Bonnie’s Bun in the Oven Baby Shower Invitations

Bonnie from Tenn Hens Design sent over some photos from her recent baby shower, and the entire shower — from the red and blue color palette to the sweet hand-lettering to the mix of old and new stamps — is just so completely adorable that I broke out into a great big smile when I first opened up Bonnie's e-mail.  Let's start with the shower invitations.

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From Bonnie: The design inspiration and shower theme all stemmed from my childhood nickname — "Buns."  My friends today still call me that some 20 years later!  So we thought "bun in the oven" was an appropriate theme for my shower.  And since I'm not finding out the gender of our baby, we wanted to keep the colors relatively gender neutral and went with a color palette of red and shades of light blue. 

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We illustrated the type and design and made it very loose and imperfect.  We then used a corner cutter and mounted it to a colored sheet of card stock left over from a recent project so that the invitations ranged in border color from light blue to teal.  We also lined the envelopes with paper stock from Michaels. 

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Then we tied the bakers twine around the whole card for an extra little touch.  For the envelopes, we addressed them in the same style as the lettering on the invitation.  We also used old stamps I'd collected, mixed with some new ones (we especially love the new abstract art stamps since they're oversize) and created a little collage of stamps on each envelope.

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We also found ways to continue the design theme through to the party through custom napkin tags, food tags & a baby quiz — all of which were super easy to make and print in the office.

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Thanks so much Bonnie!  Bonnie has posted a bunch of additional photos from the shower on her personal blog, Carolina Postcard.  You can also check out more from Bonnie (and her business partner, Currier) over on the Tenn Hens Design website and blog.

{image credits: tenn hens design}

Pink + Purple Baby Shower Invitations

Azusa, a freelance graphic designer in Los Angeles, sent over this nesting theme baby shower invitation set that she recently designed for a friend — and it's just way too adorable to not pass right along!

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Azusa has also made the shower suite available as PDF templates in her etsy shop, One for You.  The set includes invitations, mailing labels, baby quiz cards, drink tags, baby wish cards, favor tags, and of course thank you cards — and it comes in the original pink, as well as blue or yellow:

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 The flag-shaped drink tags are my favorite detail — so cute!  Thanks Azusa!

{image credits: One for You}

{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone — and Happy Easter to those of you celebrating this weekend!  And what a glorious weekend it's turning out to be!  I'm looking forward to catching up with some blog friends in person, trying to find some time to enjoy the cherry blossoms without getting trampled by tourists (seriously, there are a gazillion of them in DC right now), and hopefully painting a couple of rooms back in the apartment.  But in the meantime…

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…a few links for your weekend reading pleasure:

That's it for me this week!  I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday!

{image credits: anna bond via riflemade}

Yellow Letterpress Graduation Announcements

In addition to flowers and wedding invitations, the arrival of spring usually reminds me of another fond memory – graduation!  I never did announcements for my own graduations, but after seeing these fun yellow announcements by Margaret of Nightingale Handmade, I wish I had!

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Margaret, a budding letterpress printer, created these graduation announcements for her fiance, Luke, incorporating into the text an ongoing joke about how long it took for Luke to find the right school.  Margaret also used the project as an opportunity to play around with her new sewing machine and create a fun stitched border that complements the sunny yellow background and bold black text!

{image credits: nightingale handmade}

{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone!  I'm looking forward to some family time this weekend, and to hopefully wrapping up a couple of projects I feel like I've been working on forever.  I'm not looking forward to all the rain we're supposed to be getting here on the East Coast this weekend, but I suppose that's to be expected this month (and I'm definitely glad that it's raining instead of snowing!).  But in the meantime…

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…a few links for your weekend:

That does it for me this week!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you here again on Monday!

{image credits: shutter sisters via mary ruffle}