Baby Shower Invitations!

I had actually planned to post this a couple of weeks ago but since I had an inkling I might be doing NaBloPoMo, I decided to save it for November. Yep, stockpiling blog posts. . . that's my plan to get through NaBloPoMo. :-)

Anyway, I'm so excited to finally share this with you! Albeit, this may be a silly thing to get excited about, but life's about the little things, ya' know? My best friend and mom have been working hard to plan my baby shower. It will be right before Thanksgiving and I'll be about 31 weeks along. Even though I completely trust them to plan an awesome shower, I just can't help but want to be involved. I'm really excited about it!

One of the things I was especially excited about was the invitations. I know a girl I used to work with who was AWESOME at anything crafty, especially scrapbooking and cards. (Hi Amber!) She even has her own blog and Etsy shop! Right before I left my last job, I saw some baby shower invitations that she designed for another friend and co-worker who was throwing a baby shower for her daughter-in-law and soon-to-be grandson. They were absolutely adorable.

A few months later, I found out I was pregnant! Once we started thinking about the baby shower, I immediately thought of Amber and the adorable baby shower invitations she had made. So I asked if she would consider designing mine. Because she is so sweet and easy to work with, she not only agreed but also came up with some amazing options for me based on the details I sent her about the baby shower. Since I'm not much of a "theme" person, I decided to just focus on colors and shapes for the shower. Specifically, we picked a pink and brown color scheme and, largely, we'll be using circles and polka dots in pink and brown and white as an accent. Here are some pictures that we saved that function as our make-shift inspiration board:

After sending her a few of these pictures, I ended up falling in love with one of the designs she came up with. And after some back and forth communication and a few tweaks, I had a batch of adorable invitations to send out for my shower! I can't even explain to you how happy I was with them! Even Brad commented on how nice the invitations were. (I believe "wow, these are nicer than our wedding invitations" were the exact words out of his mouth!) You can see for yourself what a great job she did!

Because I'm so happy with these invitations and her work (and because she is a seriously sweet human being), I wanted to share these with you and give out a hardy recommendation for her Etsy shop. The process went so smoothly and so quickly. She was great with communication and her designs are all beautiful, no matter what your taste or style is. I really can't recommend her enough. For all the other expectant moms out there, if you are looking for adorable handmade invitations that are really beautiful and impressive, please consider getting in touch with Amber via her Etsy shop.

In the meantime, we sent out our invitations a couple weeks ago and the RSVPs are starting to roll in. In some ways, it's hard to believe that it's MY baby shower?!?! (What? I'm having a baby girl? I'm going to be a mom?!? How crazy! How fun and exciting!) But mostly I'm just so happy and excited. I'm really enjoying helping with the planning and I'm even doing a couple projects for the shower. (I just can't help myself!) I'll update more once I finish a few more of the projects and (hopefully) post pics of the shower . . . if I can remember to bring my camera, actually take pictures and somehow manage to not look like a beached whale by the time the shower rolls around! ;-)

~Layne