"I am thankful for the mess to clean after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends" ~ Nancie Carmody

So one thing I love to do is a host a party! Whether it is our annual Halloween bash or a baby shower for my girl friends, I think it's a great way to use my creativity in decorating and personally making the invitations. It may take some extra effort ~ OK... it takes a tremendous amount of extra effort - but I love working in Photoshop and/or hand making the invitations myself! I know there are a ton of invitation companies that are there to make life a little easier. But why take the easy route, right?

In August I threw a baby shower for my best girl friend, Aubree, who just gave birth to a beautiful boy, Xavier (post below). The "theme" for his nursery are just a few colors: bright aqua blue, light blue and orange. Without a character theme I was stumped on the invitations. So I decided to just create my own... For Aubree's invitation I created every detail all the way down to the stroller and it's pinwheels. I was pretty happy with it! Looking back there are a few things that I would change. But I can't change it now... unfortunately.

(I have decided to blur out all personal information seeing as how my blog is not private...)




In October I decided to overwhelm myself and host TWO parties in one day... Yes, I know. How could I be so naive? Did my mother drop me on my head as a child?? I think the answer is yes to that question! The first party was a baby shower my friend Emily who gave birth in November to Lily Cathryn! And the second party was our annual Halloween bash. Below are my invitations...

For Emily's invitation I created everything again. Every ladybug and the gingham pattern to look like a picnic blanket. It may look slightly angled, but it's just the pattern. I did not want it to be perfect.



For the Halloween invitation I wanted to create a vintage, classic look that would reflect our decorations for this year's party. Usually we go all out with the gory, gruesome decorations - which is fun and very scary - but I wanted to do something softer and a bit more relaxing this time around (maybe because I so humbly accepted the challenge of hosting two parties?) I unfortunately am not creative enough to create my own Photoshop brushes, so I used some free ones that I found online, did my own cropping, created the stained background color, and glued the two pieces to a beautiful plum color card stock. Here you see the plum background to give you the effect...

Front

Back

Although it's not MY party, David and his buds asked me to create their invite for the annual "Hunting Invitational". This is a weekend of crazy antics, drinking, shooting things (including pumpkins from Halloween) and just trying to see who's the bigger dork in my opinion! It was the first invite that I completed and David loved it.





Give me some feedback! I would love to know what you think. If you like what I've done and think I would be a great referral for friends and family, PLEASE feel free to let them know. I want to try and get into the business of creating personal invitations. Whether it be your bridal shower, a child's birthday party or a wedding... you name it, I'll try it and put 100% of my effort into making a beautiful invitation for any occasion!