Inspiration

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Ollie

Ollie & the egg were featured on DailyCandy Kids  this week and they featured our Woodland party. It’s such a nice little feature and I was so happy to be able to answer their questions and talk a little about the inspiration behind the party.

The inspiration for the party came from a book I’ve had since I was little. It’s in Croatian so I honestly am not sure what the story is about but it doesn’t matter. The illustrations are what have captivated me since I was a kid. I was looking through some of my old books one day and found this one. It caught my eye just as it always has and that’s when the idea of the woodland party started to form.

So here is one of the illustrations from this wonderful book:

Why is the fox the only one wearing clothes?

And here is a photo of the party that was inspired by the book:

Please note the giant toadstool. Love that thing!

Inspiration can come from anywhere. I love children’s illustration and am constantly invigorated and excited by it. It’s definitely one of my main inspirations, not just in my job, but in life. A beautiful illustration can instantly bring me to my happy place. What are some of your favorite inspirations?

 

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Loving The Gender Reveal Party Trend

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Ollie

The New York Times had an article this Sunday declaring Gender Reveal parties officially a “thing” {check out the article here}. I personally love the concept. It’s such a fun way to share the exciting news with friends and family. And there are so many charming takes on the idea that could be done to create a sweet and memorable party. I’ve gathered a few images of gender reveal parties that I particularly love. Enjoy!

A Make Way for Ducklings gender reveal party

Vintage gender reveal party

Sweet pink & blue gender reveal party

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A Grown Up Baby Shower

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Ollie

The other week I received a call from a semi-frantic Grandma-to-be asking for my help putting her daughter’s baby shower together. The shower was in three days and she didn’t have much of anything done yet. The party was being held in a beautiful room on a weekday evening and was to be a cocktail party. Grandma-to-be wanted to make the party more “baby shower-ish” and fun. She didn’t want a theme so I asked her to send me a copy of the invitation. The invite was gorgeous and featured baby blue flowers and red text. So I  used the baby blue and red color scheme and went to work. In all the rush of getting everything together and getting to the location to set up I forgot my camera. Luckily I had my phone, which has a camera, and was able to snap some photos. Unfortunately the room was also quite dark which only added to the photo taking obstacles. In any case, I did get some photos to show and will re-create some of the pieces I made for the party once I recover from the whirlwind of pulling together a whole baby shower in three days!

welcome baby

I created these "Baby Wishes" cards for guests to fill out.

The cards are a great alternative to more traditional baby shower games.

A lovely guestbook and handmade Welcome sign greeted guests.

The favors were a bottle of red nail polish and a baby blue nail file.

The banner I made to for the shower to celebrate the mom-to-be!

Arrangements of peonies were placed throughout the room.

The room featured hand painted wallpaper and beautiful wall sconces everywhere.

 

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A Welcome Addition

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Ollie

I created this banner for a baby welcoming party a friend was hosting for another friend. I was supposed to attend but a last minute family obligation kept me from going. I was there in spirit though and from all accounts the party was a lot of fun and the banner a big hit!

I wanted the banner to have a vintage feel to it. I used a combination of floral and polka dot paper as well as polka dot ribbon all in shades of pink, pale blue, purple, and mint green.

Each individual letter featured a patterned, scallop circle back with a solid cream or blue front circle. The bright pink letters were each individually cut and glued to the circles. Then the letters were threaded onto bright pink grosgrain ribbon. Pretty!

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Baby Shower Love

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Ollie

When I was pregnant I discovered the wonder that is a baby shower. Someone you love throws you and your big pregnant belly a party and people bring you things. Thing you’ll need for your baby! Things you, as a not yet mama, did not even know you needed, like nasal aspirators and lap pads. It was awesome! And very sweet. And while technically my mother-in-law was throwing the party, I was the one who planned it. While looking for baby shower inspiration I discovered that they were generally cheesy, cutesily (is this a word? It is now.) decorated affairs where the poor mom-to-be is subjected to all sorts of embarrassing games and guests lick melted chocolate bars out of diapers. I was horrified.

I threw out practically everything I’d seen about baby showers and created for myself a simple, pretty party by pulling colors from our invitation. We had great food and a couple of fun word and trivia games. No wrapping me in toilet paper required. It was a great day.

The shower invite and color inspiration.

Colored lanterns hanging on the porch.

Fruit and flowers.

Flowers, guest book, and Jaques Torres mini chocolate bar favors.

More lanterns and flowers. And yummy sandwiches.

If you or someone you know has been handed the responsibility of hosting a baby shower and needs a little, or a lot of help, Ollie & the egg would love to be of service! We’ll help you throw a fun and stylish baby shower for the mama-to-be in your life.

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A Rock and Roll Fiesta!

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Ollie

Well here we are, deep in the doldrums of winter. The holidays have come and gone. The decorations and lights are put away and everything just seems sort of blah. What better remedy for the gray days of January than a bright and colorful Rock and Roll Fiesta!

     To celebrate her 4th birthday my little client decided she’d like a music party. She also wanted a traditional burro (donkey) pinata. I proposed combining the two elements and calling the party a Rock and Roll Fiesta. With mom’s approval I went to work creating a totally unique party.
The decor was inspired by a traditional Mexican fiesta. I created a colorful “Happy Birthday” banner using papel picado (cut tissue paper flags) as my inspiration. We also hung several strands of authentic papel picado from the ceiling of our space. The walls were adorned with balloons and multi-colored streamers. And in the middle of it all hung a traditional donkey pinata filled with confetti and treats.

     The food and activity tables were covered with oilcloth, which was perfect as it’s super colorful and wipes clean easily. The food table also featured custom menu cards and brightly colored serving bowls and trays.


The food served was all kid friendly and easy to serve. Chips, salsa,
guacamole, hummus, fruit, and crackers were served along with pizza and
the all important birthday cake. The cake was adorned with candles and a
banner of small paper flags I made using colorful scrapbook paper.

     During the party guests were kept busy with a variety of activities. At
the begining of the party each child was given a cardboard guitar to
decorate with stickers, crayons, and markers. Then the kids (and parents!)
were treated to an interactive concert given by the guest of honor’s
favorite music teacher. And finally the kids each had their chance to wack
the pinata and cheer as it slowly started to break open. Once the pinata
had finally broken (after a little parental assistance) the kids were given
custom goody bags to put their treasures in. There was also time for the
kids to just rock out and dance, which they did happily.



     At the end of the party the guests were each given a small instrument to take home with them. The instruments had a custom guitar shaped tag attached to them along with a colorful Mexican paper flower.

     As the guests said their goodbyes many left playing their new instruments. It was the perfect way to end such a rockin’ fiesta!



 

 

 

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The red balloons

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Ollie

I love balloons. They’re whimsical and magical and will forever remind me of childhood. And when balloons are extra large they bring an even bigger smile to my face. And to everyone who sees them, it seems. I wanted to do a little Autumn photo shoot in the park and these big red balloons proved to be the perfect prop.
It was a clear and blustery day and Aedan and I had a great time strolling around the park hand in hand holding our big red balloons!

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Making a leaf crown

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Ollie

The king of the forest!

I’m a big proponent of celebrating not just holidays but the seasons as well. Every new season brings with it its own rythym and rituals and offers us a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what the last season has brought us and look forward to the gifts the new season will bring. To celebrate the return of Autumn and all its beautiful colors I decided to go leaf gathering with Aedan and make him a special crown out of the leaves we picked up together. This is such an easy project and one I can see becoming a tradition for us. These crowns would also make a lovely addition to the Thanksgiving place settings of the children in your life.

Pretty non-crunchy leaves.

The most important thing when gathering your leaves is to make sure they’re not too crunchy. This will make sewing them MUCH easier.

Once you’ve got a good handful of leaves you’ll need to trim off the stems and fold back the bottoms so that they are straight. Then you’ll need a piece of ribbon or fabric (or even paper, just as long as you can sew through it) that the leaves will get sewn on to.

Place your ribbon in the crease of your folded leaves.

The ribbon also helps keep the whole thing together. Place the ribbon in the crease of your folded leaf. Now you can begin to sew. I just used a regular old needle and thread and I sewed the whole thing using a whipstitch.

You can use a regular needle and thread to sew your crown.

This is the easiest stitch and it also looks really cute! Make sure you overlap your leaves so that they’re not just sewn to your ribbon but to each other as well.

Use a whipstitch to sew the leaves together.

Once you have all your leaves sewn together just overlap the end leaves and sew those together. Ta-da! You now have a wonderful crown of leaves for your forest kings and queens!

Enjoying his reign.

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A handmade Halloween

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Ollie

Growing up, Halloween was sort of a non-holiday in my house. My mom grew up in Europe and never really got what Halloween was all about. My costumes were always either the boxed kind from the drug store

You remember these, don't you?

or whatever I could put together out of what I already had. One year I dressed myself up as an “alien vampire”. Sounds potentially cool but all it really consisted of was black pants and shirt that I already owned, a cheap pair of vampire teeth, and some sloppily applied face paint. Determined to save Aedan from such a pathetic fate, I’ve vowed to make him an awesome halloween costume every year until he’s old enough to be completely mortified by the fact that his mom made his costume.

So, what would I make as Aedan’s first official Halloween costume? Sushi of course! Something about a baby dressed as a piece of raw fish really appeals to me. Unfortunately it did not appeal to his daddy. Okay, so sushi was out. What else could he be?  Let’s think about Aedan for a second. What kind of baby is he? Well he’s nocturnal. He loves birds and squirrels. He’s pretty wise for a one year old. I had it! Aedan could be an owl for Halloween! With daddy’s approval I set about creating his costume. After cutting out a million feathers and sewing like a madwoman I’m so proud to present Aedan the owl!

The finished costume

Aedan modeling his owl costume

Whoooo's the cutest?

 

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Into the woods

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Ollie

Living in Brooklyn all my life you may not imagine I’m much of a nature girl. And in many ways I’m so not. I think I’d be okay if I never actually went camping in my lifetime. But there is something about the woods that has always intrigued and comforted me. Maybe it’s all those fairytales I grew up with that take place there or all the adorable animals that live there (hedgehogs included!) but I love me some woods. So when I was imagining a party setup to add to the website of course a woodland party immediately came to mind.

I created this woodland themed party table using moss, kraft paper, wood, and lots of little red and white toadstools. I took the polka dot pattern of the toadstools as the inspiration for the bunting, cupcake picks, and cake banner.

The table features lots of delicious treats! Cherry vanilla cupcakes each on their own wooden pedestal toadstool shaped sugar cookies, fresh strawberries, chocolate and strawberry milk in individual milk bottles, and a yummy chocolate pudding cake with a vanilla glaze.

I made labels for everything using  kraft paper tags and rubber stamps.  I love stamping. It’s so satisfying to press that little piece of rubber down on your paper or fabric or whatever material you’re using and have a perfect image staring back at you once you pick the stamp back up.

My other favorite element on the table is the multitude of teeny tiny toadstools. They are actually intended as terrarium decorations but I think they work great in our woodland tablescape. Between them and the moss the table really has the feeling of the forest floor.

After guests have devoured the many yummies on the table I imagine they would enjoy a woodland scavenger hunt. This is where the beautiful party favors come in. Instead of a bag of candy or little toys to take home after the party our woodsy guests would receive and use their favor during the party. The favors are a beautiful, handcrafted wooden nature book. Each page of the book depicts something you’d find in the woods like a leaf or an acorn. After getting their books the children would go on a scavenger hunt to gather the items they see in their books and share their finds with their fellow woodland explorers.

I hope you’ve enjoyed taking a closer look at my woodland party and taking a trip with me into the woods!

 

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