Melissa and her friends are throwing a shower for their friend Nicole, and they gave me a list of what they wanted to see in an invitation:  blue, brown, green, orange, stripes, and ribbon.  And Melissa loves metallic cardstock, so of course we had to incorporate that as well.  What a combo!  How did it all come together?  Check it out:

The double-layered invitation has a printed backing - stripes of blue, brown, green, and orange frame the invitation text.

I added an orange ribbon accent to the invitation panel and a seal with the baby's initials in the middle.

The girls decided that they needed an insert for additional information, so I printed the stripes as a border instead of layering the smaller card.

I paired the invite with a deep blue metallic envelope, and I added a coordinating wrap-around label so the addresses could easily be read by the post office.

I love the whole suite together - very sharp!

These invitations strike a great balance between masculine and feminine – the script font and the satin ribbon soften the impact of the bold, almost nautical colors and lines.  Many thanks to Melissa and the crew for giving me the opportunity to create these sophisticated shower invitations!  I know the party will be a huge success.

Thanks for staying with me through this whole series of baby showers!  I’ve got more that are currently in production and will be blogged later on… and hopefully I’ll be able to share a whole series of birth announcement designs soon!

I’m excited to finally share this with you all – the gorgeous wedding of Katie and Preston, my giveaway winners!  I knew after my first meeting with this couple that their wedding was going to be something special, and it did not disappoint!  Their lovely details earned them a two-part feature on OnceWed.com, which you should definitely go check out (click here for part 1 and here for part 2).  And enjoy these beautiful shots of the event, captured by Leigh Miller.

Katie's stunning ruffled wedding dress was custom-made by Kate Towers.

Katie and her mother sewed all of the fabric items for the wedding, including all of the dinner napkins, and collected heirloom mismatched china for each placesetting.

The florals were all done by Laura and Blake of Hoot and Heart. Such lovely bouquets!

Preston and his dad made all of the wooden benches for the ceremony seating.

The dessert table, which held an amazing array of bite-sized treats for the guests to choose from.

So in love with their stationery suite! Katie designed and created everything - she even perforated the tear-off reply card at home with a sewing machine! Genius!

The bridesmaids chose their own dresses, and Katie's mom made the ties for the groomsmen.

The beautiful cafe lights were also DIY - Preston, his father, and the groomsmen all pitched in the day before the wedding to set them up, and their hard work definitely paid off.

Head over to Leigh Miller’s blog post about K+P if you want to see some more amazing shots of their wedding and read Katie’s write-up of the big day.  It was a pleasure meeting and working with all of the wonderful vendors below:

Photographer: Leigh Miller

Videographer: Ben Bonnet Films

Florist: Hoot & Heart

DJ: The Flashdance

Venue: Condor’s Nest Ranch

Thank you so much, Katie and Preston, for giving me the opportunity to be a part of such a beautiful celebration!  I wish you a long, happy, love-and-laughter-filled life together.

Well, one by one, they’re graduating from pregnant women to actual MOMMIES, and my dear friend Liisa was the first!

Liisa (and I hate to call her by her first name, since I NEVER do, but I want to protect her privacy) and her husband Clovis are the proud parents of an adorable, cuddly, precious little boy they named Xavier.  Throughout her pregnancy, Liisa swore that they were going to name him “Commander” – I think everyone was a little relieved when we found out that he had a real name after all .   I was commissioned to create their birth announcements, and I wanted to do something unique for them.  Something that would reflect their interests, and their personalities… something different.

Clovis and Liisa are both comic book/sci-fi fans, so I worked out a handful of ideas around the phrase “Welcome to Earth, Commander.”  Clovis asked if there was a way to incorporate something from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I (having never seen the movie) did some Google research, found some very interesting inspiration, and this is the result:

The end result: a mock movie poster based on the original design for the film.

I asked Liisa and Clovis to send me some pictures of Xavier to work with, and the blue blanket worked perfectly to create an Earth-like effect around him!  I paired the A7 glossy flat card with a gorgeous deep blue metallic envelope to enhance the “outer space” feeling.

Another angle - note the movie-themed text and the beautiful metallic envelope.

The comment I’ve received the most about these (well, besides the choruses of “Oh, what a sweet precious adorable baby!”) is that people love the slightly scientific touches with the numbers on the invitation – the date, time, and height.  Those little details are so fun, and they definitely add to the overall effect.

Military time on a birth announcement - now that's unique!

“Commander,” it was an honor to be able to design these for you and help welcome you to the world in such an entertaining and interesting way!  You have the coolest parents on earth.

It was pretty in pink for Erin’s shower… but it’s beautiful in blue as well:

Building a Nest, customized for a recent Etsy order

The Etsy listing is for a set of 10, but I’m always happy to set up a custom order if you’re looking for a different number. Send me an email or a convo any time!

Amber and Chris decided to go with a full-service printed option, which included a completely custom front-and-back design, printed A2 flat cards, and color-coordinated envelopes with the return addresses pre-printed on the back flap.

As always, I came to her with two different designs – both of them incorporated Oz Farm as a central element, and I used a photo of the venue and added some mock-painting effects in Photoshop to make it fit the vintage design.

Design #1. Please ignore the error in the date (ooops!).

Design #2.

They chose Design #2!  From there, I was able to work with the design elements and fonts on the front to create a design on the back that coordinated with it.  Here’s how it ended up:

The back of the A2 card, with all of the necessary information for the guests.

We decided to do an envelope in a coordinating color, and I found this gorgeous sky blue envelope that matched the exterior light blue border perfectly!  It’s shown in the picture of the printed product below – minus the pre-printed return address, which has been omitted for privacy reasons.

The printed card, front and back, with the coordinating envelope.

Amber and Chris, it was so fun creating this for you!  I wish you all the best in the upcoming year as you plan your wedding!

Since the SLCs are sort of like mini-schools that operate under the umbrella of the larger school and campus, the logos should have some unifying elements and some elements that set them apart from each other.  Each should reflect the SLC’s theme and course of study.

So, given these overall guidelines, I set out to create four distinct logos, one for each of the following SLCs:

• SHAPS – Sports medicine, Health, And Public Service
• ACCER – Architecture, Construction, Computers, Engineering, Robotics
• CALS – Creative Arts and Liberal Studies
• Green House – for incoming Freshmen students

I unified the designs by housing each one inside a giant “G” (for Gardena) and by keeping the outer ring of text and color the same.  Within that outer frame, each design reflects the unique offerings of that SLC.  Here’s what I put together:

Logo design for SHAPS; I incorporated the caduceus for Sports Medicine/Health and the scales for Public Service.

Logo Design for ACCER - the gears, ruler, and light bulb can all be relevant in the different fields of Architecture, Construction, Computers, Engineering, and Robotics.

Logo Design for CALS - since this SLC also includes two smaller SLCs (AME and SCIBA), I listed those on the pages of the open book.

Logo Design for Green House - this SLC was already designated and implemented prior to the formation of the others, and its focus is on preparing the incoming 9th grade class for success throughout high school.

Thanks, Gardena High, for giving me the opportunity to create these for you!

*Edit* – Thanks to copious amounts of Russian spam, comments on this blog post are now disabled.  Please feel free to email me with any comments, questions, or suggestions.