We all have traditions. This sweet client invites close friends and family to their traditional tree trimming where folks find themselves stringing cranberries and popcorn, drinking some nog, singing a carol or two and enjoying yummy eats! This red paper with vines is that favorite of mine that I mentioned a couple posts back. If you could only touch through your computer monitor I know you'd love it too!
LOVE being busy with Christmas party invitations! And I fell in love with this lovely paper from Paper Source that is red with gold-ish/khaki-ish vines and white accent flower buds. I've used it twice so you'll see it again in another post soon. It's a nice twist on Christmas colors without going crazy! For this invitation I decided it would be a fun and casual gift bag that the invitees will open. In my pile of gift bags to reuse I've got a few that have a cuff at the top of the bag so this is my rendition of those.
Last weekend was chock full of parties. When Halloween falls on a weekend it opens up three days of party opportunities. The aforementioned pumpkin carving party on Friday night and then costume or otherwise parties on Saturday and Sunday. And when a couple boys are turning into official teenagers (and I mean 13!) their birthday party just had to involve tricks and treats. Not only did I create the invitations but the take home favor/treat bags too!
Angels Foster Family Network is a non-profit organization that my husband and I support because what they do for babies is critical! I was blessed to be asked to design their anuual luncheon invitation and related printed collateral. "Honored' would be another word to describe how I felt when that call came in. "The Power of One" was their theme and I believe it is so true. Just ONE person can make a difference in this world!
Seriously. Should I have been doing this yesterday? I do have a print job to work on but I've been seeing these darling fabric pumpkins everywhere lately so I decided with a tutorial from My Desert Cottage I would just do it! You know, you're online clicking from link to link and blog to blog and suddenly 17 hours have gone by! Exaggerating? Sure, but I'm honestly not sure how I ended up on that cute blog because it was one of those days. I had in my stash almost all the supplies needed so I grabbed some leftover fabric from a tablecloth I made years ago and went to work. So often in the evenings I'm making my padded hangers while watching TV and a nice chubby pincushion is what I've needed by my side. Darling year-round, functional and matches my family room decor. What could be better? Thanks to Karen from My Desert Cottage!
It's a brooch, it's a pin, it's a belt accessory. I've already worn it a couple different ways and I'm thinking up other options. Could it be added to a hat? Cowboy or otherwise? Just maybe!
Wedding signs are the rage. Cute wooden ones that say "Mr. & Mrs.", bunting that spells out "Love is Sweet", a pennant that says "Yay!", and even some that say "Hitched". It seemed like the perfect word for one of my recycled jeans pennants. Darn cute!
Oftentimes I make the short jaunt over to my local paper stores to get inspired, and that's exactly what I needed to do last week. My mission was to come up with an invitation for a baby shower. Not a women only shower but a couples shower so I didn't want the invitation to look completely girlie, but the parents-to-be are having a baby girl! So pink needed to be in there somewhere. My client gave me a couple other pieces of intelligence like "they like the outdoors and they bicycle". Humph. So I wandered around looking at colors and gift wrap and greeting cards and toys and calendars... and I came upon a wood grain embossed paper! That says "outdoorsy" to me so I grabbed some. Next was to find something pink but not too pink and the rhubarb envelopes caught my eye. Ivory wood grain for the outdoors, rhubarb pink for the baby girl and a touch of brown to make sure the men feel comfortable showing up!And I think we all remember the rhyme from our childhood "Blank and Blank, sittin' in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage." Therefore the wood grain and the "tree" all came together. And since I was getting a bit silly I thought that everyone would know the words to the rhyme so why not just put in blah, blah and yada, yada instead! My client said "do it!" so I did. Love that wood grain paper! The backside of the invite shows it nicely I think.
Some years it just works out so well. This year October 31 lands on a Sunday, which means you can plan a pumpkin carving party on Friday or Saturday night. It doesn't get any better. I suggest menu of some kind of chili, my favorite is turkey eggplant, a green salad with fresh apple pieces (as a nod to my favorite autumn fruit), and a cheesy bread. A pumpkin ale is a must for beer options! Just make it easy for people to grab a bite whenever because some of us are slow pumpkin carvers. I mean me. Don't forget the invitation that is "so cute it's scary"! (as my sweet friend said) because you know that's what gets them to show up! And BYOP (bring your own pumpkin) means you don't have to lug around 100 pounds of pumpkins.
Do you ever wonder if anyone at your party notices all the details that you spent hours creating, or worrying about. If you are like me you do. Maybe "worry" is too strong of a word. "Fuss" might be better. Yes, I fuss about and fuss over all the details until I hit the point when I start to wonder who will notice. That's when I usually decide to just let it go and let the party happen and what didn't get done will only be missed by me. Here are just a few details from the latest party!
It's official. My fingers are touching turquoise everywhere I turn. Soft like the classic Tiffany Blue or deep and luscious like a jewel tone peacock blue. One of my favorite party-givers is joining with a friend to throw a 50th birthday celebration for a girlfriend of theirs. It will be a wine country picnic theme with a "girlie" feel. And every "girl" turning 50 should have her own logo which of course should go on a wine label! And speaking of labels, this invite has a fun wrap address label too.
An engagement party invitation for my Miss D and her fiance' who share double Ls in their names. It just begged to be played with! The color combination is a bit unexpected, I guess, but they like the colors individually so why not put them together! This turquoise is really deep and might be called peacock blue. And as you can tell by my prior posts Miss D loves turquoise. Bill likes brown and autumn is around the corner so it works. The peachy, coppery color will hopefully come into play with the flowers and containers and linens for the party. The knots in the silk ribbon? A subtle note that they will be "tying the knot" in about a year. I can't wait to pull it all together!
While I was in the middle of assembling these invitations I got an order from a bride for a turquoise padded hanger and she requested a copper ribbon. There is no doubt turquoise is a hot color right now. I couldn't believe how nicely my two projects complimented each other! Just like Danielle and Bill!
Oh. Did I forget to mention that the day ended with a Tiffany box? A little one. And you know what they say about small packages!
Just for fun I made a lavender-filled sachet for my daughter a few weeks ago and mailed it to her to brighten her day. She loves all things turquoise. And yellow has been a standard in her wardrobe for years. She wears it well. I imagine this fits right into her closet colors!Yesterday was her birthday. A fabulous day from beginning to end, she reports, and filled with turquoise colored gifts from her boyfriend. Yep, turquoise gifts.
I have not lost my mind. But I am in a recycle/up-cycle/re-purpose/renew kind of mode. It started a few weeks ago when I decided I should go through my closet and toss some dust-collecting clothing items into a give-away bag. I ran across a couple pair of jeans that have really gotten to that frustrating point. You know. They are great when you put them on right out of the dryer, but sit in them for an hour and the tush area is saggy? Baggy? Just what I need!
But denim is precious somehow. I couldn't part with the jeans, I had to recycle them. So here goes. Denim wedding pennants. I think this will be a great prop for wedding photos, a fun bridal shower gift, a cute wedding ring carrier for a ring-bearer (tie those wedding bands on the ribbons!), and something fun to decorate the newlywed's home.
I'm working on another one with red glittered "Love" and I think it's gonna be too cute too!
Portfolio plumping time. Baby announcement ideas needed. And a fav photographer of mine Sissel Byington was sweet enough to share a precious photo from a recent shoot of hers. Taking the background of a baby shower invitation I did a while back, I created this. Of course I've got one for baby boys too. Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, of course! (the names have been changed to protect the innocent... baby from all those cooing fans!)
I've blogged before about the twists and turns my mind takes when I'm in party planning mode, but today I thought I'd be specific. And the party most fresh in my mind is the Groovy one in my last post.
My beautiful friend Danielle just turned the big 5-0, which means she was born in 1960. So 1960 and all the hipness of that era started the party planning process. A cool blue and green napkin I found helped me determine the color scheme, and a font that just screams "1960's" found it's way into the invitation. Those beaded curtains that hung from doorways and windows in the sixties was how I came up with the accent strand on the invite itself, and I hoped I would find the perfect "curtain" that I could bring into the party decor. I hit pay-dirt at Cost Plus the day before the party! Fabulous.
A signature drink for a party is always a fun idea and the mojito fit perfectly into the scheme. One, it's the right color, green; and two, it's one of Danielle's favorite drinks. With this group of friends just sitting around chatting and eating makes for a fun night, but for this party I felt we needed an activity. Poetry reading. Yep, poetry reading. I asked each of the gals to write a limerick about the guest of honor which seemed simple enough to me. Five lines, that's all I asked for. There was a little balking at first but by party-time these women came up with the absolute funniest, sweetest, wittiest poems! It turned out to be the best part of the evening.
Maybe I should have thought a bit more before I settled on blue and green as the theme colors because when it comes to flowers blue is tough. I cruised over to the local nursery to see what I could find. Thinking the only blue flower I might find would be a hydrangea, which says "grandma" instead of "groovy". Don't get me wrong, I LOVE hydrangeas but they're just not right for this party. I wandered around with hopefulness and there with the herbs and tomato plants were mint plants! I decided that I could put them in a few containers and tuck some white flowers in tiny vases in between and at the end of the evening I could send the plants home with the guests. The perfect party favor for a 60's party is a little "weed" (I crack myself up) and since mint is a main ingredient in mojitos it fit right into the theme! And at the very very last minute I came upon a bunch of flowers that I also used in the decor, and something I had never seen before, Scottish Thistle. Thanks to Danielle for telling what they are or I would never have known! How weird, they are blue and green!
And that is how that party happened.
roovy! And groovy party-ers too. These fun friends embraced my silliness of creating a groovy entry into Pebblestone (our outdoor living space) that matched the invitation to my dear friend Danielle's birthday party. I added "Happy 50th Birthday Danielle" in vertical strands to a 60's style curtain I found at Cost Plus (love that store!) Danielle is the fun one on the right and the other two, Nancy and Renee, were overachievers in the limerick writing department! Lots of tears of laughter and joy!
It's a wonderful thing that our Founding Fathers managed to Declare our Independence in the summer. I love my country and I love that we traditionally celebrate it with outdoor gatherings. May your weekend be filled with patriotism for the red, white & blue... with a little barbecue too!
She was born in 1960. That crazy decade of Flower Power and The Dating Game, Beatniks reciting poetry and Peter Max posters. Of course she was too young to really know what that was about but it's still a fun theme to go with. Pretty Groovy!
