Amy and Mike's Baby Announcements

My best friend, Amy, and her husband, Mike, had a baby boy.  And he is just too delightful for words. 

There's just something about this little guy that is so wonderfully perfect that I actually thought for the first time when I was holding him this past weekend that maybe I finally understand what it means to have baby fever.

And then I made the mistake of telling my mom this and she was so excited she posted it on Facebook. :/ :/

(My mom wants herself some grand babies.)

But my feelings towards babies will need to take a back seat because right now it is so much fun seeing my best friend and her husband so incredibly happy with their new addition.

So when Amy came to me to have some baby announcements made up for her new little son, I gladly obliged.  Because it's clear that when you have a baby this cute, you should declare every little inch of him to the world.

We used Learning Curve Pro to tell the world that Timmy entered it and that all of his features are perfect.

A million congratulations to Amy and Mike!

All images are from Casey and her Camera. Check out her website or visit her on FB here. 

Rachelle and Dan's Baby Announcements

This past Christmas, my cousin, Rachelle, announced to her family and friends that her and her husband were expecting a baby boy in a really cute way. 

Well, her little guy, Jacob, arrived and now she wanted to let everyone know in a really cute way again. She had been hoping and praying for Jacob for a long time, so a baby announcement full of pictures of the answer to her prayers seemed fitting. 

You have to notice the main picture on the announcement - Jacob against a newspaper from the day he was born. Too cute.

Rachelle's been chronicling life with Jacob over on her blog. Check it out here. :)

Congratulations to Rachelle and Dan!

All images are from Casey and her Camera. Check out her website or visit her on FB here. 

Juniper Eva's Baby Announcements

Let's be honest about one thing:

Making friends is WAY harder when you're an adult. 

After you get out of college, you feel like you should be set. Like you're a 10 on the social scale. But let me be the one to tell you this: college has deceived you. 

The thing about college is that it spoon feeds you friends. You cannot NOT make friends in college. I was in a dorm my freshman year with probably 80 other girls my same age. It took about two days for me to make my first friend, and by the end of freshman year, our floor was like a sisterhood. 

So when I got out of college, I was like, "Yo, world! I'm here and I'm an AMAZING friend!" And oddly enough, that was met with crickets chirping. Which meant that I spent a lot of Saturday nights at home watching Trading Spaces (which would be sad except that show was awesome).  

A few years after college, I started working at a home health care, only because I couldn't find a teaching job. I started to make some acquaintances, and even a friend or two, and I actually enjoyed working at my job. 

Then one day, interviews were held to bring on a new person in our department.  As was custom at our work, we started stalking the front door, in hopes that we would sneak a peak of one of the candidates. Our department was small, and we'd had our share of completely insane people come through (one girl literally sent an email to our boss on a particularly snowy day, telling her that she couldn't come in because a black bird told her not to. i'm not even joking. i may or may not have done a dramatic reading of it to my family), so it was important to make sure this new person was a good fit. 

On one of my trips to the front of the office to see who would be sitting there waiting to be taken in for an interview, I saw a girl. She was about my age, and looked nice, and I kid you not, as I discretely attempted to look at her out of the corner of my eye, a thought went through my head:

"We are going to be friends."

GUYS. I promise I'm not crazy. I swear. But that happened. 

And guess what?

That girl was hired. And within about three hours of her working in our department, I knew that my premonition was true. Her and I were going to be friends. 

And we are. Really good friends. Like the kind I thought I'd never have again post-college. A true friend who I could share anything with and who I constantly have crazy text threads going with at all times. Texts that we have both admitted reading to our spouses because we think we are hilarious. Those kinds of friends. 

I no longer work at that home health care. My friend - Debbie - doesn't either. I moved on and started this invitation business, and she moved on and had a few adorable babies. But we're both so thankful that a job that seemingly didn't fit into either of our "bigger pictures" brought us to each other.

So when Debbie had her second baby, Juniper, she asked me if I could make an announcement for her. 

And I told her that I couldn't because a black bird told me not to.

KIDDING, Y'ALL. Here they are.

Her family is precious, right?

I cannot get enough of this Bebas font. And I thought Melany Lane and Helvetica Neue balanced it out nicely. As for the design, while I'm always fearing that chevron is a week away from going out of style, I'm 100% confident that stripes are here to stay.

On the back, we just did a simple greeting.

There you go. A cute little baby announcement for a cute little baby. Here's to new friends after college and the adorable offspring they produce. :)

Vivian Elle Etsy Store Opening October 1!

{Vivian Elle's Etsy Shop is now open! Click here to visit!}

I give my sincere apologies, but there will be no Vivian Elle invitation to show off this week.

I know, I know. You are very sad. Which is why I am at least writing this small little blog, because this year I committed to a once a week post and that is a commitment that I have kept so far and will not stop at the end of September! (Picture me saying this with my fist in the air, very Braveheart-like.)

I know that I could blog about the wedding extras I just finished. I could even blog about some awesome bachelorette party invites I did a few weeks before.  I could blog about rehearsal dinner invites or shower invites or even some wall art that I've been meaning to blog about. But I can't, because this week has been predominantly about one thing...

VIVIAN ELLE'S ETSY SHOP!!!

(I hope I'm not the only one excited about this...anyone else? anyone??)

I've been working on this for a few weeks now (and pretty hard core the last three days) and I'm definitely not going to stop now. The goal is to have everything up and running by October 1, which means that I have about 3 more days to get things done. I may not have everything exactly how I want it on Monday, but I will at least officially "open shop" on that date (did I need the air quotes for that? not sure, but I do love some air quotes).

The thing is, I have no idea what opening shop will mean. Will I get any sales? Will all of this work be worth it? Will anyone think my designs are good? Are they too similar to all the other designs out there? Yeah...those are the thoughts that have been going through my head lately.

So even though I am not doing an official blog post today, on Monday I will be back to officially open Vivian Elle's Etsy Shop. I may even get a big red ribbon and put it over the computer and make Luke cut it with me...he will love it. :)

Winnie's Baby Announcements

Way more years ago than I want to admit, I began my junior year of college with a super cool R.A. She was a senior and just like her good friend Jenny (whose wedding invites were talked about here), she had the best design sense. In fact, to this day, I remember the little name plates she made for the girls on our hall because they were so cute. 

(Did people that went to big universities have their names on their doors or was that just because I went to a small private school? I've always wondered about this.)

Anyways, this super cool R.A. was named Winnie and she contacted me after her third baby boy was born this past April to see if I could do a baby announcement for her. 

And of course, I said yes. Because who would say no to helping someone declare to the world that this face was now here?

Is this picture not the cutest thing?

I just felt like a simple design would do since Samuel's picture says enough in and of itself.

Font is Big Caslon Medium. Free, of course.

I also love the wording that Winnie chose - "loved by brothers Jack and Henry, gracious gift from God for his parents Jake and Winnie."

I loved doing a little baby announcement for this adorable little guy's mom. He is one lucky baby and I'm sure he will always have the most well crafted name displays in his room. :)

Want to hear more about the value of custom invitations? Check out this post.