basketball

When we bought our house, the sellers left us this awesome basketball hoop for Jonathan. Isn't that so awesome of them! As you can tell, he is loving it.

packaging

One of my very favorite things about selling my work is the packaging!  I'm a firm believer that if you buy something handmade, you should feel like you are getting a gift.  This philosophy influences how I work with people, the details I put into my designs, and my packaging.  Below are a couple of instagram shots of my packaging....when will I pull out my DSLR again???

My items are always wrapped in kraft paper or put into a kraft bag.  I have these Paper Source vellum oval label stickers with my shop name that go on top of the bag.  I often wrap some baker's twine or put washi on the bag as well.  I was keeping it simple here.

I think it's fun when you get mail and the outer packaging looks special.  I try to use fun fonts for the addresses but now that I usually print labels from home, this doesn't happen as much.  There is always washi though!

All this packaging talk is motivating me to wrap the rest of the Christmas gifts....

Have a great one!

Ellie :)

embellished envelopes

My new favorite thing?  Ruffled envelopes. 

Step 1: Get a diet coke cold from the refrigerator.  Cut lots of strips of gold paper. Note: diet coke is very important for all crafting sessions.

Step 2: Ruffle the paper and sew it onto kraft envelopes.  Trim excess paper strips and stray pieces of thread.

Step 3: Enjoy your embellished envelope.

Have a great weekend!  I hope you're all surrounded by scraps of paper :)

weekend in Arizona

This last weekend, Matt and I drove to Arizona to meet up with my family and visit my grandpa and his wife June.  We packed up our CRV on Thursday night, met up with my brother Andy, and caravanned across the desert through the night.  We safety arrived in Arizona (thank God!!) and got to bed at 3:30 am.  We decided that our bodies just aren't cut out for late nighters!!

We met up with my parents the next day and spent the rest of the weekend with my grandpa and his wife, June.  It was a really special time to all be together.  This time felt extra special because my grandpa is my last grandparent alive.

Wow...that was hard to write.  My dear sweet grandma passed away last year.  These past few months I've really been struggling with this realization.  She was sooo incredibly special to me.  When she knew I was missing her, she took an extra interest in me and would fly me to Wisconsin to visit her every summer.  These are some of my very favorite memories of childhood.  I can still smell her wonderful smell (Grandma, I promise it's a good smell!!), see her smile, hear her laugh, and feel her hug.  Oh I miss her so.

And as I miss her, I think back on this weekend and know how special it was to be able to sit across from my only grandparent, Jonathan's great-grandpa, and hear him chuckle, and see him soak us all in.  I'm thankful for this weekend.

Here is a four generation picture:

Have a happy Tuesday!

Ellie :)

grey patchwork stationery

I love making things for people who appreciate them.  I find so much joy in creating so when someone else likes what I make, I am instantly happy.  I immediately move that person to the top of my "remember to make things for these people" list.  Well, such a list doesn't actually exist, but it does in my mind!

Anyway, my friend Sarah of go deep. find truth. commented on one of my stationery packs on Instagram.  I was so touched and instantly wanted to make her a mini pack as a little happy.  I sent her this little package and she was so sweet to do a write up on her blog about it.  I promise...that wasn't my intention...I just wanted to brighten her day.  Well she made my day with her blog entry so it was a nice little win-win for both of us :)

Here's said mini pack...

weekend away

While I was with these fabulous ladies this weekend....

my sweet husband was taking care of this precious face...

Girls, thank you for an awesome weekend!  Matt, thank you for taking care of J so I could go!  

shop open!!!

Hi everyone!  I'm so excited to share that I have a few things listed in the shop!  Woohoo!  I have four personalized ruffled notepads listed that would make perfect little gifts with the holidays approaching.

I can add any initial you'd like to make this a personalized gift.  Check them out at my easy shop.

Have a great day!

:)

could he be any cuter?!

I was just looking back through my iPhone pictures and saw this one.  Could he get any cuter!?  

sewing on paper

I wish I could spend every nap time sewing on paper and catching up on my favorite tv shows.  Well I can't do that every nap but I did on Friday!

Happy weekend everyone!

new designs

I have been having a complete blast working with some clients to create personalized stationery for them.  In the process, I've created some new designs.  It's always so much fun to be able to add new designs to my portfolio so future clients have more to choose from.  Here are a few teasers for you all!

I shared this post at Sew Chatty's Made with Love Monday.  Check it out at www.sewchatty.com!

cozy wedding part 2

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all doing well and enjoying your weekend.  We are doing well here.  Matt is gone on a football trip so it's just been me and my boy this weekend.  We've had a great time but oh how we miss Matt. Yup, I started this post last weekend.  Our internet is so slow that it's taken me all week to get back to it and get the pictures uploaded!!  

I'm excited to share the invitations I made forever ago for Mariah's wedding.  This was such a fun project for me.  Mariah is special to Matt and I because besides being an awesome person, she delivered Jonathan!  We feel eternally grateful to her for that and honestly feel like she is our hero. :)

This was also a fun project for me because it got me out of my box.  I am very comfortable with working with many different textures on paper.  I am constantly combining paper with fabric, sewing, wood, paint, etc.  But this project was done mostly on the computer.  It took a lot of trial and error and a lot of time teaching myself new programs but I am so pleased with the end result.  I'm going to show it to you in the order that you'd see it if you got this invitation in the mail.

First, the envelope.  I used kraft square envelopes, wrapped a piece of washi tape around it, and then stamped the tape with this stamp by Ann-Marie.

I wrapped the invitation and the RSVP card together using twine.  

Invitation, RSVP card, envelope....

I had so much fun with the design of the invitation.  I used some color blocking and loved combining different fonts to give a fun, eclectic, and elegant feel.  

For the RSVP card Mariah wanted a fun postcard and this is the wording she came up with.  Love it!  Once again, love the combo of fonts and colors.  

It was such an honor to create these invitations for the Lipmans!  Thanks for reading along!  

cozy wedding part 1

My friend Mariah Cozy (now Lipman!) got married on September 15th and I had the privilege of being involved in pieces of the design process!  She had me make the invitations and RSVP cards which I'll share later in the week.  She hired the incredibly talented Beth O'Brien to design the whole event and let me tell you, it was amazing.  Beth outdid herself once again.

Beth hired me to make signs for the wedding and reception.  I had so much fun working in digital instead of with paper and glue.  Paper and glue will always hold my heart but it's fun to add more skills into my toolbox.

The wedding was outdoors, elegant, simple, anthropology-esque, and just divine.  Here are the signs Beth had me make.  She did all of the decorating around the signs- I just created the physical signs.

Here's a sign that was at the entrance of the venue.  Beth found the amazing vintage door and wanted to hang a sign in the middle.

Here's a close up of the sign so you can see what it says.  I had so much fun mixing different fonts and colors.

Here's a guest book sign.  Aren't the flowers and mason jars gorgeous?  I love how the modern frames and clean signs look along such feminine, beautiful decorations.

This sign was to tell guests to sit wherever they want.  Again, I had so much fun mixing fonts and colors.

A simple sign for the bar.

And another simple sign for the menu.  Once again, I love the mix of modern and vintage here.  Can't you just tell that Beth is so good at what she does?

I also made a sign for the photo booth but forgot to photograph it!  Darn.  Oh, well...I think you get the point.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  Come back by later in the week so you can see the invitations.

Ellie

Parties I linked to:

funky polkadot giraffe
sew chatty

my two guys

Oh how my two guys love to play with each other.  :)

Have a lovely day!

Ellie

birth announcements

In my last post I showed some sneaks of a project I was working on and I'm finally here to share it!! Val's (my lovely sister-in-law) dear friend, Jacque, had a baby girl and she asked me to make her birth announcements.  What an honor! I know how special it is to announce to the world that your bundle of joy has arrived so this project meant so much to me.

Jacque and her husband, Fed, decorated their sweet Eva's room in grey and pink.  They wanted something modern yet still feminine to match her room colors.  They have an adorable banner hanging in her room so of course I incorporated a banner into the design.

Of course I went with Paper Source papers because their colors are divine and the quality of their papers can't be beat.  We used cement colored card stock and mounted it on strawberry.  The bolder pink, rounded corners, clear font, and charcoal print gave the invitation some modern elements.  

The banner.  Oh how I still love banners.  I used a variety of papers to make this eclectic banner, sewed it on, and added a little e for sweet Eva.  I am pleased with how this feminine, whimsical banner softened the invitation for a little girl.  

Another close up of the details :)

I really enjoyed this project.  If you are in need of any cards, announcements, tags, or invitations, I would love to partner with you!  Remember to start thinking Christmas cards!  

Have a wonderful day!  

Ellie :)

lately

Just wanted to share a few sneaks of what I've been up to lately.  You'll see the finished project soon!!

Happy Wednesday!

ruffled bag

At my baby shower last year, my wonderful friends gave me a beautiful ruffled bag (that they made!!) full of goodies for me to take to the hospital.  I've used it so much since then - as a purse, a beach bag, a diaper bag....basically it's perfect for anything.  My lovely sister-in-law saw it when we were in St. Lucia and asked if I could make something like it for her.  She wanted several ruffles all across the front in bright colors.  Here is what I came up with.

It was really fun to make and now my mind is swimming with other ways I can decorate these adorable canvas bags.

how did it happen?!

It feels like just a couple months ago that Matt and I were welcoming our sweet boy into this world.  How in the world has it almost been a year!?  It just doesn't make sense to me.  My heart hurts with how fast he is growing up but it also sings with how much I love him and his stage right now.

Every night before we go to bed, Matt and I peek in on Jonathan and it hit us both this time how big he is.  Look at him!!

My heart swells just looking at him.  He's been sooo busy lately.  He is trying to walk and this week alone, he fell three times while trying - he busted his lip once and hit his head twice.  He also smashed his little finger in the closet because he's getting into everything!  I guess this is the life of a baby learning to walk.

So even though he is soooo busy during the day, he crashes at night.  Love this boy.

happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July everyone!!  Out here, we affectionately call it the "Friends' Holiday" meaning every year we spend it with our friends and J's little friends.  We go to the Rose Bowl, have a big picnic on the golf course (yes, we even park on the golf course...avid golfers everywhere are crying) and then watch the fire works.

It is always soooo much fun to be with friends and now, with all of the babies, it's so fun to see them play and enjoy being with each other.  Here is my little monkey on the 4th.

He basically only wanted to cruise around the stroller the entire time.  We were nervous about how he would do being up so late and with the fireworks but he did great!  He was so distracted so being up late wasn't an issue.  And the fireworks?? Loved them.  At one point, he was pumping his arms up and down and making a bunch of delighted noises.  Success!!

Matt loves holidays so much and I've enjoyed getting into them with him.  Here is our little family all decked out.  

All the mommas with their babies.  

Here we are last year.  I can't believe how much has changed....mainly Jonathan is here and almost ONE and Lindy is gonna have another little nugget in September!  Can't wait.  Oh, and Beckett has a lot more hair :)

And here are all of the proud dads!

As we were watching the fireworks, I had my sweet boy snuggling in my lap and my wonderful husband sitting beside me.  I was surrounded by wonderful friends and their babies.  I couldn't help but feel so blessed.  Blessed for our freedom, for God's love, and for the community we have around us.

where have I been?!

Oh my goodness.  Where have I been?  Matt kindly pointed out last night that I haven't posted for awhile...thanks, Sweetie!  It's good to know that I have at least one reader out there!!

Well.....life has been crazy.  With a capital C.  Here's the update.  We are trying to sell our condo.  That alone is a HUGE job.  We've been cleaning, decluttering, and since May 8th, have had to keep it in perfect condition for showings.  Mr. J, aka the sweetest baby in the world, has also become the busiest baby in the world!  He is cruising, trying to stand on his own, and is now trying to walk!  He keeps trying to walk on his own and then of course falls flat on his face.  He'll get it.  But in the meantime, I'm busy keeping playing with him, taking care of time, and cleaning up after him.  So yeah, we've been busy :)

But I do miss this place and promise I'll share some of the fun I've been up to.  This summer I'm working on wedding invitations (woohoo!!!) and some other fun stuff.  And I actually took out some scrapbooking stuff over the weekend and had a chance to play with paper.  And let me tell you it was good for the soul.  So yeah, I'll be around more.

Have a wonderful Monday!!


Oh, and here are some older pictures of my busy boy :)

 He love climbing on everything and anything.  Doesn't he look mighty proud of himself?!

Thanks for helping with the laundry, little Mr! Pardon the blur.  It's just too cute and funny not to share.

[project life] week 7

Week 7 aka Valentine's Day week.

We had a great week!  Since I completed this week long ago, it's fun to look back and remember all we did.

I enjoyed using these wood veneers for the heart bullet points.  The entire scrapbooking industry (myself included) are obsessed with wood veneers.  Other great ones are all from Studio Calico: birds, people, cameras, and mini stars.  I also used plenty of wonderful washi tape and label stickers - they are my main project life staple products.  

Highlights from the week:

• Flowers, a beautiful necklace, and a gorgeous sweater from Matt. 
• Breakfast for dinner on Valentine's Day night.
• The boy using a bath chair (that we used only 2 times - so not worth it)
• J's first overnight at Beth and Ed's so Matt and I could go out for Valentine's Day weekend celebration.  We went to an amazing restaurant, Chaya, had drinks at Public School, and went to a hotel.  Thanks Beth and Ed for watching our sweet J!
• Matt's early birthday present - a BOB stroller. 

I hid the note with instructions for J's first overnight in the cute chevron glasslike envelope.  I think I'll be using this idea again soon.  

Thanks for checking in!  

Ellie

he's cruisin'

So this sweet munchkin is on the move!  He is busy, busy, busy crawling everywhere, constantly pulling himself up, and CRUISING.  Yes, he is already trying to figure out how to walk.  How is this possible!?  He's only 9 months!!

Well, this new found skill that he's working on has messed with his sleep.  I feel so lucky that my baby boy is a good sleeper.  He has spoiled us with many months of nights of 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  I'm sorry if that bothers those of you who have babies who wake up a lot - they all have their issues.  Don't even get me started on J's feeding issues.  Anyway, for the last several weeks (except for while we were on vacation - thank you, J) he has not been sleeping so well.  At his check up this morning, our doctor said it's because he is working on this new skill and doesn't want to be caged in his crib.  The good news is that he is sooooo much fun right now so I'll take the rough sleep if it goes along with these fun days.  

Oh, and a really hard night last night leads to one of these in the morning...