Hellooooo 2018!

photo by the confetti project – see all photos from our shoot here!

Well hello all you gorgeous people! Did everyone have a relaxing vacation?? I certainly did!

After the crazy, holiday market-filled month that was December, I seriously felt like I earned my vacation. I’m sure many of you retailers and entrepreneurs can relate! The Thursday before Christmas, I closed my computer, breathed a ginormous sigh of relief, and promptly indulged in a celebratory pasta meal with Sam. The days that followed were comprised of lounging on the couch in sweats, eating, catching up on personal to-do’s like making wedding albums for our parents, more eating, going on dates like our Confetti Project shoot!! (above) and dinner-and-a-movie at Nighthawk Cinema, and four days with family in Miami where we mostly, you guessed it, ate! You’d think my 2018 resolutions would be fitness related–ha!!

While TNTP was technically closed, I always find that my best ideas come to me when I’m not even looking for them. After turning my brain off for a solid 10 days, I sat down on Monday, the first day of the new year, and did a maaajor brain dump of all the thoughts that were simmering while I was couch potato-ing and frolicking in the Florida sunshine. The result? Well, we can pretty much declare 2018 The Year of the Pompom!

There are SO MANY THINGS I want to do with The Neon Tea Party. SO MANY, OMG. But, my big takeaway at the close of the year was that in order to grow this thing in a profitable, scalable & easily understandable way, we have to hone in on one aspect of the business and add layers slowly as it starts to grow and change organically. Make sense?

So, what are we doing?

More pompom products! More pompom parties! Some B-to-B work! Product collabs! Pompom kits!! And so much more!!!

While pompoms will be a big business focus of TNTP, ultimately the brand is about playful eclectic lifestyle — a message to which I am committed and therefore one that is in no way being replaced by pompom-palooza. There will still be home decor inspo, travel diaries, and all things Mexico. The Instagram will more or less be the same cadence (for now!). Blog posts will be less frequent but other cool content will be produced alongside it. The shop and the blog will merge into one fabulous platform and new packaging will be designed.

Man, I hope those ten days off have rejuvenated me enough for another season — we sure have a lot to do! And if there’s anything you’d love to see from TNTP, please please comment below or email me at marisa@theneonteaparty.com and share your thoughts! So many of our business ideas have come directly from you guys — the smartest peeps I know!!

Here’s to a fun-filled and focused year for us all! May we chase our wildest dreams with reckless abandon!

Peace, love & neon,
Marisa