Turning Neon

I want you to meet my friend Sarah.  She's kind of a big deal.  We met, oh, 23 years ago?  She was 9.  I was 11.  She and her sister Kelly had a collection of Keds any kid would die for. And don't get me started on their school supplies.  They were the envy of the school, I tell you.  Well, maybe not the entire school, but after seeing Kelly whip out the most awesome pencil case we'd ever seen, me and my seester pretty much knew we'd all be friends for life.  

Sarah is always armed with amazing ideas.  Her creativity astounds me.  She and I tend to egg each other on when it comes to the "more is more" quotient, so when I was crying about not having time to do anything for the shower, she offered to help me.  And I couldn't love her more for it.  When I told her I was thinking of doing a neon color scheme, she jumped on board with lots of office supplies in hand.  Literally.  She flew from Seattle with a basically a carry-on of goodies for the shower.  

Julie wanted a shower that was "fun" and not ultra feminine, I took advantage since I've always wanted to throw a party filled with stuff from Confetti System. Luckily, Sarah loves them, too.  I say 'luckily' because she and Kelly spent a quite a few hours making CS style tassels for the party.  Sarah and I share a passion for large balloons, Geronimo style so that was a must at this party.  And we were also in love with this photo shoot.  So, put them together, add Sarah, and this is what happens.... 

The dessert bar.  You didn't think I'd have a party and not involve Priti, did you?  Yes, my friends, Priti put on another insane display of desserts. O.M.G.  The things this woman can do with desserts makes me speechless. And if you know me, you know that hardly ever happens.   If you need to take a moment please do. And take your time. The backdrop was pretty fantastic.  When we put it up, we all sort of got giddy.  

The champagne bar.  Julie loves champagne cocktails so this was a DIY champagne bar. Check out the detail over the windows if you can get beyond the sunlight.  Sarah's idea.  Looks like the invites.  She's a clever one, that Sarah.  So we took it to the tables as well.  More is more.  

The food table.  Sarah made the awesome artwork with artist's tape.

The whole set up.  I'm still giddy.    

The balloons.  I can't take it.  They are too cute. 

A full shot of the dessert bar.  Look at all the color!

And another shot of the dessert table.  Priti, me love you long time.  

Pink velvet cake push pops.  Seriously.  And chocolate bark.  And don't forget the chocolate cake shooters there on the bottom right.  Can dessert get any cuter than this??

Brownies and Prit's famous cake pops.  I'm going to need to get a napkin.  I'm drooling again. Pretty soon, I'm going to start drooling everytime I see Priti.  

Let's get a better look at those cake pops.  Peanut butter chocolate chip.  Would it be cheesy to say 'amaze balls'?    

Petits fours.  Need I say more?  I've always wanted to attend a party where they serve things on little spoons.  I can check that off my bucket list.  

It's never truly a party without food labels. 

It's never truly a party without wrapped plasticware.  Martha would be proud. 

The decor outside. She texted me a picture of these while she was at Home Depot and asked, "Am I crazy?"  I was like "Crazy awesome!!!"   These are neon flags that you might typically see on construction sites.  Just not as cute.  But for this party, it lined the pathway to awesomeness.  

We couldn't leave the living room untouched.  Sarah came up with this awesome idea to cover up Kelly's existing artwork and make something that fit our color scheme a bit better. Too cute.  

Closeup of the fireplace.  Love. 

My seester was in charge of getting flowers for the event.  And, yeah, they were kind of awesome.  

We decorated the dining table with flowers, paper rosettes and streamers.  Once again, my friend Mandy was involved in the labor portion of this as well. I'm pretty sure between her and Sarah, if they never see another score board again, they could die happy.  

Kelly has a beautiful buffet, so this was our ode to the post-it note wall.  This is also where we kept the favors and prizes for games.  Julie is hardly ever seen without a shawl, so for the prizes, I bought some brightly colored shawls that went with the color scheme.  

The favors.  Julie is always all about her lip balm, so we packaged up some lip balm for everyone to take home. 

The photobooth.  Julie is the queen of the camera.  She is known for her love of taking pictures.  So we had to include a photo booth.  Sarah spotted this fabric that I had in my archives stash and it was kind of perfect for the backdrop.  Sometimes you need a second set of eyes to help you see that you have a fabulous party in the making with stuff you already have around the house.  

Go on over to Sarah's blog to get the nitty gritty on all the supplies! 

I can't forget to thank my seester.  She always has to hear my woes and insecurities and everything else that goes with the pressure of planning an event.  So, thanks for always listening to me, Seester.  And thanks for the awesome flowers and staying up later than you probably wanted to help us set up.  You are my better half.  

Thanks again, Mandy.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to overstay my welcome with your craft labor pretty soon.  But, I hope it's not until after the wedding.  

HUGE props to Kelly for letting us take over her house.  She was a good sport about us taking over her living room and dining room and kitchen and office and making tassels and cutting tape and well, she was a good sport about everything.. And she was 7 months pregnant at the time. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, Kelly.  You are a rockstar in my book.  

Thank you, Priti.  You really outdid yourself with this one.  I always love working with you on parties because I know that you care about the little things just as much as I do.  And whether you can make amazing cake balls or not, that puts you on my top 10 list of favorite people ever.  But the cake balls help.  Just sayin'.  ;)    If you happen to be in the Dallas area and you want to make your party fabulous, contact me and I'll put you in touch with Priti.  She does more than just desserts.  I think her work speaks for itself.  

Thank you, Sarah.  I cannot really tell you how much I appreciate how much you helped me.  I kind of owe you my life.  Or at least my craft room.  You started out as just being Kelly's little sister, but over the years I feel like you've turned into my little sister.  Love you.  When are you moving back home?  We could make beautiful parties together....

Neon Crafternoon

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Bridesmaids is when Kristen Wiig opens up a package, which happens to be the invitation to her best friend's bridal shower.  And the butterfly flies out and keeps getting in her face.  Makes me laugh just typing it.

When it came down to picking a color palette for my friend Julie's bridal shower, I wanted something vibrant without using any color palettes she is already using for her wedding events.  Neon seemed to be the answer. I have been totally obsessed with this neon trend that I've seen lately.  It's everywhere.  

I had a hard time figuring out what to do for invitations after I picked the color palette, though.  Aside from having crafter's block and making about 4 different versions of the invite, I got a little cocky while ordering supplies and didn't feel it necessary to order plenty of extra supplies for mistakes.  Not sure why my confidence suddenly took over because I make plenty of mistakes, but it did and I had to go with Plan B.  Then USPS didn't seem to love my ideas either.  They delivered one of my packages of supplies to Pennsylvania.  No where near where I actually live.  So that left me with Plan C, which turned into Plan D once I realized I was really short on time and Plan C wasn't going to happen.  But, sometimes Plan D turns into Plan Delightful and you can't complain.

This was the final product.  I had another design going, but by accident I dragged the shape and ended up getting this long line.  I thought, 'hey, that looks like fringe!' So I went with crazy with it.  And then I remembered these amazing invites and I knew I was on to something.  Even though the neon colors on my computer didn't translate to colors that printed, I think the invite looks vibrant.  I backed the invite with neon pink paper, but forgot to take a pic of that.  

I made separate hotel cards since most of the people invited are from out of town.  Since I couldn't find or order neon yellow baby envelopes, I made them myself out of neon yellow cardstock.  The pink flag is a high visibility label from Office Depot that I cut down to the size and shape I wanted. These may or may not resemble the labels that may or may not be missing from our office supply cabinet at work.   

                 

For the envelopes, I decided to get fancy and do some calligraphy.  Here is where I got cocky.  I didn't think I'd make enough mistakes to warrant purchasing another set of envelopes - they came in sets of 50 - so Plan B came into play when I realized that I am not as perfect as I thought I could be.  A huge blow to the ego, but I'm a survivor.  I'm not going to give up.  I'm not going to stop.  I'm going to craft harder.  Sorry.  Had to do it.  

I used Dr. Ph Martin's Bombay White India Ink as opposed to Dr. Ph Martin's Bleed-Proof White - what my old calligraphy instructor suggested - because that was all I could find at my art supply store and I'll just say - for other calligraphers out there - I didn't love it.  Buy the Bleed-Proof.  

I printed the mailing address with a white pen on more of the high visibility labels.  Obsessed.  I use these for everything at work, so it makes me happy to see them used on something like a bridal shower invitation.  

Here is the entire ensemble together.

I am a big believer that all envelopes should be lined.  So as much as it hurts me to cut pretty paper, I made sure to find some awesome paper to line the envelopes.  

And just because nothing makes me happier than seeing a stack of envelopes, here they are all ready to be mailed.

I was never happier to finish these particular invites since it was Murphy's Law from beginning to end.  But, I would have never finished them without Mandy.  She came to my rescue and helped me assemble everything and didn't say a word when I asked her to help me line 42 envelopes. Thanks, Mandy.  You're wild!!!!!!  Inside joke.  Just ignore me.  And thanks for listening to my crazy brainstorming sessions and not hitting ignore when you saw me calling you, Seester and Sarah. There are very few people in this world that will sit and talk envelope liners for an hour and you ladies are two of them.
 Julie and I are neck deep in stuff we have to finish for the wedding, but I can't say I don't love every minute of it.  I'll have another post for you soon.  Love it. Love it. Love it. 

Oh, and if you haven't already guessed it from the title, I've been singing this song in my head for the last two weeks or so. 

Old School

This one is old school, but I figured since everyone was back to school this month, I could legitimately post it.  That and I am procrastinating.  I have an audit at work on Thursday and I don't quite feel the pressure yet. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?  That's my motto.

A cousin got married a little while ago - back in 2009!  OMG, time flies! - and I co-hosted the bridal shower along with her two sisters. She answered her calling to be a teacher.  And she loves it.  So, we figured we'd throw her a school themed shower.  So fun. 

The color scheme was chalkboard black, chalk white, and Granny Smith Apple green - aka chartreuse. Humor me here.  I wanted to do a modern take on the teacher-apple concept so instead of a red apple we went with green. 

The envelopes were black to resemble a chalkboard. I addressed them in my best old school penmanship using a white pen.  I remember when I was in elementary, penmanship was actually my worst subject.  I would get marks against me because I wouldn't slant enough.  Or I slanted too much. Annoying.  The ironic thing?  Now, I get soooooo many comments about my handwriting.  Ha.  Take that, Mrs. Denniston!!!! 

The invitations were file folders much like a teacher might assign a student to take home. I couldn't resist adding a black label on the front to write A + P, her and her (now) husband's first initials. 

The invitation was inside the mini file folder.   I designed it so that it looked like a loose sheet of paper filed away.  For the RSVP, I added "remember to do your homework by the due date" at the bottom of the invitation.   

I've seen my nephews' take home folders from school many times, so I knew there was always some sort of spreadsheet that teachers include to show the students - and parents - what their homework assignment was.  Usually it is handwritten by the student.  So, I included "homework" for each guest to RSVP and gave all the information they would need to RSVP as well as the registry information.  I then paper clipped it to the file folder to prevent anyone from losing their homework.  :) 

Here is a full shot of the invitation.  I started out writing each guests name on the file folder tab to personalize it a bit more, but I didn't like how I wrote some names so I left it off for the majority of the invites. 

Andrea's sister's took pics, so you'll have to trust me when I say the shower was really cute.  We made a ton of decorations.  I had to throw in a penant banner, of course.  We played charades - an aunty favorite in our family - with wedding words.  Then, we surprised the guests with a true or false "pop quiz" about weddings. 

Andrea has her students do an "All About Me" posterboard so they can all get to know each other, so her sister created an "All About Me" for Andrea with pictures of Andrea growing up.  She can now use it in her classroom for her students to get to know more about her!

You know I couldn't leave out the classic old school lunch bags. These held the favors, which were personalized for each guest.

Inside the bags we included goodies like erasures and pencil sharpeners as well as these pencils which I had custom made to say A + P = 12.19.09, their wedding date. 

The shower was a big hit and so much fun.  It was a good mix of friends and family so we partied for a good 6 hours.  It was probably the most fun I've ever had putting a shower together.  My girl cousins are pretty awesome, so the planning process was just about as much fun as the shower itself.  I can't wait for the next one....

April Shower: The Details

Here are some of the details!  With 60 people attending, I knew the bulk of our budget would go toward food and drinks.  So the challenge Anita and I had was to pack a big punch on a relatively small budget.  I think we mostly succeeded.  Lesson learned here....when you make something, take a picture of it at home if you want a picture of it.  Setting up was pretty intense, so I didn't get pictures of everything. Boo.  But, here's what I did get pictures of.....

The advice cards.  This is something I like to do at showers because showers can get hectic.  This serves as an opportunity for each person attending to write down something special for the guest of honor that they might not have a chance to say at the shower itself.  Their thoughts, words advice, or wishes for the guest of honor can later be kept as a keepsake for the guest of honor.  I usually like to keep them private but often people like to have them read out loud. 

Here is a close up.  I designed the cards in PSE using the same elements from the invite.  I kept them long so they coordinated with the invitation.  The pens were made by one of the hosts, Priti.  She's an amazing cook/baker/crafter - as you can see from my previous post.  She covered each pen with floral tape and added a silk flower to the tops.  It's hard to imagine that something so cute was also functional.  We ended up placing each pen at each place setting along with a little box of chocolate covered raisins - Priti's doing - and it looked really nice....but you will have to take my word for it.  That was yet another one of the pictures I didn't get a chance to take. :(

The favor bags.  Priti got these cute white lunch bags for guests to fit all their goodies in.  Despite how roomy they were, some guests still filled two and sometimes three bags up.  I don't blame them.  If I was a guest, I would have hit the dessert table up before the food.  Just sayin'.

  

Here is a close up of the tags I made.  I used my silhouette to cut out 60 tags and wrote "Love is Sweet" on each one.  

I wanted something guests could just clip onto the bags to close them with, but I couldn't find any red medium sized clothespins.  So, I did what any self respecting craft addict would do.  I called my friend Mandy over and we hand painted 60 of those puppies.  And I don't regret one second of it.  It was the perfect shade of red and the perfect amount of cuteness.  

Then, as if that wasn't enough fun - it really was - we tied bows around the tags and placed a glue dot on each one so that guests didn't have to fool with adding their own tag.  They just had to place the clothespin on their bag and call it a day because the tag was already attached. 

Here is what they looked like in action on the dessert table. Oh my.  I'm so proud of them.  I think I just teared up.

The napkins. Since there were so many people, I wanted the buffet to run smoothly and didn't want to have anyone having to go back to get their plasticware. So, I wrapped the plasticware with a napkin. But, well, you know me.  I can't just leave it at that.  So I added a doily and some ribbon.  Doily, have I told you lately how much I love you? 

The tables.  The tables were 72" rounds, so I knew I needed a centerpiece that made a statement.  I would have loved to have had real flowers, but it wasn't in the budget.  So, Anita helped me make some tissue flowers that tied our whole color scheme in.  Much to Mr. Bean's chagrin, I used our cereal bowls as vases to hold said flowers in.  He only missed one morning's worth of cereal, so no worries. Then, I added ribbon because, well, I'll say it again, ribbon makes everything prettier.  For an extra punch of color, I used my old fall back and cut wrapping paper.  Priti brought her left over silk flowers and we tossed them around the centerpieces.  What I didn't get a snap of was the favor boxes Priti made with the chocolate covered raisins in them. The tables looked pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. 

The photo wall.  OK, so here is where I get a little crazy.  Only here though. ;)  Sharmee loves:  red, hearts, and taking pictures.  So, I thought, why not incorporate all three into her shower? So I did. I made a photo wall.  Anita was forced to wanted to make some tissue poofs that we hung around the photo wall.  We bought a lot of other elements that we didn't have time to hang but I love it all the same.  I was really nervous it would look cheesy.  And, well, it did.  In a good, Sharmee kind of way.

Here is the close up.  Anita and I made cut out the letters with the silhouette, which was hung using clothespins to cut down on time.  I then made a few doily banners and then attached lots and lots of streamers and ribbons to a pre-made tinsel curtain.  Unfortunately, the photo wall wasn't used but twice. And by twice I mean only two pictures were taken in front of it.  So, it was a lot of work sort of wasted but at least I got to try my hand at a photo wall.  I did learn a few things about these backdrops, though.  No matter how huge it looks in your house, it will look very puny in a 34' x 26' room.  Also, I shouldn't have let the tear down crew at it so quickly.  There were plenty of people helping me tear down that could have taken pics with it.  So.  Better luck next time.

All in all, I have to say I will never do this again. Ha.  Seriously, though, about 50 people ended up coming.  That is a lot of people.  We couldn't really do a whole lot with decor, but I think Anita and I managed....what do you think??  :)

I hate to make this out like an awards ceremony, but....thanks to everyone that had to put up with all my crazy emails.  I know they were almost a daily thing. :) A HUGE shout out to Priti.  You are amazing and so talented.  And to Julie for helping coordinate everything.  And to Anita for putting up with my obsessive craft-pulsiveness.  And to all the people that helped set up, namely Sonal, Bhavik, Mehul and Kishan.  We couldn't have finished everything without you guys.  And to Mandy for always willing to put in some hard labor for events you will never see in person.  That's dedication.  And lastly, HUGE thanks to Sarah and my Seester for having to listen to my worries and woes. Love you guys.

April Shower: The Invite

I will break this post up for those that have short attention spans because, well, it's a lot of pictures....  

I co-hosted a bridal shower for my friend last weekend with 5 other women. Four out of the six of us coordinated everything and poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the decor and food.  The blood was negligible, because really, you can't be a paper crafter and expect to escape paper cuts.  The sweat was, well, sweat.  The tears mostly came from Mr. Bean every time I told him we'd have to order in again, but he managed to stay alive. 

We anticipated 60 people would attend - 78 were invited - and had only an hour to set up.  This was definitely the biggest event I'd ever worked on with the most number of hosts, so for about 2 weeks I literally lost sleep trying to wrap my head around how we would pull the shower off.  But, I think we did a really good job considering. Half of us were working from out of town so big props to the iPhone, email, FaceTime, email, camera phones and email.  Yes, there were a ton of emails....thank you internet and Steve Jobs!

Once Anita and I hashed out a color scheme, we got to work on the invitations.  Sharmee's favorite color is red, so Anita and I were sure to incorporate that in the color scheme. I pretty much drove Anita crazy because I couldn't make up my mind whether to make the invitations or buy them despite the fact that in a few days I was leaving the country for almost two weeks.  To me, the invitation sets the tone for the event, so I am always careful to choose the right invite.  And, I will admit, sometimes I over think it. Handmade invitations aren't always the most cost effective approach despite the perception that DIY is cheaper.  Especially considering we had to make at least 65 invites.  But, it is a labor of love.  I think anyone that crafts will agree with me on that one.  But, I'm hard headed and crazy and paper is my thing so we went with handmade.  Since I used quite a bit that I already had in my stash, these invites ended up costing a lot less than buying something online. 
 

I designed the invite in PSE and went through about 200 different design options.  But, I finally decided to go with a long invite since we had so much text and I wanted to keep it as clean looking as possible. 

Originally, I wanted to add double faced satin ribbon to make a bow that would wrap around the invite, but the floral element threw me for a loop since I couldn't get it to not completely clash with the envelopes and the ribbon once it was printed, so Anita came up with the clever idea of using our scraps to make sort of a mod belly band around the invite.  Awesome idea.  

The invite fit into a #10 standard sized envelope.  I created some labels for each envelope since addressing 65 invites wasn't exactly the best use of my time 4 days before I left for Ireland but I still wanted them to look pretty and not like we just slapped labels on.  So I created some cute labels with fonts from the invite.  Anita was kind enough to put up with me a while longer and cut all the labels down and apply them while I was gone.  The label folds over the backside of the envelope and reveals the return address.  The invite was not what I envisioned originally, but everything I wanted it look like.  Love when that happens.