Vera's Baby Shower

When my friend Vera was having a November baby, a group of friends and I planned a Halloween-themed baby shower for her that also doubled as a little Halloween party for our kids. Invitations were sent via Facebook event, so I created a cover image for the event. I had so much fun turning a simple witch graphic into a babywearing witch, see the little green baby??

Then I created and printed a welcome sign for the front door. Can you see the little baby’s crib in a window of the castle?

Lastly, I made these little “wishes” cards for Vera to have as a keepsake.

I love making these custom "wishes for baby” cards. They can be such a wonderful keepsake for new parents to go back and read when their baby is older.

Julianna's 1st Birthday

I had a blast creating this ballerina-themed birthday party for Julianna. I love the fonts, the colors, and the sparkly star pattern I created for the party. I'm seriously considering adding this one to my Etsy shop.

I created wraparound address labels to coordinate:

Julianna's mommy, JoAnna asked me to make a Birthday Wishes card for guests to fill out since she didn't have one at her baby shower. 

We created a faux chalkboard with all of Julianna's first year stats too. 

Lastly, I created a thank you card using a beautiful photo of Julianna. 

Beautiful birthday girl!

Jackie & Michael's Camping Baby Shower

My sister, Jackie is pregnant with her first baby I was thrilled to get to plan a baby shower for her along with our mom and our friend Joanna. Jackie and my brother-in-law, Michael wanted a coed baby shower and we took a little time brainstorming ideas for a theme. We decided on a camping theme, but there were a few stipulations. The lumberjack theme is popular right now, but none of us wanted to go that route. So no fake beards, no buffalo plaid, just simple camping with a few "tactical" elements thrown in for Michael. It was pretty hard to figure out, but we managed to sneak in a few.

For the invitation I reworked a birthday invitation I created last year (I'll get it up on the blog someday). 

The insert included where to find their registry and rsvp information.

Never fear, the email address and URL have been changed to protect privacy.

I had these printed at Office Depot and I mailed them in Clover envelopes from Paper Source. I actually had most of this stuff printed with Office Depot. It was really easy to upload the files to their website and pick them up from my local store within an hour. I was even able to specify that some be printed onto card stock and some not. It was really, really convenient! 

We started with a sign for the front door (this is the only item where I wasn't thrilled with the print quality):

For the shower itself, my sister was adamant that it be a brunch because she loves breakfast food. So we had donuts, bagels, fruit salad, and an egg/sausage/hashbrown/cheese concoction that our mom has been making for years that she calls "Mountain Woman Breakfast." I made food signs for all of these, including the mimosa bar. 

We also had a big basket full of "s'mores mix" which is a mixture of chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and Golden Grahams cereal. I don't know why I forgot to take a photo of it!

For table decor, the city my parents live in cleared away some fallen trees and left the wood slices out, free firewood for residents. Score!! We already had a few old lanterns and then we found these little plastic canteens on Oriental Trading. I created a new sticker for them by printing onto full sheet sticker paper. Voile!!

For a favor, we packed up some fixins for s'mores for everyone to take home. I couldn't decide between the two favor tag designs, so I printed some of each. Cello bags and twine came from Amazon.

We also had a station for folks to build their own trail mix. We called it G.O.R.P. when I was a kid, which stands for "good ole raisins and peanuts." Metal buckets and scoops are from Amazon.

To add a "tactical" element to the party, we had the materials and instructions set up so guests could make their own paracord keychain. 

It was only $1.49 to get each page of instructions laminated at Office Depot. Well worth it!

I created some fun signs for a few spots throughout the party venue. This one is my favorite:

Notice the pregnant mama in a few of these?

Bathrooms too!

Wishes for Baby. I love making these for baby showers and first birthdays! I can only imagine that the parents love to read them a year, five years, or more down the road.

We played a rousing round of The Price is Right and guessed the pricing on a bunch of baby items. Considering how much of these things I've bought in recent years, I kind of hoped I'd do better on this!

I'm really proud of how this trio of onesies turned out. I had created three camping-themed designs and I wanted to screen print them onto a few onesies. I wanted navy blue, dark green, and charcoal gray and I wanted them to all be heathered in texture. Apparently that's really not easy to find and definitely not very affordable. Getting them screen printed with my custom design was going to cost between $20 and $27 each. It was simply more than I was willing to spend. One of these days I'll be able to buy a Silhouette Cameo and do it myself, but not today.

I already had these three onesies in plain white. Since I've been dabbling in fabric dyeing, I blended some colors together to get these three. The green and brown onesies were dyed solid and then I added the designs with fabric paint. The space onesie was done with a method called ice dyeing. I wrote up the details on how I did it here. 

We also had a fun obstacle course that involved walking through Legos, changing a diaper, and assembling a breast pump; all for time!

It turned out to be a really relaxed and fun baby shower and I hope my sister and brother-in-law had as much fun as I had. Love you guys!

Easton's 1st Birthday

For his first birthday, Easton's mommy, Kari wanted to do a fun monsters theme with lots of bright colors. I was able to use the same monsters I created for Nathan's 3rd birthday and have lots of fun with Easton's invitation:

A fun extra we created was these wishes cards for guests to fill out. We made some for Kari when we created everything for her baby shower when she was pregnant with her daughter. But we didn't get a chance to make another set when she was pregnant with Easton. His first birthday was as good a time as any!

We also created a simple pennant banner using the same fun monsters.

We also created a simple pennant banner for Easton's high chair, but the darn thing just wouldn't stick to the tray. So one little pennant was all we got. I LOVE his orange monster cake!!

Happiest of birthday Easton!! 

Cari's Baby Shower

My dear friend Cari is pregnant with her second baby and our friend Bonnie wanted to throw her a grand baby shower. I was thrilled to get to create the invitations and printed items for the big day. 

The color scheme was gold with lots of different purples and we were going with a vintage fairytale theme. I had so much fun creating these!!

Using card stock from Paper Source in their Plum color, I created simple pocketfolds that displayed the invitation and held the two inserts. I layered a metallic gold, vine-y ribbon on top of some purple satin ribbon and a couple pieces of card stock to hold the pocketfold closed. Both ribbons were purchased at JoAnn's.  

I backed the invitation with a mat using Stardream Antique Gold paper, also from Paper Source. I had everything printed at my local Office Depot. I have been really happy with the print quality from my local store. 

The two inserts:

This time I didn't want to do address labels, so I printed addresses directly onto the Antique Gold envelopes with my laser printer. 

At the shower, a simple welcome sign sat on an easel at the doorway.

Bonnie stained a couple dozen onesies and set up a decorating station. It was so fun!

Here's the onesie I decorated; my first time "painting" with a bleach pen!

I printed out a few quotes from famous fairytales or authors that we framed and displayed on the tables.

A "wishes for baby" card was at each place setting and Bonnie collected them to be made into a book for Cari. 

This shower was such a treat to work on! I'm working on publishing a more detailed post about the party itself on Mama Say What?! I'll add the link here once it's up.

Congrats Cari!!