{Featured Clients} All Aboard the Choo Choo Train!

One of our fabulous customers, Amy, graciously shared photos from her son's 3rd birthday party. She used our train birthday party package along with some extra graphic designs that we custom designed for her.

Here is the invitation style that she used. She had asked us to change colors from our sample we have in our shop. We swatch matched the colors from her party ware that she had already purchased.

Her son is adorable- like a little model!

She actually hired a party train to come take the kids around! How fun that must have been.

We designed a custom birthday banner, which she hung over the windows in the party room.

She had us design lots of logos with her son's photos, and you will see those throughout the party. I like her little banner she hung over the fireplace....

Here is a shot of her cakes. She told me the story about her cake fiasco and it sounds quite stressful! I think the cakes turned out adorable! The colors match her party scheme perfectly.

She stuck the cupcake toppers in the little trains and on the cake itself. She used some with photographs of her son, and some with the train logo we designed.

Here is a shot of her favor bags - we designed little favor tags to be used and she creatively made them 2 sided with a photo of her son on the other side.

Here is a closeup of what her favor tag looked like:

Her table looked so coordinated and I love how she hung the photo logos of her son over top from the lighting fixture!

We also designed some water bottle wraps to go with her scheme (not shown in the photos)

For Amy's party, the train birthday party package had everything she needed to style a perfect train party - it seems like it was a perfect fit!

Great job on the party, Amy!

{Featured Clients} All Aboard the Choo Choo Train!

{Fabulous Finds} A New Obsession...

My serious obsession (is still Amy Atlas, of course... ) is.... Bakerella!

Have you heard of her? She makes the most wonderful looking desserts. I am dying to try her cake pops. They look so cute (and yummy!) and there are so many ways to customize them to coordinate with your party theme.

Here are some of my favorites from her site... How perfect would the bees have been for Pierson's 1st Bee Day.

I am totally going to make these for Halloween....
Or what about a doggie party!?

If I had a baby girl, Hello Kitty would for sure be one of her party themes... and so these would be PERFECT!

and next order of business to tackle.. macaron pops!!! So many lovely ideas. Thanks, Bakerellafor the wonderful inspirations! These blue macaron pops would have been great for Jeffrey's Pool Party!

{Fabulous Finds} A New Obsession...

{Press on Anders Ruff} Featured on Swank Sweets!

I was so excited to see these photos from an event planned by a client of ours.

Swank Sweets, an awesome dessert table planner, purchased a whole set of Circus "Under the Big Top" items from our shop.

She did a really cool layout using the items, and I wanted to share a few of the photos.

Look how cute her table looks! She utilized the circus banner, labels, logos, tags and other items to create a really amazing and impressive looking table!

I like how she used the ticket reels to hold the cake!

A little view at the popcorn boxes with our circus/carnival logo on them.
And the "under the big top" party logo adorns adorable aqua gift bags...
Yummy candies in fun glass jars are labeled with the custom label design we created.

Check out our shop for the circus items! Such a great theme for boys or girls at any age!

{Press on Anders Ruff} Featured on Swank Sweets!

Shop Temporarily Closed

Due to a death in Adria's family, our etsy shop is temporarily closed. We will open as soon as we can.

Samples of our work can be found in our sold items section of our shop.

Thank you for understanding!

Maureen and Adria

Shop Temporarily Closed

{Straight From The Studio} A Blue and Green Pool Party - Jeffrey Turns FIVE!

I can't believe my big boy is 5! I spent a couple months planning (I like to plan over a period of time so that I can complete all of the ideas I get and not get stressed!)

Adria took some fabulous pictures at the party. She is not only a great graphic artist but a killer photographer!

I will be posting another note with pics of behind the (messy) scenes!

Update: Jeffrey's pool party has been featured on Hostess with the Mostess!
Photo above is from their writeup they did about Jeffrey's pool party!

You all saw the invitation that we added to our shop, right?

I made tissue poms to line the entrance to the party area (on the gate to the pool). There is a great tutorial on how to do this at Martha Stewart's website.

Since my new crush is Amy Atlas, I had to make an attempt at a dessert table.

Our pool has a nice long covered terrace where we had all of the tables and the sweets table. I decided against an "under the sea" or "beach" themed party and instead stuck w/ a fun green and blue color scheme for the party. We repeated patterns and pinwheels throughout the whole party.


I just LOVE the pinwheels! We stuck them into buckets with sand (to hold them down)
I found these super fun blue and green clear vinyl square bucket things and put those on the tables with goldfish (a standard party snack, right!?) in them - they kinda looked like fish bowls on the tables.

The sweet birthday boy....
and his Peanut brother, Pierson! ;-)

This is a funny photo of Jeffrey... his facial expression is so funny!

So,... on to the details!

Lunch - We served lunch in personalized sand pails (bagged lunches) - We made butter croissant turkey and provolone sandwiches, bag of chips and a fruit cup. Each bagged lunch had a little sticker on it with a coordinating party logo from our shop. We hung a napkin over the side and the kids were off! They could sit on the beach chairs by the pool or at the tables. They feasted!


Water bottles had a custom water bottle wrap from our shop that said "Don't drink the pool water" "Jeffrey's 5th Birthday" on them.
We also had cups (with the logo on it) for lemonade. I got some blue and green sippy cups for the babies, too!


I have been a huge fan of Amy Atlas and her amazing dessert tables, so I did my own first try at a themed dessert table.

I couldn't fit "Happy 5th Birthday Jeffrey" on a banner so we just had the words "Jeffrey" and "Five" on the seersucker covered backdrop.


I always loved cupcakes in ice cream cones when I was growing up. The kids LOVED them! I made like 75, so I had extra to hand out to lifeguards, etc.

Cookie pops were stuck into a long aqua box with a lime ribbon wrap.



Old fashioned candy sticks - blue in color, of course!

We had fun lemonheads in all sorts of crazy flavors (green, blue, pink and orange in color), and also blue gummy sharks:




Jeffrey's cake was in a waffle cone bowl and had a "5" cookie pop sticking out of the top.
Cupcake toppers adorned all of the fun cupcake/cones!

Lolli pops with our fun lolli pop cover on them... organic pops in yummy flavors like pomegranate pucker, mango tango,...MMM!


We did 2 games. 1st game was Pingpong Pool Search game - I had 144 ping pong balls and several had a 5 written on them. J had all of the kids stand back on the side of the pool and then he threw all of the balls out in the pool - they all went rushing to find the balls with the 5s on them. So fun!

The 2nd game was just the "biggest splash" contest. The kids LOVED this!
Jeffrey and Gabby were tied for 1st!
Pingpong Pool Game:


Pierson playing his own games ;-)

The 8 winners got bubbles!



Favors are almost my favorite thing to plan - I just love doing something nice for all of the guests and they have to coordinate with the party. In this case, Jeffrey had tons of friends at his party and lots of them have siblings Pierson's age. We did a favor for each kid/age.

The older kids got a wrapped present (which they LOVE to open a gift at someone else's party!).
Jeffrey had originally wanted a LEGO party but we decided to do that next year, but he decided he wanted his friends to have a building block favor. We got Fisher Price TRIO building kits for each kid and wrapped them saying "When it gets to hot to play in the sun, go back inside and build your own fun"


The little toddlers got a bucket of sidewalk chalk that had our party logo on it.


and last but not least, everyone got a fresh sugar cookie pop that I made. Fun polka dot or striped patterns.


Adria and I.... exhausted!
Thanks for all the help, Adria! Thanks to all the guests for a blast of a party!!!
XOX
Maureen

By popular request, I am listing where I got some of the key items from my party:

Pinwheels - Hobby Lobby

Navy/Green Striped Cups/Paper Plates/Napkins - Ikea

Green/Blue Sippy Cups - Dollar Tree

Sand Buckets - Michaels

Bubbles - Walmart

Chalk Buckets - Target

Table Cloths - Garden Ridge

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes and Iced Sugar cookies - Maureen Anders' kitchen (I love to bake!)

Old Fashioned Candy Sticks - Cracker Barrel

Blue/Green clear boxy basket/containers - Dollar Tree (of all places!)

Items that you can have designed from our shop (www.andersruff.etsy.com)

- Birthday Banner

- Cupcake Toppers

- Party Logos (for stickers on the cups, bubbles, fruit cups, lunch bags, etc)

- Favor Tag

- Water Bottle Wraps

- Custom Wrap (as shown on the chalk, etc)

- Lolli Pop Covers

- Invitations

- Address Labels

{Straight From The Studio} A Blue and Green Pool Party - Jeffrey Turns FIVE!