My daughters are HUGE Harry Potter fans so we knew we would have to make their party pure Hogwarts magic!
We found the perfect venue (Sugar Fox Party) and transformed it into a magical Hogwarts experience for all to enjoy! Hogwarts acceptance letters were sent to all guests and they were also asked to visit a sorting hat website to figure out which ‘house’ they were in (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw). Once Aria and Vivian (the birthday girls) discovered what house they were sorted into, they dressed in Hogwarts-inspired uniforms for Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.
On the day of the party, new students (guests) arrived to the venue and were instantly transported to an enchanting, Hogwarts-like place with so many things to experience!
The Decor: Sugar Fox Party is the PERFECT location for an event with Hogwarts/Hogsmeade vibes. It features beautiful built-in tables and shelves, rustic stone floors, a lamp post, and a large stone fireplace which was perfect for housing dozens of Hogwarts letters arriving by Owl Post! As guests entered the space, they were greeted by colorful tablescapes topped with Harry Potter themed linens, faux candles and candlesticks and balloon centerpieces with tiny hanging winged keys. The Hogwarts letters from the fireplace flowed onto a large backdrop of balloons with custom signs and textural flowers. Next to this area, a sign leading to Knockturn Alley marked the way to the restroom. A custom sign also denoted the location of Ollivander’s Wand Shop and a colorful treat display with backdrop and balloons welcomed guests to Honeydukes. A beverage display wall provided shimmering Polyjuice potion for guests while the other beverages were located in a vintage-style pink cooler marked with “the Leaky Cauldron” logo. Built-in shelves and tables housed all sorts of Harry Potter decor, including photographs, vintage bottles, faux candles, wands, vintage luggage and other HP paraphernalia.
The Food + Beverage: Guests/students were greeted by a feast of kid-friendly charcuterie, desserts, water, lemonade, and Polyjuice potion to drink! A gravity-defying cake was designed by the amazing Flour & Flowers by MK. It tasted as good as it looked!
The Activities: Upon arrival, each student got a “tie” in their House colors and then attended classes in Herbology, Charms class and Potions class. While attending Herbology, students chose a Patronus and made a little cloche environment with moss and stones to keep it in. They stopped by Ollivander’s where they customized a wand (which were all built by hand by my talented husband Matt), filled out a wand registration card and then practiced spells and charms with it. In Potions Class, students made magical potion bottle necklaces and flavored lip gloss. Hogwarts house-themed coloring pages and a Spells and Charms Matching Game were also provided as a fun activity. After classes wrapped up, students went on a Horcrux scavenger hunt and posed in front of a photo booth with fun props. They finished their visit with a trip to Honeyduke’s where they filled their favor bags with fun Harry Potter themed items and sweet treats!
This year I have focused heavily on building my graphic design clientele and I have taken on a lot of creative design projects recently! As so many of you know, I spent a lot of years with wedding flowers being my main focus, and while I never really stopped doing graphic design, I certainly wasn’t doing it as often during “busy wedding season”.
Here are some of my recent and ongoing projects for clients old and new…
Last month, I completed label design for Blend Apothecary. Blend Apothecary is a new product line created by one of my longtime clients (Blend Salon). Blend’s new line includes a full range of beauty products and candles– and they all smell divine! I worked with Cynthia (owner) to develop a logo for this line and fresh color palette that worked for all of the scents offered. Once we found the perfect fonts, she found the label manufacturers and gave me specs and I laid out each label for printing. I also created icons and individual elements that Cynthia will use in Canva to customize and create future templates and labels on her own.
I went to Blend for a facial last month and caught a glimpse of the entire Blend Apothecary line on display and MIGHT have stopped to smell each one. It was hard to pick a favorite but “The Blend” and “Sugar Berries” were top contenders. I was very proud of how this line looked in person and how professional the finished products are– but I know Cynthia and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
GroTurf is another company I do a lot of fun projects for. They have had a great past couple of years– lots of great projects, renovated and moved into an awesome new space in Wheaton and continue to get new projects daily. Brian takes his golf pro expertise and designs amazing putting greens and yards for clients all over the Midwest. I take his designs and turn them into digital renderings to present to clients. Brian and his team amaze me with their beautiful craftsmanship and design! We’ve worked on hundreds of these greens since the beginning and I still delight in seeing each and everyone come to life!
Sometimes I get to go back to my illustration roots and make tiny illustrations for maps! My friend at Jennifer Kaye Photography was in charge of a social media “shop local” challenge in downtown Geneva for the holiday season and needed some custom icons designed for a map she was making. I got to draw the local legend that is The Little Traveler as well as some other uniquely Geneva locations… it was a very fun project!
The Geneva map icon project led Ashley of Knack PDM to find me and she hired me to do illustration of her friend’s business. This drawing I did of The Pep Line was a labor of love and I ended up also doing a line-art version of it as well. This project was followed up with a recent project designing icons and infographics for another of Ashley’s clients– The Local Petaler, who is a talented wedding florist in St Charles. I love when a chain of referrals and projects comes my way. I used to have this happen a lot with weddings- I would do flowers for one bride and then all of her siblings and friends would hire me as well. I always have loved that because I knew I was working with not one, not two, but series great clients!
I have done several Illustrations over the years for my friend Lynda at Greenstar Paperie. Her projects are always fun and creative and quite often I get to do them in watercolor (or watercolor-style digital, or markers blended like watercolor)…did I mention I love watercolor anything?! Well, I do. Here are some of my favorite little ditties I have done for her in the past. Lots of Chicago map icons in the mix! She takes these icons and makes them into beautiful wedding maps, signature drink menus and other beautiful event stationery and signage. If you are looking for wedding stationery– GreenStar Paperie is the place to go! I am just starting a new watercolor project with Lynda–and this one might be our best collaboration yet!
Like I said, we have so many projects in the works right now–but these are just a handful of them! I feel very fortunate to have a lot of great clients who come back again and again to me for their graphic design and illustrative needs! If you have a creative project– please reach out. You can find even more of my design work here.
Josh’s 32nd birthday party was EPIC! So epic in fact, it was featured on Catch My Party last month.
Josh is a HUGE Matrix fan and knew he wanted to celebrate is 32nd birthday in full Matrix style! After seeing the amazing Sky Lounge atop his chic Chicago apartment complex– he knew it was the perfect space for his fête.
After re-watching the Matrix, my head was filled with ideas for decor including glowing “red pill/blue pill” centerpieces, a sentinel-inspired entryway piece, and some epic balloon balloon installations with falling code banners.
Josh found an amazing caterer in Lime Light Catering, who loved the theme and planned a menu with the Matrix in mind.
Josh’s friends got him a Matrix-themed cake and all of the desserts and drinks were themed as well– it was all so perfectly coordinated to our very cool theme.
Guests were asked to dress in black or white (and they came in style!) and were greeted by signs to “follow the white rabbit” when they entered the space.
Old computer parts, wires, and lights accented centerpieces throughout the space. A large floral showpiece sat next to our “white rabbit” and Jelly Bellies were presented as a choice the guests had to make– to take the red pill or the blue pill (one of many Matrix references made that evening!) Signs with Josh’s favorite Matrix quotes were scattered around the room. Signature drinks, wine, mixed drinks and beer were served at the bar, which was flanked with glowing blue and red “pill” centerpieces.
Food included an amazing Poké bar, chicken & waffles and other tasty items. The desserts were served along with cake at the end of the night and all were presented with Matrix flair.
Green, black and metallic balloons were used along with falling code that I designed for a photobooth backdrop area and to accent the column in the middle of the room. Designing the falling code was a challenging but fun project to undertake!
Josh’s friend Johnny was flown in from California to DJ and pumped the venue with lots of pulsing house music and it felt very futuristic and really set a cool vibe. Guests danced the night away before ending the night at Josh’s apartment for the epic afterparty.
I was so happy to be a party of Josh’s 2^5 birthday in the Matrix. He and his guests had the best time, it was such a unique and fun party to produce and it makes me excited for the 4th Matrix movie set to come out this December (12-22-21).
This is going to be the longest post I’ve ever written. And rightfully so. As many of you know, after 17+ years of focusing a large part of our business on wedding floral design, we are now no longer offering weddings as part of our services. This decision was made for several reasons and largely we felt it was the right time to shift our focus over to parties and events and planning and back to graphic design as well.
My team and I have loved doing weddings for all these years. We’ve done over 1200 weddings at this point and we think that is pretty awesome. If you want to take a trip down memory lane, go flip through the galleries on our FLICKR. It is really something special to have been a part of one of the best days (if not the best day) of so many people’s lives. In 2021, we finished out our season on December 11th having done 31 weddings this year– albeit about half of them were postponements or receptions for clients from 2020.
The past 2 years have been a difficult, frustrating, and sometimes just plain crazy time to be in the wedding industry. It has been even harder to be, specifically, a florist, in the event industry. Well, we all know that 2020 was a total hot mess for events and we didn’t have really any weddings for a while there and then when weddings came back in the later half of the year they were a fraction of their original size and in many cases, just “part 1” for many of our couples.
Fast forward to 2021 and things were still not great. This pandemic has completely decimated our floral industry supply chain. Supplies that used to be commodities (like votive candles, vases, floating candles, wristlets) that were always heavily stocked on the shelves have been delayed for weeks, months or are completely unavailable. There isn’t a can of gold spray paint for sale anywhere in the Chicagoland area and there hasn’t been for a year. The flowers themselves have been affected by supply chain AND climate change as well. Anytime there is a fire in California, if affects the flowers grown there. Same thing with hurricanes in Florida and the unseasonably cold weather South America was hit with this year. Places that never see frost, saw frost, and the flowers hated it and we had shortages because of it. People were let go or furloughed at the beginning of the pandemic and had to find other work which left less people in the fields to pick, less people to pack, and less pilots to fly the planes full of product from Columbia and Ecuador to Miami for US distribution.
Because of the release of the vaccine in early 2021, events were happening again in large numbers which meant the demand for flowers was at an all-time high. All of this and more resulted in the highest price increases we’ve ever seen. Some items doubled or tripled in price from 2019. Not only was pricing horrible, but keep in mind we had priced many of these weddings back in 2019 or 2020 so in many cases we had to eat those higher prices or change our designs to cover the cost difference.
And to top it all off, there were shortages of the most popular flowers. White-colored anything (especially playa blanca roses) was hard to get in late summer into fall. Then fall neutrals (quicksand, sahara, golden mustard, cappuccino roses) were hard to find and cost top dollar. Luckily I have a wholesaler who really cares about me and my long-standing account with her and she is the only reason we had beautiful product for our clients this season. I love flowers but I hated seeing this happen to my industry. I will continue to offer flowers (packaged with other event decor) for events, but at my discretion and typically with smaller events the color palettes are more varied and the clients are more open to my creativity and expertise. Weddings always have a specific look, similar flowers and larger quantities needed and many brides are very set on a look they love from Instagram or Pinterest.
Wedding prep took days out of my life leading up to the weekend to order, process, design and store and then my weekends were taken up with delivery, setup and teardown of the actual weddings. The prep for one average-size wedding is typically 3-4 days, including 1-2 days that are at least 12 hours long, plus evening meetings, calls, regular emails and texts, the cleaning and organizing of our supplies, workspace, vases, etc. My only guaranteed days off ever were Mondays, and I almost always spent them returning emails and doing quotes and contracts because when you own a business it is hard to turn it off.
I need to turn it off though. Even if only for one day a week. I have 3 daughters and a husband who I miss. I miss spending weekends with them. I miss attending events with them on weekends and I have been missing out on the events of my friends and family because for the past 17 years I’ve spent almost every weekend doing weddings. So that. That was a big part of why we are making this transition out of the wedding industry.
But there is more. I also really, really love designing and planning parties and events. I love using MORE of my skills (not just floral) to create one-of-a-kind events for my clients. I love doing graphic design projects and utilizing my illustration degree and product design background. I love teaching and hosting events for adults and kids alike. I enjoy making cool balloons for people and have made over 230 balloon creations over the past 2 years alone! But my absolute favorite thing to do is design parties for kids. I am lucky that I have some really great clients that have me help with their parties ever year and I hope to get more “lifer” clients like them. I love how they make me feel like part of the family. It only makes me want to work harder for them!
The other great thing about kids parties is they are during the day. They end while it is still sunny out. The work days are shorter. The prep is less time consuming. The setups are less involved. I can do a balloon setup in the morning and still attend my girls’ Pinewood Derby races in the afternoon. (Yes, I have 2 DAUGHTERS in Cub Scouts). It is a great thing. Doing these smaller events also allows me to take more events and projects during the week and weekend and spread joy to even more people.
I will be spending some of my Sundays this year hosting some really awesome kids events at Graham’s 318 Coffee House. I have planned 13 totally unique themed events for kids and our first two events which are in January and February have already sold out.
I am hoping 2022 is the year I achieve one of my biggest goals in life. I’ve always wanted to be a children’s book illustrator… and I am currently working on co-writing and illustrating a book with my friend Amanda who is my mom-blogging partner in crime over at Baking Besties. Our book will feature our daughters Vivian and Cora and has a lot of other special surprises too! I will let you know when it gets published!
Want to see some of the fun parties I’ve done in the past couple years? Head over to our sister site Kio and Kompany for some of the most beautiful, colorful, and fun events I’ve done! Bonus- I also post a lot of photos of my family over there because I love them and they really motivate and inspire me every day.
So there it is. Some of my reasons for us moving on to more parties and design (and no more weddings) in 2022 and beyond. I hope we continue to grow and remain busy, healthy and happy. Thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout the years, we hope you continue to cheer us on as we close one chapter and explore the next.
I was fortunate enough to do flowers for Jennifer + Aaron’s wedding not once, but TWICE. First back in 2020 with only 10 guests and a livestream, and again this year (2021) with all of their guests like they had originally hoped. Thank you Covid vaccine for that! Both weddings took place at Mistwood Golf Club, and I was the florist and Jordan Imhoff was the photographer at both! That’s why there are so many great photos from both events.
This year we did our circle arch (also called a ring or infinity arch) for their ceremony backdrop. All of the goodies from the arch were reused after the ceremony to make one beautifully epic head table! The overall look was white blooms and lots of foliage, with tiny accents of lavender herb in the bouquet and centerpieces.
One of my favorite things was the back of the ceremony chair “garlands”. I have never had a client do this before and I loved the look! The king’s style head table was nothing short of epic– with candlesticks, votives, garlands, flowers, floral pieces from the arch, and lanterns from the ceremony. We had enough garland from the ceremony to add some to the mantle and the sweets table as well. It was so fabulous!
Here are photos from the original, intimate wedding last year. Love how excited and happy they look here! This ceremony was quaint, so we did our traditional arch covered in faux foliage garlands, with some fresh added on top. The bouquet had some additional touches of lavender herb and some lavender sweet pea as well. The couple wore different attire for their original wedding than for their bigger 2021 wedding– but I love both looks!
Congrats to Jennifer and Aaron and thank you to Jordan Imhoff for sharing these lovely images with us!
