rainbow party invitations.

Hi there!

Maia's rainbow party was so much fun, and I'm so excited to share it all with you.  Today, I'm showing off her party invitations.  I went a more elaborate route, only because I had a mere 3 to sew up.

I used Papertrey Ink's coin purse dies to create the envelope for the invitation.  I love an invite and a gift all in one.

Inside the little pouch,



Maia's little cousins could pull out the tag and read up on all of the party details.



I love it so much.  Maia asked me for one of her own, and I had to indulge her too.  She carries it around everywhere, with little trinkets and treasures inside.

When I presented my niece Lauren with hers, she did say "no thank you," though... haha. Just keeping it real.  Kids keep you humble!

I used lawn fawn's circle stackables, clouds, and tag dies to create all of the rainbow details and printed all of the writing from the computer to fit.

Kelly Marie made a fantastic video showing how to create a rainbow out of the circle dies:



I hope you like it!  If you want a sneak peek or 2 at the whole party, look me up on instagram (mom2sofia)!

♥.

missing you.

I had so much fun playing with Avery Elle's new Storybook stamp set that I created another card.  Or maybe I'm just avoiding thoughts of icing Maia's rainbow cake. ha.

I used Storybook, Build a Banner, and Thanks a Bunch to create this card.  The only balloon included in Storybook is the bigger one, but the bubbles image made for a perfect bunch of balloons, floating farther in the distance.  I drew the balloon tails using a 0.3 copic multiliner pen, and added highlights using a white gel pen.



I couldn't resist adding some glitter to the balloon and the duck.

Now, back to rainbows.  Maia turns 4 today, and has had her heart set on a rainbow party for the last few months.  Together, we found this cake on pinterest.

eeek. I kept trying to steer her towards this kind of rainbow cake instead, but she wouldn't budge.

Wish me luck! I'm so much more comfortable with paper than frosting!

In honor of Maia's birthday, here is her favorite rainbow song:

♥.

make a wish.

My newest stamping crush is Avery Elle.

I gave Red & Goldie a little love a few weeks ago (click!) and now I'm playing with Storybook.  It was designed by the amazing Heather Campbell and features the cutest and most whimsical hand-drawn characters.  Check it:

I stamped the deer, and made it a bit more girly with a little pink butterfly-turned-bow.



The deer is gazing up into the night sky and wishing on a sparkly star.  It's so hard to see in the photos, but I added some glitter with my wink of Stella glitter pen, on both the deer and the yellow star.

I hope you like it!

♥.

bbq party!

It was not exactly the kind of day you'd like when you're hosting a bbq party, all dark and rainy, but we had a great time celebrating Thomas' 7th birthday:



No need for a backdrop when you have a whole chalkboard wall in your home.  I wrote all kinds of burger toppings on the board, and called it a day.

Now, time to get all up in our grill.

After scouring Pinterest, and talking with my favorite baker, Marlyn, I created this giant cake for the occasion.

One recipe of vanilla cake, and one recipe of chocolate cake, cut down to look like a big mac.  I found spearmint gummy leaves that I rolled out to look more like lettuce, and left them hanging out of the burger. Red icing for ketchup, yellow for mustard, and a plain buttercream for the mayo.

Marlyn (of Montreal Confections) made amazing goodies for our party.  Including the "7" that I added to the top of the cake, and these burger pinatas:





The kids picked them up, shook them around, and loved them.  Inside, a little tongue and cheek when they found gummy worms.



My absolute favorite thing that Marlyn created were the grill toppers for my cupcakes:



They are amazing! I added mini gummy kebabs and some hot tamale "franks" to the tops.



mmm.... gummy kebabs...



Marlyn has a video up on her youtube channel, for how to create these grill toppers.



Using printables I found online, I added flame toppers to these cut-up brownies... I was hoping they'd look like coals, with red flames... the jury's still out, but they were yummy!

I made a few party favors to hand out. One, at the beginning of the party, and the other at the end.



I don't really know what's going on with Sofia, but keep yours eyes on the boys, hee hee.  I stenciled hamburger tshirts for everyone to wear at the party, and gave them mason jars full of candy to take home.



Stick a fork in me, I'm almost done. One more party weekend to go...



♥.

BBQ party invitations.

Happy Monday!

We celebrated Thomas' 7th birthday with a hamburger-themed birthday party this past Saturday.

I used absolutely no stamps for these invites, but they still look perfectly handmade.  I purchased 2 silhouette files: the starburst background and the hamburger.

To make the hamburger look more like a stamp, I gave it a black outline.  I did the same for all of the lettering.  Once it was printed, I swiped in some shading with copic markers and sponged all of the edges.

For some reason, half of the invites printed with the "you're invited" right above the burger, and the other half with a space between the two elements. Like I said, I'm no digital expert. ha.

I'll share pictures of the party tomorrow, but here's a sneak that I already shared on facebook:

Yup. A giant hamburger cake. My friend said I made him crave chocolate cake and 5 Guys Burgers all at once. You're welcome, hee hee.

♥.

thank you tags {stampin' up}

Do you know how I got started stamping?  I saw a tiny ad on the side of my facebook page - it featured a stamped card with the title "stampin' up!" at the top.  I saw it a few separate times before I clicked the link.  I never click links.  But it led me to the SU! main page, and I loved everything I saw.  I found a local demo, who came to my house and showed me a few techniques and stamps for over an hour without pressuring me to buy anything.  The stamps sold themselves.  I've since branched away from Stampin' Up, but I will always love it for introducing me to this amazing hobby.

Recently, I spied clear stamps in their store that I had to own.  These sweetie pies and their frames are too cute for words.  I couldn't help but whip up a set of thank you tags with them.

A little redhead,

a cute blond,

a curly-haired brunette,



an adorable girl with an unsure smile,

and, just to show you the layers on the tag, a pony-tailed imp:



I popped up the frame using SU! dimensionals.  I love them - they are the thinnest pop-up dots I could find, and give a very subtle raise to the frame.  For the girls' faces I used  thicker foam squares.  I was really happy with the quality of the clear stamps!  I wasn't sure how well they would work, as SU is more known for their rubber stamps, but I was pleasantly surprised.  If they keep making whimsical designs like these 2 stamps sets, I'll be buying.

All of the links will lead you to my friend Veronica's SU! page.  If you live in the US and would like to order SU! goodies, she'll be more than happy to help you out.

Tomorrow is Thomas' BBQ party!  If you'd like to see a few behind the scenes shots, find me on instagram (mom2sofia.)  I'll share the invites and the entire party next week. Happy weekend!

♥.

every good gift...

Once in a blue moon, I still accept to make custom cards for order.  This one is for a little girl's baptism, and the verse was to be the focal point.

I created the sentiment using the free online photo editing service, PicMonkey.  Once I designed the fonts and arranged them all to my liking, I saved the file as large as the program would allow me to.  I then formatted it to print out in the size that I needed, and added handmade touches to soften the more modern lettering.

I hope you like it!

♥.