Oh Christmas Tree!

Decked our house with balloons and garlands! With a one year old and needing a new tree, I decided to have fun this year. In the past, we have gotten real trees, but we realized last year having to keep the house warmer for Elizabeth, the tree died rather quickly. I was researching good fake trees and found some flocked options that I liked, but after thinking about it decided to hold off for a year. EM is at the age where she gets into, pulls on and messes with everything. I figured flocked snow would be eaten, ornaments broken and messes all over. After seeing an adorable balloon tree on Instagram, I decided what a fun way to still have a tree, and try out a new concept for the shop!

After playing with some colors, we decided to mix pastels and pearly dark colors for the tree. I love the mix against my light bluish grey walls. Plus the settle pink added a fun girly touch for my little miss. We maybe like pink in this house! I think there are so many fun color possibilities with these trees. Pink Santa ended up being the perfect tree topper!

After finishing off the balloon monstrosity, I decided to keep going with our decorations. I pulled out some of my favorites from the past, and mixed in some new from the shop this year - I've been crushing our bottle brush trees since we got them in! Grabbed a few pink and love them with my paintings. Still a few of those left in the shop! Last year, I snagged some pretty faux greenery garland (since the live died quicker than the tree did) and they work great on my dresser and mantel. Stockings, I use traditional velvet stockings from my childhood - love the bell! Reminds me of Christmas Eve night hearing them get stuffed by Santa. Elizabeth got in the holiday spirit with me today for photos and rocked her adorable new Christmas bow by Avery & Grey - one of these beauties left in the shop! The red glitter candle is my favorite Volcano scent and is also available in the shop, as well as other holiday scents and containers. If you aren't quirky and crazy like me, and actually put up a real tree, make sure to check out our fun ornaments before they're all gone. We got in so many fun ones this year! Thinking I still need to do a cute tree for EM's room using some of these.

Hope your decorating is going well! What's your favorite item to get out every year?

Lots of Love,

Cookies with Santa

The past couple of weeks we have spent a lot of time with the big guy in red. We thought this year it would be fun to try out an event where kids had quality time with Santa Claus, and oh what fun they were! We started with two options and then ended up adding a couple more because they sold out so quickly. Our thought was to make it a special time where a smaller group of kids (16-18 at each event) were able to mingle with Santa, hear a story and enjoy some cookies. It was fun putting everything together and seeing our vision come to life!

For the tables, we wanted to go with a fun Santa's Workshop look: lots of Santa, Rudolph and elves! Each child had a festive place setting with tattoos and an elf hat to take home as party favors. We love mixing and matching for table settings, so we played with lots of our Christmas party supplies. Since it was an event with Santa, we worked in lots of Santa supplies. Definitely some fun ideas if you are trying to come up with a festive kids' table for your holiday parties.

To bring the "workshop" look to life, we strung paper chains all across the room. The backdrop was fairly simple with more paper chains, snowflakes and lanterns. We also reused a fun green balloon garland to add a pop of color. Giant ornaments made from 36" balloons added a quirky touch, and we set out a tent (made by local lil' peach e designs) for story time. The wood chairs, I snagged from my mother's house - I love their vintage, traditional look.

Kids enjoyed delicious cookies made by our favorite Wendi with Sweet Sugarlicious and milk to start off the evening. She played with different designs for each event and we loved every single one - so pretty! She also made naked sugar cookies and icing bags for the kids to use for cookie decorating. We purchased Christmas sprinkles, M&Ms and Sweet Tarts for to be used for decorations as well. Cookie decorating is always a fun activity around the holidays!

Besides cookie decorating, we also setup a Santa letter writing station with cards and stickers. It was fun for the children to bring Santa their letters and then put them in the "special mailbox" that connects with the North Pole. Santa also read the children a story, Santa's Coming to Wichita. He is a pretty good story teller! Besides the activities, children also had a chance to sit with Santa, tell him their wishes and get some pictures. When he wasn't discussing Christmas wishes with a child, Santa was up and around checking out their pretty cookies.

Such fun events! Santa was amazing and for the most part, every kid eventually ended up visiting with him (a couple had some pretty good crying pictures as well). We hope that everyone who attended had a good time! We loved hosting you and creating this magical experience for your littles. Even shop baby enjoyed the big guy!

Thanks Santa! Hope we're on the nice list.

Shop this party: http://loveofcharacter.com/holiday-shop/

Lots of Love,

Nutcracker Tea Party

It's that time of year when little girls wear adorable holiday dresses, their dreams are filled with dancing Sugar Plum fairies and they are in the festive spirit. Yesterday, we hosted a Nutcracker Tea Party at the shop to kick off their holiday season and get them into the spirit of the season. It was honestly my favorite party thus far! When I first got in my Christmas merchandise for the store, I knew I wanted to do something with all of the adorable Nutcracker parties supplies. Then, when I was asked to do the MARK Arts Holiday Tables, I fell in love with the table setting. Definitely inspired me to throw a party for little girls!

Even better, my wonderful friend, Ilex, is on the Ballet Wichita board and thanks to her, we were able to arrange for performers to join! Ballet Wichita's Nutcracker Ballet is a fabulous production that is done on an annual basis. Little girls who love to dance dream of dancing on stage with the amazingly talented ballerinas. It was so fun to have some attend the tea party! The girls were able to take pictures with them, watched them twirl around and listened to their stories. Seriously the nicest group of dancers and they had fun with the littles who were in awe of them.

For food, I tried to keep things somewhat easy since I was feeding children. I asked beforehand if their were any allergies and then planned the menu from there. I went with peanut butter sandwiches that I cookie cutter cut into teapots (kind of looked like magic genie lamps lol), Chick-fil-a nuggets, fruit that I laid in a wreath shape, goldfish in little snack cups and cheese sticks that I decorated to look like nutcracker soldiers. For dessert, I relied on my favorite local bakers to come up with some gorgeous treats: cookies by Sweet Sugarlicious and cupcakes by Hannah Marko. Both looked amazing! I always love working with both of them and highly recommend (especially if you are in the College Hill area). I also put out some macaroons, which ended up being more entertainment than anything because most weren't sure what they were. "Fancy Cookies" ended up being the best way to describe them.

Everything came together great and I definitely couldn't have pulled it off without help from a few people. Shout out to Lily, my new employee, for helping put together the candy backdrop and rallying with me before the event; my brother for bringing the nuggets and getting roped into helping; the Nutcracker performers who also helped with some last minute setup (I told you they were the nicest!). Thank you to all of the attendees at the event! I hope you had a good time and your girls remember this as a special holiday event.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my amazingly talented friend Alison Moore who took these amazing photos. You captured everything beautifully and I always love seeing things through your point of view! If you are ever looking for a talented family photographer, she is your girl.

Stop in the store or head over to our website to shop these beautiful supplies and make sure to get your tickets today for Ballet Wichita's Nutcracker performance in a couple weeks!

Lots of Love,