Halloween-themed First Birthday Party Invites

This week I had the pleasure of working with fellow blogger, friend and crafty gal Arwen (catch her guest post on RSC here and check out her mommy blog here,) on some first birthday invitations for her little boy.  She's doing a Halloween themed birthday party and it's going to be so very cute!

We used the Spider Web embossing folder for the Big Shot machine (seriously my favorite holiday product thus far!) and cardstock in Tangerine Tango, Basic Black and Whisper White.

The little vampire stamp is from the Fang-tastic stamp set.  So very cute!  Arwen did a great job watercoloring all of the images using an Aqua Painter and inks in Tangerine Tango, Old Olive, Basic Black and Rich Razzleberry.
On the inside we used the spider from the Batty for You stamp set to create a spooky effect.

Thanks so much for allowing me to help you create these invitations, Arwen!  Can't wait to come up with some equally cute thank you cards for you!  Have a great birthday party!

One Stamptastic Weekend!

What did you do this weekend?  Did you have nice weather?  Our weather was pretty yucky, which made for the perfect weekend for some stamping!  Saturday morning I hosted a Stamp A Stack at my home.  My summer group is generally quite a bit smaller than the rest of the year - but this particular group was a lovely one and we had great fun. 

Mariah and Heather are a mother and daughter stamping team (below left).  I swear that Mariah (age 12) is a future demonstrator.  She takes my card ideas and comes up with creative twists for them!  Alison (below right) stamped with us for the first time, and she's pretty much a pro already!  She won the door prize - the "Of the Earth" stamp set.  I can't wait to see what she comes up with with it!

Janet (in yellow) has been stamping for 15 years (or more!) but was new to my Stamp A Stack's Saturday.  She was so much fun and we just loved having her!

Since the new catalog comes out in just a couple of weeks I did some major organizing and cleaning out on Sunday.  I purchased these totes for 50% at JoAnn's (came out to $4 each!) and labeled them for each of the SU color families.  And yes - there's my kitty Mizzy in the background!

What an attention hog!  : )  Anyways, I organized my cardstock and my scraps into the new color families and arranged it in the totes.  I REALLY hope I can keep it organized like this!

I've told you before that Mizzy is my crafting kitty, right?  She LOVES some cardstock and ink!

I put together a lot of cardstock that I'm getting rid of.  All of the 81/2x11 cardstock below is up for grabs because these colors are retiring.  At my new catalog party in July I'll be selling this for 5 sheets for a dollar!

I also put together a bunch of scrap packs - of pre-folded cards, designer series paper, and cardstock - all in retiring colors and designs.  These are up for grabs for $1 a bag as well.  You can see all of them on my Facebook page by clicking HERE.  Want me reserve some for you?  Live out of town but want to buy some and have me mail them to you?  Just drop me a line at joanneroehm@yahoo.com

And finally, I did some actual crafting myself!  I put together these invitations for my aforementioned New Catalog party...

I miscalculated (by a lot!) and ran out of ribbon about half way through.  I think I actually like the ones WITHOUT ribbon the best - you can see the beautiful paper better!

All in all, pretty productive eh?  Let's hoping I'm setting the tone for a productive WEEK this week!  Happy Monday, everyone!

More Invitations!

Seems I'm on a bit of an invitation kick lately.  That's fine by me, because it means there's lots of parties in our midst.  If there's one thing I like to do it's plan a party!

We don't usually do anything big for Mother's Day.  It's usually hard to coordinate visits to each side of the state to see both Mom's, my parents are usually either just going on or just coming back from vacation around that time, and my Mom's birthday is just a couple of days after.

This year, because everyone has been so busy and will continue to be so busy in the weeks and months before and after Mother's Day, we decided to invite both sets of parents, and Travis' grandmother to our house for a Mother's Day brunch.

One of the things I've loved about owning our own home is having the opportunity to host.  If there's just one thing I love more than planning a party?  It's throwing a party!  And while this is most certainly a small gathering and not formal at all - I'm determined to make it special.

It always feels special to get something in the mail.  So even though we've let our family know ahead of time that we're having this get together, I still wanted to send them something pretty.  I made up these invitations using my Big Shot (seriously the best thing EVER!) and the Flower Fancy stamp set.  Flower Fancy is one of my all time favorite sets - and it's on sale right now for 20% off!  Perfect!

I always like to embellish envelopes when I send something out.  It's like a tease when you get it in the mail - you see the little stamps on the front and just know there's something lovely inside!

I need to run out this evening and get a nice new black gel ink pen to write on the invitations with... I always think that the worst thing about card/invitation making is my handwriting on them!  I figure a nice new pen will make my writing look as nice as it possibly can, right?!

Hubby is the chef of the house, so he and I are putting together the menu over the next few days, and he'll be in charge of most of the cooking.  I'll be handling the decor, and have visions of fresh cut flowers, colorscapes of purples and pinks, and beautiful table settings dancing in my head...

I won't be able to share much more about the Mother's Day brunch until after the fact, since both Mom's pop over to this blog from time to time, but you can be sure that there will be photos a plenty to share in about a month!

Meanwhile, if you have any favorite recipes for brunch to share Hubs and I would welcome them.  Drop me a line in the comments with your suggestions!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:  Stamp Sets:  Flower Fancy, You're Invited.  Inks:  Orchid Opulence, Pretty in Pink, Lavender Lace.  Cardstock:  Whisper White, Lavender Lace.  Accessories:  White Satin 5/8 inch ribbon, Black Stazon ink, Big Shot Die Cut Machine, Top Note die, Texturz plates.  Shop for these products and more at my online store.

Invitations

At the end of last week I sat down to design the invitations for Lily's Bug Birthday Party.  Here's what I came up with...

I used Stampin' Up!'s "Bugs & Kisses" stamp set for the cards, and folded the envelopes out of scrapbook paper in the same design as the fabric swatches I showed you before.

Over the weekend, Heather (Lily's mom) and I assembled twenty matching invitations and envelopes.

Heather is new to stamping, and was a little intimidated - but she did PERFECTLY!  In fact, she ended up doing all the stamping (every single one of those colored bugs!) while I did the cutting and assembling.  I think the insides of the invites look really cute, too!

We had a lot of fun chatting, stamping, and assembling, and I think it made both of us even more excited for the party!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:  Stamp sets:  Bugs & Kisses, Introducing.  Inks:  Real Red, Only Orange, YoYo Yellow, Orchid Opulence, Green Galore, Tempting Turquoise.  Cardstock:  YoYo Yellow, Whisper White, Green Galore, Real Red.  Accessories:  Stazon Black Ink, Real Red 1/4 Grosgrain Ribbon, Big Shot Machine, Texture plates for the Big Shot.  Want to order any of these supplies or other Stampin' Up! products?  Head to my SU website and click on "Shop Now"

Holiday Invitations 2

School is over for the semester and I am just thrilled! I took last night and this morning to finish up the invitations for our Holiday party that we're hosting in a couple of weeks.

It's pretty low key - we ask everyone to bring a dish to pass and a beverage to share, and we also ask them to bring an item to be donated. Last year we did toys for Toys for Tots, this year we're doing pet-related items for local animal rescue organizations.

I'm really pleased with the way these turned out! The cards open up and I printed all of the party information on the computer and adhered it to the inside.


Products used: Chocolate Chip, Real Red, Old Olive and Very Vanilla Cardstock, Merry Moments Stamp Set, Real Red Grosgrain Polka Dot Ribbon, Chocolate Chip Ink, Sanded Background Stamp.

Holiday Invitations 1

One thing I love about the Holidays is that they give me lots of opportunities to play host. I LOVE to play host! Travis and I are hosting a Holiday get together for his team at work, so I whipped up some invitations for him to pass out.



Instead of handwriting the text, I printed it up on my computer real quick, then used Stampin' Up! products to embellish it.



Stampin' Up! Products Used: Merry Moments Designer Series Paper, Chocolate Chip Cardstock, Real Red Cardstock, Old Olive Cardstock, Real Red Polka-Dot Grosgrain Ribbon 1/2 inch, 1 1/4 inch striped Grosgrain Ribbon Old Olive.

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

Bachelorette Party Invitations!

I've held off posting these for as long as I can stand it! I was trying to wait until people received them in the mail - but I couldn't wait any longer! (Note I blurred out the details so Alison couldn't peak when she reads this!)




As you can see, I'm organizing Alison's Bachelorette Party - it's going to be SUCH a great day! I was really pleased with the way these invites turned out.

More crafty fun coming this weekend. Now that I'm done with Mariah's Get Better box - I have a whole host of projects in the works. Stay tuned - and Happy Friday!

Alison Bridal Shower Invitation Update 2

They're done! I love projects that don't take months to do! (Especially since the shower is about 5 weeks away and the invites need to go out next week...)

Alison Shower Invitation Update 1

Through blog and e-mail feedback, the consensus was that the flowers looked best when monochromatic (big word!) or when both sets of petals were one color, with a different colored center - like this one:


I sat down and started the physical production of all of these invitations. After looking back at my notes I realized that I only needed 36 - so I'm making a total of 40 (plus one for my files.) Although all of the cutting was kind of a pain in my ass (believe it or not I do not own a paper cutter - I measure and cut EVERYTHING by hand! Side note to friends and family: a paper cutter would make a great Christmas gift next year...) these were so simple to put together, and can serve as a basic template for many types of invitations. You can replace the flower with ribbon, a sticker, or any kind of embellishment you want. You could also use decorative scissors and punches to further embellish the edges and borders.

I did these invitations to fit an A7 size envelope. I cut three rectangles out of different colors of cardstock which each measured 5 x 7 inches, 4.5 x 6.5 inches, and 4 x 6 inches. The cardstocks I chose for the two backing pieces had some texture, and a little bit of shimmer:


I then used ink-pads and a stamp for the details. As you may know by now, I hate my handwriting - and use stamps like these whenever possible. I'm passing these invitations on to another one of Alison's bridesmaids once complete so that SHE may hand-write in the details!




For the flowers, I used embellishment fabric flowers from the craft store, and a color-coordinating brads (glorified paper fasteners!) for the centers. I used a tiny hole punch through the center of the petals and cardstock layers to place the brad into:


Super easy, right?! One down... 40 to go. More to come soon...

Alison Bridal Shower Invitation

The goal with these invitations was to create something simple that was quick and easy to put together since I needed to assemble a large number of them (originally the number was 50, it's now down to 39 - but I plan on making 45 to allow for error.)

After much toying around, I came up with a simple layered look using faux flowers to tie it together (I hate glue - so messy - and this allows the design to have some motion.) Here it is:


*Disclaimer: When I'm trying to come up with a concept I don't measure, use a ruler, take my time making sure stamps are inked correctly and don't smudge, etc. so know that these pictures are not representative of the quality of the final product!

So then I thought I'd reverse the colors and see what happened:


Now to me, the green flower looks weird. I mean, there are green flowers out there, and they are beautiful - I know that Alison was investigating some for her bouquet and such. But here, on this invitation, it looks weird to me.

I never like one group of invitations to be identical - I think it's fun to create a set that you can mix and match components so that every one is a little different. I'm having trouble with the green flowers though - and I don't know if it's legit, or if I've just been staring at them for too long.

So I'm turning to you (my readership of 4!) to help me. I've put together some layered flowers below using both green and pink. You'll have to envision them on the invitations above, but let me know which ones look good - and which are just, well, a little odd!