Jungle Invite.

I just made another birthday invitation for sweet little Hudson, who is the precious baby boy of my friend Kendra. He turns 1 in June and I cannot believe it! The party is jungle themed, and I am in love with the wording Kendra gave me. My favorite part is "Please give us a roarrrrrrrr...." So sweet :).

And yes, I changed the address and contact information....so internet creepers, beware.

Have a great day!

Blogging

(Um, get ready for a long post.)

I am a paranoid person by nature. When I first started blogging, I was always extremely worried of what people would think about what I wrote. I thought (and sometimes still do), "Do people make fun of me for this?", "Is what I'm saying even worth reading?" But then I realized that really, I don't care what other people think, because I don't do this for them, I do this for me. Let me take a moment to explain why.

I remember a couple of years ago, a few of my friends were poking fun at people who blogged. I did too, mostly because I didn't understand the point of it or why people would actually think that others would want to read their random thoughts and life happenings. But those opinions have definitely changed for me now. Over the past eight months, this blog has become a creative outlet for me (just in case you haven't noticed haha). I don't do this thinking and hoping that other people will care enough to read (although that is nice too), I blog mostly because it feels good to be able to get out all of the crazy thoughts and ideas that are bouncing around in my head. The fact that people are nice enough to read, comment, and follow along is just an added perk that has turned into something I really appreciate.

More importantly, I have found that blogging is a huge motivation for me to actually live the life that I want to live, and make our house into the home I know it can be. I probably get one or two real-life comments a week about how much we do with our house, or how busy we seem, and I have to say that honestly a lot of that is because of "the blog".  When I started this whole thing last July, I talked a lot about what I wanted to do, and what I wanted our house to be like, but never actually did anything about it. We spent most of our time sitting around, not doing anything to our house, not spending time with our friends, and basically not enjoying this little chapter of our life that will be nothing but a memory in a few short years.

Now however, things have definitely changed, and this blog has become something like an accountability buddy to me. We complete projects because I know that I need something to post about during the week (yes, I'm being serious). I post pictures of our life and the things that we do with our friends and family because I know that I'll regret it years from now if we never did anything but sit a home alone watching TV. I talk about my random thoughts and the little moments in life, because doing that forces me to "be present" and appreciate the life that I have right now. All of these factors have made both Bryan and I much happier, and much more productive people. No, my writing is not the best (in fact, I write just like I talk in case your wondering), and I don't really post any profound thoughts or events. In fact, everything I post on here is really only about 1/8 of what goes on in our lives, but still, it has more than helped the kind of lives we lead.

We are living the life that we want to live, and I'm sure we'll keep doing that. And our little blog will be along for the ride. And you will too, if you want. When we move to a new city, move into a new house, change jobs, have a baby, have another baby, so on and so forth, this blog will still serve as my main outlet for everything going on in our sweet, usually happy, busy little life.

So....explaining why I blog...check.

And since posts are always better with pictures, here is one of a graduation announcement I just made for my friend Jessica Studer. I am loving the flowers!

I also wanted to say Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet mother-in-law!!! I know you're moving into your new home and probably won't get a chance to read this, but Bryan and I both love you so much and really appreciate the person that you are. You are such a big role model for me, and I am so grateful for that! We hope that you have a wonderful year!

Whew. If you made it through ALL of that you get an A+ for the day. Good job.

Have a great Wednesday!

New Stuff

Sorry I'm not very original with my post titles. So...I woke up today feeling very inspired, and the next thing I know, I had come up with tons of cute designs for personal stationery cards for my Etsy shop! Basically ever since I opened my shop, I've been trying to decide what audience and style to focus in on (hello, marketing classes). I love to play with a ton of styles (modern, classic, simple, girly...) but I need to stick with just one of two if I want to be successful. I also decided to narrow down the type of stationery I want to sell. After today's design extravaganza, I think I have it all figured out.

From now on, I will only be selling personal stationery. I really love wedding related stationery, but I tend to get stuck and frustrated....so I'm hoping this new direction works well!

Here are just a few of the card designs I came up with today....

I became obsessed with ticking stripe a few weeks ago, hence the next two cards...

AND I just orded cardstock to print these on--linen textured. They will look amazing.

P.S. Yardwork sucks. And also you should go download the new Eli Young Band song "Crazy Girl" and "7 & 7" by Turnpike Troubadours. SO so good. Ok...I am leaving this computer! I haven't showered yet and all I've eaten today is a cupcake. I know, TMI.

I Heart Invitations

So last week I was finally able to see one of my designs in print! Usually when I make something, I send it off and never see it again. I about jumped up and down when I got Megan and Westin's Save the Date in the mail!

Excuse the brick house in the background... I was running out of daylight and didn't want to take the picture without it...natural light is SO great for photography.

Anyway, she had them printed on linen textured cardstock...I love them! She also printed and sent out this one as well:

I also wanted to give ya'll an update on my brand new Etsy Shop. I haven't sold anything yet, but since it's only been open for a week I'm not worried at all and I'm still hopeful that things will pick up in the next few months as I add more items (and maybe start advertising). Here are a few more invitations I added this week:

Yes, I did use my sisters and sister-in-law for these, and YES they are marrying celebrities haha!

Love them all! I might get this printed just so I can post pictures of how much cooler they would look in person!

New Etsy Shop

I finally got around to starting my own Etsy shop! It's called KatyLady Designs!

I've been talking about doing this for months, so last night while I was STILL recovering from my cold/fever/deadly illness, I went ahead and made a shop. In the last year, I've probably made some sort of invitation for someone every couple of weeks, so I decided that I want to start selling them.

I only have 2 items for sale right now, but I intend on adding more in the next month. I will be selling pre-made digital templates for people to print their own invitations/cards for weddings and parties. Eventually, I want to do custom orders and maybe even print them myself, but for now, I'm going to stick with this. We'll see how it goes! I may sell nothing at all, and if so, I'll change my methods...only time will tell. If I ever get too busy or just don't like doing this anymore, I'll close the shop, but as of right now, I'm having fun doing this in my free time and am very excited!

You can visit the shop by clicking HERE!

Ella's Birthday Invitation

Hi everyone! Today I'm going to show you a birthday invitation I made for one of my friends, Kendra (Hey Ken!!). Her daughter, Ella, is turing three this month (I cannot believe she is already three!), and Kendra asked if I would make a Minnie Mouse themed invite. She even sent me a few pictures of Ella all decked out in her Minnie costume to use on the invite.

Here it is:

I love the way it turned out!

...I don't have much else to talk about, so I guess that's it for now!

**I just took off the address for those creepy internet people--don't know why I didn't do it in the first place! (smacks head with hand)...**

Save the Dates!

As I've mentioned before, my friend (and bridesmaid) Megan Cox is getting married this summer! She will be having a big, gorgeous wedding and I'm so happy to be in it! I'm also getting to make all of the wedding stationery, so today I worked on her Save the Dates. Her and Westin are using the VERY talented photographer Alissa Joy to photograph their wedding, and their engagement pictures are STUNNING. I was able to use some of the pictures in the proofs I made her...check it out!

You may have noticed that a lot of these look the same...well, they are, I just changed little things about them! I wonder which one she'll pick!