Chairish Room Challenge

I was recently contacted to participate in a room challenge by Chairish, have you heard of them? It's a super cool site where you can buy and sell furniture. This is a dream come true for my unhealthy mid century modern obsession! The challenge was to take an accent chair found on their site and design a whole room around it fitting in the theme "White to Bright." Again, total dream! My whole apartment is "White to Bright." I envision this room with white walls and the furniture and accessories adding all the color! Below is what I came up with.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Mason's Camping Party

There you have it Mason's fun little camping party! We did everything ourselves (with help from our families). My dad made the tent following this tutorial. Instead of a cake I made S'mores cupcakes, inspired by this pin. The party favor was inspired by this pin. I bought the flashlights here. The 8ft banner and large bear poster were surprisingly affordable ($15 for both). I had them printed on a large format plotter in black and white (what they print blueprints on) and colored in the tent with crayons. I found the red wrapping paper that's covering the boxes on the table at Target, on Clearance for $2 right after Christmas (it kind of was the jumping off point for this party). My mom brought salad and fruit, and I made all the goodies with help from my mother-in-law. The s'more pops were a huge hit (inspired by this pin)! Instead of using the normal jumbo marshmallows, I used the GIGANTIC ones and they were absolutely delicious (make some, you won't be sorry). For entertainment we had bubbles and balls for the kids to play with, and the adults chatted and played a frisbee game called can jam. I love how it all turned out, it was casual, fun, and pretty low stress. I hope this inspires you for your next party!

**UPDATE** THE INVITATION, BEAR POSTER, AND PARTY BANNER ARE NOW AVAILABLE ON ETSY!

Camping Party Invitation

So if you follow Design Fancy you know I love to throw parties! Actually I love any excuse to design an invitation, and Mason's second birthday was the perfect excuse! If you haven't noticed, my last name is camp and that is what I went with for the theme, a camping party. I was going for less campfires and tin foil dinners, and more for a retro summer camp sort of a feel.

More often than not, my design process becomes experimental. I knew I wanted there to be a crest sort of shape that acted a sort of the summer camp logo. I also knew I wanted it to look stamped and retro. I don't generally like when something is faux stamped in photoshop or illustrator, you can usually tell. I also knew that I could not afford to purchase custom rubber stamps (I looked into it, it would have been pretty pricey). While I was racking my brain to try and figure out how to achieve this look, I remembered an art project I did with kids while working in an after school program in Idaho. Styrofoam Printmaking! Have you heard of it, or tried it before? Google it! I have done it before, but didn't think of it as a serious art form. People, it is! Basically all you do is gouge into a styrofoam plate with a ball point pen or some other pointy tool, paint over it and press it on paper. You can create some pretty sweet stuff with this technique! The possibilities are endless. I'll share more about the process next week.

So back to the invitation...My sister and I stayed up real late one night gouging and painting different shapes on plates (thanks Lollie), then I scanned them in and added the type. All the fun shapes started out on a styrofoam plate.

I love how it turned out! It's bright and fun, but not babyish. It was the perfect intro to his fun little party! Check back in next week for more party details (the party favors were real cute) and more on styrofoam printmaking.


P.S. If you think you would like this for your own party leave a comment. If I get enough interest I'll create a version for my etsy shop.

Happy Birthday Mason

Today is Mason's 2nd birthday! Hard to believe it's been another year, but this year has been fun with my little buddy. He is such a sweet kid. He loves giving kisses and will come up and hug my leg randomly throughout the day. This kid is happy from the moment he wakes up and politely hollers "out pleath" til someone goes and gets him.
This kid loves to eat, but loves to eat really healthy things. He can never get enough fruit, and can down 4 clementines in 1 sitting (more if I'd let him). He enjoys salad and green smoothies and is a vegetarian (unless we're at chick-fil-a). His favorite foods though are waffles and pizza. Every morning when I ask what he wants for breakfast the answer is always "waffle" (I also get the same answer for lunch and dinner) but he doesn't always get what he wants :). Whenever we bring home a box he assumes it's pizza and will run to the box and start saying "mmm mmm mmm." It's hardly ever pizza.
He loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (who doesn't?) and loves to color in his Mickey Mouse coloring book. We love drawing with chalk outside our apartment together and he always makes me draw a "buth" for him (that's a bus for those of you that don't speak Mason).
We have a park 2 block from our apartment and we go there almost 1 a day because Mason LOVES to be outside, he also enjoys playing with everyone else's toys at the park (never his own of course). Mason is already a California kid and enjoys the beach, and is not afraid of the waves at all. When he get's knocked over, he just gets back up and runs into the surf again.
This kid is crazy about his little football, we almost never leave home without it!
I think what he loves most are dogs. He lights up when he sees my grandma's dog (pictured above). He quite good with her and love to drag her on walks and pick her up and hug squeeze her (sorry Noel) :)
We are overjoyed to have this little man in our family, he brings so much laughter and joy into our lives! Happy Birthday Bubs! We love you!

Check in later this week for the cutest camping party you've ever seen!

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are having a love-ly day (too cheesy?). We started out our day with pink heart pancakes or as Mason calls them "cancakes." They were a big hit!

Mason was invited to a little valentine party so I threw the above valentines together yesterday for him to hand out to his little friends. I found the super balls in the party favor section of target for $1 for 12 balls. I thought this was more age appropriate than the other valentines I had already created.

Tonight we will be having our annual pizza picnic but sadly the hubs will be working late so it's just Mason and I this year. What is a pizza picnic you ask? Well, every year on Valentine's Day since we started dating Jon and I have ordered a pizza, laid out blankets and pillows and rented a movie to watch while we chow down. It's sort of our favorite date together!

I hope your day is filled with love and chocolate. Mason'd birthday party is Saturday so check in next week for all the party details! I cannot wait to share!!