Jill Krause is the creator of Party Like a Kid and main contributor. She’s always enjoyed exercising her creative side and loved helping her mother plan the wildly creative (while minimally expensive) birthday parties she had as a child, which often featured themes and crafts, but hardly ever involved a trip to a “party store.”
In adulthood, Jill grew to love event planning even more when she began working as an event planner for a non-profit while simultaneously planning her cross-country wedding. The celebration was fun and relaxed, with just a touch of traditionalism, and featured a Mariachi band, miniature donkeys who carried bottles of beer in baskets on their backs at cocktail hour, and an old fashioned soda bar.
Now a mother, Jill loves planning celebrations for Kendall, her 2 year old son, and enjoys taking inspiration from all the other creative parents who are doing the same. When she’s not sharing ideas here, she’s sharing her humorous and honest account of life as a mother on her personal blog BabyRabies.com…. that’s if she’s not chasing her toddler, folding laundry (wait… that hardly ever happens, actually), eating at Chick-Fil-A (that happens a lot lately), or preparing for her newest arrival, due on Christmas Eve. She is happily married to her college sweetheart Scott (MIZ-ZOU!), and a resident of the Dallas area.
Charlotte Brodt is the creative force behind Delovely Designs and The Paper Cupcake. With a unwavering love and relentless passion for all things beautiful, creative, unique and fun, Charlotte has always enjoyed expressing her creative talents with a career that started in the beauty industry and lead her to work in a prominent floral and event design studio. There she became even more in love with all things beautiful and developed an even stronger passion for attention in all of the details.
Shortly after the birth of her first son, Hudson in 2006, Charlotte began her first design endeavor and Delovely Designs was born. Delovely Designs focuses primarily on custom wedding invitations and coordinating stationery designs.
Now a stay-at-home mother of two after the birth of her second son, Landon in December 2009, she has developed a new found love for creating fun and fabulous stationery and details for children’s parties, baby showers and other social events. As a result, Charlotte is thrilled to offer printable partyware and other custom paper goods through her new endeavor, The Paper Cupcake. Charlotte will be a regular contributor here on Party Like a Kid and will be offering our readers amazing free printables and other goodies to help make your next party an absolute success!
When she isn’t designing, Charlotte can be found spending lots of time doting on and playing with her two adorable sons or carrying out any of her other mommytasking duties! She is happily married to her long-time love, best friend and husband of nearly six years, David and is a Native Texan and resident of the Dallas area.
Mae Winter is the author of Parenting In Progress and mom to two year old Piper Jo. Originally from northwestern Michigan, Mae was raised by parents who, along with their friends, loved to entertain. As a result Mae grew up thinking that everyone went to enormous, spontaneous, casual parties all the time, complete with pig roasts, jam sessions and impromptu games of freeze tag.
Mae believes that entertaining should be as stress free as possible, but recognizes her own tendencies to sweat the small stuff and she knows she’s not alone. She strives to be the kind of hostess who doesn’t spend her whole party in the kitchen but instead relaxes with her guests. Mae believes that good planning and preparation are the only hopes for a hostess who wants to spend her kid’s party with her kid, and she’s excited to join Party Like A Kid to help more parents do the same.
Mae believes in making her own decorations and hiring out the cleaning. She believes that frosting IS a decoration and that reusable beats disposable every day of the week. She believes that anything can become a finger food if you have enough toothpicks and that as a mom, sometimes the best part of a party is having enough leftovers to not have to cook the next night. Or possibly even the night after that.
Now raising their one year old daughter Piper Josephine in Central Florida, Mae and her husband Christopher do their best to keep their busy lives as casual and spontaneous as two people working for Corporate America can, while providing their daughter ample opportunities to create her own fantasies.
Joanna Osborne is the author of Raising Madison and Party Like a Kid’s newest contributor. Joanna’s love of entertaining runs deep as she is always looking for any excuse to throw a soiree! Her eye for style and knack for finding a deal have led to some very unique (and thrifty!) parties.
Growing up with a mother who loved to entertain, Joanna learned all of the necessary ingredients for a fabulous party: great friends & family, beautiful decorations, and a plethora of food. Being a bit of a stress-induced drama queen has allowed Joanna to learn the importance of planning and preparing for parties weeks in advance. She believes that the key to being a good host is to leave the stress at home and be present at your party. The messes can be cleaned up later, enjoy your parties and engage with your guests, whether they are 3 years old or 30!
Joanna enjoys planning parties for all occasions but devotes most of her creative energy to her 13 month old daughter, Madison. She loves researching the perfect theme and executing fun and affordable decorations for her tiniest muse.
When Joanna isn’t dreaming up the next excuse to throw a party, she can be found chasing Madison around the house, occasionally cooking dinner for her amazing husband, Clint, and spending most of her free time surrounded by family. Joanna recently found out that she’ll have yet another reason to throw a party come June 14th when they welcome baby number 2!
