blogger love: eat drink chic

Amy Moss has a sweet blog called Eat Drink Chic that is so inspiring and bright, and I've been smitten with it ever since coming across her inventive and impromptu wedding. It was so charming, and many of the ideas are perfect for any party, not just for nuptials!

And even though she's from the land down under and they're about to have their winter, she's made a free digital download for summer! Check out these sweet floral tags that you can use to label summer drinks, attach to gifts, or organize your crafty wares. They come in three designs. Love 'em! Have a great weekend!

image via eat drink chic

toting cuteness

I love these silly little tote bags with Bubi Au Yeung's Treeson character on them, they are simply adorable! And let's not even mention the nerdy glasses tote. It is just too cute for words. I'd love to lug that to the library with me! They're just $13.95 each at Crazylabel.

spuds not duds

Lately I've been into brainstorming food-themed parties -- cake decorating parties, dumpling parties, noodle parties and etc. So since it had been so cold, I wanted to have a baked potato party. Nothing's better than tons of warm and delicious carbs to keep you toasty on a chilly night, right? So what did I do? I kid you not, I googled "perfect baked potato" and came up with this recipe.

A few nights later, we had a lovely Christmas with our families, and I made homemade corn nuts with my sister. I took some home, and began to plan for an upcoming Spuds night. I set out to have lots of toppings - cheddar and pepperjack cheeses, green onions, olives, homemade chili, sour cream, and butter. No time to make the broccoli, but I will save it for next time. The potatoes were delicious, with crispy perfect skins and silky and snowy on the inside - not dry and chalky like some potatoes can be. And the prep was so easy! Serve it with a salad, and you're set. Here are a few photos, courtesy of my lovely guests. Next party? How about a won ton party? Can't wait.

g shower photos

Remember the invites I did earlier? The shower turned out beautifully and it was such a good time! The baby is coming any day now, so it's very exciting.

My friend Jasmin took some awesome photos to capture the day - it's wonderful to have someone taking photos when you aren't able to. She did a great job! The highlights of the party were the fun games we played and the sweet garland made of paper circles that were sewn together. And the oh-so-large balloons that are so popular now were perfect to fill our large wooded party area. Check out more photos here.

brought to you by the letter g

One of my old roomies from college (Lori) is pregnant with her first child, so Es and I got together to plan her a shower. It's coming up quickly, so we had to get invitations done in a hurry. Something economical and not typical "pastel baby shower" was in order.

I had lots of white cardstock at home, so it gave me a good starting point. I definitely felt inspired because we could come up with a very modern baby theme. Before designing anything, I like to come up with a color scheme first, so I visited one of my favorite websites, Adobe Kuler. This is a site that allows you to try out, browse, or create your own color palettes. It's so much fun! You can even upload a photo and it will give you a color scheme that draws upon the colors in the photo. This is a great tool for deciding on party colors, your house colors, or even fashion choices. Lori had wanted all ocean colors, so I came up with a few palettes for her to choose from by typing in the keywords "ocean" and "sea" in Kuler. This is the one we finally settled on:

To break it up a bit, I thought we should add some yellow accents for a pop of fun. So here is the simple design that plays on all these colors:Here is the logo close-up - I really loved all the colors overlapping one another with a kaleidoscope kind of effect, and the striped type made it fun and lighthearted. It came from Dafont.com and it's called Lane. A beautifully simple typeface with clean lines. The other font I used was Champagne and Limousines (what a name!).


Then I found some vellum envelopes on sale at Paper Source, and thought that they'd be neat if I printed on them, but the only problem would be privacy! I didn't want people to be able to read the address, so I came up with a paper cover of sorts so the logo could still peek through. Here are some other photos of the invitation:


Overall, I really hope that Lori and Chris like it and that it conveys their style. And there are lots of other fun goodies in store for the shower! Can't wait!

shower + travel + love

As the weather is getting warmer, it's definitely time for a party. I'm not always in a partying mood, but when I'm down it's good to have a get together with friends to remind you of the good things, the blessings. I am reminded of the wonderful time we had last September when we threw a bridal shower for one of my very best friends. She loves to travel so everything was travel themed - we set up vintage suitcases all over the house, we prepared food from different locations she'd been to, and even put up a big map for people to pin travel advice on. We collected toiletries from the guests to donate to a local homeless shelter, which is something she did when she was in high school, and we thought we'd bring it full circle.

And then we played the most hilarious game where she had to pick out photos of her fiance's body parts from a selection of pictures of random guys. That was topped off by a crepe bar. Seeing the smile on her face as she walked around that day was the best part of the whole thing though. Parties are such fun.

photos courtesy of jasmin canlas