Midcentury Bachelorette

If you were a lover of midcentury architecture and were perpetually freezing, where would you want to go for your bachelorette party?

Palm Springs, California!

My The two best friends in the world surprised me with a weekend in Palm Springs. In August. That's true friendship!

I received this formal invitation in the mail...

and a couple weeks later away we went! It was 105 and it was perfect.

I wanted to do something nice for them, so I put together these little "wedding survival kits".

And some mc eye candy...

 



Goodie bags for the pint-sized guests

I asked the boys what we needed at the wedding to make it a good party. It was unanimous. "Goodie bags." Apparently only the cool parties have goodie bags. I did three different versions. One each for the small kids (4 and under), the medium kids (6 and 7) and the big kids (10 and older).

They were a huge hit! Just look at Hank sporting his mustache and beard!

Everyone got:
A notepad with activities (each age group's was a little different)
A plastic monster finger puppet (boys picked these out!)
Ring pop
Glow bracelet
Snack (fishies, chips, squeezy applesauce)
Parachute guys- 2 sizes
A mustache and/or beard
Personalized crayons or pens
Disguises (fake glasses on a dowel, fake lips, etc)

Little kids also got:
Playdough
Puzzle
YoYo
Big fake diamond rings for the girls

Medium kids also got:
Metal puzzle
Foam stickers and sheets
YoYo
Kaleidoscope
2 plastic puzzles/games

Big kids also got:
Wood puzzle
Marker
2 plastic puzzles/games

Treats for the babies (fishies and squeezy applesauce)

Midcentury Housewife is once again... a wife

I haven't blogged in ages because 1) My god who has the time? 2) Nothing I'm doing or finding is any cooler than anyone else out there. 3) My one fan got a new job and doesn't have time to follow me anymore (love you Mom!)

But, lots of people have asked about my wedding and I don't want to weddingbomb my facebook page.

The scene: My husband (!) and I had a lovely ceremony and reception at Ray's Boathouse in Seattle, WA. We had many family members travel to Seattle for the first time from the east coast and we think they loved our city! Ray's takes care of most of the details, so I spent my time, energy and money on design work for the invitations, out of town bags, goodie bags for kids at the wedding, escort cards, etc.

All print items were designed by me in Word or Photoshop (I am a novice, nothing was fancy).I had a really fun time designing them.

The details:
FONTS: Novecento and Lavanderia.
COLORS: Navy Blue (RGB: 36, 63, 96) and White. Nothing else. Anywhere. At all.
THEME: Sort of Modern Nautical. It was on the Puget Sound, on a dock. We didn't want it to be too nautical, so for the reception we used various islands for our table names. Half of the islands were from Maine where my husband's family spends the summer vacation and half were from Washington, where I grew up.


Links to specific design elements:
Invitation Suite (Coming soon!)
Welcome bags for family from out of town
Goodie bags for kiddos at the wedding
Favors (Coming soon!)
Reception design- Placecards, Escort cards, Menus, etc. (Coming soon!)


I hope you enjoy!

MCHW Wedding- Welcome bags

We really, really wanted our out of town guests to feel at home and welcome in our fair city. Seattle has a lot to offer and many family members had never been out here. We made 20 bags, purchased at Hobby Lobby for $2.99 each. We tried to include some practical items as well as local foods and treats. Each one contained:

A Seattle Map
A postcard
Starbucks Via
A doorhang that said "Do Not Disturb We're Recovering from the Lamont Wedding"
Theo Chocolate Bar (source: Bartells had them for almost 1/2 price!)
Chukar Cherries
Tissues
Tim's Cascade Potato chips (purchsed big bags, but you can buy the smaller bags at a great price from their website if you plan ahead)
Dried fruit from Costco (individually packaged)
Nuts from Costco (individually packaged)
Bottles of water (with special paper used in invites around the labels)
Izze cans
Homemade cookies in glassine envelopes with my husband's favorite chocolate chip cookies (very thin) and mine (very fat). Labels said "He said THESE are the best cookies" and "She said THESE are the best cookies"
A notepad with personalized wedding events, directions from guests particular hotels, ideas of places to visit and "he said/she said" recommendations for dining and sightseeing.

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda
If time and funds were unlimited, I would have included:
A small space needle dye cast souvenir
Smoked salmon (too expensive at 20 bags!)
A hangover kit with crackers, tylenol, eye drops, etc.
Jones Soda- You can make bottles with personalized pics. Would have been fun!

I really enjoyed putting these together and family members loved them. But it was a lot of work! And they cost a ton when you multiply everything by 20! I think this is the sort of thing that really personalizes a wedding, though. And not only would I do it again, I would start earlier and go bigger!

Bags were stamped using a space needle stamp purchased at Impress Rubber Stamps with fabric paint.

Notebooks were printed at Kinkos. Space Needle rubber stamped on after.

I used padding compound to make the printed paper in to pads.

Page 1 of the booklet. Created in Word.

Doorhang. Created in Word, printed 3 to a page on cardstock and used 2 inch punch to punch out the hole. The cut a small notch in to hang on door.

The bags all put together!

Enjoy your kids

I'm totally overwhelmed with cute kid ideas... So overwhelmed that I'm trying to come up with a good storage solution for all the printouts I'm finding. Stay tuned for that one...

In the meantime, here are others around the blogosphere that have caught my eye. There are such cool parents out there enjoying their kids!

A Spring scavenger hunt from I Am Momma Hear Me Roar. Using an egg carton is genius!!

Image from I Am Momma Hear me Roar

Cardboard guitars from Make It and Love It via Ohdeedoh

Image from Make It and Love It

A nice way to structure the day with young ones from Say Yes to Hoboken

Image from Say Yes to Hoboken

Charming little Peter and the Wolf Puppet Kit from Sarah Jane Studios via DesignMom. I actually bought this as soon as I saw it on DesignMom. Just $5.50 for a pdf. I've got to say that it is even lovelier in print. I can't wait to put it together with my boys! I plan to download the play and have it on in the background.

Image from Sarah Jane Studios

April Showers

Marimekko umbrella from Umbrella .net

Another month is here. What happened to the first quarter of 2011?! It is going to be a very busy few months. Here's what is on my calendar for April:

April 1- April Fool's Day I plan to put this and this in the boys' lunches. My mom always used to do funny lunch things for us and I always looked forward to it, even if it meant that I would be getting carrot sticks instead of my Dips granola bar!
April 2- Remembering my grandfather's 86 wonderful years of life
April 8- My dad's birthday!
April 15- Probably the day I'll file my taxes
April 24- Easter brunch at Callie's

I'm also looking for some new wellies and think I'll go with the classic Hunter boot. But what color??
And trying to organize my out-of-control craft and party supplies

Planning ahead for:
Something Mothers' Day-ey
Birthdays for mom, sister and sweet little nephew (1!)
A Fathers' Day picnic (all decorations made out of security envelopes- super excited to share this soon!)
Sister's big wedding in July!

Furniture Lust

Oh, I want this for my boys so much, but am not about to drop $1k on a chair for a wee one.

Available at Restoration Hardware, found via Ohdeedoh

But isn't it lovely??

New toys at Ikea!

Attention all pint-sized workpeople! Cruising Ikea last week, I saw these two new toys...

 Cute felt toolbelt and tools $4.99 Totally going to stockpile some of these for birthday parties!

And workbench $79.99

New (to me) magazine: Phyllis Hoffman Celebrate

So excited to find a new magazine, in Lowe's of all places! I was there to buy my grass seed for Easter, when I saw this adorable cover.

image from Hoffman Media, LLC

They had me at the Peeps! I'm definitely making this adorable cake for Easter. So sweet and so springy! Phyllis Hoffman Celebrate is great. In addition to the alluring cover, inside there are several styled parties highlighted. On the website you can download the invitations, fill in your info and print! It's not all my style, but there are lots of great ideas. This issue showed an Easter dinner, an egg dyeing party, a ladybug party for a little girl, an April Fool's Day party, and a Kentucky Derby party (there might have been more, even). It's not inexpensive (7.99/issue), but definitely worth it. Sending my subscription in now! And you can order back issues here! I have to have the Halloween one!

Enjoy your kids: Robots!

Last weekend we were looking for a good way to spend our "technology-free Sunday" together. I suggested making superhero capes, but apparently that is so 2010... Atticus suggested we make robots. I quickly got on board. First step... We needed supplies! We loaded up in the car and headed to Archie McPhee's. They've got all sorts of fun things in the back that are roboty. After a quick coffee break at Cafe Besalu (best pastry in town!), we continued on our robot supply search at McLendon Hardware. Then when we stopped at Nana's to pick up something she added to our stash. We got home around 2 and worked on robots until dinner. I love it when a project lasts all day long!

 Hank was more interested in dressing up. And scowling.

We used screws to attach the different parts, so they should stay put for a bit. To make the silver body, we used aluminum foil and contact paper. Some tinsel in my holiday stash became "rock star hair". We stacked the boxes up and screwed them together. By keeping the opening part on the back, we can continue to add to it. Plenty of robot parts left for the next rainy day. There sure are plenty of them here!

Happy Spring!

Photo from Private Places via Apartment Therapy

Yesterday spring officially began. I guess you can sort of tell by the 3 degree raise in temperature and the slightly more sporadic rainshowers; I'm in serious need of some spring cheer!

Some ideas:

Adding Spring Color to Your Home roundup from Apartment Therapy. Or perhaps just some green

A new rug for just $18

Or a fresh blue for the wall

Or something new from ikea here, here and here

Images all from ikea.com

So far I've settled for a new pillow in yellow and orange with plans to recover a few other sofa pillows.

Yay for spring!