Red, White and Blue & Addison who's two!

I hope everyone is having a great week...busy busy over here as usual! I am working on two special projects, plus my sister's hs graduation items, plus my regular orders, so it is crazy!

To top it off my oldest son graduated from preschool this morning...sniff. Hard to believe he'll be in Kindergarten next year!

Here is a sneak peek at some invitations I finished last night for a friend of mine. Her daughter's birthday will be celebrated at the family lake cabin on the fourth of July, so she wanted a theme that would go along with it.

I'll be making a banner next month for the party as well, so stay tuned as always! Have a good weekend.

The Future Mrs. Klein...

You've seen the invitations, but here are the banner and door sign to go along with them for the shower my friend Leah is throwing for her BF Amanda...



Amanda's wedding colors are an olive-y green, brown, and a little yellow. I made the banner and sign universal so that Leah can use them again at the bachelorette party in a few weeks.

I am kind of sad to be done planning bridal showers for friends. I love weddings! But that means baby season is in full swing, which just may be even better. :)

From the weekend...

A few pics of Olivia's piggy party as promised...

I'm going to stick these in {happy customers} even though technically I didn't get an entry from Patti...I think she was happy with the outcome and O is too cute not to put her there!

And a few more I couldn't resist sticking in here of (clockwise from top L)

1) Olivia spitting out her candles (can you see it??)
2) One our very fav families!
3) Our silly girlies
4) Aren't those piggy cupcakes A.DOR.A.BLE?

The kids had such a great time and little Miss O was adorable as always. We <3 you Olivia!

Let the Holm celebrations begin...

You've seen a few of the projects I've done for the Holm family before...like this party I did for my one of my BFs from high school for her 30th birthday...and this project I did for when baby #4 was born, and these tags I made for Tammy to put in the kids Easter baskets. So I got excited when I got an email from Tammy in which the subject said "Another Project".

Besides Lil' Frank, the rest of the Holm Kids' birthdays are pretty close together. Tammy's email said that once they got back from their trip to Sweden to see the grandparents they had a party to throw every couple weeks! I think I would hyperventilate. But not this experienced momma...she had the details ready for each party.

So first comes Miss Julia, who turned 7 this week, who is having a glitz and glam party and required that it be all pink...

Then comes Mr. Erik, turning 3 in June...she wasn't sure what theme she was going to go with but knew she would center the colors around red and navy...

And lastly Princess Emma, turning 5 at the beginning of July...all princess of course and had to be hot pink and black...

I am guessing Dad is beginning to feel left out, so Peter just let me know when you need your own crown!

Olivia's Polka Dots and Pigs

A while back I spotlighted some invitations I made for my little friend Olivia. Her favorite two things are polka dots and pigs.

Olivia is actually our neighbor. Her mom and I became good friends after we had our oldest boys 10 days apart. So for her birthday, we made Olivia a tutu to match her outfit for the party and a pig wearing a tutu to match hers...

And here are the rest of the things Patti ordered (and the tutu we gave her) for the party...

We will be going to the party this weekend, so hopefully I will have a cute pic of O to show you next week!

Sydney's 7th Birthday

Okay...looks like my internet likes me again for now. So here we go with what I've been up to during the time it hated me!

This is definitely in my top 5 for biggest projects I've worked on. Sydney is Grace's big sister...just as cute as Grace but she's in school so we haven't been able to use her as much for pics...ha!

Sydney is having her family party this Saturday and a friend party in a couple weeks, so I tried to make everything so that it would work for both parties.

We started out with Sydney wanting a rock star party and Darcie NOT wanting one...anyone else been there? I have! But then they decided to have Sydney's friend birthday at the pool and the rock star theme didn't fit so well, so I shopped for new paper and we changed it to just fun bright colors with not so much of a theme. I hope that 7 year old (going on 20 :) Sydney loves it and that her mom does too!

Technical Difficulties...

Question: How do you run a internet business with no internet?

Answer: You don't.

UGH.

Last night I told my husband (who spent an HOUR on the phone with the cable company trying to restore our phone and internet only to have them tell him that they couldn't fix it until Thursday) that maybe this morning it would miraculously be fixed.

I came down to check, and holy hannah, its working. For now at least.

I will work on a real post this morning granted it stays connected. I know I don't post about my family on this blog anymore, but while you're waiting, I'll throw something in to keep you busy.

It was almost 100 degrees here yesterday. My sister Kara moved in for the summer last weekend and when she got home from work yesterday she suggested a water fight...









...yep, with her here its bound to be a fun summer!

If you are waiting for an email response from me I promise I am going to work madly on it this morning, so long as my children can keep themselves occupied.

With 9 packages sent in the past two days, I have lots to blog about...check back this afternoon!

A Family Birthday Banner

I have officially recovered from yesterday and returned to feeling as though the summer is manageable...that I can do my work and still have time to get out on the boat with my family every once in a while. It helps that my assistant (aka my sister) is moving in for the summer tomorrow!

A while back I made an Easter banner for my friend Judy. After we finished that project she said she would love to have a banner that they could use multiple times throughout the year for her kids' birthdays. I told her I could absolutely make something that would be fitting for all three (4) kids (2 girls and a boy + one more on the way). At first we were just going to do "happy birthday", but then I told her that I could make a separate ribbon of letters that she could replace at each kid's birthday.

The banner can be used for mom and dad's birthday without a name and for each kid's birthday with his or her own ribbon tied on. Practical AND personalized...love it!

Hives setting in...if you're ordering soon please read...

Please scroll down to read my real blog post from today, but I just have to make a note...

A few of you have left comments in the past week or so, especially after my "Who are you anyway?" post that said you are going to be ordering soon. I would have replied back to email but I don't know your email addresses!

Today alone I got a month's worth of orders. A month. This is a good problem to have, I realize, but it also makes people who were planning on ordering upset when one day they see my ship date is July 11th and the next it is August 11th! I completely understand, but I have no control over how many people order in one day. I put people on my schedule ONLY when payment has cleared, and they will go in the order that I received payment. It is the only fair way I can think of to do it while still keeping my sanity.

I know that you are waiting to purchase so that you can decide what and how many you need. I get it. Because my schedule is becoming so packed, I am now offering a $50 retainer fee for the week that you would like your package to ship. ALL of this money will be credited toward your purchase, but your purchase then must be at least $50. This can be for any future parties that you would like to use my services for...heck...I will put you on my schedule for NEXT May if you like. If you would like to set up a week, I will send you a paypal invoice, just email me at polkadotsandpirates@gmail.com.

Thank you all for all of your support. I love what I do! Now excuse me while I go puke over and then celebrate a month's worth of orders. Ha!

The Jumpin' Monkeys

Our best couple friends live right down the street from us. It is a looooong story of how we got here, but my hubs and I went to high school with Kelley. Our kids are the same age (maybe kind of planned it that way :) and they have the perfect sense of humor for Eric and I, so we always say we can NEVER move from our house because we can't leave the Pankakes (yes, their real last name...sorry Kel, but you KNOW I'll get the question if I don't say that it really is.)

I was so excited when Kelley asked me to help her decorate for the kids party this year. They are renting an inflatable jumper (all the rage these days...too bad my kids have birthdays when there is snow on the ground!) and wanted to do a "jumpin' monkey" theme.

She wanted formal invitations to send to friends and family coming to the party, but also was inviting Braxton's friends from school for the afternoon to jump, so needed some informal invites to hand out at school, too.

After giving me the general color guidelines to match the shirts she'd ordered and the requirement that there must be bananas on it as well, here is what I came up with:

Lots more coming from this party! It's going to be a fun one!

{Happy Customers} : Kaelen

It's been a little while since I've put a happy customer up here...and boy do I have a cutie for you!

Little Kaelen is just a doll...you'll want to grab her right out of the pics!

Check her out in more detail as well as all our other {happy customers} and the kind words from their moms!

Malin's Little Birdie...

The momma of this one year old did her research. When she emailed me she had carefully studied my blog and linked her favorite projects that I have done and stated what she liked about each one. Some she liked the colors, others the fonts, others the style of the invitations, etc. So after matching the design and the paper to her vision, here is the result of Malin's little birdie party, scheduled to take place this weekend...

It just so happens that Malin's dad's birthday is the same day, so we had to add his name to the banner and make him his very own crown too! I hope he likes pink! :)

I love doing orders for MN people. Not that I DON'T like doing orders for people in other states, but it somehow makes it more personal or real that I can imagine the neighborhood that they are celebrating in. Is that weird? Probably.

Back tomorrow with another happy customer!

A Bridal Brunch

First things first...


Heather...comment #36 chosen by random.org. Thanks to all who spilled their guts about reading my blog. I looooove when people leave comments, so keep leaving them! Heather, I have your gift certificate on file and ready to use whenever you wish.

This week has been busy. I am still finishing up a couple orders that I hoped to have out today, so I am keeping this one short! Here are one set of invitations I'm bringing to my friend Leah tonight (girls night...wooohooo!). She's throwing a bridal shower brunch for her friend Amanda next month and sent me a picture of the dresses and Amanda's colors for inspiration. Here is how they came out:

There wasn't quite enough room on the invite itself to list the places Amanda was registered so I made an enclosure to stick in the envelopes instead.

Off to finish a couple projects before I head out with the girlies. Have a good weekend!

Creative Parties & Showers

I don't know if you've noticed it, but there is a button on my sidebar that says:

Creative Parties & Showers
*submit your party to be featured!*

This cool site is run by my FAV blog designer Shannon Dow of Eightcrazy Design. She is the one responsible for the major facelift given to this blog a couple of months ago.

Her and I became quick friends because she was a super party planner herself and shares a ton of the same interests as I do (not to mention she is a night owl, so chatting on gmail at all hours of the morning has been involved). Shortly after she finished my blog makeover she told me that she was in the process of making a new blog called Creative Parties and Showers. I am not sure where she finds the time to do one more thing, but I am sooooo glad she does!

Even though Shannon has only been blogging on this site since the end of March, there are already enough parties featured to last you literally HOURS searching through her posts. From cars to flowers & from Fancy Nancy to Dr. Seuss she's got you covered!


Today she's doing a feature on Beckett's Monkey Party that I threw last September. Head on over to find out how to submit your own party to be featured or simply to become inspired by all the creative posts she's featured. Thanks Shannon!

Don't forget that you must enter the contest for a $25 gift certificate by midnight tonight! See details here! I'll announce the winner tomorrow morning!

Jozlyn's 2nd birthday...

...is still a few months away. But as my schedule started to fill up for summer, Jozlyn's mom Heidi and I decided that I should just get it done early since she knew I'd be returning to work about the time that Jozlyn's party would be in August.

She loved Grace's Flower Power party I did in March, but wanted the graphics to be changed to reflect more her style. I softened the color palate a bit, Heidi chose a new font, and I got to work!

Here are the results:

As it turns out, its a good thing we're planning early, because during our project Heidi found out she's expecting baby #2! We have become good friends since I did Jozlyn's party last year and I've been "counseling" her on how great it is to have your kiddos close in age...ha! It will be nice for her to have this all taken care of so that she can relax with that belly as the party gets closer. Thanks, Heidi...it was so fun working with you as always!

Remember to enter to win a gift certificate from my shop (if you twist my arm I may even do a custom order for you, doesn't necessarily have to be from the collections in my shop...hint hint please enter!) Thanks for those of you who entered already by leaving a comment OR sending me an email. I <3 all of you!

Meet the Designer : Hair Candy Bows

First of all let me say that I don't think my ploy to find out who you were yesterday worked...of the 299 people who visited my blog yesterday I got 18 comments. Not exactly what I was looking for, but thanks to those who did. The funny part about it was that my page loads were through the roof, meaning that the same people kept coming back to check who had left comments and what they said...ha! To try to entice those of you who didn't leave a comment today, I am upping the gift certificate to $25. Remember to leave your comment on the original post or for those of you who said you don't know how to leave a comment or its too hard because you read my blog from a phone, you can always email me at polkadotsandpirates@gmail.com.

Now on to the important stuff! I found Lindsay from Hair Candy Bows on another blog I've been completely sucked into and asked her to design some bows to match the collections here at PD&P. She has been so wonderful to work with and the bows are amazing. Avery, who will NOT let me do her hair ever, puts in her headband with the bow on it all the time and refuses to take it off. We tried to get her to let little Ariana wear it for some of the pictures, but Avery was NOT having it.

So here is a little more from Lindsay of Hair Candy...

Her additions to the made to match collection:

1. Polkadot Bow
Crochet Headband
2. Circus Pony-O Streamer
3. Circus Bow
Circus Woven Headband
4. Polkadot Woven Headband
5. Polkadot Tuxedo Clip
6. Polkadot Bows
7. Circus Korker Clippies

Now more from Lindsay herself:

I live in Broken Arrow, OK, a suburb of Tulsa. Origianlly from Kentucky, I moved to Oklahoma to attend Bible School. I meet my husband, Matt at school and married in 2004.

I've always had a knack for crafty things but it was always just for fun. In 2005 I started making bows and decided that I might be able to make some money at it...and that was the beginning of my bow business!

People always assume that I have kids, girls in particular, but we don't have any kids! The start of the bow business came while I was working in an upscale children's boutique. The lady that made bows for the boutique quit right before Christmas. We had a store full of holiday dresses, but no matching bows. I remember thinking, "how hard can it be?" That was the start of a very frustrating couple of weeks!! I eventually taught myself how to make the perfect bow and began selling to the boutique store I was working in. After I saw what I could do, I tried the bows online and that is where the business took off. I now have over 46 stores that carry Hair Candy Bows and thousands of retail customers around the world. My largest account is with Parker School Uniform Company. If you have every bought woven headbands from Parker School Uniform Company for your little one, then you've purchased from me!

Thanks Lindsay for all your hard work! As you can see, for ANY occasion she has tons of fun products to finish off your little girl's outfit. Check her shop or her blog for all her fun stuff!

I really do want to know...

Seriously...I think about this all the time. When I look at my stats page and see that in a day anywhere from 250 to 450 people look at this blog, I wonder who in the heck you are! I know some of you...Rach, Mom, Kasey, and Dad are checking from home or work...Nancy is checking at school where she teaches...Kara and Kelly are both checking from college, (and a whole bunch of other people I love as well but can't name them all right now!), but I get emails from new clients who tell me they've been reading my blog daily for months. It makes me wonder...just who are you anyway?

Leave me a comment on this post telling me how you found me, who sent you, etc, and I will enter you to win $15 off your next order!! You have until Thursday at midnight central time to enter. And yes, Mom, Dad, Rach, Nancy, Kara, Kelly, and all those other peeps I love must leave a comment too, even though I'd give you whatever you wanted for free anyway! I'll announce the winner on Friday morning.

However you got here, I'm sure glad to have you and hope you're here to stay!

Meet the Designer : Babylegs

First let me say I have no idea how I got every "the" highlighted in blue yesterday. In fact, I tried several times to fix it, but every time I did it would go right back to the way it was. I wouldn't know how to make it do that if I tried. Ha...

Secondly...I have to start this post by saying today's designer and I don't have a partnership to speak of. I just LOVE her products so I wanted to make them part of pics since I use them all the time. Avery has (Eric I hope you aren't reading this) 13 pairs of them. Gulp. We use them for EVERYTHING. I wrote Babylegs for permission to use their name and products on my site and they happily said I could do so. So here are their products which compliment ours oh-so-well, plus a little bit about their company that I took directly from their site.

1.Pink Dot Babylegs
2. Rainbow Babylegs
3. Blue Dot Babylegs

BabyLegs LLC has grown from one mom’s diaper bag essential to an essential product for all. They began as a solution to keep little legs warm, and now the uses are endless!

Nicole Donnelly, then a stay-at-home mom, created BabyLegs to keep her dear daughter, Sara’s, little legs warm, while she was diaper free to allow bad rashes to heal. This impromptu invention not only allowed Sara’s rash to heal, but also protected her from many elements, made diaper changes quick and easy, kept her knees protected while crawling, and provided sun protection. Beyond all of these benefits, the leg warmers were also very fashionable. After numerous inquiries from other moms about where Donnelly found the little leg warmers, she began selling her invention out of a diaper bag, and the popularity of BabyLegs spread quickly throughout the community. BabyLegs can now be found in over 50 countries from Israel to Chile to Iceland. That is our rash to riches story – we hope you enjoy our sweet BabyLegs.

They work on legs of all ages...I have even worn them on my arms with a white tee! They are seriously a staple in the Newman girls wardrobe. They are everywhere you turn. Its hard to not see a pair when you open up a magazine since all the celebrity tots have them, too! They have hundreds of pairs to choose from and great customer service. I'll stop...you get the picture...I love them.

Back on Monday with more from the designers...have a great weekend!