COLOR INSPIRATION | Pink + Orange Sherbet + Gold

Before sharing all of the graduation party photos I thought it would be fun to first do a post to share the color inspiration behind the party as well as some of the fun party decor products and pretty desserts that tied everything together.

Target never ceases to inspire me in some form or fashion and that's exactly where the color inspiration and direction for the entire graduation party started. I just happened to be walking past these beautiful gift bags, (shown above), one day in Target and knew immediately these would be the foundation of the grad party planning. 

There was even a perfect pinky tissue paper to go with the bags and I snagged some of that too. (you know I'm obsessed with tissue paper and use it for so many different crafting projects like this and this, and this diy confetti...so it was a no brainer to grab it). Wish I'd snapped a picture of it too. Oops! 

And soooo….the party color scheme was official…

Pink + Orange Sherbet + Gold

The 2nd part of my color inspiration came from when I got to work with the Heidi Swapp products and fell in love with the PINK and CORAL Color Shine Products. The colors magically blended beautifully with the party colors and I ended up using them on some custom candy wrappers I did for the party - which I'll share with you tomorrow.

I went with a simple square invitation with a watercolor design and instead of having the invitations printed, we sent them as evites. This party was a combined graduation party celebrating my daughter, Clara, and three of my cousins…Kalie, McKayla and Abigail. With two of the graduates from Utah it was easier to design an invitation that could be emailed to my two aunts so they could then forward the invitations to whoever they wanted to invite.

With my color scheme official and invitations finalized, I immediately reached out to Carmen at The Flair Exchange to see which of her beautiful Tissue Tassel Garland Kits would match the party best. I ended up using a mix of the the pinks and golds from the Sweetheart Kit as well as the lighter pink and orange from the Bright Garland Kit. My original thoughts were to do confetti filled balloons using the Bright Confetti from The Flair Exchange (like I did for Ella's Birthday Balloon) but then I nixed the balloon idea and used the confetti on the table we designated for cards, photos and the money jar for the graduates. Thanks Carmen!!!

I knew gold and pink straws from The TomKat Studio were a must, even though I wasn't sure how I was going to use them at our lakeside barbecue. Bottled sodas and water don't necessarily call for cute striped party straws, (unless you are me and all of my fave party girls out there), but a party just isn't as cute without these adorable things, agreed? Thank you Kim!! Wait until you see what I ended up using them for. 

I decided there needed to be gold sparkles on the desserts for the party so I purchased some of this American Gold Disco Dust. In LOVE with the stuff. It's the perfect "true" gold and just a little bit goes a long way! We used it on cookies and cupcakes and cotton candy too!! So. FUN!!

These gorgeous tissue balls from Shop Sweet Lulu replaced my original idea of using balloons. I have to say - these things are MAGICAL! The colors I ordered were PERFECT and I was SO very happy with how we ended up using them at the party. (and no helium to fuss with if I'd stuck with balloons. Besides, Clara is scared of balloons so it all worked out...for her). *wink*  See the bottom of the post for the sizes I purchased.

I've been thinking about cotton candy and incorporating it into a party for awhile now.  Truth be told, I ordered tubs of it a couple of years ago so I wouldn't even have to make it. I wanted to make cute cupcake toppers with it. Well…when 3 tubs arrived only one of them had light fluffy cotton candy in it. The others had shrunk down to a hard 1" cotton candy remnant at the bottom of the tubs. I was bummed. 

THEN…about a year ago, I discovered Bon Puf and cotton candy literally became an obsession. I want to be that cute girl with that cute cart making up cute magical pufs of organic cotton candy with cute flavors for events…and sprinkling it with cute things. 

Hence I'm not that cute girl from Bon Puf and there's no one in my local area that I'm aware of that comes close to all of that cuteness…and…because I decided this graduation party would be the perfect opportunity to try out all of the cotton candy ideas I'd been dreaming of...I had to get creative. 

These perfectly colored Cotton Candy Sugars shown above (Bubble Gum, Pink Vanilla and O-Jay) are NOT organic but they matched the party perfectly and I'm really happy with the way everything turned out. The pink and orange sprinkles and Gold Glitter were the perfect toppings too! You'll see more tomorrow. 

We came up with the idea to have keepsake books for each of the girls. We encouraged party guests to write a little bit of advice/well wishes inside. I found these gold polka dot notebooks at WalMart (of all places) back in April when I headed to SNAP! the blogging conference. I wanted a cute little notebook to take with me and I was lucky enough to have found these still available a few months later for our graduation party books. Using a glue gun, I just added the different colored ribbons to make each one unique and then added a simple name tag. (you'll see the finished books tomorrow).

All throughout the party planning I kept finding myself subconsciously gravitating towards the party color scheme - like when I picked up a couple of bundles of spray roses for the cute new mug for my desk.  I'm officially in love with this color scheme and I don't see it going away for a while.

When the pretty desserts start rolling in for any party or celebration I do, that's when things really start to get real for me. There is so much "behind the scenes" back and forth communication going on between these fabulous dessert makers and I, which means getting the final results feels like a kid at Christmas; you've asked for a special gift and you hope with all of your heart you get it….but you never really know until you actually open it/see it. 

I've used Flourish Sweet Shop, Cupcake Delights and Sweeties a number of times for different events and celebrations and I'm always thrilled with what they come up with. These ladies put up with me...get me. I admire their talents so much and I'm grateful every time I get to work with them. There's such a fine line between sharing my vision and then giving them their creative license to come up with something that inspires them. (if you might imagine…I tend to overthink things on occasion and I have to reel myself back in).

It's not like I just reach out to them one time, throw out my color scheme and call it done. I fret over the little details and I want to make sure the vendors are on the same page as I am…as annoying as that can sometimes get. There are lots of back and forth pictures of frosting colors, design questions and things the average person more than likely doesn't even consider or think about. I'm grateful they are always so sweet to work with. *wink*

The sugar cookies shown above from Flourish Sweet Shop are always so pretty AND delicious. Remember those amazing Edible Paint-by-Party Cookies from Ella's Rainbow Unicorn Birthday Party she did?

For this party, I loved that Lisa tied in the "celebrate" from the invitation on the rectangular cookie. She even surprised me with the heart cookies and they were such a cute addition to the other cookies. Thank you Lisa!!

Judy at Cupcake Delights perfected the frosting colors on the mini cupcakes she made for us. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect match with the whole color scheme. And I LOVED her idea of having all 3 cupcakes be different flavors; lemon, orange and key lime. They were FANTASTIC!! She sprinkled them with a tiny bit of the Gold Disco Dust and they were almost too gorgeous to eat. Thanks Judy!!

The beautiful chocolate covered oreos from Sweeties were a work of art. I so appreciated Kim being willing to step out creatively and try something new to recreate the watercolors from the invitation onto her oreo cookies. She did lots of research to come up with the best way to make it happen and when I started fretting over whether or not the gold she would be adding would be "just the right metallic gold" she kindly shipped them WITHOUT the gold so I could add the Gold Disco Dust I bought once they arrived. (the photo above was taken when they arrived and the photo below is WITH the gold I added). Beautiful, right? I vote these the prettiest oreo cookies on the planet!!  THANK YOU Kim!!

All of the desserts were gorgeous - so much so that everyone at the party kept asking, "are the desserts real?" They were so pretty guests weren't sure if they were edible or just for decoration. THAT is awesome!!

Stay tuned tomorrow when I post how everything ended up coming together.

I hope you liked this in-depth breakdown on the party details and the story as to where the color inspiration came from. I figured splitting up the posts would allow me to be less "wordy" when I actually post all of the party photos.

Updated: See how the Pink + Orange Sherbet + Gold Graduation Party came together!

For those of you who are wondering:

Tissue Balls Purchased from Shop Sweet Lulu

- Peachy Tissue Extra Large Round dessert table backdrop
 - Party Pink 19" dessert table backdrop
 - Peachy Tissue Ball & Diamond 5"
 - Carnation Pink Tissue Ball 5"
 - Blush Tissue Ball 5"
 - Carnation Pink 12"
 - Peachy 12"
 - Carnation Pink 8"
 - Party Pink 8"
 - Carnation 8"


KEEPiNG iT REAL

Ella just walked by catching a glimpse of the Oreos on the computer screen and said, "I sure wish we had more of those, Mom."