We’ve done a red version, and now here’s a PINK one! There’s no denying how popular Hello Kitty is among kids and parents.  Here are some snapshots of our setup that will hopefully tickle you pink and ignite dreams of frilly fantasies.

Kiddie umbrellas were used as part of the centerpieces, with cute polka dot and floral prints in our linens.

Our dessert table in the background for Baby Luise on her first birthday.

SWEETS FOR THE SWEET! Cupcakes by Olive Chan of All Caked Up, and Cookie Lollipops by Joanna Romero of Cuppy Puppy Bakehouse.

Let them eat cake too! I can hear everyone say “KAWAII!” :)  Cake by Olive Chan.

Here are some fun facts about Hello Kitty that I read on the internet:

a. Her original name was supposed to be “White Kitty” (from one of the cats that Alice kept in the book Through the Looking Glass).

b. Hello Kitty is not single. Her boyfriend’s name is “Dear Daniel”. :)

c. She has 2 pets:  a little cat named “Charmmy Kitty” (yes, with a double “m”) and a hamster named “Sugar”.  Charmmy Kitty was given to her by her grandfather, George White, while Sugar came from Dear Daniel.

d. Hello Kitty is a girl of substance too! She’s not just all about being cute and pretty.  Since 1983, she has held the position as the U.S. Children’s Ambassador for UNICEF. :)

Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Rabbit, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga & Roo, and Wol celebrated Baby Haru’s first birthday with him in their classic and original versions.

Welcome to our own Hundred Acre Wood! :)  

We made a special name cutout for Haru with a collage of his baby photos.

Cake and cupcakes by Olive Chan of All Caked Up.

Daddy, Mommy, and the cutie Baby Haru!

Alice’s Wonderland’s wacky trio, Be-an, Lovely, and Lou-Anne striking poses after our setup. :)

Thanks to Nikki Constantino of Smart Parenting Magazine for the article on Alice’s Wonderland and our tips on planning a BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Catch photos from two of our other parties too! Arie’s French Botanical Party (for Mommy Buding Dee), and Gabbie & Noelle’s Backyard 3rd Birthday (for Mommy Loralee Baron-Soong).

If you’re a mommy, this is such a good magazine with a lot of helpful and practical tips (and it’s only P100).  Please get a copy this month :)

While there are clients who gravitate to colorful and unorthodox themes for their kids’ baptisms, there are those who stick with the classics.  Blues and browns were the colors of choice of my client for this project — timeless with a dash of earthiness, but overall elegant, much like the mom and their home.   

I was excited to decorate this dessert table with handmade paper fans! It’s always fun trying out new techniques for each of my clients.  These paper fans are all hand-made by my team and were crafted from paperstock in different textures and prints.

Sebi’s Treats Bar (short for Sebastian). Cakes and mini-cakes for the godparents by Angela Colet of Swell Sweets, and cookie lollis by Joanna Romero of Cuppy Puppy Bakehouse. 

How did we personalize the Treats Bar? We asked the mom to provide us with some baby facts that she wanted to share with her guests. See how adorable they looked when laid out with precious baby photos of Sebi.  This is a very easy way to engage your guests into what makes your baby special — a display that’s guaranteed to warm and tug at anyone’s heart strings.  You can actually do this too for anniversaries or birthdays!

Paper pompom centerpieces made to look like clusters of hydrangeas.

Our ceiling treatment of “dangling earrings” — paper lanterns hung together vertically!  A practical way to address high ceilings, and lend a warm and cozy feeling to any big venue.

Welcome to our “factory”! MY HOME :)  Here’s a photo of Lou Anne making the pompoms.

Pompoms and paper lanterns being assembled on-site. Lily stringing together our lanterns, and me working on the paper fan background for the dessert table.

A photo of the paper fans: a work in progress!  I so loved the complementing prints and textures of the paper :)

Hi guys!  Sorry for the backlog in our entries, I’ll do my best to update the blog on our recent projects.  First up are photos from our “Pink & Orange Flamingo” Baptism :) 

While the rainy season has arrived, and Manila has sadly bid adieu to the wonders of summer, this color combo gives us back some happy, sunshine bliss.  I have to credit the mom for her fun choice on this theme for their firstborn’s baptism.  Since the family of the mom owns Metrobar (a popular comedy club in Q.C.), she wanted to hold the function there. Our challenge was to brighten up this venue with a splash of color for their lunch affair!

Baby Ivana’s dessert table, lovingly guarded by our 2 pink flamingos.

Individually packaged cupcakes by Olive Chan of All Caked Up were the tokens for the godparents.  We just added printed ribbons and tags and they were good to go! 

Red velvet flavored cupcakes with cream cheese frosting….a classic and unbeatable combination.

Cookie lollipops by Angela Colet of Swell Sweets :) 

Tall floral arrangements with balloon flamingos perched on top as our centerpieces.

An area shot swimming in pinks and oranges :)  Plus, we used foldable garden chairs in a natural finish to give the space an outdoorsy and semi-picnic feel.

BUZZZZZ!

This is the second time I’ve done a classic yellow and black bumblebee-themed baby shower (the first one was for a very good friend of mine to celebrate the coming of my godson, Sully), and this vibrant color combination never disappoints! It says happiness, bubbliness, and flighty fun, and always captures well in photographs.

Detail shots of our dessert table and some of our bee accent elements.

Cookie lollipops printed on edible photographic paper. Cool, huh? :) You can print ANYTHING on them and I’m just so excited at the possibilities of this baking technique. Thanks to Joanna of Cuppy Puppy Bakehouse for doing such a great job on them.

A beehive cake by Olive Chan of All Caked Up.

Complementing prints for the game prizes!

Our table setting — with velvet patterned linens and mustard-colored plates that popped and refreshed the space instantly. The mom-to-be’s Tita provided the floral centerpieces as a gift :)

Yummy sweets to greet baby Travis who’s buzzzing his way into the world soon!

Glamomama Amanda Griffin-Jacob contacted me to do an “airplane-themed” 1st birthday party for her Baby Kieran at the beginning of this year. During our earlier meetings, she proudly shared with me how aviation has long been a part of her family’s history.  Her dad founded a small English fleet in the 1970s that specialized in flying for other airlines around the world who needed additional aircrafts, while her mother was the Chief Purser of that airline.  She wanted the significance and magic of the world of aviation to be carried on as her son turned one.

I’ve always thought that home parties were the best because the space is so much more personal and warmer than any commercial venue.  And I was happy to find out that she was planning to have their celebration in their residence!

With passengers all buckled-up in smiles and ready for an afternoon filled with aviation delights, come and see what we did as KIERAN AIR took to the skies :)

Our sweets and giveaway table…the kids got personalized bag tags as their souvenirs.

For centerpieces, we revived our knowledge of paper plane folding :) Simple and nostalgic, and something that can even be done with your kids and family members as a bonding project at home!

Baby Kieran and his adorable curls! Incidentally, he also had his first haircut that afternoon which brought the mom to tears… :)

Kids got in-flight care bags as they entered the house.

How we dressed up their garden — 3ft. tall cutout letters spelling the baby’s name.

It rained heavily that afternoon, causing a great deal of stress for the mom.  Good thing we came prepared with tenting contingency!  Just remember that when you have any portion of your party outdoors, it’s always always better to be safe than sorry.  A tent doesn’t cost a lot and could probably spell the difference between a successful party and a disastrous one.  So when in doubt, JUST SET IT UP :)

Designs of the kids’ bag tags and the Kieran Air logo :)

Just wanted to share a snippet from one of my favorite books by Robert Fulghum :)

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

It’s the third installment of our Baby Bird series, and this time we’re giving you a burst of color in its treatment! :)

I personally love colors and prints, and I think nothing beats the drama that it creates in any space.  So when a client comes to me with visions of rainbow hues and patterns, my heart starts beating a little faster!  For this particular event which was a Baby Shower, the proud parents wanted to use TEALS and YELLOWS as its main color story.  Teal is a tricky color to work with because it sits right between the boundary of the blues and the greens, and you’ll find that not many fabrics, papers, or ribbons are readily available in this color tone out there in the market.  Eggs also played a significant role in the couple’s story because, apparently, the mom-to-be offered eggs to Sta. Clara in the hopes of having a baby boy as their first born.  Call it faith or coincidence, but their wish actually came true :)

To celebrate the “hatching” of Baby Ethan, here are some photos and visuals from that party.

The invite we designed for them…

Our sweets and giveaway table with our trademark name cutout.  The table had cupcakes, candy eggs and cookie lollipops for the guests.

We added the patterned linens as a last minute surprise for the clients.  These are actually curtain panels I found in a department store with a graphic print that reminded me so much of Jonathan Adler.  It’s was very mod-like and really lent a whole modern and fun look to the set up!  Thank God my ever-reliable sewer accepted a rush job to cut out the top portion where the curtain panels originally had its silver rings.  A nice table linen can really make or break a table setting, don’t you think? :)

Here are our candy eggs again!

The couple was revealing the baby’s gender that night, and wanted their family and friends to make a guess before going up to the roof deck venue.  Their prizes for those who guessed correctly?  Cookie lollis in the shape of eggs with a letter “E” for Ethan :) 

This time, our cupcake design was teal-colored eggs set on top of brown coconut flakes that looked like nests.  Bravo to Angela Colet of Swell Sweets for always being willing to explore new design pegs with me :)  She’s so fun and easy to work with.

Mommy checking the set up before the party.

That’s me taking setup pics, plus Be-an and Lou-Anne goofing around!

If you like prints and patterns just like me, you may want to check out Jonathan Adler’s design books :)  Quirky and cheeky tips on how to make any space tickle your senses!  Because it’s a lot of fun to NOT take yourself seriously all the time.