Adventures in Paper

Destination weddings are growing in popularity these days even among traditional brides.  We love the idea of gathering all of your closest family and friends and having one big vacation!

Location, Location, Location

On the East Coast, couples have the option of heading to the Caribbean.  The Caribbean islands and Mexico are full of crystal clear water and pristine beaches.  A perfect backdrop for a tropical themed wedding.  Another East Coast destination option is your local beach town.  This gives you and your guests the option of relaxing in their own beach house.  This can create a more relaxed atmosphere for your guests as well as save on travel costs.

Accessorize Your Wedding

The beach gives a more relaxed feeling to your wedding, lending lots of opportunity to get creative with your wedding favors, gift bags, invitations and save the dates.   We love flip flops as bridesmaids gifts or even wedding favors for all of the guests!

Beach Theme Invitations

Invitation choices include sand dollars, star fish, sea shells, or just a simple flip flop invitation. If you prefer to keep your invitation more formal, Whitney English Invitations are full of beautiful and traditional bordered invitations.  The Emily Invitation features an elegant brocade design and comes in either Black or Periwinkle.

Summer has arrived and we are diving into beach bags!  We are happy to announce that we now carry an extensive line of adorably functional Scout Bags by Bungalow.  These fun bags are light weight and perfect for a relaxed summer lifestyle.

The Original Deano is what we consider to be the ultimate beach bag.  It’s huge.  It’s collapsible for easy storage.  And best of all it’s light weight - so you don’t break your back when you are trying to relax.   And it is washable.  Scout bags wipe clean!  Pack yours in your suitcase & get ready to relax at the beach.

By Dawn Meisch

If you’ve ever seen the television show, Iron Chef, then you know that it’s exciting and fascinating to watch what the chefs can create with the secret ingredient. An Iron Chef Birthday party is a unique and entertaining experience that any budding cook will love. Not only do they get to have fun with their friends, they can practice a useful skill at the same time.

As with any event, planning ahead will ensure a smooth, stress-free party. Create lists and envision how you want the party to go. This well help to be certain that you don’t forget anything important that will be necessary the day if the party.

Decide on the size of the guest list and what they’ll be creating. This will help you determine the amount of supplies you need. You make want to ask other parents to help out if you have a large number of kids. It never hurts to supply other food not created by the kids in addition to their master pieces. For instance, if they make cupcakes or cookies, they might want to have pizza. Or if they make pizza, you might want to provide a cake for the birthday girl or boy.

Sort the guests into teams and let them make up a fun name. Call out the team names in a funny announcer voice like they would on TV. It’s a must to have stations where the creating will occur with everything already set up for the kids. Depending on their age, they might need more help from you or another adult assistant. No matter what their age, it’s a safe idea to let an adult do the actual cooking and operation of the oven. While their creations are cooking, have them come up with some names for their new dishes. They’ll have a great time, and it will make cooking time pass by almost unnoticed.

No party would be complete without the fancy display. With an adult assistant’s help, display their creations on Noritake dinnerware. The offer increased chip resistance and since they are dishwasher safe, cleanup is fast and easy. For kids parties, a bright and fun pattern like Java Blue

Cooking Party Invitation

or Mocha Java would increase the fun.

If possible, enlist a panel of parents to serve as a judges panel. The little cooks have a great time showing off their creations and vying for their coveted votes. As a special touch, have prizes for the competing chef teams. You can print out certificates before the party with amusing award titles and fill out the team’s name later. Use your creativity to think up awards that are appropriate for the age level of your audience. This way each team can win something.

Be sure sure to take lots of photos of the action. It’ll be a treat for the party goers to be able to see after. You can create a CD of all the photos and send to the guests after the party. With a little planning and creativity on your part, this party is sure to be a memorable one your child and his or her guests. And you can feel good knowing that amidst all the fun, it was also educational.

By Dawn Meisch

Looking for a different party theme for your child’s birthday this year? An Upside-Down Birthday Party is an exciting and unique way to celebrate his or her special day. With some imagination and the following ideas, your party will be unforgettable.

Invitations
Get guests interested in your party by sending out invitations with the names written upside down. Invitations can open from the wrong side or be printed in reverse if your printer comes with that option. Let guests know that the theme of the party requires that the wear their clothing backwards or inside out.

Decorations
Here is where you get to have a little fun with your house. Turn everything you can upside down - welcome mats, lamps, bookshelves, photos on the wall. For extra interest, you can even hang unexpected items from your ceiling. Just be sure that everything is securely fastened and perhaps choose items that are made of plastic. Attach party streamers to the floors, and hang an “Exit” sign on your front door.

Snacks
Serve the cake as the first course, with the pizza and drinks afterwards. Layer the cake on top of icing or if you opt for cupcakes, turn them upside down in baking cups after you frost them. If you have a small enough party, you can lay a tablecloth underneath the table and let the kids eat their lunch there. Instead of using disposable plates for the party, serve food on brightly colored dinnerware like Sengware Pomello, which is lead-free and freezer, microwave and dishwasher safe. Arrange your place setting upside-down as well, with napkins on the bottom, covered by the forks and spoons, which are then covered with your Sengware dishes.

Activities
Greet everyone with a “Goodbye. Have a nice night.” Hand them a small treat box wrapped to look like a birthday present, wrapped inside-out, of course. Give each guest a name tag with their name spelled backwards on it, and have everyone call each other by that name throughout the day. As they arrive, take a photo of each child facing backwards, but with their face turned towards the camera.

Upside-Down games will add extra enjoyment to your party. Depending on the age of your child and his or her friends, try a game of Pin the Donkey on the Tail or send the guests on a scavenger hunt through the house with clues written backwards. The Guess How Many game can be changed to have the winner be the person whose guess is the farthest from the correct answer. If the weather permits, a backwards relay race, in which the kids have to run backwards, is always a popular event.

When guests leave, say hello and wish them a Happy Birthday!

By combining these party ideas with your own, you are sure to create a memorable Upside- Down birthday party for your birthday boy or girl. With all the silliness of doing things backwards, your child’s friends will really enjoy themselves and will be talking about the party for a long time.

Our collection of self inking address stamps for kids includes a great line of kids designs. We love to see a birthday invitation or thank you note personalized all the way down to the return address. Our designs go well with many birthday party themes. We also love the personalized stamps as birth announcements.
The train address stamp is shown here as a birth announcement stamp.

By Dawn Meisch

If you need to plan a dinner party, but can’t think of a what theme to use, consider a Black and White Party. Choosing a party based on a few colors makes planning and decorating an easy task. Black and White are elegant colors that when blended together suggest a more sophisticated atmosphere. They also combine with other accent colors effortlessly.

Invitations
The great thing about black and white is that it goes with everything. Most of polkadotpapershop’s invitations that are black and white also have accent color, which can be included as part of your overall color scheme.

Decorating
No matter what atmosphere your party is or whether it is formal or causal, decorating is an easy matter when using black and white colors. An elegant arrangement of black and white taper candles or a black pedestal bowl filled with all white flowers adorning your table would be sure to impress your guests.

Dress
For this party, guests can be asked to choose their favorite of the two colors, and dress appropriately. More formal parties can ask for dresses or shirts and ties, while more casual parties can just ask guests to include at least one of the colors into their ensemble.

Dishes
One aspect of your dinner party that can’t be overlooked is the dinnerware your food is served on. Noritake has some great dinnerware patterns that keep with the black and white theme like Stone Charcoal or Evening Glow as well as many other options.

Food
Even with your menu, you can incorporate your color theme. You can either choose some black or white side dishes or cook only foods that are completely those colors. Mashed potatoes, wild rice, black beans, squid ink pasta, or anything dark chocolate would work well for your dichromatic dinner table.

Everyone will love the little touches that add to the color scheme. With some planning, your black and white dinner party will be a hit with your guests. It will be successful enough to repeat every year.

Noteworthy Collections Stationery

Now through March 31st we are offering FREE return address pringing on any Noteworthy Collections products.  This includes invitations, birth announcements & stationery!

Check out the beautiful papers from Noteworthy Collections and place your order today.

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PDpapershop

There is still quite a chill in the air, but we have summer parties on the brain.  It won’t be long before all of you begin planning your summer cookouts, engagement patio parties, or kid’s pool birthday parties.  We will have you covered.  We are expanding our invitation lines to include great designs by Picture Perfect and Whitney English.  Check out a few of our latest summer party invitation designs and start summer dreaming!

Girl's Mermaid Party Invitation

Boy’s Pool Party Invitation

Pink Polka Dot Return Address Labels

Everyone loves an adorably cute invitation.  We say … don’t stop there!  Our return address labels are stylish & fun and they add that extra special touch to your party invitations.  Many of our invitations are accompanied with matching return address labels so you can set the tone for your party from the time the envelope arrives.

We’ve featured one of our most popular designs here - Pink Dot Return Address Label.