Our Holiday Card - 2024

I love to create holiday cards; especially for my own family. You can see my past holiday cards here.

I’m actually frustrated that my family hasn’t managed any professional photos since the end of 2020. But, I am hoping to remedy that in 2025. If anyone can recommend a photographer in Salt Lake City that is good at posing families, please let me know.

For us, 2024 revolved heavily around the sports my kids play; soccer, taekwondo, track & field, and cross country. My husband is an assistant coach on one kid’s soccer team. I have a black belt in taekwondo and often help train kids for tournaments or belt testing. I’m sometimes a hurdles coach for our track team and I do all of the social media for our track and cross country teams. I also take photos at soccer games, track and XC meets, taekwondo tournaments, and belt tests. Because of sports commitments, we didn’t even manage to squeeze in a family vacation this year. The trip to Missoula, Montana we took for a track meet didn’t count!

So yeah, my husband and I feel like all we did was work and drive kids to and from school and sports this year. I’m not resentful, we both feel that it’s important to stick with a team if you’ve committed to it. But, DAMN we’re tired.

It was only appropriate that our holiday card to reflect that sentiment. I had no shortage of photos of my kids in their respective sports, but alas, no photos of the four of us except for a selfie or two (at a sporting event no less!).

On the back, a brief rundown of what my kids were up to with their respective sports and photos of my husband and me doing what we felt like we did all year…. taxi driver, photographer, asst coach, and day job to pay for ALL the sports.

I’m really happy with how our cards turned out.

I had them printed at my local Office Depot on card stock. I ordered some really cheap kraft paper envelopes from Amazon (that I won’t order again because the adhesive didn’t work). I printed addresses using my old HP laster printer to make things easier.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Yule, Saturnalia, Solstice, Festivus… whatever you celebrate to make winter feel less dreary.

Jake's 1st Birthday

I was honored to get to design wedding invitations for Kelly and Patrick a few years ago, so it was a real treat to get to design birthday invitations for their youngest son for his first birthday. They wanted to go with a sports theme that had a little bit of a vintage feel. Kelly was finding lots of invitations she loved, but most of them only showed one sport rather than a variety and many weren't done in a style she loved. 

Here's the invitation:

I love that huge smile!!

For the party, we made a faux chalkboard that contained all of his favorite things, books, foods, toys along with his one-year stats. I love doing these!

A rookie card long with a few toys and yummies filled goodie bags and they were tied with these favor tags. 

Here's a closer look at Jake's rookie card:

Lastly, with a bunch of the photos taken at Jake's birthday party, we created a two-sided thank you card that included a space for Kelly and Patrick to write their message. 

Wishing you a very happy birthday Jake!!

Little Peanut Baby Shower

I loved the elephant-themed baby shower invitation I created for JoAnna so much that I reworked the colors to be more gender neutral and added this suite of printed items to my Etsy shop. Here's the listing.

The invitation is 7x5 and the text can be edited using Adobe Reader. Because of the nature or writable PDF files, the font, alignment, size and color of the text cannot be changed.

The optional insert is 3.5x5 and can be a great way to share registry information or to let guests know about a diaper raffle or a theme for gifts. Simple favor tags can be attached to bags as shown or printed onto sticker paper and adhered to treat bags (the text on the favor tags cannot be edited).

Cupcake toppers can easily be made with a circle punch. The files come with both "It's a boy" and "it's a girl" tags.

The water bottle label can be printed on waterproof labels or can be used to decorate vases or candles. It also has a baby-themed nutritional label on the back.

A simple front door sign is printed at 8.5x11 and can be trimmed down to 8x10 to fit into a frame if desired.

The place cards can also be used to label food items on a buffet table and the simple thank you card is blank on the inside so you can write a message.

I love this suite of baby shower items and I plan to add a couple more that are slightly different, but use the same elephant graphics. Any suggestions on a color scheme??

If you are interested in this baby shower suite but would like to explore different colors, fonts or layout, feel free to contact me about placing a custom order; alextebowdesigns@gmail.com

Tamika's Baby Shower

Tamika and Mark wanted to have a sports theme to their co-ed baby shower and we had lots of fun coming up with the invitation. Check it out:

We included their registry information on the back:

I also created a patterned strip that was used to decorate the diaper cake (pretty sure it held everything together too!)

Last I created a thank you card for Tamika to send to guests after the shower. 

Such a beautiful family, congrats!!