Birth Announcement

I was so excited about sending out birth announcements, but after reflecting on how much they cost and how everyone we would send one to has already seen her pictures, it seemed pretty pointless. By the time I reached this conclusion though, I had already designed the card. To not waste the cuteness, here it is:



If you don't get the "Three Is a Magic Number" reference, you should really watch more School House Rock.

Custom Invitations: Flowers and Poetry

One of my friends asked me to design the invitations for her daughter's first birthday and of course I was thrilled to!

My friend wrote an adorable poem and I just decorated the rest of the postcard.

I also made this card for a friend's baby shower.

I'm hoping to adapt these two designs into something for my Etsy shop, which desperately needs an update. That's on tomorrow's to-do list so hopefully it will get done!

The Nursery Plans!!

*drum roll*

After much debate and purchasing of fabric swatches and pinning of various inspirational photos, I am ready to reveal the decor plans for Elizabeth's room, a.k.a. 500 things Katie thinks she is going to sew in the next 5 weeks.



Here is her room before and where it stands today. (Special thanks to my dad and Lee for getting it painted while mom and I went to a shower and ate cake. Yummy yummy cake. And I brought home tons of fabulous baby things. If Zoey did not shed so much, I probably would have already tried out half of it on her. I'm sure Zoey would love to ride in a baby swing while wearing a sundress.)

I wasn't a huge fan of the shade of pink the previous owners had chosen, not to mention the 500 nail holes that needed to be filled, so I went with a khaki. The blue box in the bottom right corner are the new blinds we'll be putting up because I hate the pink fabric ones. (We're actually replacing all the fabric blinds. They were so tricksy to peek out of.) You can see the random miscellaneous pile of Rubbermaid tubs that have been living in here since we moved in that we still haven't found a home for. Also note the adorable llama painting in the glider from a very talented friend. Adorable! What little girls' room doesn't need a llama?! Love it!

In case you're curious, the crib is the Alpha crib by DaVinci, chosen for it's real wood and non-toxic finish. Because I'm paranoid, the crib mattress is organic. The glider is a hand-me-down. We're still looking for a white dresser that can double as a changing table with some extra room on top to store diapering supplies.



I'm planning on recovering the glider and making the crib skirt and bumper. I've got the fabric for it, so now to find the time and courage to proceed. None of it should be that tricky, but I'm still nervous. And the picture didn't turn out super well, but the flowers on the crib skirt are coral and yellow.



A few other projects include decorating white, floor-length curtains (with black-out panels) with pink and yellow yo-yos (like this) and brown buttons in the center, sewing little baggies to organize Elizabeth's stuff in my purse, and making some cloth wipes.

My hope is to take one day next week to do nothing but sew, sew, sew. It sounds splendid. Sadly I haven't spent any significant time with Laura my sewing machine since Halloween (Things I can tell you now but couldn't tell you then: That was the day we found out we were pregnant!).

Pinning Away

Have you heard about Pinterest? It's one of my more recent Internet obsessions, and while I'm hesitant to sign up for one more thing, Pinterest is totally worth it. It's invitation only, but requesting an invitation is easy and I got my invite in a week. So do it. Today.

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Katie on Pinterest

With Pinterest, you can easily "pin" inspiration photos from around the web to your boards. You can install a "Pin It" button in your browser's toolbar and next time you see something drool worthy you can save it to one of your boards. You can follow others and their boards and re-pin items you like. Basically, it's photo porn for those with an affinity for interior design, art and fashion.

Source: ohdeedoh.com via Farrah on Pinterest

You can follow my boards and pins here.

Etsy Shop Preview

I have been diligently working on getting stuff ready for my Etsy shop which should open soon-ish. Well, it exists but there's nothing there to buy.



I still want to get some more cards designed and I need to write store policies and all that, but here are a few cards I made yesterday.

I think I might try some different color combinations for this one, and I might offer color options for all of them.

Chevron makes me happy.

The logo and websites are on the back of everything.

Feel free to share any suggestions or general feedback!

Some New Note Cards

Last Christmas I made a lot of stamped note card sets for gifts, but since then, I kind of lost interest (At least I didn't buy that many stamps...) and have been designing the cards in InDesign or Photoshop Elements to print out. Here are some I made this week. I want to pinch their cheeks I think they're so cute.

I'm also trying to decide what I want to do for Christmas cards. Do I want to do postcards like I did for our housewarming party? The pros are that I still have a bunch of postcard stamps (Someone promised to get all their coworkers' and friends' new addresses but never did. I won't name any names. ; ) ) and additional postcard stamps are less expensive than regular ones. However, if I have the postcards printed professionally, that will cost a bit of money, they'll be digitally printed (to keep the price down and since it's a small quantity) which always results in shoddy cropping, and I'll have a ton of extras since we have about 60 people we mail these to and the quantity choices are normally 50 and 100. If I printed my own postcards, they'd likely get wet in the mail since they wouldn't be shiny and waterproof. Any other solutions out there? I think I'll be printing at home and mailing in envelopes.

An Ampersand Found in the Wild

I have a thing for ampersands. They're the prettiest button on the keyboard: &

I found an ampersand on my shoe the other day and that was pretty happy.