Sunday, February 28, 2010

Fun Times With Etsy!

After having such a blast designing invitations for the two baby showers, I opted to try designing more things. Turns out, I really enjoy it! So I am now starting to offer digital files for sale on Etsy!

Of course I will be listing more items than just digital files in the future, but this is a ton of fun for now!

Hop on over and take a peek if you would like!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/anewmrs

Hope everyone is doing fantastical!
XOXO

Sunday, February 21, 2010

5 years later....and 4 days early

MY CAR IS FINALLY COMPLETELY PAID OFF!!!

I thought it would never happen! 

I did a happy dance in the bank lobby after I wrote the check.

Just had to share my excitement about that!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Progress

Baby shower #1 has been rapidly progressing! Today I went and booked a room through my city's village hall. It's actually in the basement of the village hall building, and it's a nice big open classroom. Has a wall of mirrors, and glass doors on one side of the room to let the sun shine in. It's beautiful, and with all the decorations we are going to pack in there, it's going to look amazing.

I designed the banner, the welcome sign, and the invites, and ordered them through Vistaprint.com, since I couldn't find any decorations I found suitable to match the invitations in the store.

                                                                  Invitation one side


Invite opposite side
Door Sign


Vinyl Banner

Monkey & Balloon graphics all courtesy of a purchased graphic collection from http://www.mygrafico.com
                                                                              
Overall I am very happy with how things are coming along. The next two steps? Food + cake. Then centerpieces and the remainder of the decorations.

I am also trying to come up with a cd of good songs suitable for a baby shower. Any and all suggestions are welcome!! I would love your help!

XOXO
-V

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Baby Fever!

I just recently found out that I will be hosting 2 baby showers, one for each of my best friends (both were my matrons of honor at my wedding as well). I'm very excited to be an auntie x 2.

The first one will be for Laura, and is scheduled for March 28th. She is doing the Lambs & Ivy Cocoa Safari theme as the babys bedroom, and wanted a monkey themed baby shower. She also did not want much of anything blue. I know this makes her sound really picky, but she's not. Just didn't want the generic blue everywhere baby shower for baby Luca.

First off let me tell you. A monkey baby shower, not the easiest thing to find! All the monkey balloons and decor I could find were either for Luau parties, or birthday specific.

Then, in a google search, it happened.
I did a search for "monkey mylar balloons" in google, and lo and behold. Here it is. Granted, it has some blue in it. But it's more of an aqua. And it has the yellow and brown she wanted (she wanted green too).

Then for more searching.
I came across this blog.
www.hostessblog.com
And she had 2 posts for the "Mod Monkey" baby shower. One post had her decorations and setup, and the other one had a lot of downloadable pdf files for others to use (only for personal use, not for reselling)

So I downloaded the pdf files to see if I could make them use the colors she liked as well, since it was a lot of aqua and yellow.

Here is the finished product : a door sign to put on the outside of the door.
 
A HUGE thank you to Jenn at www.hostessblog.com for making a monkey themed baby shower possible for me :)

I personally love the way it came out. I think the colors all work really well together, and give me a lot of room to play with the rest of the decorations. I think she was envisioning paler colors, so I hope she will like this! Though I am still debating on taking the yellow circles out of the monkey and painting them brown to make it more uniform. I'm not sure. What do you guys think? 


I also loved her idea of using banana runts candies in the decorating, so I will probably do the same there.

Along with that monkey balloon, I also found this balloon:


So I will order a few of those for some whimsy as well. My work has helium tanks, so all I have to do is have them blown up there for $0.50 a pop. I'm also probably going to pick up some yellow flower balloons from the Dollar Tree, and then just some plain colored ones for more fun.

Dependant on the venue I want to host it at (still waiting on a call back from my village hall to see their rules and application process) I also wanted to make these in brown, aqua, yellow, and light green to hang from the ceiling.


Above picture courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings

The part that I am stuck on is decorations more specific to a baby shower. Maybe an It's A Boy banner or a baby shower banner. I'm worried about this theme looking more like a birthday party than a baby shower.

Does anyone have any cool ideas for handmade banners? Or know of any websites that sell them? All I've been able to find is blue ones, and the occasional full on pastel one, but I want something a bit brighter.

Cut to a few hours later. I came across an AMAZING site with AMAZING graphics for purchase, and found an adorable monkey more suitable for a baby shower! If you are looking for fabulous graphics at fabulous prices check out http://www.mygrafico.com


Here is the door sign in the new design...
 

 now to choose which I like better!

Thanks!
Hope everyone is doing fantastical
XOXO
-V