Happy Birthday, Vivian Elle

I must take a break in my invitation posting to tell you that today is Vivian Elle's 2nd birthday. Not the invitation business Vivian Elle, but the little thing that I named it after:

Because this blog can only handle so much cuteness, I'll stop there.

Vivian Elle turns 2 today and I just wanted to take some time out to celebrate her. She's an inspiring little thing and a joy to be around. And just to keep consistent with posting some fun paper products, here's a little card I made up for her today.

Since her birthday was a rainy one, I thought the umbrellas were a nice fit.

And here's a blogged Happy Birthday from her uncle and me, since we weren't able to be with her today. Ginny, are you holding her up to the computer so she can see? :)

Happy birthday, Viv!

Kenny and Meghan's Programs

Have you had enough of looking at programs yet? No? Excellent, because here’s one more (last one, I promise).

I had worked on Meghan and Kenny’s invitations a few months ago and shortly after, Meghan contacted me to do their programs. She wanted to keep it simple so we used the same classic ecru paper from their invitations and decided on a simple 4x12 piece of card stock. In addition, she wanted to loop purple ribbon through the top so she could attach them to the chairs (what a great idea, by the way...not only does it look great, it’s practical). 

The first thing that Meghan said was that we needed enough room to put a lot of information on the program...and she did have a LOT of information. My greatest accomplishment was that I actually fit everything in (it would be sad if this was actually the greatest accomplishment out of my entire life thus far...not as sad since it was just the greatest accomplishment of this single project). 

I am so excited about my fall decor that I had to take a picture with it in the background. Fall!

I love these programs...the 4x12 cardstock is such an elegant look, but really simple. Meghan and Kenny were married this past weekend at the Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth. Sigh. I must start crashing some of these weddings soon. 

In other news, my fall to do list has one more thing crossed off. Slowly but surely is my motto with this list. 

I visited Tennessee this past weekend and hit up my second apple orchard of the season with the BFFs on Saturday. We split apple dumplings. Oh my goodness...I’m still salivating. I remember telling my friend Kauri that I’d just have a couple of bites of hers. Biggest understatement of the weekend. 

Speaking of food, I have incorporated so many new recipes into our meal plan, which was much needed after a summer of "oh...we're having BBQ chicken quesadillas again?". I just wanted to share my three favorites, all found on Pinterest. 

1. Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches

www.favfamilyrecipes.com

Be still my beating heart. These are SO good. I put a little less cream cheese, just so I could pretend it was kind of healthy.

2. Ham and Cheese Sliders

www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com

To die for.

3. Crispy Chicken with Creamy Italian Sauce and Bowtie Pasta

www.jamiecooksitup.blogspot.com

This recipe is no joke.  There's nothing else to say.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for another wedding and new and improved picture galleries on my website!

Erin and Austin's Wedding Programs

A few months ago, Erin and Austin enlisted me to help with their wedding invitations. Here's a picture to refresh your memory:

When it came time to make programs, Erin wanted to use the same tree graphic and create a booklet for the program.

We pulled the tree and the layout of their names from the original invitation to create a cover for the the booklet.

This type of program gave them plenty of room to have their ceremony order, their wedding party and family, and a thank you note to their guests.

We took the cover and incorporated it into each page. I absolutely love them...they tied their invitation in perfectly with their wedding day. Congratulations, Austin and Erin!

Anna and Matthew's Wedding Invitations

I have found myself feeling a little pressure to blog lately. I'm not sure if anyone else who is attempting to run a side business and sees their blog as a way to show the work they're doing feels this way or not, but I do.

I've been working on some fun projects lately, but because of that, I haven't thought about blogging so much. But I really do want to keep up with the blog, and I truly do enjoy showing the work I've been doing to my dedicated readers (shout out to my mom!).

So this is what I've decided: I'm going to let myself off the hook. I tend to think that my blog posts have to be these well written pieces of work that my dad would be proud of (shout out to Ron!) and sometimes there's just a lot of word vomit, if I'm being honest. But if someone comes to my blog, they probably just want to see some nice invitations, right?

So I'm going to stick with my goal of weekly blog posts, but I'm not going to pressure myself to post anything more than photos of wedding invitations that (hopefully) you'll think are nice. OK?

With that said, here are Anna and Matthew's wedding invitations. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Anna and love the simple, beautifully textured wedding invites that she chose.

Wait...go back. Zoom in if you must. Look at the texture of this paper. That was my favorite part. Oh, the texture.

I love the font. Anna found it online and I actually tracked down the name of it so we could purchase it. This may seem like I did a lot of investigating, but really I just had to go to MyFonts.com and post a question on their 'What the font?' forum. I was amazed when the font was identified in about an hour.

Sweet little RSVP card.

I loved the printing on the envelopes, too!

(Side note: there is no Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Smith on Broadmore Drive in Miami, Florida. There may not even be a Broadmore Drive in Miami. For some reason, blurring out addresses has given me a slight amount of stress in the past few months and it needed to stop. All addresses from here on out will be fake. :))

While I've been working on invites, I've also been trying to accomplish some fun fall things, too. I personally feel that the fall weather could up its game here in Michigan, but that's just me.

I'm not crossing things off rapidly by any means, but a couple of things have been accomplished. Let's just say I've been trying new recipes out like a madwoman (thanks, Pinterest!) and have taken a lot of walks in the rain thanks to the aforementioned Michigan weather.

Happy Fall!

Heidi's Wedding Programs

As previously mentioned, I flew down to Chattanooga a few weeks ago, where my chauffeur/BFF Kauri picked me up and took me to ATL for the wedding reception of another one of our BFFs, Heidi. 

I feel led to mention our other BFF, Rach, who now comes with a beautiful little addition, Elizabeth (who I may have hogged shamelessly all weekend). Here we all are, shortly after we all met up at Heidi's house. Also, shortly after Ms. Elizabeth spit up all over me. Ironically, this did not stop the hogging.

Heidi asked if I could do programs for the reception, as well as the original invites. Even though it was going to be a more casual event, she still wanted people to come and know what kind of evening they could expect. 

Here's the program, photographed by its twin (AKA - the invitation).

Photographs courtesy of Amy Sayre Photography. Of course.

Heidi and Mike threw one heck of a party, if I do say so myself. That surprise dessert mentioned on the program was an ice cream truck that just rolled into their driveway halfway through the night. This, in addition to two different kinds of cupcakes and two cakes. Definitely my kind of party.

You can even check out more about it (if you are a wedding lover like myself) on her blog, Parties for Pennies. The amount of little detail that she put into this reception was incredible.

Several sets of programs and a wedding to follow in the next few weeks!

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

A little sneak peak...

Have I mentioned that I love my photographer? Wait...yes. I have. Right here.

Well, it's worth repeating. You see, I came home from work today in one of those moods. Girls everywhere know what I'm talking about. Everything in me was screaming, "get in your pajamas as fast as you can!" And I did. It was just one of those days.

Well, when I opened up my laptop I had the best surprise and it almost brought me right out of my funk (I said almost...I am currently in my pajamas laying in bed and it is 7:23 PM). 

I had an email from Ms. Amy Sayre, of Amy Sayre Photography, telling me that I had a photo gallery awaiting me. That is, a photo gallery of my invitations. I had sent her the projects that I've been working on the past few months and I was anxiously waiting for her to tell me she was done. However, since she has a full time job on top of her photography business and she's planning a wedding and she just moved, I was not exactly expecting anything for a while. But that Amy Sayre...she gets me every time. 

So here's a little sneak peak of some of my favorites. I love them and they'll be seen on my website very very soon. 

I love them. And there are way more than this. The best part is that she still has even more to send me. The surprises will keep on coming. Let's hope it's not at the end of another one of those days. 

To end things, here is something productive that I was able to get done today during my good old planning hour at school (planning, schmanning...I've got a fall to-do list to make). 

This is my official fall to-do list. Ahhh, fall. 

I think I'll make progress on two of these tonight. Update the pictures on my website and be in bed by 11 each weeknight. Or in tonight's case, 8 PM.

Month End Review

I've decided that making a monthly to-do list and posting it on my blog is a must. Even if absolutely no one but myself and my mother see it, it is seriously the best way to hold myself accountable to getting things done. It certainly worked this month. No, I did not accomplish everything on my August Fun List...in fact, one thing I threw out completely. But I sure did a heck of a lot better than I would have if I hadn't made it at all. Check out all of these crossed off tasks:

A few things:

-The Big X over 'attempt to enjoy gardening' is because I threw that one out the window a few weeks ago. I had become so frustrated with my attempts at gardening that one day I just started yanking plants out of my garden. I've honestly felt 100% better about gardening ever since (so maybe I should have considered that an accomplished task?).

-I did not buy any perennials but my mother offered me some irises from her garden (which are now planted in my front garden, albeit dead).

-The plan was to hang up curtains that I already owned in our guest bedroom, basement, and kitchen, but it turns out that curtains that were appropriate for an apartment do not always seem appropriate for a grown up condo. So, new curtains are on my to-buy list for the fall. 

-Make a picture I love into a canvas will also be on my to-buy list for the fall. I ran out of money this month because of my pinterest inspired projects... 

But here are some photos from things that I did do this month.

1. Complete a Pinterest inspired project. Done, and done.

I had been eyeing this idea for a while. 

http://belladia.typepad.com/bella_dia/2006/08/fabric_panels.html

So here's my own version.

This one Pinterest inspired project turned into a complete office makeover. As I was doing it, I was suddenly inspired to move all of my invitation related things into our guest room and I now have an official area to do my work. Other projects suddenly came up, like painting the desk in the picture. The desk was the bottom part of an old hutch my parents gave me that I painted with 4 year old paint from my old apartment. It is now my new desk and I love it.

2. Hang out more at my parent's pool/spend time with my niece and nephews.

I combined these two goals and brought the nephews and niece right to my parent's pool...in fact, there was another gathering there this afternoon. I've also just taken a few afternoons to go over and read by the pool, which also has helped me accomplish the ever so important goal of relaxing.

Oh, just look at how happy he is. 

We also enjoyed some of this, poolside:

which came from here:

http://stephaniecooks.blogspot.com/2010/12/cake-batter-bark.html

I'm telling you, if you're not on Pinterest, get on there. Right now.

3. Dance the night away with some of my favorite ladies in Atlanta.

This was definitely accomplished, along with visiting Chattanooga, all in one trip. I loved every single minute!

I consider this goal more than accomplished because we not only danced at my friend Heidi's reception, we also danced around the greek restaurant that we went to for dinner the night before, and then came home and had a little dance party in Heidi's living room (pictures intentionally not shown...). 

All in all, there was a good bit of dancing. :) 

So there are a few of the things I accomplished. I also did learn a word a day (www.wordsmith.org), continued reading (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), hit up a few thrift stores (though I came home empty handed), and managed to get all of my photos into Kodak Gallery photo albums. It was a good month. 

Now off to make my September to-do list...more on that later. :)