12.31.10

It's the end of the year, so might as well do a photo dump post instead of just one picture.  This one deserves lots of images anyway.  So here goes...

Lindsey, Nancy and I hosted what we dubbed a "Fabulous New Year's Eve Baby Shower" for Tim and El.  (Here we are!)



And I must say, it was quite fab. Let me take you around for a tour of some of the highlights of what we had to offer. Most fab I think was the crostini bar. We got this idea from the gals over at Haute Apple Pie. What a fantastic idea it is - you can spend a lot or a little, takes very little preparation, and looks really impressive. I think the tags in front of each item adds to the fabulosity

and check out this tiny little play on grilled cheese and tomato soup!  They were as delicious as they are adorable too...courtesy of the always reliable, Ina Garten and Ree Drummond.  Here is the recipe for the roasted tomato soup (which I have always had available in the freezer since I made it first a couple months ago.  so good.), and here is the cheese puff recipe...but we (Nancy) sort of made them cheese toasts instead of puffs.



And then to not let the baby shower theme get lost among the new year's revelry, I froze some plastic babies in ice, which everyone had fun with once they thawed out.





We also had a baby pool.  Not a completely new idea, but I think it was a good one for a co-ed shower.  We split the days in 2 (am and pm) and sold each spot for $2.  And now we all just wait to collect our winnings!



Here are the guests of honor with some headwear we bought for them at the party store.  There was a plethora of tiny hats available at the party store. It was odd.



And I think this picture pretty much sums up the good times that were had this new year's eve!  On our end, this is the first year in many many years that we actually did something.  We have spent at least the last 3 years with each other, going to dinner and catching a movie.  We always had a great time doing that, but I think this was the most fun new year's eve I have had in a long time...possibly ever.

(as a side, this is the second year in a row that there has been a "fabulous" party thrown by members of our group. Last year, Nancy had a "Fabulous Holiday Party". We are hoping to make this a tradition and have different fabulous parties every year.)

12.23.09

Here are all our gifts, wrapped so pretty under the tree. I really wish I didn't finish my shopping on the 23rd so I could have enjoyed looking at the presents for a longer time!

This was wrapping paper I bought last year actually and had a TON left over. I like that it doesn't scream, "Christmas!". I found a sheet of felt letter stickers on clearance at Archiver's, so I decided to make the little tags out of them. I used my fiskars extra large circle punch to make the circles. (I bought that thing for a wedding project, but have used it so many times! A great purchase) I think they turned out so cute! I am also pretty sure I am one of the few people I know who appreciate the art of a nicely wrapped present...

12.17.09

Here is our xmas '09 xmas card! It was a little less creative than past years, but I still liked it. i sort of ripped off a design I saw on Minted that I really liked. I decided I could design it myself and not have to pay $2 (or whatever obscene amount it is) per card. It turned out pretty good I think! I made some fun front and back labels for our envelopes too. Making the labels is really half the fun for me. Isn't it fun when you get a letter in the mail though and the envelope is just as pretty as what is inside it? I think so! Most people probably don't even notice though and I waste too much time doing it, but oh well. It makes me happy :)

12.13.09

On the heels of my last post re: Nancy & Tyler's FHP, I just HAD to give some props to these adorable favors Nancy had for everyone. She ordered these stickers from Tiny Prints and had chocolate covered pretzels and peppermint oreos for everyone to talk home. I mean really, top notch job, Nancy.

11.12.09

Ex-cuse me, but will you please look at these amazing invitations!

A couple weeks ago, Nancy and I went to Archiver's to get some supplies to make invitations for her holiday party. You see, for years Nancy has wished she could attend one of those chic, fun holiday parties you always see in magazines, but that no one ever really has in real life. (No one we know has them anyway) Completely bummed, but not discouraged, she decided to take matters into her own hands and throw this very kind of party herself! And since this is going to be such a classy affair, an evite just wasn't going to cut it. This is where she commissioned my help to put together a super cute invitation to mail out.

We have to extend some credit to tiny prints for some of the inspiration. Most of it was all us though. Actually, it took us longer than I'd like to admit for us to arrange those dots in the perfect way. And you can't tell in this pic, but those dots are fun shimmery paper. Isn't it the best? And you should see them with in their black shimmery envelopes and coordinating labels! We were so proud of ourselves.

10.1.09

I made frames for the photo booth pics at our wedding, so when Eva asked if I would make some for her, I gladly agreed! I love this stuff! (obviously) She kind of had a stripe theme going on, so we agreed on the design pictured. I think they add a little something extra to the pics :)

*note: I kind of hate this pic - blurry, bad lighting. oh well.

5.15.09

This weekend was Rachel and Patrick's going away party. Since they are moving to Nashville, it was a country western, ho-down style shindig. I made country cds as favors and some funny stickers for people to wear.

I don't know if anyone really knows how much I love making this kind of stuff.

Dizzy's shower invitations

These might go down as the least amount of money I have ever spent on such a project. Here are the materials I used:

• 1 box Target wedding invitations ($6.24)


• 1 piece purple cardstock (free!)


• 1 piece green cardstock (free!)


• foam mounting (part of invitation box)


• glue stick ($1.59 - used like 1/10 of it)


• label paper (free? - still have a ton that I got for free a few years ago)
  

Ok, a few months ago while perusing the end isles at Target (where they have all the sales), I noticed multiple boxes of those DIY wedding invitation kits for cheeeeap. I'm talking $6.24 for 50 invites, 50 response cards, 50 invite envelopes, 50 response card envelopes, foam mounting and some label thingeys that you were supposed to attach to the invite. I bought 1 box that had sort of a non descript brown pattern on it, figuring I would use it for something...and I did!

Here is what I did:

printed the invite using brown ink that matched the brown pattern - fonts used: Dreamspeak and Miss Brooks.

Cut out rounded squares and asterisk on the Cricut out of purple and green cardstock that I got from Archiver's.

If you live near an Archiver's, get on their mailing list. They send out monthly newsletters with coupons for free cardstock - no purchase necessary. Oh yeah, and sorry, I didn't calculate the uber expensive Cricut into the price. Jon's mom has one, so I borrowed it. If you don't have access to a die cutter, I would get one of those fiscars hole punches in different shapes and sizes and come up with a cool design. I actually was considering the design below, in which I used the extra large Fiskars circle punch. The littler circle I cut with the Cricut, but you could just use a smaller circle hole punch.

glue asterisk to the rounded square

attach foam mounting to the invitation

attach graphic to foam mounting

done.

so easy. so cute. so inexpensive!


I did some creative math and figured these came to about 8 cents per invite (including the envelopes, not including postage). 8 cents! So in total, for 32 invitations, they cost about $2.00.

As for the envelopes...I will admit, they were not my best moment.

I spent a long time over at Two Peas in a Bucket and downloaded A TON of their free digikits. I got this graphic from the "Proud to be Digital" kit and I'm just really not sure why I picked it. There are lot of other ones that I downloaded that are much cuter. I tried to choose one that kind of coordinated with the invitation...and well...I just don't know.

I've got a lot more ideas swimming around in my head for the actual shower. More to come...

2.17.09

Dizzy's shower invitations...the finished product.

2.16.09

Dizzy's shower invitations...in progress.

christmas card '08

Behold, our Christmas card...

I took this pic at night, so the lighting is bad. Here is a better version of the design:

I debated long and hard about if we should use a wedding picture or one of the fun ones Andrea took a couple months ago. Since we already sent out thank you cards that had a wedding pic on it, I decided to go with the generic ones. Well, not generic (far from actually), but you know what I mean.

The rest of the card was conceived kind of organically. I printed photos of my design, took them to Archiver's with no plan and just bought some supplies. I got:

12x12 Bazill Bling cardstock in Glass Slipper.

I couldn't find a good pic of this, but trust that this brand and style of paper is so great. I have used to for pretty much everything I have made in the past year. The texture and shimmer is so rich.

photo corner mounts

rolling tape (again! love this stuff).

I used it to tape the picture down to the cardstock...because otherwise, the only thing keeping it attached was the paper corners. It probably would've stayed, but I wanted to make sure.

corner rounder

and you know, since I cannot resist a beautifully wrapped package, the envelopes had to be just as fabulous as the card itself. I got both graphics on Designer Digitals and made labels using full sheets of label paper (on of my best friends in the craft world).

And so for those reading this who were not on our Christmas card list, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!

12.19.08

Last night we went to the 3rd annual Holiday Happy Hour. It is spearheaded by Barney and since he has lived with different people every year, there is always a mix of new faces and it is always a good time.

I opted to wear normal clothes to this event, but my husband decided to wear this:

Yup, that is one ugly sweatshirt...crafted by moi. He checked out his options on buying one on ebay, but they were all going for much more than one should ever spend on an ugly sweater/sweatshirt...so I decided I could craft one just as ugly with a glue gun and some felt. I think the gold chain made of garland is my favorite touch.

What do you think? I should make a bunch of ugly sweatshirts next Christmas and sell them on ebay???

(such a poser)

7.18.08

I spent Friday night watching Ashley Paige: Bikini or Bust and making this card box!

This took a lot longer than I expected it to. What's so hard, cover the box in some paper and be done with it, right? Wrong.

First, ribbon is not easily adhered to things without Wonder Tape. I tried super glue and it just absorbed in the ribbon. I tried the EZ Runner Scrapbook Adhesive that I raved about earlier, but after a couple hours the ribbon started to curl. Wonder Tape was the key! It is double sided and has some magical adhesive formula that adhered to the ribbon.

I also measured the ribbon and cut it on an angle so it would fit together in each of the corners. Since the ribbon was fraying and looked crappy, I dipped the edges in some super glue to make a workable edge.

I used spray glue to stick the paper to the box. The spray glue was similar to rubber cement in consistency and workability in that it is semi-permanent when working with it. That was handy when I put the paper on the box off kilter a couple times.

Finally, I lined the bottom with a very small amount of packing tape so that the paper wouldn't rip or crinkle in transportation. Since packing tape is so transparent, you can hardly see it.

So what took so long? I don't know! It was just a tedious job. Getting everything to line up and to get the ribbon to look presentable took a lot of time. After I was done, I realized the design on the paper was upside down too. But there was no way I was doing it over again, so it is staying that way.

As for Ashley Paige: Bikini or Bust, it might be one of my new favorite shows. Her life/business is interesting and confusing to me. She is a super famous bikini designer with no money. Like she literally can't pay her rent. I was kind of uncomfortable watching it at times, but then I couldn't help but root for the girl. She is so sweet and artistic...and all she wants to do is make bikinis, darnit!

bachelorette party revisited

This weekend was my bachelorette party. I still have to get pictures from the event and do a proper post. In the meantime, I thought I would revisit the bachelorette party I helped throw for Meghan back in '05 in honor of it.

We had a pink themed party where everyone was required to wear something pink, everyone brought a "romantic" gift for the bride (and people interpreted that any way they wanted, which I thought was nice) and had a pink drink that we served.

My most favorite part was how I had everyone's drinks dressed up in dresses and veils. To do this, I bought a bunch of white Barbie dresses from the dollar store and glued a ribbon around the waist so I could tie a name tag onto it. To make the veils, I sewed some tulle onto a piece of elastic that fit around the neck of a bottle. It was so cute and a huge hit.

thankyouverymuch

Jon's mom just got a Cricut and let me borrow it. She owns her own crafty business where she will use this machine, but I have often wondered how much the regular person would feel the need to die cut...so much where they have to buy a $200 machine. On top of that, buy the cartidges for extra die cuts at $90 a pop. (I think these are the average prices anyway. I just Google'd it and the prices greatly vary) People go crazy for this stuff too. They have the cartridges under lock and key at Michael's and on one of my last visits, I overheard people feverishly asking the employees when they would get the Disney Cricut cartridge back in stock. Regardless, I welcomed to opportunity to spend the weekend with the thing, see what all the hype was all about, be crafty and cut stuff. And cut stuff is what I did.

I had bought some blank note cards at Micheal's a while ago in their dollar bins and I decided to spice them up with the help of some leftover paper I had and the Cricut. I will be having to thank people a lot in the near future, so I figured thank you cards would be a wise choice. I made 60 of these babies.

centerpieces

I made a little mock up of what our table might look like with a sheet and a black sash. Yup, I'm resourceful.

Idea #1 - Baby's breath. It's inexpensive, goes with my color scheme and would fill a vase for very little money. The downside is, it stinks! Seriously, baby's breath does not smell nice at all. This could be done with Queen Anne's Lace probably though. How does that smell?

idea #2 - Limes. This idea was #1 in my head before doing this test and it quickly went to the bottom after I tried it out. I didn't have any vases that fit them very well, so it was kind of hard to get a feel for what it would look like if it was packed full...but it still isn't my favorite and I won't be persuing this idea.

idea #3 - Apples. This is a front runner. I love how bold the colors are and that they would be consumable after the wedding.

pomanders

There were many things I never knew existed before planning this wedding, that seem to be every day vocab these days. Por ejemplo:

Chivari chairs. These things are highly coveted and go for about $8 a piece to rent. They are very fashionable and probably transform a room beautifully. I, however, will be using the freebies our venue is supplying.

Gocco. Pronounced go-co. This is a screen printer that many brides decide to use to print their invites. It is not cheap and is actually discontinued in the US. The only way to get one of these babies is on ebay, etsy or if you are traveling in Japan. Apparently they are big there.

the machine---

Miss Penguin of the Weddingbee's Gocco'd invitations---

Pomanders. Who else but MS would come up with this idea to make a tissue paper flower so beautiful? First she changed the tissue paper flower from being an elementary school project, to being a beautiful accent that you would be proud to display at a classy event.

But do you think Martha stopped there? Of course not. She took these precious little flowers and made them into a pomander. I wasn't so sure I wanted to have these at my wedding though. They would be great at a wedding shower, baby shower or decorating a present, but I wasn't so sure if they would be nice enough at a wedding....

...and then I saw VintageGlam's knot bio. Here she is...

...and here are her pomanders. Beautiful, right?

(VintageGlam's photo's by Jessica Johnston)

I figured since she executed the look of this tissue paper pomander, I should give it a shot also.

I bought the MS tissue paper flower kit a while ago, so I know the key to a beautiful flower is to zig zag the edges. Of course, the kit has perfectly symmetrical zig zags that result in a perfectly domed flower. for the pomander, I didn't think it would really matter if it was perfectly domed though, so I free handed a zig zag.

Then I accordion folded it like a normal tissue paper flower, tied it off with some floral wire and separated. (The quality of the this picture is horrible)

When I was done, I just stabbed them into the styrofoam ball. I tried to get them as close together so it would look really full.

And the finished product...Ta-Da!

(again, please excuse the horrible pic quality...)

The cost of this pomander:

Styrofoam ball - $2.25

Tissue Paper - $.03 cents per flower. ($1 per pack. I used 2 packs, which made 40 flowers.)

Floral wire - $2.50 for a ton of wire.

Time - Probably a total of 2 hours? I made the flowers while I watched TV and recruited Jon to fold paper.

I realized I got 2 different color green tissue paper after I left the store, so your eyes are not doing tricks on you. This pomander is in fact two-toned. It also is not the color green I am going for. I found a great apple green color that I think will look much softer and more in keeping with the colors we have going on. I was thinking of decorating the pews at church with them ala VintageGlam. The ceremony is only going to be about 25 mins though and I can't think of any purpose or place for them at the reception. So are they worth the time and energy to make? Kind of leaning towards no...but they sure are cute. We'll see.