Wildflower Baby Girl Shower

My BFF is having a baby! Last weekend we celebrated my childhood best friend, Megan, who is a gorgeous mama-to-be. With one of her other childhood best friends, Emily, we hosted a flower filled baby shower. To set the scene for the shower, we picked out an adorable Rifle Paper Co. invitation from Paperless Post and sent it out to her family and friends. My favorite part was the lined envelope! I mean, who doesn't love a Rifle Paper Co. lined envelope?

From there, Emily and I got to work planning out the food, decor and favors. Food is an important part of a shower and to keep things easy to transport, we decided on quiches. Emily is the right co-hostess to put in charge of food because she made some delicious quiches! We also served fruit and cheese and crackers. For favors, Emily went to my favorite local spot for popcorn, The Popcorner, and got some yummy bags of popcorn. Fun, affordable baby shower favor if you put a little tag that says "ready to pop!" Then for the sweets, I decided to try a new cookie maker I met at the shop a few weeks ago: Sweet Sugarlicious by Wendy. I sent her an idea and the invitation for inspiration. I was blown away with the outcome! Meeting talented locals has been one my favorite things about having the shop.

Love how the cookies look on my favorite Annie Glass platters from The Plaid Giraffe.

Since it was a flower themed shower, I knew the flowers needed to be bright and pretty. I liked the idea of one big table where people could enjoy a family style brunch with the mom-to-be and when I remembered my mom had a long wooden candle holder, I knew it'd be perfect for flowers. We had Tonya at The Plaid Giraffe (my flower go to!) put small arrangements in gold votive holders. To save a little money, we put tealights in some of the holes. I loved the final result. It went really well with the Liberty of London floral and mint plates we chose from the shop.

To keep our guests entertained, we played a little game that we did at my cousin's baby shower a couple years ago: Price is Right! It's a fun way to give the mom-to-be some great necessities and give the guests a non-cheesy form of entertainment. I put Em in charge of picking out the items since she's a mom herself and we set them in a box to show our guests. We gave each person a "Price is Right" sheet, so they could try guessing how much each baby essential cost. They then tallied up their items and the person with the closest total won a Starbucks gift card. Worked out perfectly, because a friend whose having her second baby any day now won! She's going to be needing that free coffee.

Entertained the guests and Megan got a head start on some baby necessities! Overall it was a great shower and everyone seemed to have a good time showering her with some love and presents. Her nieces had a really good time and enjoyed having their own little table setup. They were even helpful when it came to opening presents!

Cake made by Emily with the traveling elephant that they have each received at their showers.

Thank you to everyone that came out and helped us celebrate our wonderful friend! I could tell she enjoyed being around everyone that loves her and already loves her baby girl! Megan, we seriously could not be more excited for you and Leo and your growing family! I hope you felt loved and enjoyed being spoiled on a Sunday morning.

Beautiful Mama-to-Be & Future baby Grandma

Friends Forever! So fun growing old with these girls and I'm definitely using them one day when I need mom advice! 

Shop this post at Love of Character, in store & online. Want to book a shower or event at Love of Character? Check out our party details & contact us!

B-A-B-Y Balloons | Liberty of London Dinner Plates | Pink Striped Dessert Plates | Wooden Forks | Marble Mint Napkins | Liberty of London Paper Cups

Lots of Love,

Stationery Workshop

My Aunt Mary is in town for the week, so I'm taking advantage! I put her straight to work with a Stationery Workshop yesterday and she had so much fun. Aunt Mary lives for all things paper, hence where I get my obsession from, and has a love for beautiful stationery. A few years ago, she learned how to emboss and has been embossing everything from cards to muslin bags since. She also rarely lets an envelope go unlined. I mean, when you have a major stash of gorgeous paper, why would you?

I couldn't let these talents go untapped, so the minute she told me she was coming, I put two workshops on the calendar. I knew once people learned how all the tools worked, they would love creating their own stationery. There were eight attendees at the workshop and most had never embossed or lined envelopes.

Aunt Mary started with an overview to talk through the supplies in front of them and then the proper use of them. Then she did a couple demonstrations and put them to work. Really, embossing and envelope lining aren't terribly difficult, you just have to know what you are doing to get started. Once the ladies started, they couldn't stop! It was so fun to see their excitement for the new skills they were learning. Everyone did such a beautiful job.

Every attendee of the workshop received the following supplies to get them started on their stationery making adventure:

Embossing Heat Tool

Embossing Powder

Stamp

Embossing Ink Pad

Note Cards

Envelopes

Paper for Liners

Envelope Line Template Kit

Kind of jealous they get such a pretty heat tool! Mine is bright royal blue with a silly logo. I try to keep you all stylish when it comes to all things paper ;). For the liner paper, we decided to go with some of our Rifle Paper Co. wrapping paper since it goes with most tastes. Plus it makes great pretty liners. Not going to lie though, it was so hard to narrow down! All of our wrapping paper would make for some gorgeous liners (abstract paintings, lemons, doxies, get what I'm saying?!). The finishing touch on the place settings was the presentation envelope, an idea I saw on Instagram once. We thought it would be such a great way to add a personal touch. To incorporate the embossing aspect, I embossed everyone's names on before the class. These envelopes are great for storing things like invitations, mail and other important documents. Most of the ladies lined them and it was a dreamy combination. Definitely worthy of some wall space in their offices.

Photos via Sally Cavanaugh Photography

Sad that you missed the class? Don't be! We are doing it again this Thursday evening at 7pm and there are a couple spots left. You can sign up here:
http://loveofcharacter.com/products.php?product=Stationery-Workshop-%252d-September-22nd

If that date doesn't work for you, we will be doing it again in the future if requested. Might even find time to do a holiday themed one and incorporate gift tags!

BIG SHOUT OUT to my wonderfully talented friend Sally Cavanaugh who took the pictures for us. She is another great photographer in the area (I'm very blessed with talented photographer friends!) and she does great family work. Check out her website here: http://sallycphotographyblog.com/

Thank you to everyone that attended the workshop. I hope you had the best time learning a new set of skills and chatting with fellow classmates! Lastly, big thanks to my fabulous Aunt Mary (and fellow paper role model) for teaching the workshop. Always more fun to do things with someone else.

For those of you attending on Thursday, see you then! Can't wait.

Lots of Love,

NYC: National Stationery Show

Wanted to give you all a rundown of our trip up to NYC for the National Stationery Show! My Aunt Mary and I had such a fabulous time and found some great items for the shop...there were so many great booths with beautiful things. Paper products overload! To recap the weekend, I'll give some quick blurbs and share fun pictures:

1. Rifle Paper Co. + LeSportSac Launch Party -

They were screen printing pineapple prints for Anna to sign! They also had snacks, prosecco & fresh flower bouquets...so fun! 

Probably my favorite part about the whole trip was getting to meet the wonderful and adorable Anna Bond, creator of Rifle Paper Co. She was sweet as can be and told us about all the work that has gone into the upcoming Alice in Wonderful book she is illustrating (can't wait for that to come out!). To check out the bag collection and carry your own fabulously floral bag click here to go to the Rifle site. My Aunt got me the Abbey Carry-On weekend bag for my birthday and it made flying back more fun! You can find that one on the LeSportSac site.

2. National Stationery Show - the reason we came to New York! Here are some random shots of the fun things we found:

We found so many gorgeous things at market and are excited for the things we ordered! Little Boxes of Character are due for a revamp once we start receiving new products. Plus, we ordered rolls and rolls of new, amazing ribbon! They will add more character and flair to the boxes. We also stumbled upon a great party supply company. Ordered some pieces from the adorable tea party collection shown directly above to add to our party supplies collection. Can't wait to share with you all!

3. Food -

Breakfast Place: Lexington Brass

Perfect little Sunday brunch spot with good food! Photo via Eligible.

Lunch Place: Bryant Park Cafe

More for the wine & atmosphere than the food. Great spot to discuss market and what we wanted to purchase!

Dinner Place: ABC Kitchen

We grabbed a cocktail table and ate and ate and drank to our heart's desire - delicious, plus the atmosphere was amazing! Arrived at 5:30 when it was starting dinner, so we could snag a spot!

4. Entertainment - Wicked!

Highly recommend seeing it next time you are in NYC!

Overall it was a great weekend and I think my legs have finally recovered from all of the walking! Make sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook to see when new items arrive. Can't wait to share!

Lots of Love,