but never least, favor tags.

Remember, throughout the rest of this week I’ll share the entire dessert table with you including some tips and ideas on how to serve this fragile treat, I’ll share a fun and inexpensive favor idea that the kids just loved and even show you a few DIY crafts.

For more Ice Cream Social party ideas, read my other posts & visit the collection in the shoppe:

As always, I hope you’re inspired!

Photography by the talented Angie Arthur Photography. Whether you’re a novice or a pro, make sure and visit her for photography tips, ideas and tons of inspiration!

Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter.

pool party invitation & decor

We shot our new Splash Bash collection last Tuesday at a local splash pad (free water park with huge sprinklers, water guns and bucket water falls). We had eight models ranging in age from 4 to 12 (because let’s face it, there is no age limit on water fun), over 100 water balloons, lots of snacks, and some creative DIY ideas. All of which I can’t wait to share in a week or so.

And the fabulous thing about this collection is that it doesn’t have to be a birthday party to celebrate summer. We designed printables perfect for a picnic or a playdate. And what’s more, with indoor water park destinations like Great Wolf Lodge (indoor water park list by state), it doesn’t even have to be summer outside!

Stay tuned for tons of details, but until then, visit the shoppe for the invitation and thank you notes to start your planning!

As always, I hope you’re inspired!

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art party dessert table

For the third post in our new art birthday party series (#1 art party Crayola crayon craft, #2 create an art gallery) I styled an easy art party dessert table using two sizes of clear paint cans for serving dishes, mini easels (spray painted white for displaying the dessert tags) and bold damask blue fabric; all three items from JoAnn Fabric and Craft Stores), a beautiful square cake plate from the Martha Stewart Collection at Macy’s and several of our new printables and a blue moire tablecloth from our art party collection.

And although the table was full of yummy desserts, my very favorite are these palette cookies from our cookie partners at Sweet Tooth Cottage (available with the rest of the collection in the shoppe).

Because they’re butter cookies, not sugar cookies, they’re soft and literaly melt in your mouth (STC also created placecard cookies for the table so stop back in to see those lovelies or hop on into the shoppe if you just can’t wait)! And the cake (flat iced with buttercream frosting), before it was embellished, cost me $5.99 per layer from the Kroger bakery.

Other treats included fun paint brush cake pops {thank you again Terri for testing and executing my idea so very perfectly!} and chocolate covered Oreos from Terri’s Treasures,

homemade cupcakes (I used Duncan Hines cake mix and Pillsbury icing since my youngest has severe dairy allergies and both are dairy free!),

marshmallow paint cans (I literally painted each marshmallow with a small amount of Karo syrup, just enough for them to be sticky, rolled them in colorful nonpareils and allowed them to dry overnight on wax paper. Be careful not to use too much Karo or your colors will run.),

bright gumballs (and the mini chocolates around the edge of the cake) from our friends at That’s So Sweet,

and just one more picture of the gumballs because the girls were just too cute! Plus, the applique/monogrammed birthday shirt to the left is available with the art party collection in the shoppe. All the other girls were wearing clothes from Sew Jewell on Etsy.

rainbow Twizzlers, apples and oranges. I do like to have a few healthy choices! Oh, and there was one more goody that made the debut at our art party dessert table, more to come on that one in a few weeks with a fun announcement! {wink}

For more art party details, visit my art birthday party collection in the shoppe and my creative Crayola crayon craft idea, how to create an art gallery complete with 3-D cupcake art, art party photo ops and art party placesettings with edible placecards. As always, I hope you’re inspired!

Photography by the fabulous Angie Arthur Photography!

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tiny peek at last week’s shoot

I’m so excited to share our newest collection and the photos from our shoot with the fabulous Angie Arthur Photography. Although we’re not ready yet, I couldn’t resist showing you a quick picture I took with my camera of one of the small flower vases on the table {let’s be clear, this is me, Angie’s images are amazing!}.

This entire project just made me smile. We designed, we crafted, we created custom monogrammed birthday shirts to match the collection, we partnered with a fabulous new company to make lovely dresses for all of our little models from our casting call, my cookie partners baked custom butter cookies (that the little models gobbled up), plus much more. As I said, I can’t wait to share!

By the way, we’ve got a fabulous giveaway planned when the new collection is announced! Stay tuned!

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special delivery! baby shower

I shared with you a few weeks ago our storyboard for a new baby shower collection: Special Delivery. I’m just in love with purple this season. And when I found these purple swiss dot plates and napkins I just knew they would be perfect for our baby shower shoot. And the fabulous part is, they’re in the shoppe with the rest of the collection: custom invitations, thank yous and printables.

Here’s another look at the invitation. How cute is our little “special delivery?!”

The other fun thing about this collection is that although it was created with baby showers in mind, we didn’t include the stork in all of the components making this collection perfect for an Easter, Mother’s Day brunch or even a spring birthday party.

And how much do you love these fabulous cookies from Sweet Sugar Belle?! I’m thrilled to say Callye will be guest posting all the DIY details for the stork, including an easy to follow pictorial on Monday! (Update: Read post!) Make sure you stop back in!

You can find the invitations and thank yous in the shoppe today and all the decor, including the printables you see here and a few more, will be in the shoppe on Monday. As always, I hope you’re inspired!

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for our 2011 graduates!

My beautiful niece, Christen, is graduating from high school this year. So in honor of her accomplishments and all the other fabulous kids from high school to college that are taking that next big step in their lives, we created this modern, yet classic, graduation party collection in all black and white, allowing for plenty of creativity to bring in school colors (a few examples below).

One of my favorite components, besides our new black and white damask plates and napkins, are the new large polka dot, damask (available in our buzz collection now) and brush stroke cupcake wrappers. Isn’t the crepe rosette with the cupcake pick center on the cake stand lovely?! I’ll share a pictorial of how to make it in tomorrow’s post.

And don’t you love the gumballs?! Yep, the cupcake toppers and the center of this crepe rosette adorning our personalized ”congratulations” mat are pearl white and black gumballs from That’s So Sweet.

Other details include beverage wrappers,

beverage markers (also great as straw slips),

napkin rings, and

favor tags (perfect attached to little cello bags full of candies).

And if you want to introduce a bit of color to represent your school, try cardstock placemats, solid napkins, cupcake icing, crepe rosettes and/or various candies. The possibilies are truly endless when you start with a classic design.

You can find this entire graduation 2011 collection in the shoppe and as always, I hope you’re inspired!

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