NEXT DOR
VOICE OF THE NEW JEWISH GENERATION
The
Candy Woman
Through colorful candy, Claudia Halpern makes stunningly sweet creations. ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
W
hen her younger sister, Amanda, was gearing up for her 21st birthday in November 2020, Claudia Halpern knew she had to do something special to help Amanda have a memorable celebration despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “We couldn’t go to bars,” Halpern, 27, of Farmington Hills, recalls. Instead, she brainstormed with Amanda’s boyfriend on how to throw a party for her sister, despite the
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MARLEE JADE PHOTOGRAPHY
Claudia Halpern
restrictions that prevented them from celebrating in traditional 21st birthday fashion. They decided to throw a small house party for Amanda’s birthday, but Claudia knew proper decorations were in order. “I started thinking about things that we can do,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to make a balloon arch.’ How cool would that be?’” With a history of working for event planners, planning her sister’s birthday party
came naturally to Halpern. Seeing the custom balloon arch turning into a success and the process of bringing it to life gave her an idea to start making party decorations on the side. It was the beginning of Party Sistas, a business in which Halpern could specialize in party design, college bed parties, bar cart styling, balloon arches and balloon backdrop kits. She worked with her sister in launching the idea, but when Amanda moved to Florida, Claudia Halpern was in charge of the business on her own and had to pivot. CREATING JOY WITH CANDY “In February 2021, I was browsing online, and I saw someone made a box for someone with candy in it,” she recalls. Deciding to make a similar box for kids she babysat, Halpern posted her colorful creation on Facebook and received numerous requests to make more. Could she make candy boxes for birthdays and bat mitzvahs, people asked? From there, Halpern realized candy boxes could be the focal point of her business. “It happened by accident, in a way,” she says. Her style — which Halpern explains is positive and happy, something that puts smiles on people’s faces — became more and more in-demand, transforming Party Sistas
