Seattle-based designer and photographer Ariel Nay is expecting her first child – a baby girl! – this spring. The proud parents have already decided to name their daughter Lucy, so an “I Love Lucy” themed baby shower seemed like the perfect fit. Ariel DIY’d the invitations using some sparkly cardstock, a couple of rubber stamps, and a whole lot of love.

From Ariel: My fiancé and I are expecting our first child this March and recently had her baby shower. We’ve already named her Lucy Mae Lewis and felt an ‘I Love Lucy’ Baby Shower was more than appropriate.

While I would have loved to have it all professionally printed, I took my small budget and made most of it by hand. After reflecting on the original ‘I Love Lucy’ logo, I wanted to give it a more delicate typographic update. Using the typeface Nelly Script, I designed the ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘Lucy Mae Lewis’ and had them made into stamps using Simon Stamps. I purchased shimmering red and gold cardstock at Michaels and had the invitation text printed on white cardstock at Staples.

Then, I used a spray mount to adhere the black and white printed text to the shimmering red paper, cut the hearts by hand and stamped the script type on the front and back. For the smaller gold hearts, I used a heart die-cutter and gold paper clips to attach the heart and Diaper Raffle note to the invitation.

In total, I kept right with my $100 budget that made me 35 invitations and the entire project took about 12-15 hours. I would still say hiring a professional printer is an excellent option as they can produce results you just can’t mimic, but it also felt good to make most of this special project with my own two hands.

The envelopes we ordered from Envelope Mall, the addresses were handwritten, Johnny Cash forever mailing stamps were used as they seemed to fit the era, and lastly, each letter sealed with a self-made, lipstick kiss.

Thanks so much Ariel – and congrats!

Photo Credits: Ariel Nay