What is The Confetti Bar? 

bloom to the moon and back by jessica serra huizenga

The Confetti Bar is a lifestyle brand and artistic confetti studio encouraging you to discover your unique version of happiness in all its beautiful, messy pieces.

Mission: To create confetti that starts conversations about mental health.

Purpose: To inspire you to make (& embrace) beautiful messes.

Vision: To share an incredible amount of hope in this world, one little piece of happiness at a time.

What is Confetti Land?

Door to Confetti Land (2019)

Imagine a colorful, magical place — filled with confetti — where possibility is endless and happiness is found. A place where wellness meets kindness and simple moments of joy are honored. A place where it’s ok to feel sad sometimes (because life is hard), but hope & goodness triumphs over all the bad. A place for creative dreamers to call home.

This is what we imagine Confetti Land to be. (You can find more answers about it here.)

Who Creates all the magic?

Hi! I’m Jessica, Chief Confetti Thrower

As the kombucha-drinking, happy-making confetti queen around these parts, I delight in creating unique, bright, and engaging content. At the core of everything I do is my mission to spread happiness, color, and, of course, confetti. Here at The Confetti Bar you’ll find inspiration & products to brighten your life with love & magic, because I believe happiness should be celebrated.

I’m also an HSP, so I feel a lot of feelings. I love sparkly things and I think drinks taste better through a straw. When I was little I had a green collection that included a green toilet brush. I married a pretty cool dude (see below) and together we made the most amazing little girl. Smiles are my favorite.

xx J
Jessica Serra Huizenga
@jessicaserrahuizenga
www.jessicaserrahuizenga.com
Confetti Artist. Mess Maker. Feelings Feeler.

Meet Clifford, Director Of Digital Awesomeness

He creates awesome things for video and the web. As our Director of Digital Awesomeness, it’s his job to keep the technical side of The Confetti Bar running smoothly and strategically. He also designs the digital files for all of the custom confetti pieces we cut. (Plus, as my husband slash partner – both in business & in life – he keeps me somewhat sane.)

He enjoys collecting and playing retro video games and supports indie gaming developers. He loves to watch speedruns as well as try to top his own run speeds. He’s the most incredible husband and father a girl could ever hope for. Making people smile is his favorite. 

Clifford, Director of Digital Awesomeness
Clifford, Director of Digital Awesomeness

He creates awesome things for video and the web. As our Director of Digital Awesomeness, it’s his job to keep the technical side of The Confetti Bar running smoothly and strategically. He also designs the digital files for all of the custom confetti pieces we cut. (Plus, as my husband slash partner – both in business & in life – he keeps me somewhat sane.)

He enjoys collecting and playing retro video games and supports indie gaming developers. He loves to watch speedruns as well as try to top his own run speeds. He’s the most incredible husband and father a girl could ever hope for. Making people smile is his favorite. 

Meet Alexis, Head of Happiness

Alexis, Head of Happiness at The Confetti Bar

She is a southern gal raised on biscuits and hospitality. The mastermind behind Confetti Reign, she loves dreaming up ways to make all occasions special in DIY style with the help of happy brands, so it’s pure kismet she landed here on Team Confetti, helping us spread smiles as our Head of Happiness. (She not only has killer content creation skills and is the ultimate connoisseur of all things confetti, she’s the embodiment of pure sunshine. You’ll likely see her smiling face on The Confetti Bar’s social media channels, so be sure to show her some love!)

Audrey Hepburn is one of her idols and she always keeps a stock of ice cream in her freezer. She loves watching movies, especially musicals and anything Disney. She’s a semi crunchy gal with an impressive essential oil stash, and string lights make her soul smile. Laughter is her favorite form of exercise.

Why Confetti? (The Backstory)

I’m not sure if you’ve realized it yet, but life is hard.  There are pressures and stressors and both bad and sad things can happen. (Yes, even here in Confetti Land it’s not always sunshine and rainbows!) But that’s why it’s even more important to really take the time to celebrate even the smallest of moments — because there are still so many amazing and wonderful things to be grateful for. 

To me confetti represents all the good vibes & hope I want to spread in this world, literally one little bit of happiness at a time.

So how did all of this begin?

One day in February 2013 I woke up and told Clifford I wanted to open a confetti shop.

That is, quite literally, how all of this began. No joke. He looked at me for a second, said “Okkaaayyyyy,” and then helped me build The Confetti Bar from the ground up — me as Chief Confetti Thrower, and C as our Director of Digital Awesomeness.

Ever since that moment, The Confetti Bar has been my outlet to serve up lots of color designed to encourage celebration and smiles. It’s my art, the thing that keeps me smiling, a symbol of the happiness I think we all should strive to design, and what ultimately saved my life.

Since confetti is the quintessential symbol for celebration, my philosophy has always been simple: Make (& embrace) beautiful messes.

And while the symbol of celebration has always been at the core of what I do, I began with the simple idea that the physical product of confetti should live up to its symbolic reputation, thus began making unique and custom confetti mixes. It became my signature to not only offer personalized shapes/words, but to add texture and dimension to the colored mixes, too.

After only six months of launching the first iteration of the site June 1st 2013, I was able to quit my full-time job. I got so overwhelmed by trying to balance both a day job and my newfound business that C found me ugly crying on my mother’s basement floor (#truth). It was in that moment that we decided it might be time for me to pursue this crazy confetti world full-time. Thanks to his support — and the support of my entire family — I started working for myself full-time in November 2013.

I did that for about five years, but it was in that time stuff got real, both personally and professionally. I had health issues that led to a full-blown wellness journey. I got a studio, grew the business, and made confetti for some really cool brands — McDonald’s, Twitter, LinkedIn, Dr. Pepper, and Stride Gum to name just a few. We went to NSS in NYC, we wholesaled some products, I did photo shoots, I blogged about DIYs and recipes, I held events, I dabbled in a few other businesses, helping run creative workshops for women and writing romance novels. I laughed. I cried.

Basically, I did a little bit of everything, trying to find my way in the world. 

There were always ups and downs (as is the case with life in general) but somewhere along the way things got overly complicated. I no longer found joy in the thing that I started in order to make other people (and myself) happy. We ran into scalability issues with growing a product-based business that kept me stuck in a loop and I found myself wondering what the point was. Then, as if the universe knew I was struggling, at the end of 2017 sales slowed to a crawl for the first time since starting this wild ride. And when my initial reaction was relief, I knew something had to change. I spent 4-5 months feeling lost, overwhelmed, and unsure. A lot of tears and a lot of doubt consumed me. I wasn’t sure who I was or what I had to offer, but I knew I needed time (and money) to figure it out.

So I made the (very difficult) decision to take a full time job again in March 2018. It was a bit of an uncomfortable transition, but I saw my new role as an opportunity to learn and grow, all while completely re-structuring my own business plan. 

I may be back to running The Confetti Bar as a side project once again, but this time I’m looking to build it up even stronger than before. 

Having a day job means my time is much more limited, but this forces me to focus on the things that matter most  — I literally don’t have time to waste. While it’s taken a bit longer than anticipated, the current iteration of The Confetti Bar — using confetti to start conversations about mental health — is something that feels much more aligned. I realized this brand is no longer just about me and my story — it’s about all of us and all of the stories. It’s about sharing (and actually caring). It’s about never giving up and striving for meaning, happiness, and health. It’s about being in this thing called life together.

Sure, I still make confetti, write books, make art, and design products, but above all I’m passionate about curating a safe space for all of us creative dreamers. A place where we can chat about things like living a creative lifestyle, endlessly pursuing our own individual versions of wellness, and all that it means to design a happy life.

More than anything, this journey has taught me that change is not only good, it’s necessary. We’re all living, breathing, changing beings, so our businesses/pursuits can (and should!) change along with us. It’s a new chapter — one that couldn’t have started without ending the last — which feels good since it’s a fresh start.

I know I don’t have it all figured out, but I learned for every time I fall down, the most important thing to do is get back up. And I think that is something pretty darn universal we can all talk about, right?

So yeah…that’s my story, in a (very small) nutshell. If you have any specific questions or wanna chat more about any of it, feel free to get at me.

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