Design project: Baby (boy) shower invitation

It's always fun when I'm approached at work to design party or shower invitations because I am required to design them "on the clock." Yes! Guilt free creative design sessions are the best. So I was stoked and gladly pushed offered my design skills to a coworker when she started organizing another coworker's baby shower.

Since there really were no parameters or creative instructions given or expected, I asked about "Michelle's" (I've changed everyone's name of course) color palette for the nursery and was pleasantly surprised to get a picture of her actual bedding.

As soon as I saw the cute and simple pattern on her crib bedding, I knew I wanted to recreate it and then also mix another pattern with it. So I opted to make her bedding pattern on the back of the invitation and then threw in just a tiny bit of chevron on the front. I also added a shade of green just to give a little pop of color.

Here's the final product:

 

Anyhow, I think it turned out pretty cute and I definitely plan on playing with patterns more in the future—with both graphic design and fashion.

Have a great weekend yall!

Plated: That's a hoot baby girl!

Yall.  It is my niece's one year old birthday party this weekend. Bananas! Where does the time go?

Anyhow, I was ecstatic when my sister-in-law asked me to do the invitations for the party. And it only helped matters that she had chosen an adorable owl-themed party. Owls seem to still be the trendiest of all birds these days. So I was able to find some really cute inspiration pieces.

The colors are all based around the owl decorations my sister-in-law had chosen, so I just searched for baby girl furniture with those colors and I found the cutest stuff to help me choose my color palette and pattern.

Oh and yeah, feel free to go ahead and ooh and ahh over how adorable my niece Callie is. Yeah, she's pretty darn beautiful. I'm currently fixed on calling her baby girl ever since I found out that my friend Ashley was called that by her grandmother. I have a feeling I will change it to CJ (her initials) when she gets a bit older, but for now (and ok, maybe always) she's baby girl.

Hope your weekend is filled with love, family and fun...just like mine!

Plated: HIMYM and WWWD

I knew from the second I saw the WWWD Go Buy Now: Heart Prints post that I wanted to do something with a heart pattern in a graphic design element. It just so happened that I was approached to do a wedding shower invitation this week and since I had tucked that heart nugget of information away, it came in handy for inspiration!

I've also been spending entirely too much time with the TV series How I Met Your Mother these days (just ask my friends, they'll tell you I reference and quote it way too much). I got the first five seasons for Christmas and if there's any down time in my life, I immediately press play on the DVD player. Recently I saw the epi where Ted picks up the yellow umbrella that belongs to his future (which we have still YET to find out who she is).

So as I was thinking about the wedding shower invites and hearts I also thought about using an umbrella for a real rain shower and I decided that as cheesy and easy as it might seem, I still wanted to put those images all together and see what the outcome would be. It was just good fortune that one of the wedding colors was yellow, so I could use that for the umbrella. See invite below.

I think they turned out great and I love them, even if they are a bit lovey-dovey and over-the-top girly. What do you guys think? Adorable and cute? Or is it too much mushy yucky love stuff?