P. Kelly Smith
Welcome to Magazine Monday! As promised, each Monday I’ll give you a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on here at the office. Since Paper Crafts just celebrated it 5th birthday, I thought it would be fun to share some of our team’s birthday cakes and cubicle signs from the last year. Our art director Stace Hasegawa is the mastermind behind our amazing signs and she employs her good friend (and caterer extraordinaire) Sue George to design our truly original birthday cakes.
Let’s start with my birthday last March (I can’t believe another one is just around the corner!). Since it first debuted in 1995, I’ve loved the BBC production of Pride & Prejudice. Yes, the 5-hour version starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. When I first got into paper crafting, my aunt and I would put this movie on and settle ourselves in for a delightful afternoon of Jane Austen and paper scraps.
Clever Stace found a way to pair me and Mr. Darcy together on my sign.
And Sue made me a cake perfect for an evening at Mr. Darcy's estate Permberly.
Stace even managed to wrangle up some rope and bamboo to make Brenda's sign as authentic as possible.
Isn't that nice of John, Hurley and Kate to send off a "Happy Birthday" S.O.S. for our dear Brenda?
Next came Stace’s birthday in early September. Since she couldn’t very well design her own sign, we had her good friend and talented designer Celeste Rockwood-Jones do the honors. Stace absolutely loves Johnny Depp and Tim Burton movies, so Celeste created a sign that paid homage to Johnny’s latest movie Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
What's even more amusing is our dear Stace is a vegetarian, so we had to take the whole "meat pie" thing in another direction...
Thank goodness Sue knows Stace so well and was able to come up with a "vegetarian" version of the gruesome meat pie. It was actually a delicious blueberry pie!
Then came Brandy’s birthday a couple weeks later. We call Brandy our “walking IKEA encyclopedia” because at any given time you can ask her the price of an IKEA product and she can rattle it right off. Quick, Brandy! What’s the price of… just kidding! We had fun concepting this birthday and Stace and Sue did a great job in executing it.
Have an IKEA need? Just ask our friendly customer service gal Brandy!
Sue made Brandy her own IKEA cake made in the shape of a couch! If you look closely, you can see small magazines with Brandy on each cover.
And last but least was Cath’s birthday in December. Since Cath recently launched her Moxie Fab World blog and has become an advocate for the environment, we thought it would be fun to tie these two themes together. The obvious choice was to create a world-shaped cake. I think this was Sue’s biggest cake challenge to date, but she was definitely up for it.
Stace came up with the genius idea of morphing "earth" into "bearthday".
It's a small world after all! And a very tasty world!
Hope you’ve enjoyed our look back at last year’s birthdays. We’re just getting ready to start back up again with Matt’s birthday next week. I hear Stace has something very creative up her sleeves. Hopefully Sue is up for another challenge! Clearly, we don’t do anything, especially birthdays, on a small scale.
Yours in Birthday Glee,
Kelly
P.S. We just launched a new gallery challenge for the month of February! The theme: “Love Cards”. Please visit our gallery here to submit your Valentine’s Day or love-inspired cards. Three lucky winners will received either a free one-year subscription to Paper Crafts or the special issue of their choice. Good luck!
What a FUN place to have a birthday! I’ve always believed that birthdays are something special and should be celebrated in a big way. You all are my kind of people, LOL.
What a fun post Kelly!
Oh my goodness! it’s like birthday heaven over there : ) What a treat to be surrounded by so much talent!
TYFS Patti
somehow i missed seeing brandy’s ikea cake, awesome! can’t wait to see what you do for matt. i’m sure it will be over-the-top as usual!
OH I’m soooo digging that LOST CAKE! I’m gonna have to find those collector items. You girls have so much fun together! HOW CREATIVE!! (duh). Thanks for the photos. Oh what fun!
Wow, you really go all out. I guess this is what happens when an office is full of very creative people. Those signs and cakes are amazing.
Those cakes were amazing! Looks like you girls have sooo much fun together everyday – definitely my kind of dream job!
Wowsa, these are amazing! I want to have my birthday at your office!
Fantastic signs and the most incredible cakes evah!! I think I’ll plan my next birthday party at your office too!! Thanks for sharin’!!
Oh. My. Goodness! You have the most fun with birthdays that I have ever seen! I love the combination of the cool signs and a very unique cake! They’re all just amazing! Such clever ideas! I’m so totally impressed!!
Wow, those cakes were awesome!!! Happy Birthday to you ladies!
What great pics! Those are some amazing cakes!!
OMGosh~~~I love them all but your birthday cake was so sweet. Those little folded napkins and the detail on the table linen is just adorable!!
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