Our Holiday Card - 2016

We were back at FotoFly this past fall to take some fun photos with Santa. I donned the Santa suit this year as we brainstormed with our photographer some new poses that would work for our two boys. My oldest asked he we could take a selfie with Santa and it ended up being the best photo.

For some reason, we were busier than usual this year and failed to get matching PJs figured out in time for the photo shoot. I asked my boys what they wanted to wear and Hawaiian shirts won. I only wish I had thought to throw a "hang loose" sign with my right hand when we shot this.  

The back was kept simple with my boys showing off their goofball selves.

This holiday card design is available in my Etsy shop in the fall where I use your family photos. You can see the listing here. Merry Christmas!

Cindy & Scott

Cindy and Scott were planning a beautiful mid-October winery wedding in northern California and wanted to use simple and straightforward designs for their wedding invitations. I was more than happy to oblidge!

First we created a simple save-the-date with a chalkboard background. Cindy had these printed with VistaPrint. The matte finish really showcased the chalkboard texture.

When we got started with the invitation, they wanted to keep the same overall look with a chalkboard background, but incorporate their wedding colors: blue and gray. 

These were printed by FolgerGraphics in Hayward, CA. 

For a response card, Scott had fun creating a Mad Lib for guests to fill out. This was really fun to create for them!

The response card was a simple two-sided postcard. Their address has been changed to protect privacy.

For their wedding day, Cindy's dad (who's a wine maker), bottled his delicious Zinfandel Rosé for guests to toast with and I designed a custom label to go with them. Waterproof labels kept them from wilting when the wine was chilled.

In lieu of a traditional guestbook, Cindy's dad went above and beyond and had a giant wine bottle filled with his delicious Zinfandel wine and engraved with the same label design. He then built a wood mount for the bottle that allowed it to be spun without risk of it rolling off of the table. Guests signed with metallic silver Sharpie markers. This turned out SO cool!! 

The bottling, engraving, and painting was done by Doc's Trophy Shoppe in Napa Valley, CA. They did an amazing job!

Cindy and Scott's wedding was a blast and I really appreciate the invite. Congrats!!

Custom Mason Jar Labels

I love canning. My mom taught me how to make jam when I was a teenager and she learned how from her mom and her grandma. Growing up, we had a plum and an apricot tree in our backyard, so when June and July came around and the fruit was ripe, we'd hurry to pick the ripe fruit before it fell or the birds got to it. Then we'd spend an afternoon cleaning, pitting, crushing and stirring pots of molten sugar and fruit. The reward at the end of the day was the satisfying POP when the jars sealed and snacking on the leftovers. 

If you've never made jam before, it's fairly simple and lots of fancy tools aren't required. I didn't own a water bath canner until this year. I just processed jars in my big soup pot. I don't own a pressure canner either. I love this post and send it to anyone who's interesting in canning for the first time. It's a great place to get the basics. 

Half pint mason jars are my favorites to use, (both in standard and wide mouth, but in late summer, they sell out pretty quickly in my local stores, so I will order from Amazon, and save from having to drive from store to store hoping some are still in stock.

Every year my husband and I typically give whatever we canned as gifts to friends, coworkers and family, so the jars naturally NEED some sort of fun label. I created a couple of new ones this year and I added them to my Etsy shop for purchase.

Thanks to a local friend sharing the wealth of New Haven Peaches on her tree, I made a few batches of peach jam and peach vanilla butter. 

Then I created a few different versions of the label for whatever else someone may be canning. I have watercolor graphics of many, many different fruits and I'll adjust the background color to make sure there's a good contrast between it and the color of the fruit.

This next design I created was a blast to work on and definitely moves toward the non-traditional when it comes to canning labels.

So far I have created similar labels for strawberry and plum jams. I'll create a breakdancing fruit cartoon for whatever kind of jam you've made. 

This "That's My Jam" theme really only works with jam. Jellies, sauces, pickled items won't really work with this design. But I can always create something different with the same font and overall look, like I did for our "Twerkin' Vanilla Peach Buttah." If you'd like to do a custom label like this, just shoot me a message.

Lastly, this is the label design that I created last year. It's printing on what looks like faintly stripped kraft paper with a custom little fruit or vegetable cartoon.

These can be customized for pretty much anything that goes into jars. I can add a greeting to the bottom or not, totally up to you.

I can set these up to be printed on Avery labels, 22807 for standard sized jars or 22830 for wide mouth jars. If you'd prefer to not go with Avery labels, I can squeeze as many on a page as I can and you can print them onto full-sheet sticker paper and the use a circle punch. It's pretty easy.

Links for each label:
That's my Jam
Script & Watercolor
Kraft Paper Cartoons

As always, if you're interested in creating a custom label with fonts, color, verbiage, or anything that's different than these, don't hesitate to send me a message or email. Thanks!

*This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase an item through these links, I get a few cents and you're helping keep my website running. I appreciate it!

Latiffe & Chris

Latiffe and Chris had a gorgeous destination wedding in Guadalajara, Mexico and they wanted their invitations to reflect that in style. We discussed using papel picado graphics, but in the end decided on using Talavera tile as the graphic inspiration. I adore how everything turned out!

But first, here's the save-the-date we created for them. They wanted a simple silhouette of Mexico with an indication on where the wedding would take place.

Talavera style pottery comes from Puebla, Mexico (where Latiffe's family is from) and is known for bright colors, geometric designs and for having a white base glaze. It was a wonderful inspiration for this invitation and really fun looking at a variety of beautiful pieces for inspiration.

For their RSVP card, we did a very simple, two-sided postcard that directed guests to RSVP on the couple's wedding website. I've changed the URL and their address to protect privacy.

Latiffe asked me to make the map to look a little like a vintage treasure map and I was happy to oblige.

At the wedding reception, they had a taco stand making street tacos for their guests, and I created a menu that sat at each place setting. Photo Cred: Rocio Luna Weddings

We also created a large seating chart that let guests know where to sit. We weren't able to get a photo of it at the wedding, but this is a mockup of what it looked like:

The wedding looked absolutely gorgeous and it's one I wish I could have attended in person! Congratulations guys!!

Liam's 2nd Birthday

Since Liam was WAY into garbage trucks when he turned two (so many toddlers are!), his mommy Joanna, chose a garbage truck theme for his birthday party. It was such a fun theme to work with! Joanna picked up miniature garbage can pencil holders from Amazon to decorate the buffet table and goodie bags were made with mini black trash bags! Perfect!

Here's his invitation:

We created a couple of welcome signs that were posted in a few spots in the house.

2" circle cupcake toppers for the cupcakes that Joanna picked up from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Sooooo delicious!

A pennant banner hung over the windows.

We created a super simple coloring book for kids to play with too:

My oldest thoroughly enjoyed the coloring book!

Lastly, I created a t-shirt graphic that Joanna ordered through Zazzle. They were the only shop that would let us order one custom t-shirt in navy blue. I usually recommend CafePress, but they didn't have navy blue. Taking a non-blurry photo of Liam actually wearing the shirt proved to be very hard, so this is my mockup of what the t-shirt looks like. Someday I'll try and get a better photo. Ha!

This birthday party was so much fun to create and even more of a treat to get to actually go to the party! Happy happy birthday Liam!