tailgate shower

my college roommate and close friend kendra is getting hitched this november! she was a huge reason i came to LSU and managed to put up with me and my messiness for 4 years! 4! while living with her, i never experience a bigger tiger fan. she taught me all the cheers and dances and would even explain to me what just happened on the field when i looked confused (which was 97% of the time).

she's marrying a former high school boyfriend (crazy how things work out) and couldn't be more excited. to kick off her wedding festivities, a few of her bridesmaids and friends are throwing her and justin a giftcard shower next month. since justin went to ULL and kendra went to LSU and the LSU/ULL game was in september, we knew had to had to find a way to tie it all together somehow, hence the tailgate shower. i thought it'd be cool to create a ticket and make the wording reflect that, so that's what i was going for. it was such a fun project to work on, i've gotten a ton of positive feedback (thanks guys!!), and the bride loved them, so i couldn't be happier.

photo of kendra and justin courtesy of Krista Ickles

new baby announcements

i just got done finishing up some baby announcements for precious baby cole. i gave tori three to choose from, and while i'm sure she is hard at work addressing, stamping, and mailing out the one she did pick, i figured i'd share the ones she didn't because they will be going in my etsy shop in the next couple of days along with some others. i'll post the one she did pick in the upcoming weeks. isn't he perfect?!?

oink, moo, cock-a-doodle-doo

this next invite was for the one of the cutest little boys i know, so i knew the invitations had to be just as adorable. he turned two and his mom, ashley, wanted to throw a backyard barnyard bash since he loves animals. she really outdid herself from baking an amazing barn cake with matching animal cupcakes to organizing such a fun-filled party; i think we were all impressed with her awesome par-tay throwing skills. but above all, she was such a dream to work with for trace's invite. here is the final product:



in addition to the invite, i created labels/tags for ashley put up in front of the food and drinks like this:


for an assortment of veggies and dip:


a yummy chocolate dip that everyone dipped animal crackers in:


pretzel sticks:


crunch and munch (i think):


for the drinks:




another cute idea she had was to make arrows to all the fun activities the party had to offer:


it was such a great day, and trace racked up with all his gifts! joel and i actually might have made a little scene in target bc we couldn't decided between mr. potato head and a magna doodle...mr. potato head won because joel convinced me of all the learning possibilities mr. potato head had to offer and how trace will learn facial expressions and what not...i can't compete with him when he starts throwing out psychology terms. :)

thanks ashley for allowing me to be a part of trace's birthday! :)

boston or bust

i had a great opportunity to design my first ever "real-life" t-shirt. when my friend megan asked me if i would be interested, i quickly said yes, but then realized, "oh wait, how do i do this again?" i designed t-shirts before in college for a school organization, but i had never seen it through to printing. after some research and talking to people who had, i knew it wouldn't be much different than what i was used to doing with print (with some exceptions of course).

megan wanted the t-shirts made for a field trip to boston (umm, where was she when i was in school??). she gave me their info and a list of places they would be touring and said to just do whatever. my head was spinning with ideas, so i googled the boston skyline, found a pic i liked and basically re-created it. then i thought it would be fun to list all the places out that they were going but make the fonts reflect the words. i had other ideas too, but she ended up being torn between the skyline and word designs, so we ended up just combining them. boston skyline on front with the wording on the back. i LOVE how it came out because i hadn't even thought of combining them (ashley shoutout!), and i must say it's a great feeling to see them in person. usually print products get thrown away or i never see them more than once, but every now and then i see them wearing the shirt and just smile. :) i don't have a picture of them actually in the shirts, but here is the digital version:






thanks again megan for allowing me to get out of my normal print design mode! it was so fun :)

thirty, flirty, and fabulous!

so this was one of the most fun projects i've had the pleasure of creating to date. i've done invites, stationary, and thank you cards before, but never all together! enter jessica (or hostess with the mostess as i like to refer to her as). she had her bff's surprise 30th birthday planned to every last detail and wanted an custom designed suite for lorien including invites, thank you cards, stationary, wine tags, and favor labels. i LOVED the idea and even more that she gave me creative freedom after explaining that she wanted it to be lantern themed, clean, and girly with lots of pink (what else?) along with lime green and teal to coorelate with some of lorien's favorite fabic. i came up with a few different ideas, but once i created this one, i knew it was lorien. obviously her version didn't include the time in which guests would arrive. :) it actually included a different date altogether to really throw her off. these are what the guests received:



then i created wrap-around labels to send the invites in because what's a theme without matching address labels? jessica also gave a set to lorien with her address as an added present to her thank you cards and stationary:



and these are the wine tags and favor labels. jessica wanted me to leave room so people could write their name on the wine tags, and i just thought that was genius. seriously. every detail. :) the labels went on white takeout boxes as a thank you to all the guests.




here are the thank yous that jessica thought lorien would need after such a fabulous party along with personalized stationary for whatever the occasion.





thanks again to jessica for the awesome opportunity and being a dream to work with!