Adventures in Baby Showers

Saturday, I had the great pleasure of spending the day at the Washington Duke Inn, in Durham, NC, with my good friend Tracey. Along with many more of her friends & family, we had an afternoon tea {slash} baby shower to celebrate her first born, coming the end of April.

I hosted along with 4 other lovely ladies. And! I got to design the invitations! Here were the contenders:

Can you see the jumping off points for my current Minted.com submissions? Voting is still open, btw.

The 5 of us unanimously decided the paisleys were the way to go {obvious from my first picture, right?}. They are very "Tracey." She's using them in the decor for the baby's room, along with a bright green that we brought into the invitation suite with Pop-Tone envelopes in Limeade. Ta-da!!

What invitation suite would be complete without Thank You cards? Not this one! I planned to suprise Tracey with a set of these in her shower gift, but like the fabulous friend that she is, she follows all my blogging & saw my Posterous post about making cards on Feb 21st. So, I blew my own surprise. But no matter! She was thrilled anyway!

{These are from my Posterous & available on Etsy}

Congrats to Tracey & her husband John. We are all very excited to meet Baby Bailey!

{all photos taken by me}

Cards of the week - Take me to the beach...

Hellllllllooo!! After last week's warm spell here in Brooklyn & pouring over pictures from our Barbados trip on Facebook, I can't stop dreaming about the beach. Hence! This weeks cards of the week theme: the beach.

Simple & nicely printed, this starfish note card from Petite Paperie can be delivered on your choice of paper.


Unusual color combo with the gold & burgandy, but it goes very well with the sea foam & green. Great vintage-y illustration of the seahourse. These cards are from Skel Design.



LOVE these vintage-inspired note cards from Jacquelyn Vaccaro with different sea shells on each one. The worn look is fabulous, as is the brown in she printed in. Nice & elegant, but relaxed at the same time.




And lastly, these are handmade PLAYING CARDS! How freakin' fun are these?? I'll tell ya - really fun! They are by Leah Mackin Dot Com. The item listing on Etsy shows a suit from the deck. Each has a different ocean creature.

Until next time, everyone have a great weekend!

Minted.com Shower Challenge - I'm in!

Today, voting opened up for Minted.com's February challenge - Showers! Baby shower or bridal shower, your choice. I have 2 entries in - both somewhat inspired by invites I worked on recently for a friend's baby shower (which is this weekend, so look for a wrap up next week!).

Here are my invites, plus a few others that I think are really well done.

{This one is called Please Join Us by me! Vote for it at Minted here.}

{This one, also by me, is Roy G Biv. Love all the colors! Vote for it here.}

{Elephant Family by Astacia Henspetter. So freakin' cute! Vote for it here.}

{Sugar and Spice Everything Nice by Courtney Wilburn. Vote for it here.}

I could have filled up pages of this blog with the fabulous entries in this competition. Head over to Minted & check out the designs if you have time. Everyone (especially me, the newbie) appreciates the votes & comments. There are lots of talented peeps in the competition. Browsing the entries is eye candy!

Happy Wednesday!

Everything in stripes!

{image from You Are My Fave}

Stripes are my new thing! Not new, I guess, but I seem to be into them a lot in the last 2 weeks. Take my Minted.com designs for the Shower challenge {check them out here or the box in the right side bar}. They're all stripes. So, when I saw this post today over at You Are My Fave, I swooned. Especially love this kitchen with the green cabinets & cute blue espresso machine. Oh la la!!

What are you into lately? Anyone sharing my stripes phase?

Happy weekend!

Cards of the Week - 2/14-2/19

Tired of the winter blahs, my cards of the week post is full of bright tones to get us all in the mood for our next season. Spring! It may be weeks away, but we can start to dream.

Totally smiling just looking at this card with its over-sized monogrammed & punchy colors. Buy as is or choose your own colors. From Em And Bee on Etsy.

This bright yellow stamped bird with matching yellow envelope is singing to me! {Holy Corniness. I need to go back to Barbados, people.} Find this lovely design on Etsy from Pink Bath Tub.

This fun Thank You note is a FREE printable download from Hey Susy. I smiled the second I saw it.

Did those put a smile on your face for Spring? I feel better already. My grandfather always said not to wish my life away, but man, I wish Spring would spring itself!

See ya!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you all have a day filled with love from whomever is in your life...your friends, your spouse, your kids, your dog.

Show of hands from those who sent out Valentine's Day cards this year? Mine is up! I had a great time making them on the fly earlier last week for Thing-A-Day 2011. I just pulled out the markers, glue & glitter & had some fun. See the post here. We're on day 14 of the challenge...half way done! If you're curious you can check out the TAD 2011 feed on Posterous to see the other participants & their daily creative contributions.

Sending x's & o's to you dear readers!!

Cards of the week - 1/31 to 2/6

Hi kids! Here's what I'm diggin' this week...

Alphabet Castle by Crane & Company. So clever! Plus, Mr. B is whisking me away to a warm & sunny Barbados so I am in the mood for a sandcastle.

Sunday is the Super Bowl, so we gotta get some football in here. These are great baby shower invites, by Pinch of Salt on Etsy, if you were having a boy. Her entire shop is fabulous.

Have a great weekend!

Thing-A-Day

Feb 1 - 28, people from all over have stepped up to the "Thing-A-Day" challenge. First started by a professor at NYU, this month of creative thinking is open to anyone and is exactly what it's title says it is. You make something...anything...each day. Could be dinner. Could be a pillow. Someone on the NewNew Team made miniature vegetables last year.

Registration to participate is closed now that it's started but you can follow the creating on the Thing-A-Day Posterous site.

All participants are posting to the Thing-A-Day feed & I also have my own page for Thing-A-Day fun. Check it out! Let me know if you stop by :)

I thought, "this would be the perfect way to do a creative deep dive & jump start my goals for this year! Heck yeah!!" Then, my husband said, "why don't we get out of this snow bank that is Brooklyn & spend a few days in Barbados?"

Gotta finish packing...stay tuned for more!