Having my cake and eating it too.

Its been feeling like a cake kind of week, and Memorial Day will probably be a perfect excuse to make/eat one.  Which reminds me that I forgot to share how cool Griffin's birthday car cake came out (made by my talented mother-in-law):

We have a rule in our house that if you want a particular slice of a cake, you can have it.  Case-in-point: Wavey wanted a piece in the dead-center.  After all, it's just cake...why be forced to eat from the ends in?

Speaking of cakes and celebrations, check out this well-decorated husky cake from Jessica at Barefoot by the Sea.  Patience and talent never looked so delicious:

Have a great holiday weekend and be sure to check back next week...an exciting Good Gravy! Giveaway is coming soon!

Bird wedding invitation + perfect pair bridal shower invitation

Its been a busy few weeks.  B-U-S-Y.  Here are just a few samples of what I've been working on:

This vintage bird motif is for an October wedding to be held in Saratoga, New York.  The bride chose a chocolate, meadow and navy blue color combination for her invitation suite - great for fall! 

I also just wrapped up a wedding shower invitation project.  The hostess liked the baby shower version I designed back in March and asked to modify it for a wedding shower and include matching thank you notes for the bride. 

Invitations + Matching Thank You Notes = Perfect Pair. :)


Personal information has been modified for privacy.

In 1957, everyone had poor posture

I'm helping a friend put together a slideshow for his dad's surprise birthday party, so among old family photos, I'm also scanning in his high school yearbook photo from 1957. The book contains quite a few gems from back in the day that are worth sharing.

In the photo above and below, why on Earth did the photographer make them all lean in like that?!

Among the senior class, each student had one-word career aspirations, such as "sailor" or "secretary" or "dentist."  There were also plenty of these careers:

And finally, while I took some weird electives in high school (hello, welding!), selling logs wasn't on the docket:

And I don't know what it was about the 1950s, but all the teenagers looked to be about 35 years old to me.

Weed farmers

We're so close to being done with the house painting.  The trim is just about finished and there's a little left down around the back, but hopefully it'll all be done by the end of this week. 

Which then leads me to my next issue: the severe neglect to the front yard.

We've been putting off any work on the front yard because we knew the painters would trample through it, so it was pointless to try.  But now that the exterior is shaping up, we need to shape up the garden!

You can probably guess what we'll be doing this upcoming weekend.

We've all got one or two of our own

I've found a new favorite crack-me-right-up website featuring Awkward Family Photos.  Along with the photo above, here are a few of my favorites:

{Images source}

Perfect for a Friday.  Enjoy!

DIY snack bags and my $125 habit

I'll admit, I use plastic zip-top bags.  I'll also admit that I need to cut back on using them rather significantly.  They're not good for the environment and I'm getting sick of the back of my car getting littered with them after errant cereal snacks sneak their way on out.

Amy from Little Bunny Feet posted this great tutorial about making your very own DIY reusable snack bags.  But since I'm sewing-impaired, it was pretty neat to see Amy celebrate her first "blogiversary" with a giveaway for a snack bag AND a $10 Target gift card.  Check it out!

And for the record, it's been scientifically proven by me and my wallet alone that one hand basket at Target filled just about to the brim with "I just need to pick up a few things" will usually ring up between $100 - $125. 

Scientifically proven. 

Birth announcement: bright paisley + monogram

I'm at a point in my life where I'm enjoying other people's infants because I can gleefully give them back to their parents when they fuss.  Midnight feedings?  Don't miss 'em.  But, I am always happy to design a birth annoucement!

Here is a recent design I created for a family who wanted a traditional, non-photo birth announcement using a monogram.  I like the bright colors of clementine, seaside blue and bright pink paired slate gray ink.

Personal information has been modified for privacy.

My trash, your treasure

It was relieving AND scary at the same time to see that we could overflow the bed of a truck with items we decided on a whim (and a quick sweep through the basement) we no longer wanted, needed or even used.

Our town has a transfer station containing a "swap shop."  Think of it like a little area that's similar to stumbling upon a yard sale...only no one is selling anything because the junk-but-not-trash is free for the leaving and taking.

I prefer more leaving than taking.  Buh-bye baby items!

Feeling blue

...and that's not a bad thing!  Here's a before/after of the house color:

At first, the color seemed a bit alarming, but once it sets in for a few weeks and the white trim is finished, I think the color will appear very crisp.  Plus, the Gravy Kids love it!

Mini bags are my favorite

Add this gathered clutch tutorial to my list of "I wish I could sew." 

Despite all tutorials, I can't figure out how to do the whole pull-the-thread-to-ruffle bit. Not to mention that I'd probably lose a finger working my way around a zipper.  I'll stick to drooling over the work of others.


Thanks to Tasha for this great find!

DIY silhouette: One big puff

Wavey was pretty bent out of shape when she saw Griffin's DIY silhouette and kept pestering me asking why there wasn't one for her yet. Fiiiine.

Given her crazy-curly locks, I figured a silhouette in her signature hairdo - "The Single Puff" - would memorialize it forever, and also be easier than trying to decipher around a blob of curly hair.

Same deal with the black cardstock, tracing paper and image to trace around.  I printed the photo in reverse so when the silhouette was trimmed and flipped, she would face opposite of Griffin's image when side-by-side:

To make it more girly, I added eyelashes:

The final, framed result:

Insult to injury

Well, this was enjoyable:

Already stewing that the painters we hired have started their work on our house later than promised, we received a call from them yesterday telling us that the wind blew the storm door open and the force against the railing smashed it to bits. 

Already bummed that my house looks awful during all the painting prep, this wasn't exactly a treat I enjoyed pulling up to. 

Oh, and are you curious how much progress from my last post about the painting has been accomplished?  Here's the before (soak it in):

And here's the after:

What's that?  You can't tell the difference?  Oh, there's a difference alright: Almost two months between each photo.

And I continue to stew.

Wedding favor tags: beach theme

150: That's how many of these little favor tags I put together for an upcoming wedding with a monogram 'thank you' message paired with natural jute twine.  For a beach-theme wedding, the little tags will appear on bags of bright colored saltwater taffy.  Yum.

The award for Best Performance goes to... Big Cookie

I'm usually the one behind the camera, but I wanted a yearly Mother's Day photo despite my hair being pulled back and messy.  The kids wanted their dolls in the photo, too.  Well, they're really Wavey's dolls, but Griffin doesn't like to be left out so he grabbed an undressed doll which you can see I'm trying to push it down as low as possible. Wavey was pleased that the doll on the left she calls "Baby Doody" (I swear, the naming was all her idea) made a photo appearance.

In the morning, this was the sign that greeted me as I approached a made-by-kids pancake breakfast:

It cracks me up how Lil' Rascals-ish the sign is.

After breakfast, I took Wavey to her first live performance play showing "The Velveteen Rabbit." When I asked later what her favorite part of the show was, she said, "When it was break time in the middle [intermission] and we went outside and ate a big cookie."

At least she remembered something.



PS: One of my favorite shops Tiny Sprouts is hosting a $75 gift certificate giveaway in honor of Mother's Day.  Check it out!