Newest Newon! (Photo HEAVY)

About a week ago I had the privilege of throwing a baby shower for my best friend Danica. It's no secret that I love planning events. After my wedding was over, while I did have a sigh of relief, I also was sad thinking that I would no longer have an event to plan or a reason to spend time in my craft cave. Well, shortly after our wedding, Danica told me that she was expecting and the baby shower planning began!

Her and her husband chose not to find out the sex of their baby and while that has been driving me crazy, it gave me an excuse to throw a shower simply celebrating the mommy to be. Instead of a pink or blue theme, or a baby everything theme, I decided to go with a grown up, girly theme with touches of dogs (more specifically Danica's dogs George and Sophie). You'll see what I mean later...

For the color scheme, I decided to go with navy, hues of peach and (of course) gold. 

From there my friend Erin created these UH-MAZING invites:

She kills it every time. (If you missed it she also created my fabulous wedding invites.)

The enclosure and printing was done by Cards & Pockets.

Because gold was also a primary color used in my wedding, I already had TONS of wonderful gold items to use for the shower AND since I am a lover of all things gold, I didn't mind picking up a few extra things along the way. 

Lets just get to the photos shall we??

As always my Cricut Explore was my best friend for most of my projects, like this "Oh Baby" sign that I hung from the gate that guests entered through.

I re-used some gold photo frames from my wedding and also spray painted some little dog figurines (gold of course). 

I created a custom "Guest Book" using silhouettes of Danica's dogs and some pre cut balloon shapes for each guest to sign to latter be added. 

Here is what the final product ended up looking like.

And here are the models themselves :)

The "Mom"osa Bar was complete with champagne, juice, and lemonade and water as well. 

I had guests choose what they thought the baby was by choosing a drink stir that was also made out of silhouette of Danicas dogs, George for a boy and Sophie for a girl. 

My Cricut of course helped me to create these custom juice labels (carafes from Ikea). 

That gold polka dot drink dispenser was a Marshall's find that I just couldn't pass up. (Similar)

I don't think I got a good photo of them but I also made custom water bottle wraps that you can kind of see in this photo. 

The final set up. 

My wedding florist LeeLina went above and BEYOND what I expected with florals. I mean come on... how gorgeous, right?

The shower favor was a succulent (with, of course, another doggy silhouette) in a gold pot no less. (Sorry the photo is kind of blurry)

The flowers tho... I meeeeean...

Quite possibly my favorite detail of the whole shower was this chair. I added a "Baby Mama" banner (one of Danica and I's favorite movies) and LeeLina added the extra little flower and ribbon detail and it just looked amazing. 

And if you know me, you know a photo backdrop is a necessity and this event of course was no exception. 

Baby alphabet book station. 

Another favorite part of the shower... the flower crown station. Not sure where I got the idea but from the beginning of the shower planning process a flower crown station was a MUST. 

Before I made my crown. Danicas was made by LeeLina and was absolutely gorgeous (as expected).

Party host Me ;)

Aren't the flower crowns just such an awesome touch??

Details

Isn't the chair just amazing?

Some girls enjoying the Baby Alphabet Book station. 

We, obviously, had our own photoshoot...

The somewhat inappropriate gift I gave to Danica. 

Cutting into the delicious cake (with, of course, a custom cake topper made by me and my Cricut). 

Sadly I didn't get a great photo of most of the desserts... but here are a couple...

Strawberry Shortcake shooters (whip cream was added later). 

Hitting the timer button and running back and trying to crouch for the photo clearly didn't do much for my posing but, you get the idea. 

My favorite Baby Mama <3

I'd say the shower was a success (aside from the fact it felt like we were on the sun for most of it, but seeing as how it rained the weekend before, I'd rather have the heat)! We all had so much fun and it was exactly what Danica wanted, a relaxed environment, a small group, no pressure, no games, just hanging out and having fun and celebrating the mama to be! 

Now... all thats left is the arrival of the Newest Newon!

Vendor Love: Invitations // Florist // Rentals // Design + Planning // Cake

Wedding DIY using Cricut Explore

I've said it before and I'll say it again, wedding planning, while stressful, was also some of the most fun I've ever had, mainly because I spent a good majority of it in my craft cave. 

Not long after getting engaged I treated myself to the newest toy in paper crafting, the Cricut Explore. While I have dabbled in just about every kind of crafting under the sun, paper crafting and scrapbooking is one that never quite stuck so I didn't have much experience with the Cricut brand. The Explore, however, was a brand new kind of paper crafting machine. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of creating. I had no idea the kinds of things that could be created using a Cricut! The Explore can not only cut but it can write, score, and can now even use a print then cut feature! The possibilities are truly endless!

I had so much fun coming up with different ways to use my Explore throughout the wedding planning process.  

Some of the (many) things I created for the wedding with my Explore were:

Tags for the girls' dresses. 

Our "Chalkboard" Cocktail Signs

Our Bar Signs

Our Cards Sign

Our Guestbook Sign

 Our "Mrs." & "Mr." for our sweetheart table.

(Flowers by the incredible LeeLina Martin)

One of my favorites was our "logo" for our "Guest Guitar". 

Using Cricut Design Space I was able to use the logo that was created by our invitation designer Erin to put our wedding logo on the guitar itself. 

Another favorite, our escort cards/favors. 

Because I am a creator at heart, I wanted our escort cards/favors to be something creative. I had the idea of having them be mini canvases on easels and after some trial and error, I decided on putting arrows on all of the boys canvases and hearts on all of the girls. 

I, of course, made special "Bride" & "Groom" canvases for Sam and I.

Using the same idea, I created our table numbers on small canvases.

And lastly, the sizing for the flip flops. 

There were all sorts of other things along the way, I just decided to share some of my favorites. 

I had so much fun creating unique things for the wedding, and I really can't imagine doing it without my Cricut! Since the wedding, I have actually missed the long nights working on wedding crafts and have tried to come up with excuses to use it! Lucky for me, now I get to plan a baby shower and you better believe my Cricut will be putting in overtime for the occasion. :)

**This post was in no way sponsored by Cricut, I just love the product that much. **

(All photos compliments of our amazing photographer Roger with EPlove.)