simply rosy blog

This has probably been the most intricate order I have ever received…for 200 invitations!  I was busy with assembly for quite a while on this one.

The client wanted something festive and elegant for the Christmas party celebrating her son’s recent marriage, so I chose classic Christmas colors in subtle metallic red and antique gold, accented with a vellum wrap, and tied with a shimmery red ribbon that the guest opens like a present.  Perfect for a holiday party!

One of my close friends is from Arkansas, and she is going home to participate in the Jones Center Arts & Crafts Festival in Springdale, Arkansas, in just a couple weeks.  In case you are unfamiliar with the event as I was before this year, the Northwest Arkansas Craft Fairs are a huge series of fairs held twice a year in various cities in Arkansas.  I was hoping to be able to attend with her and share a booth, but since I cannot go, she has offered to take my wreaths with her.  She makes lovely nursing blankets, embellished burp cloths, and toddler pillows, so if you are interested in any of those, please email me for her contact info!

When I started planning for the fair, I thought I would make just a few wreaths to display, but as you can see from the table of cuteness above, I got a little bit carried away once I began shopping, and the final count is eighteen.  Our house was overrun by wreaths for several weeks while I worked on them, photographed them (thank you to my husband for helping with that, his photo/video site is Pixel Grill), and packaged them for the trip.  You can see a gallery of all the completed wreaths here.

When I first met with this client, we went through several different design options and settled on a monochromatic layered look using different shades of blue.  However when I saw this paisley print at the paper store in cornflower blue and chocolate, I had to show it to her, and she loved it just as much as I did.

I made a gatefold card with cornflower blue, textured cardstock, and the paisley print was layered inside under the main part of the invitation with a tiny border layer of chocolate, and there was also a photo seal on the front of the gatefold card.  The client chose chocolate envelopes for both the RSVP and mailing envelopes which was a nice touch, and I layered the RSVP cards with the paisley and used a brown pearl to indicate the location of the wedding on the map.  It is truly a gorgeous invitation, and one of my favorites so far!  (You can see the completed invitation here.)

As you can see, I am still faithfully using my big, yellow ATG tape gun.  It saves me so much time and energy on every project.  I can’t imagine assembling so many invitations without it.

I had a lot of fun making these party invitations for my son with scraps of leftover paper in bright colors.  Since he was born, I have not made “real” paper invitations for our little family very often, so this was a nice treat to do that for his party.

I have just recently begun to sell diaper wreaths after making them for years for friends and family, so here are a few pictures of diaper wreaths I have made over the years.  I made this tiny wreath (around 13″ diameter) for an out-of-town friend who needed an inexpensive gift for her sister’s baby shower that was happening near me.  I included a small set of boy onesies and socks, and filled the rest of the wreath with travel-sized samples of baby products.

The pink wreath pictured below was for a coworker, and I hand-painted wooden letters for her name. (Shh…don’t tell, but they did not have a letter “E” at the craft store, so I grabbed a number 9 and turned it over to substitute for the “E”.) When I was shopping, I just LOVED those tiny little pink sneakers and had to include them!

This wreath for Mason’s Mom was a collaborative gift planned with a group of my online friends from a Mom forum.  A few different people sent items to put on the wreath, and one lady sent these super-soft, premium organic prefolds in a natural color that matched perfectly with the set of organic onesies I had found to include.  I thought the result was gorgeous, and our friend was thrilled to receive it in the mail for her “virtual baby shower”!

A lot of people are doing digital invitations for showers through Evite and other services, but there is something special about getting a paper invitation in the mail, even if it is pretty simple.  For this baby shower we did a combination; I made a folded card with the details printed on the inside with a few cute graphics like a teddy bear and rattle.

For the front, I cut a onesie and an umbrella (baby=onesie, shower=umbrella ) out of coordinating patterned papers and glued them on with foam adhesive squares to make them a little bit 3d.  For the umbrella handle, I used coated black jewelry wire and curled the end around a pencil.  I then created a digital file from a scan of the front of the invitation, and we made a custom Evite for more tech-savvy guests, and for a simpler RSVP process.  Best of both worlds!

When I made the invitations earlier in the month, we were unsure of the baby’s gender and therefore made the invitations neutral, but as soon as we found out she was having a girl, I started to work on the diaper wreath for the shower.

I used premium quality prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers and also ordered a couple nice diaper covers that were given as a gift separately from the wreath.  I loved the pink and lime green color combination they used to decorate for the shower, and the diaper wreath was displayed on the china cabinet behind the cake table as the main decoration.

If I haven’t said it before, I absolutely love the store Paper Source.  It was actually one of the first online stores that inspired me to make my own wedding invitations once I saw one of their custom invitation designs in a wedding magazine as well as their beautiful textured paper line called “Luxe”.  They were also incredible with customer service – willing to talk to me on the phone for hours and send color samples to make sure everything was just right once I did make my order.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when they opened a store in my area a few years ago, and yet again, their papers inspired the invitation for my son’s baby dedication.  In the Luxe line, they have the palest blue color called Frost that I thought was perfect for a baby boy invitation/announcement/etc (they also have a pale pink called Blush and a pale green called Glass), and I have always loved their solid PS Collection Chocolate cardstock.  I didn’t make many invitations for his dedication, just mainly for his grandparents and aunts/uncles, so I felt free to do something a little more detailed than “the usual”.

When my Mother-in-Law and I shopped for his outfit (she does that for all of her grandchildren along with a nice portrait session, which is so sweet), we found the most adorable little old-fashioned outfit that suited him perfectly, and my favorite part was the buttons at the waist, so I added a ribbon and button detail to mimic that part of his outfit.  I also hand-stamped crosses onto plain vellum with a metallic pearl pigment ink to wrap around the invitation, and used Chocolate envelopes from Paper Source for the final touch.  Even those few invitations took quite a while to complete, but I think the end result was worth it!

Don’t get me wrong, I love making invitations,…but assembling a large order while eight months pregnant is proving to be much more difficult than I imagined.  I am so grateful to have quite a few family members who have offered to help.  I’m not sure I could finish without them!

These monochromatic invites are absolutely gorgeous.  The bride wanted all white and cream, so we designed the invites on white luxe paper and added a few touches of shimmer with organza ribbon bows at the top, an opal metallic backing, and opal metallic inner envelopes and RSVP envelopes.  Doing the inner envelopes in a shimmer and the outer envelopes in the textured luxe paper creates an effect almost like an envelope liner, but without the extra cost.  I think the final result is very elegant.

A friend needed a rush order on baby shower invitations, so we designed a very simple, double-bordered invite with a cute patterned paper in different shades of blue and green and then a solid color cardstock.  I couldn’t quite decide which color of cardstock worked best, so I used all three!  Simple and inexpensive, but still adorable.

This Mom wanted to fill a new bookshelf rather than receive toys, so for this book-themed party, I made the invitation in a booklet style with a short fairytale about the birthday girl inside.