Lisa and David's Bright Floral Shower Invitations

Today I have a bright and cheery shower invitation that serves to remind you that spring is just around the corner (hopefully). 

Lisa came to me a few months ago to design some shower invitations for her bridal shower. She sent me some inspiration she had collected and I soon realized that Lisa and I had very similar taste. So basically, I designed something that I would like. :) Luckily, Lisa was a fan, too.  

Fonts are Bentham (block font), Melany Lane (script font), and NeoRetro Fill (font in the banner).

I'm certainly glad Lisa and I have the same taste. That always makes my job a little easier. :)

Congratulations to Lisa and David!

Corinne's Baby Shower Invitations

A little while ago, I worked with a friend, Izzy, to design some wedding shower invites for her sister-in-law. She came back to me a month or so later and this time, needed some baby shower invites. But she was very specific - she wanted non-baby shower baby shower invites. :)  Here's what we came up with. 

She wanted fall colors - navy, gray, and orange.

Fonts are Bebas and Champagne and Limousines, with just a touch of Anderson Four Feather Falls. 

All addresses are fake, and I was not the real return address. :)

I really loved how these turned out, and I think we definitely accomplished a non-baby shower baby shower invitation. :)

Trisha's Mint Shower Invitations

We all remember Trish, yes? In case you've forgotten, here's a review. 

Trish has an Etsy Store called Kitty Haw Vintage.

Trish had me do calling cards for Kitty Haw Vintage.

Trish had me do Save the Dates for her wedding.

Well, when it was time for Trish's shower, her aunt contacted me about making invitations for her. I gladly accepted the challenge to make a vintage inspired shower invitation for her vintage inspired shower. 

I used a similar vintage frame to frame these invitations as I did on Trish's calling cards. Since she liked it then, I figured she might like it again. :) 

Fonts are Adios Script Pro and Ugly Qua.

This was one of those showers I was lucky enough to go to. Trish's aunt did such a wonderful job of showcasing her style everywhere. Mason jars on the table were filled with vintage candy (fun fact - I had my first Lemonhead ever at the shower) and we all took home vintage brooches as a gift. Also, the food was to die for...and we all know that's the most important thing.

The best is still to come - Trish and Dave's wedding invitations are coming up in the next few weeks. And they may be my most unique invites yet. :)

Mary's Pea Pod Baby Shower Invitations

A few months ago, an old friend named Mary came to me to see if I could design some baby shower invites for her. She is one of those super cute pregnant girls and her and her husband are about to have a little baby boy. 

Mary said that she thought lime green and pea pods would make for a cute shower invitation. I immediately agreed, especially because I think that having a boy doesn't necessarily have to equal all things blue. Here's what we came up with. 

Mary's super athletic - a runner, works out, all that good stuff. The green banner just seemed to fit her more than something baby-ish or floral or vintage. Luckily, she thought so, too.

Font throughout the invitation is Hero Light - a recent fave.

So there you have it. A cute invite for a super cute - and easy to work with - pregnant lady. :)

I'm guessing a lot of you are heading out to enjoy Labor Day weekend - have fun! I'll be back next week to continue on with some of this summer's wedding invitations. See you then. :)

Brittney's Wedding Shower Invitations

I'm in love with this invite and I don't care who knows it (I would say name that movie, but please...we all know it). 

Izzy is a friend that my husband and I have played volleyball with for a few years now. We play on a competitive league in the winter and let me just be frank - we are pretty bad. But our team is so much fun and we go out every night after our games, win or lose, and have a great time together. 

So a few months after our season ended this year, I was delighted to get an email from Izzy asking if I could help her out with some shower invitations. Her sister-in-law was getting married and she was heading up the shower festivities. 

Izzy wasn't too picky about what she wanted so I was able to play around a bit (which is always fun). Here's what we came up with.

I thought it might be fun to do a little custom monogram for Brittney and her fiancé. I used some artwork from Envelopments and was able to come up with a lovely, free monogram for the married couple-to-be.

The font for Brittney's name is Clarendon Bold Condensed. The rest is Context Reprise Light.

We also did a custom designed envelope.  Such a perfect way to give the guests a preview of what's inside. :) 

The color scheme of this invitation is one of my favorites and I loved working with Izzy in the off-season (you know, when we're working out hard and getting our volleyball game ready for winter league - totally untrue). 

I do hope you all are enjoying these last days of summer. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things this week, and one of the things I want to do is show you some side projects that I've been working on this summer. So this week will be a mini-side project extravaganza if you will and I'll be back on Thursday to show you another one I've been working on. :) 

Kara's Baby Shower Invites

I feel like I'm having major writer's block this week. I'm looking at the pictures that I've already uploaded for this post and several thoughts are coming to mind, but I have no good starting point for this blog. So here are the things that I am thinking, but am not sure how to organize into any kind of logical order. 

1. I really enjoy designing baby shower invitations. 

2. I'm extremely thankful to my mother-in-law, who has me to do shower invitations for her friend's children. 

3. I am over-the-moon in love with the color scheme we settled on for this invitation. 

4. I hope that when I'm pregnant, I look half as good as this mom-to-be, who appears not to be pregnant if you see her from behind (I already know I won't be as fortunate - I'm short and when I gain weight, it goes to my face first...this leaves me displeased with the thought of pregnancy and half thinking that maybe I should just adopt). 

Now that I have those thoughts out of the way, let's move on to the goods (AKA - the invitations). 

Kara is the daughter of one of my mother-in-law's good friends. She also happens to have grown up with my husband, and we've been fortunate to spend some time with Kara and her husband, Chris, over the past few years. Her mom decided to throw her a baby shower after Kara and Chris found out they were having a girl and my mother-in-law, Cathy, took care of the invitations (in other words, took that job over so she could have me do them :)).  

Kara and Chris had a gender reveal party a few months ago now. A friend of theirs wrapped up a little girl onesie that they opened to see if they were having a boy or a girl. Kara and Chris's friend, Christy, of Christy Lee Designs snapped this photo of them when they had just found out they were having a little girl. 

In addition to pink, Kara really wanted to incorporate Tiffany Blue into the invitation (you know, the color that Tiffany's uses for their little boxes). I love the pink and the blue together so so much.

We finished everything off by having guests' names printed in fun little squiggly frames on the envelopes.

I had the pleasure of going to this shower and can honestly say that the invitation perfectly indicated what was to come at the shower. It was a beautiful pink and (Tiffany's) blue shower with all of the details perfectly in place. The favors were even in little Tiffany's boxes - they were these chocolates that looked like pearls. SO beautiful. And yummy.

OK, so next week I'm going to be posting a blog on something I've never done before - a logo. Eeek!

Happy weekend, everyone!

Bethany's Bachelorette Party and Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

*This post was written last week and since I wrote it, Bethany and Devin were married! Congratulations to both of them! Instead of doing two posts this week (you know I can't stand when I miss a week and must make up for it), I'm putting two more of Bethany's invitations into one post. I love how they turned out.*

I'm back and rolling out more of Bethany's invitations. Bethany's the bride I talked about here. Now that the shower invitations were out, it was time to move on to the bachelorette party invites and the rehearsal dinner invites. 

Bethany's sister, Ashley, is Bethany's maid of honor (along with her other sister, Whitney) and was throwing her bachelorette party. Ashley has always held a special place in my heart. When she was back in high school, I worked with her youth group. I helped start a mentoring program there and after I initially announced it, she came up to me and said, "I want to be paired with you!" I couldn't believe that any high schooler thought I was cool enough to spend time with, but I went with it and Ashley and I spent many hours chatting about school, youth group, boys, and more. It has been about seven years since then and she is now a beautiful, intelligent, and thoughtful grown woman.  It was so great to sit down with her again to work on these invitations and just chat about life in general. 

Ashley thinks her sister is the best and wanted her Bachelorette Party invite to reflect that. She said that Bethany has been invited to a ton of Bachelorette Parties lately and she wanted to make sure that Bethany's invitation stood out among the rest. 

Here's what we came up with. 

Ashley didn't know exactly what direction she wanted me to go in, but we did decide that we'd go with hot pink (this paper is called 'Fashionista' - it's one of my favorite Envelopments' papers) as the main color.

Then I took myself to Hobby Lobby to gain some more inspiration. When I saw this fun zebra print card stock, I knew I had all I needed to complete the invitation.

Channel is the font for Bethany's name (the same one we used for her shower invites) and Bodoni Svty Two is the font for the rest of the invitation.

Bethany's Bachelorette Party was also a lingerie shower, so we decided to make that obvious with the lingerie artwork. It's Envelopments' artwork and I love how it adds to the invitation.

I loved working on these with Ashley and I know that she will be a great Maid of Honor. :)

Next up is Bethany and Devin's Rehearsal Dinner Invitation.

We used red for the rehearsal dinner invites. Black, white, and red are the wedding colors, though we've mixed it up with hot pink for certain invitations.

Of course, the Bethany Diamond had to make an appearance. We changed up the fonts a bit and used Hiatus and Foglihten Petite Caps for the invitation.

I love that the red circle features the diamond. :)

I think both of these turned out great and I can't wait to show off the rest of Bethany's wedding extras!

**Psst...in case you didn't hear, Vivian Elle has opened an Etsy Shop! Click here to check it out!**

Bethany's Shower Invitations

You might as well get used to Bethany because you'll be seeing a lot of her in the next couple of months on the blog. Not only have I worked on the two shower invitations you'll see in this blog post, but I also have done her rehearsal dinner invites, bachelorette party invites, and will do all of the extras for her wedding in October. 

Bethany's family is very special to me, but they're a family that I don't get to see much anymore. When Bethany's mom, Carolyn, came to me and asked if I would help them with several different extras for the wedding, I was happy not just to be able to do more of what I love, but do it for people that I don't get to see nearly enough. 

So I met with Carolyn, Bethany, and Bethany's fiancé, Devin, one afternoon and we talked about all of the different things they'd like me to do for the wedding. First up, we needed to take care of the shower invitations. Bethany was having two showers that Carolyn wanted to do the invitations for. 

For shower #1, you just need to know one thing about Bethany - the girl loves her shoes. The family friend that threw the shower for her knew this and incorporated it into the theme of the shower. We decided to follow suit with the shower invitations.

We thought we'd keep it simple with the silhouette of a shoe in the corner and a little bling at the bottom.  (I've used that diamond is so many of Bethany's things now that I refer to it as the "Bethany diamond.")

I used Channel for Bethany's name and Foglihten for the rest of the invite.

Bethany picked out red envelopes to wrap everything up nicely. :) 

For shower numero two, Carolyn had found an invitation on Etsy by Cards Etcetera that she really liked, and wanted to do something similar.  

(um...pause to mention that Vivian Elle has an Etsy shop opening in October!!! what what) 

We used the same concept, but I changed up the fonts and added a little something something at the bottom. Here's what we came up with for shower #2. 

I feel like I could gush all day about this invitation and it wouldn't seem arrogant because I didn't come up with it. :)

Fonts are Doris Day, Channel, and Context Reprise for the "She Said Yes," Channel for Bethany's name, and Optimus Princeps for the rest of the invite.

This is just the beginning, folks. I'm so excited about the other projects that we're working on for Bethany and can't wait to show them off! :)

Harrison and YaJing's Baby Shower Invitations

There are some people that you don't see much anymore, but when you reconnect with them - even if it's just for a minute or two over the phone - it is encouraging and leaves you wishing you saw them more often.

I was thrilled to be able to work with one of those people on these shower invitations. I used to attend the same church as Janet, but haven't for the past 5 years or so. However, she and my mother-in-law are good friends and they've gone back and forth throwing showers for each other's children. This time the shower was for Janet's son, Harrison, and his wife, YaJing, who are expecting a baby. My mother-in-law was in charge of the invitations and she hired me (again!) and then had me work out the details with Janet.

Harrison and YaJing don't know the sex of their baby, so Janet wanted to keep the colors neutral. Other than that and the fact that YaJing really likes animals, Janet basically let me go to work. Here's the final product.

I used a font that I've been loving lately - Cafe Rojo - for the heading. For the invitation itself, I used Goudy Bookletter 1911.

I feel the need to stop and praise Envelopments and their amazing artwork that I have access to. Everything you see on this invitation is straight from their collection.

Another shout out: Amy Sayre Photography! My husband and I were in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and got to stop and see Amy and her fiancé. I brought a few invitations and had her snap some pictures of them. All of the pictures in this post are from her.

Can I confess this instant that I love that little toucan?

I decided to add another little animal on the back of the invitations, with my website, of course.

I got the envelopes from Paper Source. If you haven't been to their website, go immediately. There is one Paper Source in Michigan (unfortunately, about 45 minutes from me) and I could spend hours looking through that store.

Janet was happy with how these turned out, which means I was happy, too. :)

In other news, we've officially moved! Things are coming together slowly but surely, y'all. And now that we are in the house, I'm more in love with it than I was before. I'm not super close to having good before and after photos, but when I do, I'll have to sneak them into a future post. :)

Leanne's Baby Shower Invitations

Babies. 

I'm 31. Do you think that having babies has crossed my mind a time or two?

Unfortunately, I overanalyze anything and everything (to the point where my own father, who officiated our wedding, pointed this out to all of our guests during the ceremony...awesome). When Luke and I entered our second year of marriage, I remember I started thinking about babies a little bit more. Not ohmygoshgivemeababynow or anything, but I guess I started noticing that I liked them a lot more than I ever had. So I started thinking...am I ready to have one of my own?

Then I'd think that I don't want to wake up several times a night and be sleep deprived for the rest of my life. 

Then I'd think that having a little human running around that is a part of me and a part of my husband would be so cool.

Then I'd think that my husband and I won't get to spend as much time together, just me and him. 

Then I'd think of all the joy that a baby would bring to our lives.

And so on and so on. 

It's been several months since I entered into that second year of marriage, and I'm still not sure when I (or my husband) will be ready for our own little tyke, but I am always extremely happy for my friends that have made the transition to motherhood, and I love learning everything I can from them. And...I love making invitations for their baby showers (10 points for an amazing transition!).

(-25 points when you realize that this shower invite is for a girl I've never even met, making the introduction to this invitation baby-related word vomit.)

I helped Erin with her wedding invitations last summer. I had a great time working with her - she really was an extremely calm bride-to-be. She was very cool, collected, and I really liked how she did her hair.  A month or so ago, she came to me again to ask about doing baby shower invitations for a friend of hers. I, of course, took this as a great compliment (love me a return customer) and was more than happy to help out. 

Erin first sent me some pictures of her ideas for decorating. She was using blues, yellows, and reds. She had a million adorable ideas, but one stuck out to me in particular - these cute paper flower fans. 

(Not sure what I'm talking about? You can view them here, here, or here.)

I decided I just really liked them and that they couldn't be that hard to make on my own. I started creating the same paper flower fans in Illustrator and our shower invitation was born. 

I absolutely love the color scheme that Erin decided to use. Leanne and her husband are having a boy, but the color scheme isn't overly boy-ish at all. I give a solid thumbs up to that. I definitely believe that a girl shower does not equal all things pink, just like a boy shower doesn't have to be completely done in blue (or green, if you're really getting crazy).

The fonts? Arial Black and Context Reprise Light (this one's my current favorite). We used a dark blue envelope and white linen card stock.

All in all, I love my return customers and am forever grateful that they would actually use me again. And since I truly enjoy working with my brides, working with them a second time is pretty much a complete joy.

I've been doing more and more shower invitations, which I absolutely love. Stay tuned for some more in the coming weeks. :)

Jaime's Wedding Shower Invitations

I'm writing this on Monday morning. It's the beginning of a new week, but I keep thinking back on the week I just had. My husband and I were off for spring break and I ended up spending my time off finishing 3 weddings, putting together extras for another wedding (that I actually was able to attend!), and designing and printing a shower invitation. 

During the whole week, the quote that kept going through my mind was: "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." (Apparently this is by Confucious...I just knew I had heard it somewhere before.)

Though I was overwhelmed at times (I designed and printed my first seating chart in about 3 days...more on that in the weeks to come), I truly loved my week. It didn't feel like work at all and it made me want to work even harder to make sure that all of my weeks were just like that one.

All that to say, I love what I'm doing, and I want to do it a really really long time.

But enough journaling using my blog...today I want to talk about Jaime's wedding shower invitations. 

I introduced you to Jaime in March when I did her Save the Dates. Jaime texted a few weeks after I completed them to give me a heads up that her mom might be calling me about doing her shower invitations, too. I was naturally excited. Jaime has been amazing to work with and so I figured her mom would probably be, too. 

She was. We didn't have a ton of time, so we started the design process and finished it in about a week. Here's what we came up with.

I used Context Reprise Light and Gelato fonts. I love them both. Context Reprise is so modern and Gelato is girly and fun.

I printed on white linen card stock and used fun Boa (translation - a shimmery hot pink) envelopes from Envelopments.

Right after these were picked up and sent out, Jaime and I started working on her wedding invitations. I'm excited to see what we come up with and I'm so honored to work with such a great bride (and her mom!).

Abby's Shower Invites

OK, here's the deal. You'll be seeing quite a bit of Abby by the time I'm done with her wedding. Actually, it will be that way with the majority of my brides this year. I'm not only doing invitations, but lots of programs, menu cards, favor cards, place cards, thank you cards, table numbers, and even a seating chart or two. I love it because this allows us to carry the design of the invitation into other parts of the wedding day. It is a great way to tie everything together and I highly highly highly recommend it!

To start out my work with Abby, here are her shower invitations. We (I worked with her future mother-in-law on these) wanted them to be traditional and elegant. We also wanted them to give her guests a sense of what the wedding invitations would be like, while not totally ruining the surprise of the actual invitation. You'll find out in the weeks to come if we accomplished that task. :)

Font is Optimus Princeps. Free and a definite favorite. 

The White Snow card stock and the Majestic envelopes (official Envelopments names :)) are so beautiful together. I love this combination and love that I've been able to work so closely with Abby on so many different pieces for her wedding!

And here's a little bonus fact. In the end of all of this, we'll be related! She will be my dad's cousin's son's wife. So...maybe my third cousin once removed? Yes, we'll go with that. :)

Babies (Part II)

A few words about my mother-in-law, Cathy.

From the moment I told her I was starting a business, she's been 100% supportive. I remember when I first told her about it. I started off by sharing what I was doing and how I was intending on doing it. She seemed excited for me, just like any mother-in-law would.

But then I told her I was naming the business after her granddaughter and her excitement level went through the roof. If she hadn't already decided she would be supportive, she was fully on board now. That evening I think I received about three emails from her with different projects she would like me to do. If there was a way she could help me, she was going to do it. I was (and still am) oh-so-thankful.

One of the projects was to make invitations for a baby shower she was involved in throwing. Josh and Amanda are the son and daughter-in-law of one of her closest friends, Ines, and they were having a baby girl.

What I loved about this project was that it was my first lesson in simplicity. I realized that when you're working with a good paper product, you can make a beautiful invitation with very little material. Here's the finished product...

So simple. I love it.

We liked the color combination of green and brown and then we decided to add in an orange-ish/pink color ('persimmon', to be exact :)) with the envelope. I threw in the cute little bird with a funky paisley print on him and we had our little baby shower invite! I loved it because it said "it's a girl" without being too...pink-ish.

So congratulations to Josh and Amanda and thank you again to my mother-in-law for letting me play a (small) part in their baby shower!