Baby Shower for Jude

Oh the joy of becoming an aunt for the very first time!!! I can't wait until the end of July when my sister, Jessie, finally has her baby boy! I took on the thrill of planning the shower (of course) and I think it went well. This was my very first attempt at making an invitation and it's also what made me fall in love with the process.

I drew the owls based on an owl I found online somewhere. I wanted to do a turquoise background so I used a glue runner to adhere the khaki card stock to the turquoise.

Front

Back

Kraft policy envelopes. I wrapped the address label around the side for some cute character.

Something I learned the hard way: These were 2 stamps/ea. I didn't know this until I got a few back "postage due" after sending them off...UGH. When I took them to the post office to find out what the dealio was she told me they couldn't put them in the reader with the address label wrapped and the twine closure.

And here are some pics from the party!

The cakes

The "it's a boy" banner I made that morning...procrastinator...and the food table.

The baby mama and me

Me, Jessie, my mom, and Brandye

Little Shane :)

Brandye and the boys

hope your weekend is fantastic :)

jenni

Birthday, Powered Parachute Ride, & Nail Stamping!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Today was my 26th birthday. Mixed feelings. We (Bryson and I) went to Dallas last night for his birthday present that kept getting rescheduled because of bad weather. 8:30 am we arrived at Future Flight for his *surprise* birthday gift...a flight on a powered parachute! He is obsessed with flying so this was perfect. While the instructor was setting up he asked if we'd like to split the flight (it was an hour flight but we could split it 30 min/person). So we did! Bryson went first...

Then it was my turn!

It was amazing!!! 1000ft up. Sooo much fun. If you get a chance to take a tour like one of these...do it.

In other news, my mom got me a bunch of plates for nail stamping! I've never tried it before but it's pretty cool. She got me a giant thing of nail polish (it "requires" nail stamping nail polish), along with 17 plates, the stamper, and scraper. Really all you need is the stamper and plates. You could use regular nail polish and an old credit card for a scraper. Here's my first try:

You'll need your nails already painted and **DRY**

Paint the stamp you want to use...you really don't need too much, just enough to cover the entire stamp.

Scrap the excess paint off the plate with the scraper.

Firmly press the stamper against the plate...I went right to left as evenly as possible. You'll see the art on the stamp.

Stamp the art onto your nail, just like when you transferred the art to the stamp. And then of course, TOP COAT! My fav is Seche Vite. Dries in like 10 min.

*You'll need to transfer from the plate to the stamper to the nail quickly because the polish dries pretty fast.

Here's another one I did:

Voila!

Good way to start my 26th year :)

jenni

Bridal Shower Invitations

Even though I started this blog after doing a couple projects, I thought I'd go ahead and add them just in case someone out there is looking for inspiration or something :)

I'm the MOH for Brittney's wedding, so I've been busy busy designing the invitations and planning for the upcoming parties. I just finished the Bridal Shower invitations, but not without some frustration and cash down the drain. I'm still learning this whole invitation making process and I'm definitely learning from my mistakes!

I had a grand plan. I thought it was at least. Let's not drag this out. The "plan" didn't work. I bought all the card stock, spent hours on the design, printed out everything, and then decided to put them together. Please people, take it from me...DO NOT print everything and then try out your fancy plan. Nothing worked. They were supposed to be envelopments (the inside of the envelope is the invitation) and they ended up being a disaster. Let's move on.

Gotta start from scratch. That design just wouldn't work. So I searched for inspiration. I went through my jenspiration reel in my mind that night. Then, I woke up with a whole new plan. And here it is:

I printed the invitations and Best Wishes cards on textured card stock (Hobby Lobby). Her wedding color is coral, so I went with that.

After printing everything and putting the invitation and Best Wishes card in the envelope I realized the BW card was way too small, no one would even notice it and just pull the invitation out. So I devised a new plan. I found some clear photo corners at Joann's (I'm sure Walmart or HB sells them cheaper but I just happened to be in Joann's when the idea hit me) and adhered them to the back top left corner of each invitation and voila!

On to the envelopes. I really like the Kraft envelopes, they're usually thick and super cute for a natural look.

And here's the finished product all together.

btw, I use Inkscape for all my designs. It's free, not super user friendly, but similar to a program I had been using that suddenly crapped out on me, so it wasn't too hard to pick up.

Hello World!

Well, I've done it. Brittney, one of my best buds, and I talked about this weeks ago. I mulled it around a while and then it left my mind as soon as I got hungry and started thinking about queso or cookies or whatever may have popped into my mind at the moment. Then, today the urged returned after finishing some invitations for Brittney's Bridal Shower and talking with Bryson--my roommate--about my new found love for card making and my long term relationship with party planning. So here it is! I don't plan on updating daily...I have a life, ya know...but when I get some "jenspiration", a funny story, or a crazy thought I'll be sure to add it to my new blog!

Until next time.

jenni