Dora and Friends

Da, da, da doraaaaa the explorerrrr….. Come on any of you with children know this song. With my toddler, I hear this tune all day long.  It it now engrained in my head, so an order for Dora hat was no problem.  What I loved was that party was being held at a pet store!! How fun and so appropriate as all of Dora friends are animals. Mixing the animal theme with Dora was slightly more challenging then I expecting but I think I found a great middle ground by mixing animal print with Dora.  

Stepping out of the "paper" box: Favors and Centerpieces

Since I have been heavily involved in wedding planning it only appropriate that the next edition of ‘Out of the paper box’ be wedding related. Deciding on the perfect favors for a Bridal shower is always a challenge. There is so much to choose from one can suffer from sensory over load.  And to find something that matched the brides color scheme will just drive you mad. Thank god for crafts, it makes anything possible. Votive candles seemed like a good choice of favors since it could used over and over again but nothing fit our theme.  Luckily I had vision and a glue gun.  Taking some fancy ribbon and a jewel will take simple votive and make it some sophisticated and chic, not to mention save you a ton of money. 

Bonus, this edition also has a second tip!!  During a random night trip to Michaels, I found a major score…. Hurricane vases 2 for $4!!!  I felt like a thief walking out the door with 8 vases for less than $20. Now to put them to good use, I realized with a little sprucing up they would be perfect centerpieces for a bridal shower.  I took the pattern used on the bridal shower invitation and printed out on vellum paper.  Glued it to the outside of each vase and wrapped the ends with ribbon to give it a finished look. Volia high end vases for $2!  I filled each vase with some silk flowers and had the perfect centerpieces for the bridal shower.

Come to the end of the rainbow

Little Miss PaperCuts has grown up and is going off to college. Ok no seriously, she is just turning 3 but it feels like time is flying so fast that will be the next thing to happen. I am feel so many emotions happy, proud, sad, sentimental but most of all I feel like it time to celebrate. Especially since this is her last birthday as an only child……. YUP!! I am finally coming out the closet (though very very late) PaperCuts is expanding by two little baby feet. We are expecting a little Miss or Mr PaperCut in a few week. Sorry it took me so long announce but pregnancy flies when you are cutting paper.  Here is the announcement I shared with our family.

So back to Little Miss PaperCuts birthday party.  The theme is Rainbows! She saw an episode of Dora with a Rainbow party and just kept talking about rainbows so I thought it would be perfect. It took me a lot of time to put together the perfect party and it had to have the perfect invite. After hours of pouring over some great designs on the internet and my brain, I put together this little hybrid.  Isn’t it the cutest!!

Soon To Be Mrs

Back to my lovely bride.  Since she happened to be family, I was able to contribute to a lot to her wedding. Her bridal shower being one of my key areas.  Banners are always fun to make so I thought would make one for the guest to see when they came in.  I wanted to do something reminiscent of her wedding invitations that reminded everyone of who she would soon be.  The bride-to-be was quite pleased and even took the banner home.  Mission accomplished.

Blessed Favor

This summer has been full of events for PaperCuts, shockingly not all birthday parties. Not that I don’t love a good birthday design but it’s nice to flex our range.  A good friend and client contacted me about her baby boy’s baptism a while back. She had a great idea of making an important part of her baby’s blessing into favors for the guest AND knocking out some sitting issues also. Her only issue was how to implement it. 

I loved the idea and quickly ran with the idea.  Since part of the Greek Orthodox blessing involved oil, she wanted to give each attending family their own bottle of oil to take home. To take it further since Greeks do it big (we have all seen the movie) she had a ton of family coming and needed to put together a seating arrangement for the banquet afterwards.  

Our plan was to take the design used on the baptism invitation and design labels for the oil favors that also doubled as the seating cards. It came together so much better than we could have imagined. We even managed to include Jordan Almonds in the favor as they are a staple in Greek events. 

The baptism was beautiful, the guest loved their oil and everyone knew exactly were to seat. A perfect event!

Ribbon and Bows

I love how PaperCuts has been crossing state line lately!! This order came all the way from California.  A sweet lady requested a birthday banner for a little girl’s birthday party. The theme was ribbon and bows to which the customer had already fallen in love with a certain banner.  Since she couldn’t buy that banner, she wanted me to make something similar with some changes for the birthday girl.  I loved the colors she requested and the pure sweetness of this design.

Here comes the……wedding invitations?

Where O’ where has PaperCuts been?!?!  Apparently, I am not the world’s best blogger sorry to say but I have been working hard all summer.  This summer has been full of weddings, showers, baptism and of course birthday parties.  So there has been a lot of paper to cut. 

One of the biggest events has been a wedding which I eagerly designed and produced wedding invites for. What a job that was but how much did I love the results.  The bride was a family member who wasn’t sure what she wanted except that the invites be purple and silver.  After, torturing her with several rounds of “what do you like”, we settled on a glittery pocket design.  I drafted a sample for her approval and once she gave me the ‘ok’, I set to work creating these works of art.

Awww, made me want to go back and redesign my wedding invites. Mr PaperCuts quickly nixed that idea though, booooo.