Customer Approved! Shark Birthday Party

Remember my little guy's 2nd Birthday Party that I designed Shark Party Printables for? Well, with the summer upon us, this theme has been a hot one! Check out how one of my customer's styled her own Shark theme party for her little cutie pie! Meet Oliver...

Notice how hostess-mama matched little Oliver to the party! I love a mom who pays attention to every detail! :P Check out these great Shark themed sweets, below... She has Shark Fin cupcakes and had a cake made to match the colors and shark motif of the party printables!

Oliver's mom gave each little shark a personalized goodie bag of "shark bait" and each guest could cool down with a custom wrapped water bottle...

Guest's were greeted to the party area of the local pool with these fun printable signs and even the napkins matched perfectly to the party with these printable napkin wraps...

It was a pleasure working with this wonderful customer to help create a "fin"tastic celebration for her little Shark! I hope Oliver had such a special day celebrating his 1st Birthday!

Fridays (Saturday) with Fin :: Family "Vacation"

Sorry about getting this out a day late {and hopefully not a dollar short}. We had some internet probs yesterday. So, here's what I had planned on saying yesterday!

Our family was away all last week on a family vacation to Washington Island, in Door County, Wisconsin. B.e.a.utiful. We stayed in a cottage on the water….

 This was our first vacay with the kids. It was… well, a new experience. A good one, a hard one, a fun one and, did I mention, a hard one! ;P Let me get out some of my crabby negatives before showing off the good stuff…

 First, I realized that I'm addicted to a little thing known as the world wide web. And honestly, I'm not as addicted as some of you crazies out there, but being on a {fairly} remote island, with limited access to internet, made me feel like a crack addict going through withdrawal. I was straight up going to the local library and quaint coffee shop just to get my fix! Let's just say, there was lots of scrabble and reading going on! {Which I truly consider a good thing, but I literally had to force myself to take a breath and enjoy those activities! {sad.}

 And second, Matthew and I had to continually remind each other, this is not our honeymoon, walking hand in hand on the beach, laying out in the sun or going to a restaurant to enjoy a glass of wine… those days are GONE. SO, once we got over our old idea of what a vacation was, we learned to embrace our time on beautiful Washington Island {as you can see my hubby so excitedly showing off some of the local "sights" of the island!}

There is one beach on the island that we fell in love with. You'd have thought we were in the Ocean. It was so clear and clean! We visited "School House Beach" every day…

 Fin and Daddy enjoyed throwing rocks, while mama and Navy enjoyed snoozing on the beach. Fin could throw rocks literally all.day.long. {Why yes, that is a beach full of rocks… a definite attraction to the island! Check out more about it here!}

To get to the island, we took a car ferry. This was, of course, a highlight of Fin's trip! Kid loves his transportation devices.

And Navy, my sweet Navy Rose. This girl is the worlds chillest baby. {Gasp, dare I say it out loud, for fear that I may jinx it!?}. First, she falls asleep anywhere, anytime, no fuss… {with Fin, he needed his darkening shades closed, fan and sound machine on and six nukies in his grip in order to think about sleeping!}

Second, the little lady goes with the flow… She just hung out in the bjorn the entire time, sweating like a wildabeast, with a bubbly smile on her face!

 Speaking of bubbles…

And just to drive home her second-wonderchildness, she rolled over for the first time on our trip! Just like, "okay, guys, I'd really like to be on my belly now so I'm just going to roll on over, 'cause you're all paying attention to the-one-and-only-Fin, so I better just figure out how to do it" And that was it. {Again, with the Finster, soo first child, I believe there were roll-over "sessions" with him to motivate some, any, movement! ha!}

 Navy was such a rockstar on our trip that even the locals started paying attention… Check out the soup of the day!

Along with countless hours spent at the beach, and scrabble tourneys, we enjoyed ourselves a lot of "deer hunting" {driving around pointing out deer to Fin}, the beautiful farm animals all around us, a ferry ride to another close island, way-too-much ice cream, bike rides {for the boys}, the "Cherry Train Tour", and lots and lots of special "just-us" time!

Memories that we'll never forget! {Yes, even now that we can laugh at the thought of me frantically going to the local library just to get my instagram fix!}

When we got home {oh, there is NO place like home, is there!?} we found that our home garden had "popped"! Fin and daddy are always hard at work out in the garden…

 Here are my boys tapping into the season's first big success… the tomatoes! {yes, Fin is wearing a "Marlboro" hat... it was a thrift shop find from Grandpa Joe!}

 Well, now we're back up to date after taking a few weeks off again! ;P Have a great weekend!

Fridays with Fin :: Take me out to the Ballgame!

I'm a little late on posting about our Father's Day adventure with the kids! Over Father's Day weekend, when we were up in Green Bay for the big Thomas excitement, we gifted dad with game tickets for an upcoming Milwaukee Brewer's Game! {I think my hubby is too immune to being married to a designer, 'cause he wasn't as blown away by the custom ticket I created for him as I thought he should be... or maybe that is just how "boys" react in general!}

We'd never gone to a game with either of the kids, let alone both of them, so we knew we were in for an adventure! With Navy strapped to me in the bjorn and Fin lathered with sun block, we headed in for a great time, right behind home plate {well, up in the nose bleeds, but behind the plate, none the less!}.

Our little crew lasted, amazingly, until the 5th inning! I have no idea who won, or really anything that happened during the game, but we all had a memorable time and I am chalking it off as a success!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Parents Magazine Feature!

I am giddy with joy to share some fun and exciting news! The original party I created the burlap camping printables for, that I had boasted about here, was featured in Parents Magazine!

Yes, a magazine. A magazine that I read and enjoy! I was so excited to see the gorgeous photos that Gina Lee took being showcased in the magazine and SO honored to see nellie*design's name and website mentioned as a source! How fun is that! Still grinning from ear to ear. {Then I think of those 8 year old girls' in the photos and think they all must really be beaming! haha!}

Head on over to Parents Magazine's Camping Party Feature for more photos from Gina's amazing Camping Party! Be inspired to throw your own rustic chíc camping party and be sure to start with nellie*design's Printable Invitation and Party Decor Printables to help get you started!

Volleyball Printable Party

I've had the pleasure of working on a handful of new parties for a new online friend {meaning we totally met through etsy convo and clicked ever since!} Christina is an event planner in the Cincinnati area. She recently came to me with a request for a Volleyball Themed Party, for a 13 year old girl. She wanted fun, vibrant colors and patterns. Here's what we came up with...

And here's how the party looked after Christina put her party planning magic to work. The party was photographed by Thomas Nguyen Photography, which he featured here.

Every detail was met, from mini volleyballs displayed in vases to perfectly matched striped straws! Check out the fun penant banner decorating the drink table...

Aqua frosted cupcakes were fancied up with printable cupcake wraps & cupcake toppers...

A volleyball cake and purple, lime & aqua details made for a sweet treat table!

The girl's fueled up for some volleyball fun with these candy bars, wrapped in a printable design...

Everything was labeled using these food label tent cards...

Lime green polkadot wrapped gifts served as adorable centerpieces! Along with some delicious looking marshmallow pops and a favor at each place setting!

Here are some more colorful sweet treats to match the party perfectly...

And here's the birthday girl herself with her volleyball-loving friends! What an adorable group of girls! I hope you "had a ball" at your party!

Create your own Volleyball themed party with my printable designs! I look forward to customizing this party for YOU!