Pumpspotting Mom Celebration

Back in May, when Rachel and I went to market in NYC, we stumbled upon a giant bus with boobs on it. "Barb" the breast express by pumpspotting saved me from having to pump in another cramped New York bathroom stall - big win for a breastfeeding mama! Fast forward a couple months, and my heroes reached out to tell me they were going to be rolling through town. I had to show them love back, and throw a party to celebrate their pit stop! I pulled in my wonderfully talented friend Angela, owner of Wichita Moms Blog, and we planned a mom appreciation event in a few days.

So what is pumpspotting and why are they driving around a bus for breastfeeding mamas? They are an app! A very helpful community app for mamas.You are able to figure out where to nurse on the go, connect with a similar group of moms, look for encouragement and more. They are driving "Barb" across the country to promote their new app and breastfeeding awareness. Head over to the website to learn more. Special shout out to Crown Uptown for letting them park out front of the theater for a couple hours!

 

Inside the shop, Angela and I worked together to make a special event to celebrate moms. Whatever stage they are in, it was a couple hours about them! The LOC team helped me put together a fun balloon garland backdrop with a mini "Barb" cruising by. Underneath with had yummy treats and drinks. How amazing are the cookies and cupcakes done by shop favorites, Sweet Sugarlicious & September Moon Cupcakery. It's not everyday you get asked to bake with a boob theme in mind.

Thanks to Angela, we were able to treat mamas to some fabulous things! Kendra Scott was there with giveaways, coupons and fun koozies. They are doing amazing things with our community. Salon Brands sent a talented stylist to do dry hair stylists for moms - so many fun braids! As a mom, I feel like I'm lucky if I get to wash my hair, let alone style it. I reached out to my sweet friend Erin, and she came to setup a table with details on her wonderful photography business - Erin Kata Photography. She also captured the event beautifully!

For an activity, I reached out to one of our new fab card lines, Paper Epiphanies. They have a great collection of 4th trimester cards for moms, and they were beyond nice and donated a bunch to our event. Guests were able to fill out a card for us to give to a local breastfeeding center or take one to give to a friend who needed some words of encouragement. When you are going through those first few months with a newborn, some thoughtful and funny words can make a world of difference!

I was so excited to throw together this last minute event, especially once Angela jumped on board, as well as so many other wonderful companies! Truly, I wanted to show this wonderful group of women that started an app for mamas how wonderful our city is. We did that and more! It's amazing how supportive, encouraging and fun our community of moms can be! Thank you to everyone that attended, donated, reached out and sent love. Giant thanks to pumpspotting for deciding to pop in to our town!

Lots of Love,

Tea Party for the Wichita Mom's Blog & Giveaway Details!

A couple weekends ago, Love of Character hosted a fun little tea party for the amazing mom contributors over at Wichita Mom's Blog. I figured it would be a great way to show off some of our fun party supplies, as well as give some fabulous moms a fun activity to do on a Saturday morning. Boy did they show up! These amazing moms had their kids dressed ready for a fancy tea and teddy bears in tow. "Will work for food" was a perfect motto for these kids and their modeling job. They looked perfect and made for perfect tea partier models!

Over the course of the next week, I'll give you a breakdown of the party and how you can throw your own adorable tea party! For starters, you should go read the beautifully written blog post the Wichita Mom's blog did on the party: Beauty in the Details. I was so happy to give them a wonderful party and it always feels so good to hear that your guests had a good time.

Here is a picture collage sneak peek to get the week started. The wonderful photographer, Erin Bartel, was the photographer for the event and she did a beautiful job capturing the pretty things and then the kids enjoying the pretty things. Luckily the sunroom has doors that close, so she could have some time to snap quick table setting pictures.

Every party starts with an invitation, so I'm going to kick off this party series with the invite details. As you probably know from my past posts, I am a fan of giving a good party first impression with an invite. If you have the time, energy and money, snail mail invites area always fun to send and receive. If you are on a quicker timeline and/or need to save some money for the party, evites also work great. There are lots of great resources out there to use that are free or minimal cost. Paperless Post is a personal favorite of mine because I love their designs.

For this event, I wanted the guests to get the full effect, so I sent out paper invites. I skimmed through Pinterest and saw some fun ideas. The tea bag idea seemed perfect and doable, so I decided to go that route.

I played with colors and the wording, printed at home and then the hard part of cutting came along. Definitely make sure to use a slicer or ruler to help with your angles. I then hole punched the top, used some twine and attached a square with the logos on either side. Takes some patience, but what doesn't!

To add the final touches to the invitations, I put them in pink envelopes and wrote the addresses fancy and big. Wanted the moms to be excited to open up the pink envelope in their mailbox! For the stamps, I didn't want to settle on the flag stamps I kept getting stuck with, so I headed to the actual post office. After a little pre-online research (yes, I do postage research), I decided on some vintage roses and fell in love with the extra postage tea pots. I decided the extra 5 cents an invite would be worth putting a tea pot on a tea party invite!

Now that you've been "invited" to a week of party details, I can't wait to share the rest with you! In the mean time, scroll on over to the Wichita Mom's Blog Facebook page to enter our giveaway! That's right, Love of Character is giving away some supplies to help you throw your very own tea party (or brunch or soiree)! Here are the goodies you could win:

Pack of Floral Serving Platters:

 Lampshade Bunting - my favorite decoration for any party or room!

 Back of pretty Blue Cocktail Napkins:

 Little Tea Plates - Pack of 12:

Giveaway ends this Friday, so get over there and follow the instructions! While you are at it, make sure you are following us on Instagram @loveofcharacter.

Can't wait to keep sharing details with you all! Make sure to keep checking back.

Lots of Love,