St. Patty's Printable Party

With St. Patty's Day right around the corner, now is the time to start thinking about throwing a par-tay! I mean, you don't really have to be irish to party like it, right!? Take a peek at my new printable party for a festive St. Patty's bash! This one is geared towards adults, but would be just as cute for a kid's party! {Just omit the vodka from the jello "treats"!} I teamed up with my girl Tracie, of {tsj} photography, to provide some nice visuals for you all! {We had some fun in the process, check out her side of the story here!} Enjoy!

Below are all the pieces to this printable party package. For a total of $40 you can have an entire party decorated and personalized just for you! You can order the entire party here.

This package includes customizing of all text by nellie*design and digital PDF's for you to print as many pieces as you need at the printer of your choice {including your home ink jet}! And you can "go green" by emailing the invite as an E-vite! Convo me if you're interested in ordering items individually. All printable party prices are listed individually here!

Friday's with Fin :: Personalized Gifts!

Finley is one special boy who was spoiled with SO many personalized gifts already in his short life! I think it's a sign of his mama having really cool friends and family who a. know I love nautical things, b. know I love seeing my kid's name everywhere and c. are really creative gift givers!

This first gift is a handmade book created by my friend Heather. You've got to check out her blog, 'cause she's one inspirational mama! She talks about the diy process here, so if you're interested in making one of these bad boys yourself, check it out!

 

The image on the left {below} is another handmade original by my crafty friend, Heather. {uh hum, best personalized gift giver!}. I know you're all thinking about a letter and motif right now and considering heading to Michaels to get some felt asap, 'cause that's pretty cute, hey?! :) And the one to the right of that... my {super cute} sis-in-law, Lora, is another one of my inspirational personalized gifters! She's the kind of gal that even makes the packaging personalized and amazing! Take a peek at this uniquely thoughtful {yet so easy to "diy"} framed art! She just headed to the local beach, snapped a pic, printed and framed! LOVE.

We've got wooden FINLEY letters all over our house! The image on the left shows off Fin's room with his darling pottery barn "f.i.n." wooden letters {a gift from my s-i-l, Amy}. I love the simplicity of the lower case letters! Grandma Leis blessed Mr. Fin with the adorable wooden name train. Grandma got this from a boutique in Door County, WI, but I sourced them for you here! And another crafty friend of mine painted and accessorized the nautical, all-caps, blue wooden letters! 

And below, showcases my love for sailboats... from the adorable embroidered towel to the fun red pail to the porky little piggy... the sailboat motif is where its at people! 

 

Along with the framed sand print from Aunt Lora, she also gave this adorably preppy growth chart! I love the pop of green in Fin's room now! I ended up getting her little guy the same one in blue, because I loved it so much!

And finally, below is a sassy toddler showcasing his personalized fleece blanket... A gift from Tracie, who told me she was SO tempted to get a nautical design, but then raged against the pigeon hole I'm in of all things nautical and went with this adorable monkey blanket! And, can I admit, I think my little climbing monkey likes monkeys better than boats! gasp!

Like I said. Spoiled!  

*P.S... let me know if y'all want to know where to purchase any of the above gifts that I don't have links for! I thought it might be ghetto to ask my friends where they got their gifts, but now I'm sure they'd be honored to share!

Return Address Labels

One of my favorite products that I offer are return address {2.5" circle} labels. These are such a fun and unique way to put your mark on the mail you send out! And soo cheap affordable! There are so many different ways to personalize these little guys... with your photo, a custom motif, your favorite colors, your name or monogram and more! Check out my shop to order! And take a peek below at some of the ways to customize...

Pennant Printable Party

I L.O.V.E. the idea of the DIY printable party! It gives the crafty people of the world their fix for making all of their own decorations and accessories, yet not having to do all the grunt work on the design side! And that's why I am beaming to announce that nellie*design is now offering printable parties! Let ME do all that grunt work for you!

Take a peek at my debut party... An adorably preppy pennant party, perfect for your little munchkin! nellie*design will do all the customizing of text and provide you with PDF's of each piece to print on your own!

Each set is available in my etsy shop for $40 each. The entire set includes:
Invitation
Envelope wrap-around label  
Personalised banner
Posters {8.5 x 11}
Thank you notes {flat card}  
Party hats
Napkin wraps  
Cupcake toppers   
Water bottle wraps
Food labels {tent card}   
Chocolate bar wrappers    
Favor bag toppers

Party pieces can be ordered individually. See my pricing breakdown here.

More printable parties to come!

Friday's with Fin :: Cookie Monster Birthday!

I'll begin with a little disclaimer about the title of this post, "Friday's with Fin"... I've decided to force my obsession for my little man onto all of you and have a weekly post dedicated to all things Finley! How many people just rolled their eyes?! ;P Since this is a "design blog", I'll try not to get too cray-cray-annoying-mama and bore you with all the silly details {whoops, did I already do that with yesterday's post!} and focus more on the "creative" things we're up to! Hope you enjoy!

Finley turned one {in October} and happens to be in love with sesame street {yeah, we don't have cable!} so we decided on a cookie monster themed party! To set the tone of the event, I called on my incredibly talented friend, Tracie, of TSJ Photography, to have a "cookie monster photo shoot"! We had SO much fun letting Fin go wild on the cookies, get all sugared up and take some pretty darn cute photos! I used the photos through out the birthday party... on the invites, in large frames for decoration, on thank you notes and I created an album to have on display for guest's to peruse! It was such a fun way to celebrate this little blond bundle of mine!

The actual party was such a blur that I'm glad I took photos to remember it! We had so much family and friends crammed in our tiny home, and being the "nervous nellie" that I am, I was running around like a chicken without my head! But, all in all, when I look at all the photos below, I smile just thinking of what a special day it truly was!

 

A little side note to all interested in having a cookie monster party of your own... if blue frosting goes in... yeah :P

Want nellie*design to create a cookie monster themed party for your little monster? Email me and I will create a custom listing in my etsy shop to order from!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

So... last year I started the tradition of taking of pic of daddy's two little buddies posing in front of a cute little birthday sign! Let's just say it was a LOT easier to plop a 4 month old into a bumbo than to rope a 15 month old down to have said photo op! ;P The pic to the left is from this years shoot and that's about as good as it gets! And yes, that is my 15 month old with a nukie and doggie blankie! :)

The pictures below document the progressive meltdown that followed! {Its a good thing you're cute Finny!} Finley did NOT care that it was daddy's b-day and could care even less about this years upgraded b-day sign! ;)

Whew! We LOVE you daddy! Enjoy the big 2-9 gramps! ... and now, for a pic of the real model in our house... Fender... Daddy's best friend, never fails him.

A Pinch of Paradise

Photo by TSJ Photography

I went on an amazing girls getaway just before Thanksgiving to the Bahamas! I decided a fun way for us all to remember our time together was to create a “favor” of sorts. I gave each friend an empty glass jar with a small tag tied to it that read, “a pinch of paradise”. We all filled our jars with the softest, whitest sand I’d ever felt and smuggled them back into the states! Every day I see that little jar on my dresser, I’m reminded of the amazing, laugh-filled, vacation I went on!

Wouldn’t this be a unique favor for a beach wedding?! Just imagine giving all of your guests’ empty jars to go retrieve their own sand during the wedding reception! How fun!

This is not listed in my etsy shop, but any of my designs shown on this blog can be purchased and personalized! The cost for a digital file of this favor tag is $5, which includes changing the color! {Want to personalize the text for your own special event? Just add another $5 to customize the text!} Send me an email me to order!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Heart Day everyone! I can't wait for my two valentine's to open their gifts today! {Yes, that's my "shark fin" above!} The moment I saw this idea on Blonde Designs blog I knew I had to TOTALLY copy it and personalize for my boys! Take a peek at the darling personalized mailboxes that are filled to the brim with toys and treats! Can we just say "dollar section" at Target! {you better believe I added the "love mail" tag to the flags after I realized I forgot that darling, and very necessary detail!} Oh, and when Fin is of age to be handing out valentine's at school, we will definitely be sprucing up the standard candies with these labels! Thank you Blonde Designs for your cute, simple inspirations!

Remember, it's never too late to print, cut, fold and personalize your own v-day cards for that special someone in your life! ;) 

Camping Party Invite

A good friend of mine, Tracie, threw a camping-themed birthday party for her daughter and it was unbelievably gorgeous, down to every last detail... and it spread like wildfire in the blogosphere {like here and here and I'm sure other places that I'm missing}! I am so proud to say I had a part in it! Tracie came to me with her theme and asked me to create the invitations. As I’m sure you all know, invitations are the introduction to your event, so I felt excited to create something that would inspire an awesome celebration... and wow, did she do a good job!

Click here to place an order for your own adorable camping party invite!

Welcome & Free Valentines

Hello. Welcome to my blog! Just the idea of having this blog makes me giddy and nervous all at the same time. Let’s just say, I come by the nickname “nervous nellie” honestly! When it comes to self-promotion and bragging (uh I mean, blogging), I get all sorts of anxiety. I’m much more of a hide behind the computer screen, geeky, blog-reading kind of gal, than all the really cool, trendy, super mom/business women, do-it-all kind of gal that are already out there blogging! I mean seriously, who are these people, where do they get their energy from and how can I get some? Anyway... Here I am, Blogging, and truly excited about it! I love creating and designing and hope to use this blog to express who and what nellie*design is all about!

Along with introducing myself, I wanted to give you a welcome gift too! So, without further ado, I present to you three FREE printable folded valentine cards perfect for all your special Valentines. Click on the links below to print yours now! Thanks for stopping by!

i really bike you valentine :: click here to download

whale you be mine valentine :: click here to download

you're so tweet valentine :: click here to download