Celebrating Leap Day with a FREE Printable Bundle

I'm excited (and nervous!) about taking a leap and launching The Paper Jamboree very soon. To celebrate, I created this comprehensive bundle of Leap Day printables that include decor, activities, and giftable tags.

Leap Day only comes around every 4 years, so leap into action and download this bundle to kick of your celebrations!

EVERYTHING YOU NEED AND THEN SOME

In this exclusive bundle you'll get 20+ pages of adorable Leap Day-themed printables featuring a cute froggy mascot and cottagecore vibes. Click here to sign up for my newsletter and download this AMAZING freebie. This is what you get:

• (1) HOPPY LEAP DAY banner

• (1) HOPPY LEAP YEAR 8x10 sign

• (1) Leap Day Time Capsule

• (1) Fours Galore Game, 2-up on a sheet

• (12) Multiuse tags

• (8) Luggage-style frog gift tags

• (8) Luggage-style lilypad gift tags

• (3) Pennant-style Flags with (7) coordinating mini banner flags

• (1) Leapling 4x6 birthday card

• (1) Best foot forward certificate

• (1) Oversized frog face for a pin-the-tail-style game, 24x36

• (3) Accessories for the pin-the-frog game: crown, kisses, and a fly

Pantone Color of the Year 2024: Peach Fuzz

Have you ever heard of PANTONE? Maybe you have if you're into design, but most people aren't familiar. Simply put, PANTONE is a company that maintains an expansive color catalog where every hue is assigned a number.

I learned the importance of using PMS (PANTONE Matching System) colors during my time at The Gift Wrap Company where we designed our products in our Northborough studio but sent the files to China for production. It was imperative that the printed colors not only matched the other items in the collection, but the added details like ribbons, buttons, or flocking as well.

So, specifying PANTONE 13-1023 in your design file would ensure that the same Peach Fuzz hue is also on the receiving end. HEX Codes work similarly. And to be honest, I don't really use PMS Colors much anymore since the Adobe products I use to design, no longer contain the PANTONE color books unless I pay extra.

Enough about all of that – back to the Color of the Year! Even if design isn't at the top of mind for you, it's cool to know that a lot of trend analysis and research has been conducted in order to determine that Peach Fuzz is THE color for 2024. You'll likely start seeing it everywhere, if you haven't already. Think: apparel and accessories, interior design, and media (album or book covers, movie posters, etc.).

If you are in the design space and/or will be creating something this year, see how you can incorporate PANTONE 13-1023's Peach Fuzz into your projects. You'll immediately be on trend!

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Moodboards are great sources of inspiration and they're often really fun to put together. A few years ago when I was teaching graphic design, I had my students create moodboards with the Color of the Year (which at the time was Very Peri, 2022). I'm including a free moodboard template if you'd like to make your own Peach Fuzz compilation. Enjoy!

peach-moodboard-template

.pdf

Download PDF • 12.87MB

Notes for Next Year (October 2024)

Welcome to a series called, Notes for Next Year. Please tell me I'm not the only one who has grand aspirations for the month, but then gets to the end and realizes there are movies or meals or events I forgot (or couldn't muster the energy for). Welp, this may seem a little counter-productive but hindsight – as they say – is 20/20, so I'm going to reflect on our October 2023 and make notes to plan for October 2024. Make sense? Maybe these ideas can inspire you, too. Here goes!

MOVIES

Here's what we watched this year:

• Haunted Mansion (2023)

• Muppets Haunted Mansion (2021)

• Under Wraps 2 (2022)

• Casper (1995)

• Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

• Now & Then (1995)*

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

• Invasion (not a movie but a series on Apple TV)
  

There are lists floating around with Halloween-y movies for every day of the month. I would have loved that kind of commitment, but we did what we could with what we have (a common theme here, you'll see).

*A quick note about Now and Then. When watching Casper, I mentioned to G that Christina Ricci and Devon Sawa were in another movie that came out around the same time in the 90s called Now & Then. It was one of my favorites growing up and G was interested in seeing it, so we borrowed it from the library (since I couldn't find my copy). I hadn't seen this movie in years and was surprised that, even though it's set in the summertime, it had a bit of a spooky element running through it – no spoilers but I'm talkin murder-mystery, graveyard visits, and a creepy character who only comes out at night. See? Kinda unexpectedly fun for Halloween.

And here's what we could try and watch next year, when G will be 10 (!):

• The Curse of Bridge Hallow

• We Have a Ghost

• Hubie Halloween

• Nightbooks

• Goosebumps

• Beetlejuice

• Hocus Pocus

• Haunted Mansion (2003)
  

FOODS

Here's what I made this year:

• Chili and Cornbread (pre-trick-or-treating tradition)

• Mummy Calzone with Caesar's Ghost Salad

• Pumpkin Muffins

• Orange Rice Krispie Treats

• Pumpkin Ravioli

• Ghost Toasts

Again, I would have loved to make something frightfully-themed every night, but it didn't happen. My Pinterest board is FULL of amazing ideas. Next year, I wanna try:

• a Halloween Charcuterie Board

• Screaming Ghost Donuts

• Halloween Monster Burgers

• Pumpkin Hummus
  

MUSIC

I have a not-so-traditional Halloween Playlist on Spotify. Here are some of the songs I added this year:

• Bones by Imagine Dragons

• Lil Boo Thang by Paul Russell

• Take it to the Graveyard by LVCRFT

• Lily by Alan Walker

• Halloween Waltz by moon blues
  

DECOR & TRADITIONS

I used what I had and it was enough. We have a pretty small space, so I keep the decor pretty minimal. This year:

• I did buy a new door mat that I'll save for next year

• I jumped on the Occasions Bin bandwagon, it was an easy way to add a little festive fun everyday so I'll definitely do this again

• Our Switch Witch, Sandy, made an appearance

• Trick-or-treating with friends was super fun

• Costumes were really low-key
  

Next year:

• Our city puts together a map of decorated homes, so maybe we'll make time to drive by them

• Halloween Horror Nights?

• I do not need any more Halloween napkins! I'm all set. If I remember nothing else, I hope it is this.
  

So that's it for my 2023 Halloween Notes for Next Year. I'd love to know what made your October memorable and what you might be planning for next year.