Party Crashing: Tea for Two... or 6!

Last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of crashing the adorable 6th birthday of one of my cutest customers. Hadley and her mother purchased tea party supplies from the shop and put together a party that was fit for a queen! Walking up to their house, I was greeted by a very handsome "butler" (aka her brother dressed very dapper). Then I walked into and couldn't help, but be giddy with excitement. The paper tableware looked charming next to the real tea cups and platters she had mixed in, plus the snacks were adorable and looked quite tasty. Party favor bags, tiny tiaras and feather boas she added, such a cute touch!

I love using real tea cups as vases for a tea party! Great decoration and way to add pops of color if your table is less colorful than this one. Now for the little ones to sip out of you, you probably want to stick with paper to avoid broken glass. This doesn't mean they can't do pinkies up with a pretty tea cup:

Our Truly Alice cups are an adorable way to serve beverages to adults and children. For the snacks, I loved the ladybug cheeses made from Mini Babybel cheese. The petit fours from a local bakery, Bagatelle, looked quaint on our mini canape plates. She also served tea sandwiches cut into flowers, veggies and cookies. It's so fun how a few packs of paper plates, napkins, cups and then a few accessories found around the house can transform a table into a tea party dream!

It was one of the cutest parties I've crashed and I'm so happy I was able to share with you. What's better than dressing up and enjoying tea with your friends at a pink table!? I'd say that goes for all girls, big and small!

Photos via me

Want to throw a tea party of your own? Check out our supplies here: Love of Character - Tea Party.

Lots of Love,

Confetti Everywhere! Charity Brainstorm

Our house has literally been taken over by confetti this month. Very exciting that we've had so many orders and they have definitely kept us busy. Even Teddy has been covered...

Confetti for days! People have been ordering them for birthdays, weddings, bachelorette parties, gender reveals and even had some last minute orders for NYE. So fun! I love showering people's parties with confetti, even if it gets a little messy.

Photo via Customer - Gender Reveal Pops

Photo via Customer - Will You Be My Bridesmaid Pops

This post isn't only about the colorful confetti we've been showering you with, however, it's also about wanting to follow the first picture of this post (a wonderful print you should purchase from Etsy!) - Throw Kindness Around Like Confetti. Over the past year, I've been trying to dream up ways to make someone's life in my hometown a happier one.

While working on parties for adorable children, it hit me that I want a child who is having a hard time, either financially, health wise or family wise, to have a fabulous birthday too! Growing up, I planned my birthday party for months. I would tab things in American Girl Magazine (such a good one!) and scheme up great ideas. We were on a budget, which meant DIYing a good portion of the party - definitely made Twinkies look like girls in sleeping bags and so wish I had a picture. It was the highlight of my year. Every child deserves that at least once and Love of Character wants to make that happen for at least one lucky child a year!

I am still working on finalizing the details, but will definitely keep you all posted on the progress. To raise money, I'm thinking of selling, you guessed it, confetti pops! I will have them on sale at our booth at the Wichita Mom's Blog Birthday Bash (which you all should attend if you are local) and will post them for sale on our website when we have the new one up and running (hopefully soon!). They will be special edition "Throw Kindness Around Like Confetti" pops. Then I will promote the event and ask you all to do so as well, so we can find children to write in why they deserve a fun filled birthday party. If this sounds like something you'd like to be apart of, reach out! I'd love to work with you and have you involved in the planning.

Back to our confetti making! Shipped out 100 today for a birthday party and have another 50 going out later this week for a wedding. Confetti everywhere!!!

Lots of Love,

Hello 2016, We've Be Waiting for You!

Adios 2015! You were bumpy and quite frankly I was over you a while back. Yes, some amazing things happened in 2015 (YAY for starting my own business! and love the new bebes you brought to the world, as well as the happy couples you brought together in marriage), and I hope those are the things I look back and remember. You were also exhausting and definitely dealt some cards that myself and others had a hard time swallowing. I will say though, I learned a lot about the strength of others (friends & family, you truly amaze me!) and myself. I worked hard to accomplish the resolutions I set for myself last year (still wanting to keep those going!) and to be honest, I went through a lot of lip gloss (you'll have to read through to understand)!

Every year has it's purpose and I'm happy to say that you also got me going in some great directions! You handed me new professional goals, both in my day job and in my small business. You helped Dustin and I work towards personal goals, and I will say, we did some kick a** home projects this year, even if they did take the whole year (powder room, I'm looking at you). You showed me that in people's darkest moments, they still manage to find some light to guide them. We said goodbye to great people this year and I hope I was successful in learning something from each of them.

2016, we are welcoming you with open arms! Ready to continue with the positive directions 2015 ended with. I have many goals and I'm ready to work on those starting now. I want to work on myself, on our family, on my career and on my business. It's going to be a busy one!

I started writing out lengthy descriptions to all of these, but realized you all have goals yourself that you need to get going on instead of reading my babble! I will, however, give a couple comments on the items around Love of Character. Excited to say that we are working on growing! We have some amazing new brands to introduce this year and I am working hard on a new website that will hopefully give more opportunity for growing the site. I also have a great charity project in mind that I will definitely keep you all posted on. As for this little blog, I am making you a promise that I will post more. By more, I don't mean pointless, waste of space posts. I want you to be a part of the great things going on in our life and the business' life. I want to share the crazy things we learn while tackling a new project. A new camera arrived this week and I'm so excited to start taking pictures with it! There are some things we've done I will catch up on posting and then as mentioned above, our project for this year is tackling the upstairs bathroom. Oh, and I guess I still have a lot of wall space needing to be hand painted in the powder room. Let's hope powder room isn't still on the list for 2017! ;)

While you are reflecting on the year ahead, keep this in mind and don't put too much pressure on yourself:

We get wrapped up in trying to make everything happen and end up wearing ourselves out. Do things with a lot of passion, but make sure to pace yourself a little. 2016, I have good feelings about you! Cheers to a year of hard work, pay off and some fun!

To see the sources of the image above, please check out my Pinterest page: Pretty Prints

Lots of Love,