Spring Things

Spring will be here so soon, at least that's what's been getting me through the last week, and that's what the groundhog told us.

In honor of spring coming up, I decided to launch my first Facebook ad and am super happy with how it came out! In case you haven't seen it on your news feed, here's what it looks like:

Sam and I had lots of fun during this little photo shoot and had some extra images that I wanted to do something with, so decided to make a gif. I'm excited to share that with you, as well!

PS turns out I love making gifs, so be prepared for lots more of them

In other news, this past week I added a new wedding invitation set to the shop, and you guessed it, it's a spring / summer invitation featuring greenery and wildflowers. I'm trying to be seasonally optimistic, ya dig? You can find the new invitation here.

And, one more little goody for you in case you missed it on my Facebook page. Now through March 21st, I'm offering 10% off with this coupon code:

Until next week!

-- Alison --

That time we bought a chair off craigslist..

Well, here we are, a week after my last blog post! Are you shocked? I am.

Since my last post, I've tried to work on my goals for the year. If you need a refresher, they are:

- Weekly blog posts - starting last week
- At least one new invitation a month

- Get fit / eat healthier

- Work on the house

I posted a few new listings last week, which is super exciting! One of them is a baby shower invitation to continue on with my "sweet little" series. This time, I went with a sweet little pea.

This invitation is not only super cute, but perfect if you are planning a gender neutral baby shower! You can find it here.

A while back, someone had asked me to change the starfish on my beach bridal shower invitation to an anchor and I loved it so much that I decided to put it in the shop. You can find that set here.

Let's see, what else...oh yeah... get fit. I registered to run a 4-mile hilly run in a couple of weeks and have managed to run 4 miles on the treadmill (aka dreadmill) without stopping a few times since then. That's only when I've been fortunate enough to get one of the good treadmills with a tv, so I can watch Fixer Upper as a distraction. Maybe I can ask Sam to run ahead of me holding his phone out playing cat videos on YouTube for the actual race?

As far as working on the house, we haven't really done anything since last week except purchase a "new" chair. I decided that I needed a wingback chair with an ottoman for my office, so began searching the internet only to quickly become discouraged by their $500-$800 price tags. So, I decided to check Craigslist and wouldn't you know it, a wingback chair with an ottoman for $100 in excellent condition! I batted my eyes at Sam and asked real nice if we could get it and he said "What's a wingback chair?"

We arranged to pick it up Sunday morning, so we hopped in the car and headed out 35 minutes south into the middle of nowhere. The main roads were nice and clear, so we figured this would go off without a hitch and were only concerned about possibly getting murdered by this stranger. That was until we reached their road...aka hill...aka giant hill...aka mountain. We started to drive up it in an suv that apparently has no 4-wheel drive and the road wasn't plowed, just sanded. We were going along alright, until we weren't. The car couldn't make it up and we started to go backwards. Nothing Sam tried stopped us, so we eventually just slid off the road. Thankfully, nothing happened to us or the car and we were able to get out of the foot of snow we landed in.

The owner of the chair ended up meeting us at the bottom of the hill and ended up being the bees knees. He said he would've plowed us out if we were stuck there and also mentioned how he was a grandpa, so my grandma chic chair is in fact a grandma chic chair. The chair made it home, after we barely fit it in the car, and I just love it (but not as much as the cats do).

Do you have any fun Craigslist stories? Let me know in the comments!

Until next week,
-- Alison --

Zzz

Today you might be feeling a little off after staying up watching the Superbowl / drinking / eating way too many snacks / spending too much money on squares / wondering what the heck happened to the commercials this year, so I figure I'd brighten your day with a blog post!

Last time, I left you with saying things have been crazy lately after buying our first house and the holidays and all of that. Well, turns out I also said I'd be providing a list of my resolutions for the new year. After realizing I totally failed to deliver on that, I figured I'll share them now... better late than never?

Here are a few:

- Weekly blog posts - starting this week!
- At least one new invitation a month

- Get fit / eat healthier

- Work on the house

So far, we have already done quite a bit to our house (hence my absence on the blog... who am I kidding, I'm always absent on the blog), but the list is still quite long.

A lot of the projects we've done have made a huge difference to us, but I don't think you'd find them very interesting (for example, laying new insulation in the attic, installing a new dryer vent, or fixing the sump pump). I'll share some more interesting things when we get to them.

I have decided to post weekly blog posts and at least one new invitation a month. I have also decided to share that with you so I have some accountability. And, why not also add on there to get fit and eat better? I go to the gym/run outside regularly and I don't think I eat too unhealthy, but there are always areas to improve here. For example, I'd love to be able to run farther / faster, so that's something I'm working on. 

What about you? What have you decided to work on this year? How is it working out for you so far?

This post isn't the most exciting read, but I may have also stayed up too late watching the game and eating too many snacks. Zzz.

Stay tuned for next weeks' post! 

-- Alison --

A Year in Review

So, today is December 30th 2015 - aka New Year's Eve-Eve, which means 2015 is almost over. It is also special for one other reason. Today also marks 10 years of togetherness with Sam! 10 years ago today he asked me, "Do you wanna like, be my girlfriend?" and I responded, "Sure!" Best decision I ever made. Sam is my best friend and my rock and I can't imagine life without him. Even though these "anniversaries" don't count now that we're married, I'm going to say it anyway - Here's to the next 10! <3

2015 has been a great year overall, of course there are always things that happen that just plain suck, but let's just stick to the positives. This year: Sam got a new job that he LOVES, where he can use his creativity and skills and I'm so super duper happy for him. In addition to that, we had a jam packed summer of visiting friends and family, traveled to Cape Cod, we had breakfast with Marc Maron, bought an iMac, bought a house, went to our 10 year high school reunion, saw lots of live music, met lots of new babies, wait - did I really say bought a house?!

That's right. I did and I still can't believe it. Last year, I wrote a list of things to accomplish in 2015 - here is a refresher:

1. Get better at blogging!!!!! I'm not afraid to admit that sometimes, I just don't know what to write about. Other times, it gets put on the back burner and by the time I go to write a post the topic is no longer relevant. No joke. I still have written on my "to do" list to blog about my camping trip from JULY. Sorry, friends.....guess you'll have to wait for next year's camping trip.

2. Create more designs! This is a give in. There will always be another design to make. My sketchbook is filled with ideas that are just waiting to come to life. 

3. One goal that I'm so, so hopeful to obtain is to reach 100 sales by my first Etsyversary. This is a goal I set when I first opened my shop and it remains. My Etsyversary is April 29th and as of today, I'm at 60 sales. 40 more to go...eek! I still think this is obtainable, but I'm beginning to have my   
doubts.

4. SAVE SAVE SAVE!!!!! Sam and I have been saving to buy a house for years and years. With the mountain of student loan debt we have between the two of us, and things popping up like car repairs and weddings, and amazing trips to California, this is no easy feat. We have decided to really get serious this time (like we haven't said that before) and try to cut back on frivolous spending and just save. Anyone that knows us, knows that we aren't really frivolous spenders to begin with, I freaking LOVE a good bargain, but there is always room for improvement.

5. Did I mention that my 10 year high school reunion is this summer? Maybe I'll finally get those Carrie Underwood legs or maybe improve my volleyball skills, or do something cool like invent something like Romy and Michelle did before their high school reunion. 

6. Read more books! I love to read, but usually I'll read one book as fast as I can and then go weeks before reading the next one. It'd be nice to be a bit more consistent and read a little at a time, all the time, like normal humans do. Also, it'd be nice to up my Jeopardy game a bit.

I thought when I wrote this list that I was overreaching, but turns out that I wasn't at all. Okay, so I didn't read as many books as I wanted or write as many blog posts as I wanted (we all know that) and I will always want to add more designs to the shop. With that said, I did create new designs, I did read some books, and I did get some blog posts out - these are things I'll always want to be better at. Also, it turns out my volleyball skills aren't too bad either because I definitely wasn't the worst one at our reunion. I'll consider that a success. Big things are, I did reach my goal of 100 orders, which is huge for me, and we were able to save enough to buy our first house!

Speaking of the house, in my last post I mentioned how crazy it has been lately...with the actual process of buying a house, then closing on it, packing up the apartment we've lived in for 6 years, then moving and unpacking, in addition to the holiday madness, working full-time, working on orders, and being a cat mom of two. The house is still kind of a mess. Most of our clothes are in garbage bags, while we have been trying to find a new dresser set. Needless to say I've rocked some interesting outfits the past week or two that may or may not have been clean. The to-do list is never ending, but I'm sure it will always be. The important part is that it's OUR house and we're in it together and it's just an amazing thing. Cheers to that!
Now, over the next couple of days I'll work on a new potentially unobtainable list for 2016 and seriously put my clothes away.

Talk to you soon!

-- Alison --

We bought a house!

It's me again, your long lost friend who's not really great about keeping up with this blog. At least I kind of have an excuse. The past several months, Sam and I have been house hunting. We weren't planning on buying anything until the spring because who wants to move in the winter? Well, turns out....we do!

Our realtor found us the perfect little house chocked full of charm and character and wait for it..... a wood burning fireplace! We fell in love with it and decided to jump on it. The holidays are stressful and busy enough, adding the process of buying our first house, working full-time, celebrating birthdays, Thanksgiving, packing, and moving has been interesting. Good news is, it's almost over! Closing day is Thursday and then we can move in and get settled-ish in time for Christmas. Cross your fingers this freakishly warm weather hangs in there through the weekend and we don't get a giant blizzard.

This might also be a good time to share that I most likely won't be baking any Christmas cookies. I hope I'm still invited to Christmas.

So, not that it hasn't been quiet already...the next few weeks will continue to be while we get unpacked and settled in. It's been tough to try and come up with new designs with all of this stuff going on, so I'm excited to get back to the grind once we are moved in.

The house is pretty much move-in ready, but there are a few projects I have in mind to put our touch on it. I plan to post some before and after shots, but that will all depend on how our good our diy skills end up being...ha!

So, stay tuned!

-- Alison --

Hotel Welcome Bag

Have I mentioned how much I love what I do lately? No? Yes? Well guess what, I'm gonna say it again. This job rocks.

A lovely bride ordered her wedding invitations from me recently (these ones!) and then asked if I could make some matching items to put in a hotel welcome bag for her guests. I'm not sure if you've seen this idea on Pinterest, but I LOVE the idea. Actually, I love the idea so much that it's something I did at my wedding. :) Our guests were so happy to have a few little snacks and drinks waiting in their rooms for them when they checked in (and also when they returned to their rooms after hitting the open bar). They were also super fun to put together.

If you Google or Pinterest "hotel welcome bag" or something similar, one million different versions of this will pop up. I was going to link the pin I used as a go-by, but it appears to be broken, so here is the photo from the pin.

When we put ours together, we used simple kraft paper bags with a baggage tag that said something witty, I'm sure, to match our "vintage hotel" theme. Inside there were: two water bottles, an apple, assorted bags of chips, a bag of candy, a couple of homemade cookies (if you know our family, you know this was a must have), and that's all I can remember right now. They were a huge hit!

The awesome bride that is making these for her guests is really going all out. She asked me to design custom water bottle labels, custom stickers to put on the packages, a cute little welcome note, and - my favorite - a caricature drawing of her and her fiancé to stick on the outside of the bag. I'm so excited for how they all came out and think they will be a great addition to her welcome bags!

Water Bottle Label

Welcome Note

Stickers

And....Drumroll..

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Caricature Sticker for Outside of Bag

So, if you're planning a wedding and there's a hotel involved - keep this idea in mind! It's a small little detail that your guests will truly appreciate and you can have a blasty blast putting it together.

-- Alison --

Do the thing.

It's really amazing how quickly time passes. It's almost the end of August, which makes me really sad because this was the fastest summer ever and there was so much that I wanted to do that I didn't. However...fall is pretty sweet, so I'm kind of looking forward to it. Pumpkin everything is almost upon us.

Since my last post, a lot has happened. Sam and I have continued to live as movers and shakers and have had plans nearly every single weekend. Sam also got a new job, which has been a long time coming and he couldn't deserve it more. I've managed to squeak out one new wedding invitation design which you can find here, which is less than what I was hoping for, but I'm super happy with how it came out so at least there's that!

More recently, things have happened that have really rocked my world. I've lost a dear friend, one of my oldest and first friends. Over the past few years, we hadn't seen each other much, but had always remained in contact and when we saw each other it was as if no time had passed. We were still little kids dressed up as princesses waving to cars in her front yard or in high school writing in each other's yearbooks about being bffs 4lyf and then falling apart and then regaining our friendship, and then going to college together and seeing each other nearly every weekend at house parties and just laughing our asses off. There will never be anyone else like her. She was truly unique. She was so full of life and not afraid of anything.

The shock of her passing has really got me thinking about things. Life is so freaking short and if you want to make something happen, do it. Or at the very least try your freaking hardest. So, with that said. I really want to put everything I have into The Invitation Oven. This little shop is my dream. It's more than a job, it's something that I'm passionate about and would LOVE to do all day every day. It's knowing that every order I process is a little piece of paper announcing someone's special day and spreading that joy with their friends and families and random people they have to invite because that's how it goes. It's so special and intimate to be involved in these milestone events and I love every second of it.

With that in mind, I'd like to say thank you to my friend. Thank you for showing me how fragile life is and how you should make your time here matter.

So, dear reader, whatever your thing is...do it!

Here's to making things happen!

-- Alison --