This is an invitation I did last spring for a senior tea, but never had a chance to share. This is about as festive as my “Fat Tuesday” is going to get this year. I figured I would share it for those of you who find yourself in the same boat. Hope that you are having a wonderful start to your week!
One of the designs that I feature on my etsy shop is this Pennant Baby Shower invitation. Designed to celebrate one of my dear friends, she really wanted something that wasn’t too girly. She originally told me NO pink whatsoever, but being the mom of a boy I was dying to have at least some pink! Luckily we ended up being able to slip a little bit of it in there without going too over the top, and mom was still happy.
At the shower, we stayed fairly simple with the decorations, and created some name banners that matched the invitation design. (Please forgive the quality of the photos. Our camera died on us quite some time ago, but we haven’t had the time to take it to get fixed.)
We also used tissue poms, and some sweet little outfits to decorate the living room. The tissue paper pom poms turned out to be SUPER easy to make yourself. I’d definitely give it a shot if you’re thinking about it! There’s a pretty good tutorial for it on Martha Stewart.
My friend’s mom and sister made these amazing cookies. I love to bake, but am severely lacking when it comes to decorating skills. I was so impressed by these!
And finally, instead of a game we created a “wishes to baby” card that coordinated with the invitation. I just love these so much. It’s such a great keepsake for them to look back on!
We finally got internet again! I’m so stinking happy about it I can’t even begin to tell you! I’m obviously a few days behind on this post, but my poor little 3G connection just wasn’t going to be able to handle a new blog post.
Anyway… Independence Day. An awesome holiday, and one that I appreciate more and more each year as I realize just how many people have payed for the freedoms that I am able to enjoy each day.
This year was especially exciting for me professionally because I was able to design my very FIRST set of wedding invitations! The happy couple tied the knot in Mexico over the holiday, and celebrated with friends and family following their return. They wanted something red-white-and blue without being too over the top. Here are the designs that they finally decided on!
THANK YOU to the happy couple for allowing me to be a part of this memory, and of course to her sweet daughter for the referral! I appreciate you guys so much!
I’m not sure what is in the water around here, but we know TWO wonderful couples who are adding TWINS to their families. One set of girls, one set of boys. The little girls just made their debut into this world last week, and the little boys aren’t too far behind!
A couple of weeks ago I had the honor of co-hosting a shower for the little boys. The theme? Noah’s Ark of course!
I LOVE how the invitation turned out.
And since there are two boys… there were two sign in sheets!
My co-hostesses did an amazing job with the decor and food. Everything was so beautiful! This is what you saw when you first came in. The “Two by Two” letters were made using extra napkins from the buffet. Brilliant, right? I would have never thought of this on my own, but they looked SO adorable and matched everything perfectly!
I think that my favorite thing from the whole party was this incredible Noah’s Ark that one of the hostesses made from popsicle sticks. She got the weathered look by staining the popsicle sticks with a stain she picked up from the hardware store. It was SO great… even my husband commented on how awesome it was!
Here are a few more details from the party.
And of course, what party wouldn’t be complete without a favor?!?
A HUGE thank you to all of my wonderful co-hostesses for letting me be a part of this event, and being so fantastically creative! You ladies are great!
The invitation and additional paper items can all be ordered through my etsy shop. The beautiful and delicious food, cake, and cookie favors were all catered through U Want A Cookie!
Just now finally starting to catch up on blog posts. yikes! It has been a whirlwind few months, but thankfully things are finally starting to wrap up. I’m ready to get focused back on what I love!
My little man turned two last October, and to say that my son loves cars might actually be an understatement. This kid is REALLY into his cars. He has been for well over a year now, which made picking the theme for his second birthday pretty easy (and could potentially be the theme of his third birthday as well).
The inspiration for the invitations and party decor came from the birthday outfit that he wore. He loved these invites so much that he carried TWO of them around with him for at least a week after they came in the mail.
His Daddy and Paw Paw built this awesome track to race matchbox cars. We loved the idea that we found here, but decided to go with a simpler (and less expensive) option. It was a HUGE hit. My son loved it, of course, but we were happy to see that our older nephews had a good time racing on it as well!
a few shots of it in action…
For decorations, I made a balloon wreath for the front door using this tutorial from How Does She. It really wasn’t hard to make at all, and I love how it turned out! I had to add some car accents to go with the theme of the party of course.
Over the fire place we made a “B” sign and used some of his favorite toy cars to decorate around it. I also bought some flashing stop lights when they were on sale at Toys “R” Us, which I think went perfectly! One of my incredibly sweet friends helped me put together some banners that we hung around the house and outside to make it a little more festive. I seriously could not have gotten them done if she hadn’t helped me (need to work on my time management skills for sure), so I was very grateful. I don’t think it would have been the same without them!
Dessert table consisted of his cake (I am not a decorator, so please don’t judge it too harshly), PB&J stop light cookies, chocolate “tires”, car shaped marshmallows, and some awesome car shaped cookies that I bought from acookiejar off of Etsy. I love love LOVE how they turned out, and they were delicious too. I would highly recommend!
I will say… I loved the idea of these stop light cookies. Still do. HOWEVER, if I had it to do over again, I would use red, green, and yellow m&m’s instead of the jelly. I think they would not only be easier to assemble, but execution would look quite a bit cleaner too.
For favors, I decided to go with travel toys. We had just recently taken our first plane ride, and learned the importance of a good distraction while traveling. One of his favorite items from the trip was an I Spy bag. Once again, through the magic of Etsy, I found a smaller favor sized version at The Crafting Corner. Below is a photo from their website of the product that I purchased. They were a pretty big hit with the moms. A great diaper bag toy!
I added in a few stickers, and some more age appropriate toys for the older/younger kids as well. This is how they looked all wrapped up and ready to go!
Overall, the party turned out great! I wasn’t quite able to finish everything that I had hoped to do, but my son STILL talks about the “party” or “birthday” whenever he sees one of these cars. (It’s been quite a topic of conversation while putting the blog post together, for sure!) You can’t ask for more than that!
All of the printed items shown above are available for purchase. The invitation can be found on my etsy shop, and a custom listing can be created to add any of the other items! The only thing that I haven’t shown here is the matching thank you note design. Please feel free to contact me if you’re interested!
Also… Special thanks to Goodness and Fun for the clip art that my son loves so much!
I am not much of a beer drinker. No particular reason why. For some reason it just hasn’t ever really appealed to me. I DID, however, happen to graduate from a college whose senior tradition involved drinking a pitcher of beer as quickly as you could to get to the ring that you had dropped to the bottom. Not very appealing when you don’t like beer, so I chose to dunk my ring beneath 8 delicious scoops of ice cream instead. It was glorious. I’d definitely do it again if I didn’t know any better.
My husband on the other hand? He went the traditional route, and downed his pitcher in just eighteen seconds. Definitely a beer drinker (with very proud parents I might add).
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to design a couples shower invitation for a {soon to be} husband and wife who both happen to be beer drinkers, and are looking forward to their upcoming honeymoon to Canada. Fun, right? Never in a million years would I have thought to create something like this!
A little help from the internets was definitely required. Normally, this is not something that I would share with you guys. However, while doing my research, I realized that beer might actually deserve a little more respect than I’ve been giving it! Seriously… This stuff is legit.
Now, I do have to share with you guys that the lovely ladies I am working with ended up going with one of my other designs. BUT, I had such a great time making these that I just have to share them with you all! Both were inspired by canadian beers. The first by Molson. The second by Carling Lager (albeit very loosely).
Too bad I don’t have any Canadian friends. I’m thinking a Texas version of this might be fun too though. Shiner Bock maybe? Any takers? Let me know!
