Wedding Shower

This past weekend I had the privilege of co-hosting, with my mother, a wedding shower for my sister and her fiance. I was thrilled to be able to help...and especially to decorate for it! For weeks I have been collecting ideas and supplies and couldn't wait to see how it all came together!

So here it is...a colorful, vintagey (probably not a word), backyard wedding shower...



One of my favorite parts of the decorations was all of the photos of the happy couple strung everywhere. It made it very special and personal.






The cards in the box are recipe cards that I downloaded from here for free!
It is amazing all of the free printables you can find out in the blog world!






We have been collecting jars for months as well that will also be used in the wedding for table settings. I love all the different colors and shapes!









This garland was another favorite of mine! Several months ago I grabbed a bag of fabric at the thrift store...and inside that bag was about 200 of these 2" squares already pre-cut! Obviously originally intended for a quilt but I decided to go another route. I left all of the edges raw and simply sewed them end to end to make 4 different strands of garland. It looks like a lot of work but lucky for me some one else had already done the hard part!









I love the way the backyard turned out! So colorful and fun!






All of the table cloths and fabric we used were also found at thrift stores! (and all of the vases and frames too for that matter!)












It was such a wonderful time spent with family and friends celebrating the new family my sister and her fiance will be starting!

Congratulations Erica and Matt! We love you!

DIY Wedding Shower Invites

It is crazy hard for me to believe that my little sister will be getting married this summer!!! Even though she is only two years younger than I am, it is still hard to believe she is old enough to be getting married!

Growing up, we were always BEST friends!



...and still are!

So to just brag on my lil sis for a second...








yah... crazy talented...gorgeous... has a huge servants heart and a passion for missions!


umm...Matt...you are pretty much the luckiest man EVER!




I am so excited for the both of them though! And to be finally gaining a brother :-)

okay bragging done....

So naturally I am super excited to be doing my sister's wedding shower! The creative wheels have been turning in my head!!

First things first though...Invitations!

I wanted to be a bit more creative with the invitations and do more than just pick out some invites at a party store.

Here is what I came up with...



To create these invites I simply took used one of my sister's engagement pictures for the background. My sister and her fiance were lucky enough to have a friend who did their engagement pictures for them and gave them permission to print as many pictures and use them in any way they wish. (Note: Credit for original photo to- Angie Rushing.) Double check before using a photo that you do have permission to use it!

So I thought it would make their invitations even more special to use one of their pictures. I simply uploaded the picture to Picnik and added the wording to the picture! It was literally that simple! I used yellow and white for the font colors and two different fonts to add some variety.
I also looked up different ways to word wedding shower invitations and mixed and matched some of the wording from a couple different ones.

To print them off you can go one of two ways...

1. Send them to your local photo printing shop and print them off as a picture.
This is the option I chose since I could get 25 prints for free from CVS :-)

or

2. You can print them off on card stock.
This is the route I wish I could have taken but we do not currently have a printer at home and it would take up way too much ink to ask to borrow a friends printer.




I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way they turned out!
(Some sensitive details are blacked out on the pics...didn't want to share my phone number and parents address with the entire world ;-) hehehe)