Beach Baby

Hi Stamping Friends!

I create lots of custom made invitations and announcements for customers.  It's what started my love affair with stamping.  I started off as a scrapper.  And I'm still am a scrapper at heart (although I haven't scrapped since last April and that was for someone else!)!  But I love when someone calls me for invites and I can pick their brain about party ideas... what's the theme, what colors are you using, is it casual, elegant or somewhere in between.  So when a friend for church emailed me this picture and said she needed some baby shower invitations, I was super excited!  Check out this adorable tabletop decoration:

Isn't it darling?  What a fun theme for a baby shower!  It comes from this fabulous entertaining site called Hostess With The Mostess.  And let me tell you, if I could afford it, I'd have a party every weekend!  This site just made me drool.  Well I love nothing more than an Inspiration Challenge, so I set to work to come up with the perfect invite.

Here it is:

I just loved the blue and orange combo in the pic, so I dug out some retired DSP called Jersey Shore.  I stamped the sailboat image from Nursery Necessities onto a piece of paper.  Then I used my copy machine and enlarged it.  I cut it apart and traced it onto the white backing that comes with the SU! DSP ( I NEVER throw that stuff out!).  Then I traced it onto the Jersey Shore DSP (25 times!) and cut it out and glued it (using a SU! gluestick) to some Bashful Blue cardstock.  The Bashful Blue is layered onto Brilliant Blue.  The Rope Twine adds an authentic nautical look.  It's no longer available through any catalog, but you can purchase it online through your demos Clearance Rack.  I LOVE the Clearance Rack!  So many great bargains!!

I remembered I had some cute white buckets tucked away, that would make adorable party favors, so I tied some Pumpkin Pie Striped Grosgrain to the handle and made this:

How fun is that?!  It would look perfect filled with some blue and orange M & M's or even some colorful gummy fish!  I love parties with a theme that you can have fun with.  My friend also wants me to make a banner with the baby's name on it, so I'm going to work on that tonight and hopefully post a pic to this post tomorrow afternoon.

So now I've been thinking... I wonder if I should start an Inspiration Challenge around this whole party theme?  I know there are TONS of challenges out there, but they are sooooo fun to participate in!  There are color challenges, sketch challenges, cupcake challenges, embellishment challenges, etc.  Do we really need another challenge?  I'm not sure, but I'm tempted.   Of course that would proably add extra stress to my life and that's the LAST thing I need.  :)

NURSERY NECESSITIES   #113506   $31.95

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!