One Six Photo

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Last year at this time, I had collected responses from my closest friends and family to do a Week of Thankfulness on this blog. This year, it didn't even come close to happening. In fact, about three days ago, I realized that the week before Thanksgiving was here and I had made zero effort to get a Week of Thankfulness together.

But then I realized that what I'm truly thankful for this year is that I didn't even have time until three days ago to even think about a Week of Thankfulness. Because that means that this little business has done pretty well and is still going strong here in November.

I could go on for way too long here, but I just have to take the time to say that I'm so insanely thankful for each bride that chose to use me for their custom wedding invitations this year. I truly feel like I get to develop a relationship with each of you (and sometimes your moms, too) and am constantly amazed at what a unique, thoughtful, graceful group of women you are. You are what keeps this business going and I couldn't be more grateful.

I'm also so thankful for each person that came to me for baby shower invites, wedding shower invites, birthday party invites, bachelorette party invites, halloween party invites, wall prints, thank you cards, and now thanks to my Etsy shop, Christmas cards. I LOVE these side projects and have so much fun creating them with your help.

I can't even begin to fully express what this business means to me without getting so ridiculously gushy, but I will say that making the decision over two years ago to step way the heck out of my comfort zone and do something so completely unfamiliar was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I hope that everyone, at some point in their life, feels the same sense of accomplishment and complete and total joy in the work they do as I have this year.

But on to the reason for this blog post...

One of the most fulfilling parts of this business has been meeting other vendors who share the same passion for their work that you do for yours.  Kelli from One Six Photo is one such vendor. :)

I was introduced to Kelli a few months ago when she contacted me about making a logo for her photography business. My husband has known her since they were four and he referred her to me (this should come as a surprise to no one at this point) because he knew that she wanted help designing a logo.

I feel like there are people that you meet in life that just radiate positivity and warmth and are the kind of people that you know would be such an encouraging addition to your life. Kelli is exactly that kind of person and I knew it after spending about two minutes with her. Since she already knew Luke, and therefore (hopefully) knew we weren't super creepy, I had her over to our house to discuss her logo. When she left, I looked at Luke and was like, "um...that girl is awesome."

So we began working together to design a logo for her photography business. At the beginning, Kelly told me she wanted her logo to be "country bumpkin with a slight modern, clean twist." As we started working on it, the logo evolved into what we eventually came up with.

I knew I could just show you the logo as I made it, but I really wanted to show it off with Kelli's beautiful photography. I asked her to send me a sampling of her work so you can all ohhhh and ahhhh over it like I do when I see it come up on my News Feed.

Kelli lives right here in the metro Detroit area and pretty much does everything but weddings (she's just not interested in that right now...leave her alone, people!).

She does engagement sessions...

Maternity shoots...

Baby shoots...

Family shoots...

And friend shoots...

(This photo is so special. I feel like I want to say a thousand words about it, but I'll just let it speak for itself. Such a beautiful moment.)

To be honest, I was completely terrified when Kelli first came to me about a logo...I hadn't done one before and wasn't sure if I'd be able to fully capture what she wanted. But as we worked together and redesigned and redesigned some more, we came up with something that she seemed totally happy with, and so I was totally happy with it, too.

So if you're in the metro-Detroit area and looking for a reasonably priced photographer to capture the everyday moments in your life, "like" One Six Photo on Facebook and message Kelli. I promise you will enjoy every bit of time spent with her.

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Vivian Elle's Birthday Invites

Let's just get right to it. 

I love my niece and nephews so much I could literally just eat them up. 

I mean, I fear I am the crazy aunt that comes through the door and kisses them to death. The one they will like until they are about 12, when I suddenly become super uncool to them and they dread when I come over. 

The last time I was with my niece and nephews, I literally scooped my four year old nephew (who is super tall for his age) up into my arms just so I could hug ALL OF HIM. I couldn't get enough. I think I heard him say "put me down." I can't remember. I was too busy kissing him. 

I've heard people say that when it's your own siblings' kids (my niece and nephews are from my husband's sister), it's even better. In that case, I fear for the lives of my brothers' unborn children. 

All this to say that when my sister-in-law asked me to do my sweet little niece's invitations for her third birthday party, naturally I was more than happy to help. 

The party was a purple party (Viv's favorite color). Ginny (the sis-in-law) wanted pictures of Viv at every age leading up to three years old. Here's what we came up with. 

Viv is the sweetest little thing.

I do have to confess that I did something I've never done before. These invitations were printed at Kinko's on regular old card stock that they have available there (gasp!). We were working with a shorter time frame, so I couldn't order from Envelopments like I normally would. I also grabbed envelopes at Hobby Lobby and printed the 3 on them for Viv's 3rd Birthday. Confession over.

I know I'm her aunt, but I would think it would be fun for anyone to get this invite and see how little Viv has grown throughout the years. It was such a fun idea on Ginny's part.

So we celebrated Vivian a few weeks ago and all wore purple and showered her with gifts. She is so precious and gets more and more fun as the years go on.

OK, so you might not remember, but last week I said that this week I would be showing a logo that I did. Well, I promise I'll do that next week now, since it clearly didn't happen this week. :)

Happy Weekend!

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!

Rew's 80s Halloween Evitation

(You know I love saying evitation.)

The Halloween fun continues on Vivian Elle's blog this week, and this time I have a super low maintenance evite to a totally rad 80s Halloween party.  And I'm excited.  Hurrah!

Heidi is pretty much one of the stars of this blog. So much so that I don't even have the energy to tag every post she's shown up in. She's asked me to help her with several projects now and came to me a month or so ago to see if I could help her get ready for her 80s Halloween Party that she was throwing this year.

You see, in case you don't remember, Heidi likes to throw parties, and she is good at it. She doesn't just throw a party; she adds all of these little details that make a party great. Like, one of the best you've ever been to. You can see her adventures in partying on her blog, Parties for Pennies.

So when Heidi came to me to help her with her very first evite, we just had to get a design down and we were all set.

Here's what we came up with:

It was super fun finding a bunch of 80s fonts to use. We used Ash, Age, Nova Solid, Novecento Wide, and My Girl is Retro (my personal new favorite).

I LOVE that Heidi wanted to use the phrase "no duh." How great is that phrase? Should I try to bring it back? No? OK...

And last, but not least, I love love love the bright colors she used. That's what I love most about the 80s being back in style. The brights. Give me bright colors or give me death. (extreme)

So that's it for the Halloween fun on the blog. Next week we'll start up with regular old invitations again. Until then, I just want to wish everyone a Happy (and safe!) Halloween!

Ohhh, one last thing...have you checked out Vivian Elle's Etsy shop yet? If not, check it out!

Melissa's Halloween Party Invites

I have a confession and I would like to declare it right here, right now on this blog:

I've never really liked Halloween. 

(You're judging me, aren't you?)

I know this admission will make me wildly unpopular with every other person on the planet. I know this because I've realized over the past few years that every other person on the planet LOVES Halloween. 

I mean, it was always fun as a kid (mom - all of those years of putting me in costumes and parading me around the neighborhood were not in vain!), and I love me a good piece of chocolate, so that was always a treat, but when it comes right down to it, Halloween is just not my jam. 

Maybe it's because I don't have kids yet, so I don't get to dress them up as a little pea pod or  a pumpkin or a turnip (does anyone do a turnip?). Or maybe it's because if we actually do go to a party, I'm too cheap to buy a cool Halloween costume so I end up just throwing together something five minutes before and it's just not as cool as everyone else's costumes. 

Whatever the reason is, it is just not my favorite holiday. I have to accept this and move on with my life. 

However, do not let this cranky old non-Halloween loving lady fool you. I will work on a Halloween party invitation any and every day. So when Melissa (from here, here, and here) came to me to see if I could make a Halloween invitation for a party she was throwing for her two little boys, I was on it.

Melissa emailed me, saying that she found these invitations on Etsy, but didn't like that they were printed on photo paper. She asked if I could do something similar, and I was more than happy to help. 

I liked the green/gray color pallette more than the standard orange, and I thought these ombré-like chevron stripes were perfect for the backdrop.

I did my best to freehand our little spider there. I think he's gangly and cute. :) 

We used plain white envelopes. Guest's addresses fit nicely in between the two chevron stripes that we included on them. 

Melissa is such a sweet mom to these two boys and I know that she will throw them a killer Halloween party.

Next week, I'll show a fun 80s Halloween party email invitation that I did for one of my BFFs. The Halloween fun continues and I promise I'm excited about it. :)

But reeeaaalllly quickly before I go, if you haven't seen Vivian Elle's Etsy shop yet, hop on over there, would you?  Click here to view our new shop and check out the Grand Opening special - if you purchase your Holiday Photo Cards before November 1, you'll get 25 free cards (you're overly excited, aren't you?).

Also, Vivian Elle's Etsy Shop now has baby announcements! Did you just have a new little bundle of joy? Show your beautiful baby off with one of our photo cards. Here are some of the new designs.

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!**

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. :)