Charlee's 1st Birthday

Charlee's mommy, Sarah wanted to do a fun Queen Bee theme for her first birthday, because, well, she is the queen bee in their home! We had fun with chalkboard backgrounds and some fun fonts and Sarah was gracious enough to take wonderful photos that I could share. Check out the photos from Charlee's big sister's birthday too: Georgia's 1st Birthday.

Here's the invitation: 

First we created water bottle labels:

Next we created labels for all of the food items:

All in keeping with the "Queen Bee" theme.

Favor tags!

Next we did both cupcake toppers and wrappers.

Lastly, I created a faux chalkboard that shared a bunch of Charlee's accomplishments in her first year. 

I love how everything turned out! And thanks again Sarah for sharing the wonderful photos with me. Happy birthday Charlee!!

Cameron's 1st Birthday

Cameron's parents have called him Cam-Man since he was born, so his mom Lindsey wanted to do a PacMan theme. Perfect!!  We had a ton of fun with the invitation:

No worries, I changed their address and phone number. 

A pennant banner was next:

I created a t-shirt graphic that Lindsey ironed on to Cam's t-shirt using DIY transfer paper.

A high chair banner adorned his seat, complete with ghosts.

Happy birthday Cam-Man!

Check out when Cam turned two and shared his birthday party with his big brother, Tyler. And here's what we created for Tyler's 1st birthday too!

Tyler & Cameron's Birthday

While they are still young, Lindsey wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to have a joint birthday party for her two boys. She chose a pirate theme and we had fun coming up with a few items for the big day.

I had some fun with the wording!

Lastly, I created t-shirt graphics for Tyler and Cameron. 

It's not easy to read, but they say "Aarrg matey, I'm Captain Cam" and "Captain Ty" and their age is printed on the skull's eye patch. I love how they turned out!!

Happy birthday Cam and Ty!

Matthew's Red Egg & Ginger Party

My husband's family is Chinese and it's a Chinese tradition to celebrate when a baby turns one month old. This tradition dates back to when infant mortality rates were high and new moms would spend a month in postpartum confinement. At this one month birthday, mom rejoins the world and they announce the baby’s name to family and friends.

Red represents good luck and happiness. Eggs are symbols of fertility and renewal of life. Ginger is representative of the postpartum mama; an ingredient that’s beneficial for her postpartum recovery. 

It’s also tradition to celebrate when a baby turns 100 days old. Since we live two states away from most of our friends and family, we chose to have Matthew's Red Egg & Ginger party closer to his 100 days birthday. 

Here's the invitation I created:

I had originally created a simpler invitation. When I showed it to my husband he joked that I should create a cartoon of our son riding a horse (it's the Year of the Horse), holding a red egg and some ginger. It was too awesome of an idea to NOT do!

We invited about fifty of our friends and relatives to join us at a local restaurant for a traditional Chinese banquet. I created a centerpiece that was made from an 8.5x11 piece of card stock that I tri-folded and put information on each of the three panels. One panel listed the evening's menu, one listed the names of everyone sitting at that table, and the third panel briefly explained the history behind the shindig for our non-Chinese friends and family.

Since a Chinese banquet is serves family-style on a lazy Susan, these centerpieces were easily moved once the food started coming out.

Lastly, I created this fun favor tag that adorned red, plastic eggs that were filled with ginger candy. My older son loved having the responsibility of handing these out to guests. 

It's often common to give dyed, hard-boiled eggs to guests, but neither my mother-in-law nor I wanted to boil and dye that many eggs. They never really end up truly red either, they usually end up pink. 

If you'd like to see more from my son's Red Egg and Ginger party, check out the full post on Mama Say What?!

Our Holiday Card - 2015

This was the second year we attempted to take Santa photos with both of my boys. Last year's card was such a hit (at least for me), that we dared do it again. This time, my mother-in-law was in town when we scheduled the photo session, so my oldest asked if she could be the one to wear the Santa suit. She was happy to oblige. 

Despite both my husband and me making silly noises and faces behind the photographer, our toddle simply would not smile! Meh, we tried. Thank you FotoFly for hiring photographers who are great with kids and take some pretty rad photos.

He cracked a tiny smile when he got to eat a cookie though. He inherited my sweet tooth. 

We printed our cards with VistaPrint and I was thrilled to get them mailed well before Christmas. I'm pretty sure I can count on one hand how many times that has happened. 

This holiday card design is available in my Etsy shop in the fall. You can view the listing here. Merry Christmas! 

New Holiday Cards

It's a little later than I wanted, but I managed to get a few new holiday cards designs and added to my Etsy shop this past week.

I'll be accepting orders for holiday cards (whether custom or in my Etsy shop) thru Sunday, December 20th. After the 20th, I will deactivate holiday card listings in my shop and spending the week of Christmas with my family.

All of these designs have a couple of options when it comes to either a text color or a background color. Clicking on an image will take you to its listing in my shop.