Memorable Party Favors

 I often find myself at weddings, staring at a cheep minature beach chair, or a tulle bag of candied almonds and asking myself "WHY?" Why did this lovely couple waste $2-$5 on a favor that I REALLY don't want to bring home with me or that I may forget all together. If you're going to do favors, do something pretty and EDIBLE. Let's be honest, at the end of the night, when guests are leaving your wedding they've either got the drunk munchies or wish they had gotten just a bit more dessert. Hence favor cookie jars. You can tie them into whatever theme and look you have created and fill them with a variety of baked goods. I've filled them with cookie cheesecake, funfetti cake, grandma's famous chocolate chip cookies or in this case, gingersnaps (which never last the night in my house).

Animal Birth Announcement

 

 
Congratulations to the Bitzas family! Here is their newly designed birth announcement for their adorable baby boy, Connor. After a week with her new little boy, it was decided that a menagerie inspired announcement was the way to go. We wanted to include their daughter as well who's announcement I did about two years ago (you can see it at the bottom of the paper page on my website), I took a photo of her and added her silhouette riding the elephant at the front of the animal lineup. These announcements are also great because the photo is the perfect size for the wallets of family and friends!

Invite Process- Custom Watercolors

This weekend I'm working on a wedding invitation for a couple who is getting married at Lake Pearl, which is right down the street from me. I went to take some pictures, but as everything is covered in snow and ice, I have to use my imagination when making invites for a spring wedding. Usually, when I am designing an invitation suite, I start out with the main invitation card. I do some quick sketches of different layouts and go from there. In this case we talked about some custom watercolors of Lake Pearl, so working from pictures I took, and some that I found online I made a couple little paintings which I'll then take into the computer and work from there!  

DIY Jewelry Holders

I am not a morning person. My alarm goes off, and I push snooze as long as I can get away with it. That being said, if I need to sift through a drawer or a jewelry box to decide how to accessorize whatever fantabulous outfit I have decided to wear, I won't be wearing jewelry. I decided to solve this problem by having all my jewelry out and accessible. My rings are displayed on my collection of porcelain and glass hands, my bracelets on a branch, and studs in various pretty bowls. My necklaces were proving to be a problem, so decided it was time to do something about it. I did this project in under an hour and it only cost about $40. Now my jewelry is accessible and pretty as a picture!

Gallery Wall

 Organic gallery walls are a great way to add a dynamic way to add interest to a room. Personally, I think the best gallery walls are made up of varying styles of art and 3D objects which combine to give someone a sense of who you are. I made this gallery wall so that the TV felt incorporated into the room without doing anything too drastic to it (like covering it with something, because I don't know about you, but our TV is on too frequently to make that practical!). Awesome as gallery walls are, they are also tough to lay out without putting a million holes in your walls. This is how I did mine without turning my walls into swiss cheese. First, I traced the pieces of art and objects I was planning to use onto large pieces of inexpensive sketch paper and then cut them out. I also marked on the paper where the hanging hardware was so that I would know where to put the nails. I then moved them around on the floor until I felt like they were in a configuration I liked. With painters tape, I attached them to the wall and played with them a bit until I felt like they all related to each other. Then, I put the nails directly though the paper where I had marked earlier. Once you take down the paper, you are good to hang your art on the walls!

Weekend Wardrobe: Easter Egg Hunt

1. Mint Blazer 2. Marina Pump 3. Scallop Dress 4. Multi Color Necklace 5. Radio Bag

I've been thinking of adding a little fashion section to the blog, hence, "Weekend Wardrobe". Throughout the week I tend to "web shop", I fill up carts in various online stores so I feel like I'm getting pretty things, and then I look at the total amount I'd be spending and almost always X-out of the screen to ward off temptation. It's satisfying and depressing at the same time. So, to make it seem like I'm browsing for a reason, every Friday I'll put together a little dream outfit for some weekend activity. This weekend it's the perfect outfit for an easter egg hunt! Spring has sprung so it's time to pull out the fun colors!

Wishing for Time

 Recently I have been wishing for more time in the day and more time in the night. Basically I need more time to do everything I want and have to do and more time to sleep so I can actually have the energy to do all these things. I haven't had as much time as I would like to work on all my various personal projects and design endeavors. Here are two perfect examples, the cabinet above, would be a perfect for for our entry way, and it seems like it would be pretty simple to make. I've been searching for scalloped/ fish scale shingles, they are harder to find then you would think. I'm dying to make this. Another project I've wanted to do is inspired by the image below. When we moved into our new house, I built a makeshift tabletop to cover our dog Truman's MASSIVE crate. I want to make it a bit more interesting and saw this, I think I would like it better with clean dowels cut to various lengths, and maybe painting the ends a color for a little something extra. Hopefully I will have time to tackle some things my list of projects soon!