Design: Faux Bois Thanksgiving Printables (Free Download)

I can't wait to pause next week and spend a day surrounded by family expressing gratitude for all of our many blessings. This year has not been without some significant challenges, but it has also been filled with grace and mercies, and we are thankful. There is always much to be thankful for, if we can be still for a few minutes to let the realization sink in, right?

I am not hosting the dinner this year, but if I were, I would have the table set in a monochromatic spread of bleached pine cones and twigs and acorns, and white linens, and china with touches of gold. I would also use some faux bois placecards and place a printed copy of one of my favorite Thanksgiving Hymns at each place. There are so many beautiful words to help us observe this holiday. I love the words of Henry Alford, and Martin Rinkart, and the 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.

I also love an idea I saw somewhere, of creating a Thanksgiving tree. A branch from outside would be perfect for hanging little cards with inscriptions or drawings from all of our guests. I am thankful for health, and a beautiful landscape around me that changes with each season, and the opportunity to be a mother and wife, and my eyesigh,t and the ability to use my hands to make gifts for those I love, and my faith, and so much more...

Though Thanksgiving invitations are usually offered over the phone or via email, I love the idea of sending a more formal one with a RSVP to help me plan.

I made these faux bois Thanksgiving printables last year after Scarlett's Woodland Picnic birthday party. Judging by Etsy and Pinterest the birthday printables were well-liked and I thought they would lend themselves to Thanksgiving, with a few tweaks. So I made them and I'd like to share them with you.

The set includes invitations and envelopes, place cards (or food labels, or whatever), "Thankful" cards, hang tags and circle tags to use as placecards or gift tags or something else you may come up with, and bottle wrappers (napkin rings?), and even a little bunting. The PDF file can be customized because it includes form fields for you to type in. I've also included some versions "as is" of sayings that should work well for most gatherings but the rest have placeholder text you can type over.

These printables come in a bleached, or Flemish Oak and in a darker Mahogany brown, both with touches of a golden yellow. There are coordinating printed papers in faux bois and gingham for lining trays or cutting cupcake wrapers or anything else you can think of!

To use these printables you simply need Adobe Reader, which is a free download here. You can select the pages you wish to print, and even print some double-sided. The invitation and envelopes are designed to be double sided and look so fun that way with the gingham peeking out. If you use hanging tags they would look great double-sided too. (Note that Adobe Acrobat provides more flexibility such as re-ordering pages and deleting pages.)

For best results I take my files on a USB drive to a local print shop because the color is always more vibrant compared to my home printer. Be sure to use bright white 90 lb (or heavier) card stock when you print yours.

I know time is short already but maybe you can still use these, or if not this year, you can get a jump on next year! You can download my Faux Bois Thanksgiving printables in two parts here and here. 

Room Design: Family Room Update

Some months ago my husband commented on the fact that our round table only seated four... It's funny how I hadn't thought about that. Perhaps because Tess was always sitting in the high chair. But obviously we needed a table for five. So we started table hunting. And one thing led to another... We found this table at Crate&Barrel and it is supposed to have an indestructible top. Perfect for children. But I still end up covering it all the time because it is heavily textured and difficult to clean up spills. Oil cloth is perfect for that (except for the PVC! yikes, I know... but laminated cotton is just not the same). I had been using some brightly colored tablecloths I made a few years ago but it was such a clash.

So I looked for something more neutral and found this great silver oilcloth and tan polka dot oilcloth to use for a tablecloht and splat mat. What a difference! Don't know why I didn't do this long ago. (The kitchen table is where my laptop is usually sitting so I can steal a minute to check email while eating lunch or breakfast...)

We got the higher chairs (bar stools) at IKEA and they work great for the three girls. At some point we'll have to replace the rest of the chairs, which I bought before we were married.

We were lucky enough to replace a sectional couch we'd had for what seemed like forever. I never really liked the couch when we got it, but there just were not that many options then for a sectional and nothing else would fit down the stairway in the basement. I had no idea how long you have to keep a couch. The old one was a khaki-gold and we had the wall painted a similar color and every photo we took in that room turned out horribly! It seems strange, but I finally realized that color was really unflattering...! And since we gather so often in this room, and take photos in here, we had to repaint. (Have you ever noticed in interior design magazines when they talk about a wall color being "really flattering"? Now I get it.)

So now we have a grey couch (also Crate&Barrel) and grey walls (Martha Stewart's "Cement Gray": MSL266 from Home Depot) and I like it so much better! I had to come up with some new throw pillows for the couch. I found some different fabrics--a few Ikat inspired--but I realized I prefer a more monochromatic look with some interesting textures on the couch so I used the patterns for the floor pillows. I found these great mongolian lamb pillows at West Elm. They are incredibly soft. I love them but my children love them even more, which makes me really happy!

Because it is the family room, afterall! It's not easy to balance budget, design and kid-friendly function, is it? Sometimes we wonder if it's worth it to replace the worn-out when everything takes a beating. But on the other hand, does it make sense to put off little improvements indefinitely when they would make your surroundings more enjoyable every day? How do you do it?

(They all love the blanket I made for their dad last Christmas too. I should make some more of those!)

Invites: Prairie Cowgirl Birthday Invitation

The weeks between Tess's birthday and Scarlett's feel so short! Especially when you factor in back-to-school, which I learned (a bit painfully) this year. Busy, busy. But so many fun things, so I hate to give anything up. I even squeezed in one last summer dinner party. No wonder I'm feeling a bit loopy!

So I am trying to get all the details ready for Scarlett's party and wondering which to give up. But I didn't give up the invitations--as you know, invitations are one of my favorite things. Plus, as I learned again with Scarlett's, creating the invitation really helps me focus the creative idea for the event. Gives me even more ideas, which can be a problem too!

Scarlett's party is what I'm calling, "prairie cowgirl." I'm imagining a horsewoman with some feminine flair and more calico than cactus. Floral patterns and galvanized and a little bit of burlap thrown in too.

I wanted to use kraft colored paper for her invite and was wishing I could print using the spot color white when I thought of printing the invite on a giant label and affixing it to the kraft card stock. So that's what I did. I love how it worked! I used Avery Shipping Labels (8126) and The Greengrocer's Brown Bag Paper cover stock and envelopes. The envelopes have a fun flap, don't you think?

So the invites are off and I'm off to the other things. Wishing I had some sewing fairies...

Design: hooray! Chevron Dot Party Invitation (Printables)

I had been planning to make a feminine version of the Chevron Dot "oh baby! oh boy!" printables since creating the originals because I had some requests and thought it would be fun. Then when I started thinking about Tess's birthday party I thought why not use it for this? So simple and graphic and colorful! A bit easier too than coming up with something from scratch.

So here we have the Chevron Dot Party Printables in shades of coral (pretty darn close to Pantone's "Tangerine Tango"), pink, yellow, grey and orange. I love this combination. So sherbet-y.

Instead of "oh baby! oh boy!" the feminine version of the baby shower invitation reads "oh baby! oh bliss!"  I love the word, and the name, "Bliss," and doesn't that describe the arrival of a new baby? The party invitation (which I'm also updating in the original aqua version) reads "hooray!" I added the "for two!" to the inside for Tess's party but the space is blank on the printable file so it would work for any age.

I was going to really simplify for this party but now I keep thinking of other fun things that could be done with this. Isn't that always how it goes?

If you are interested in the printables they can be found here in my Etsy shop.

Design: White Flowers

Just when I needed a break from the heat, my great friend, JoAnn, invites me over to play flower shop with some of her wedding flower leftovers. I love it when she does that! She is a great floral designer and when she is busy with weddings I often benefit--at a minimum by being able to see what beautiful things she is creating. Sometimes I'm also able to create my own arrangements with the extra. That is the best!

This latest wedding was all-white. I love monochromatic palettes. My own wedding flowers were white and a bit of green. It was beautiful. So I am enjoying these fresh, cool blooms inside with a lot of air conditioning. I need to soak it up before we head outdoors again. We've been on lots of field trips this week trying to make the most of the remaining unstructured days.

You too? Trying to fit it all in before school starts? I hope you are making the most of it.

Invite: Dinosaur Birthday Party Invitation (Free Printable)

Speaking of parties...it's about time for Audrey's. And this year we've settled on a dinosaur party! My daughter is definitely her own girl. I'm taking a more scaled down approach this year (last year's party was quite the opposite) but am as excited as ever about the invitations. As I've said before, it seems the latest is always my favorite...



I really didn't want to go the scary route with the dinos and I always love color so I picked an IKEA striped fabric (I've got plans for it too) for inspiration and went with stripes and stars with the tyrannosauras rex as the real star. I love all these colors together! They are so summery and energetic. And I hope appropriate for both the girls and the boys we are inviting. What do you think? Generic enough?

My favorite part is the envelope! I think I could stare at it for a while. I don't know what it is but the colors and patterns just make me smile. I've always been a sucker for pretty packages!

I've created a customizable version in PDF for you. Any dinosaur party plans in your future?  There's an invitation, envelope, thank you card, and another envelope set up so you can print the whole batch double-sided. You can of course just print a few of the pages, and single-sided if you prefer. You'll need the latest version of Adobe Reader to type your information into the form fields and save the file. Then print at your local print shop on bright, white cardstock (I had my shop scale the images to fit the letter-sized paper which reduced the margins a bit and resulted in a slightly larger card and envelope--nice!), cut out and assemble and mail.

Download the Dinosaur Birthday Party Invitation here.

Design: Little Bear Inspired Party Printables

I don't often do custom designs (sewing or party printables or anything finished for that matter) because it is too difficult to find the time. I've too long a list of things to make. But occassionally I get a request I can't resist, and that's how it went with this printables set.

Somebody saw Scarlett's Woodland Picnic birthday party last year and asked if I could do a version of the printables inspired by Little Bear. I love Little Bear! And as it turned out, I'd already been playing with a yellow and white version, which happened to be her color palette. So here is the Little Bear Inspired Party Printables set. Serendipity.

The Little Bear stories are adorable and I think perfectly paired with Maurice Sendak illustrations. I love his reduced color palette--sepia tones and some green in some cases. I chose to just use Sepia and I drew my own little bear illustration with ink and watercolor. A little guy inspired by Sendak's Little Bear but original. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but copying, not so much!

In addition to the faux bois, yellow gingham and sepia illustrations I kept the swiss dot floral and acorns from the original picnic designs. I changed the color palette a bit and I love how it all works together. Makes it seem like lazy summer already.

The printables set has all sorts of things because it's easy to get carried away with iterations of an idea. And it's very customizable.

My favorite may be the large circle tags with the little bear in the middle. Would be totally endearing on a picnic package or as a tag with a thank you note written on the reverse. I also love the merchandise tags. How fun would it be to have a packet of wildflowers as a party favor with a tag saying "plant and watch the flowers grow"?

If you are interested in this printable set you can find itlisted here in my Etsy shop.

Party planning seems to be in full swing. At least it had better be for me because here comes May!

Design: Flower Refashion

The night before the wedding, my in-laws hosted a beautiful dinner for the wedding guests. The room had concrete floors spread with oriental carpets, high tin ceilings, lots of windows, and one large table covered in white linen and bedecked with some incredible flowers done by my friend, JoAnn.  I had the fun of going along with JoAnn and my mother-in-law to the wholesaler a couple weeks before the event to look at flowers.We picked some great corals, with red, orange and bright green accents. We guessed that these rich arrangements would give the room the punch of color we were looking for. The were so perfect! Nice echo of the carpets too. And so different from the unique flowers and other details in store for the wedding day.

In addition to having great Italian food, and a wonderful time with friends and family of the celebrated couple, I was given one of the arrangements to take home. There is nothing more luxurious than having fresh flowers in the house, don't you think! Such a treat.

I was sad to see the flowers finally drooping but as I went to throw them out today I realized some of the "filler" was still fresh looking. So I found a much smaller vessel and filled it. Wouldn't this be a great arrangement for Christmas? I think these intense colors are really great together. The red is cockscomb but I don't know the names of the two green species. Any ideas? One is mounded in shape and looks feathery but is pretty sturdy. The other looks like a cross between a fern and an evergreen--pretty wiry feeling. Well, names or no, I like them! I'd love four or five down the middle of a holiday buffet, if I were having one!