Save the date!

It is absolutely ridiculous how long I've been meaning to post this project. Way back at the beginning of March, I decided I wanted to throw my friend, Elizabeth, a baby shower and we set the date for a week from Saturday (May 16). So yes, as you can see the shower is nearly upon us...I should've written this post long ago.

Since we set the date out that far, I wanted to send a "save-the-date" postcard to increase our chances of having a good turnout for the shower. Elizabeth will be coming from Wake Forest, a good 2 to 2.5 hour trip, for the shower and I really want it to be worth her while to come. Also, I know how MY calendar fills up as we get into spring & summer and I wanted folks to have a heads up about the shower.

Elizabeth's fave color is red (and she does wonders with it!) and so she's incorporating that into the baby's nursery as well. From what I've seen on her blog, it is going to be a fantastic space, full of energy and fun. I can't wait to see the nursery finished!

I decided to go with that for the shower as well, and try to incorporate some of the elements she's going to use in the nursery. Here's what I came up with:

I have since mailed out the invitations so I'll be posting that in the next day or two (hold me to that, would ya? :) and you'll be able to see how I coordinated that. Had such fun designing both! I've been picking up items here and there this week for the shower -- I'm getting really excited!

shower project

Well, this is pretty long overdue only because I've been wanting to post this for awhile and only just now found the time to do so. My dear friend, Amy, recently had her first baby, a precious little boy -- Kyle. And he looks like a Kyle, too. :) He also looks JUST LIKE his daddy. We took a meal to Joey & Amy last night and I got to hold the little booger...oh.my. He was just the sweetest thing, and even woke long enough for Jeff and I to see his cute little eyes. :)

So I say all this to say that we threw Amy a shower back at the end of March. We tried to do it mid-March, but little Kyle decided he would be a little difficult and cause some trouble for Momma...we had to reschedule to a later date; I'm just glad we got it in! He was born 9 days later! Anyway, I designed the invitation for her shower along with some other things for some games we played, the gift log and her thank you notes. Had a GREAT time designing & coordinating everything! Thought I'd share a few of those projects here:

You didn't think I'd end this post without a photo of "the little booger", did you? Cute as can be.

wanna get away?

Back in November, our sweet Sunday School class threw us a "surprise!-you've-been-teaching-for-5+years!" party. It was completely unexpected and so very, very thoughtful of them. They had a photo slideshow going the entire time with past class events and kind words of encouragement that some of them had written. Everyone brought all kinds of good food and we just had a sweet time of fellowship & good fun. AND THEN, as if the party wasn't enough, they presented us with a night's stay in a bed & breakfast downtown and 2 movie tickets! We were speechless.

We still have the movie tickets to use, but we used the bed & breakfast gift certificate this past Thursday night and had a great time. We arrived at the Front Street Inn around 7pm and got settled into our room, the Pearl Buck suite. We then walked the block down to The Little Dipper for dinner reservations at 7:45pm. I have been to the Little Dipper once for a "ladies night out" type thing but Jeff had never been. What I experienced at the "ladies night out" was nothing like what we had that night! So it was kind of a new experience for both us. It was fantastic!

Around 9:30pm we headed back up to the FSI to use the nice jacuzzi hot tub in our room! It was so relaxing; we had bubble bath and just really enjoyed spending time together, talking over things going on in our lives.

The next morning they served a complimentary breakfast that included everything from bagels, to cereal, fruit, muffins, banana bread, 2 kinds of quiche/casserole...oh, it was all soo good! The coffee was the FSI's own special blend, too. Very tasty. We checked out around 10:30am and emerged to a beautiful, sunshine-y Good Friday.

I've included some of the photos from the "getaway" below -- a thousand thank yous to our fantastic Sunday School class, our "family"...we are so blessed to have each one of you in our lives!

[first course was cheese fondue -- we chose Baja Cheddar and got misc veggies & tortilla chips to dip in...next course was a salad but I didn't include a photo of those (a salad's a salad, right? but their ranch is fantastic!)]

[next course after the salads was our entree -- we chose Surf & Turf which included filet mignon, shrimp, lobster & cheese-filled ravioli and misc veggies with 4 dipping sauces (we chose marinara, creamy dill (my fave!), drawn butter & honey dijon)]

[this is the pot our entree cooked in -- steaming vegetable broth with rosemary; we got a "cheat sheet" of sorts that told us how long to leave our food in for]

[and then of course, there was DESSERT -- we chose milk chocolate & peanut butter fondue and got the following to dip in it...]

[H-E-A-V-E-N]

new tricks...

A couple weekends ago, I took a trip to Lexington with my friend, Elizabeth, our end result being to go to Charlotte and walk through the new IKEA store there. We did that and had a great time, as I knew we would.

But you didn't think I'd come all that way and not see my niece, did you? No, I didn't think so. She was just over 8 months old then and learning new tricks! Wanna see?

The last time I saw her was at 6 1/2 months (you saw those photos in my last post) and she has changed so much just in that short time! Much more hair, standing/leaning against the couch by herself, and this! I don't know how but she's gotten cuter! I could just eat her up...

I'll leave you with this photo -- my fave at the moment. I love it when I capture exactly what I was going for! Her eyes actually came out red in the photo but I learned a really cool, really easy trick to take out redeye in Photoshop. Observe...

phancy photoshop...

I decided I wanted to experiment today with some of the photos I took on my trip to Lexington back in mid-February. I found some different images and incorporated some of my photos with them to produce some pretty cool-looking things (if I do say so myself!). These are some of my favorite photos of Cora Beth at 6 1/2 months old...

grad announcement, a.k.a. "recent opportunity"

Okay, so in my last post I talked about a "recent opportunity" that got me thinking about starting a side business to utilize some of the skills & talents I have in Adobe Photoshop. I decided to take the plunge and see where it goes, and I used this project as a "springboard" of sorts to launch it.

One of our pastors has a son that's graduating from high school this summer and his wife came to me toward the end of last year (coincidentally around the same time that a certain well-known company that sells senior class/graduation stuff visited the school) and asked if I thought I could design a graduation announcement for them. I told her I'd be glad to see what I could come up with. When she told me what this certain well-known company was charging, I told her I definitely could save her a little bit of money. :)

She had a couple of brochures/pamphlets from this well-known company so I took those as a guideline -- hey, it's been awhile since I graduated, okay? I was able to find a picture of the mascot of the high school online and this is what I came up with:

This, of course, doesn't look exactly like it -- it was a top-fold card, 4 1/4 x 5 1/2, with the design on the front cover, and the wording on the inside as you lifted the flap up. But you get the idea. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. So that was my first project operating under the name of Lindsay Wenzel Designs and I hope there will be many more projects to come!

new endeavor...

So I've been told I have some skills in Adobe Photoshop...and the fact is, I like to play around in it. I like to see what sorts of new things I can design & create. I get excited when I learn something new or figure out a way to get the desired result all on my own (frankly, when I try to use the "help" feature in any program, it usually frustrates me more than helps me).

I've been kicking around an idea for awhile and decided to use a recent opportunity as a springboard for it...I've decided to embark on a new endeavor -- not new as in "I've never done this before", but new as in "this is different than the last time".

I'm starting a little side business in print & digital designs.

It's called Lindsay Wenzel Designs and it will include anything from print products/projects such as shower invitations, birthday invitations, baby announcements, graduation announcements, Christmas cards, etc. to digital projects such as blog/website design.

The "recent opportunity" I mentioned before is something I did for a pastor & his wife and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. My next post will be about that project.

I'm not sure where this business will go, if it will go anywhere, but as much as I enjoy working on these kinds of projects, I think I would enjoy sharing my skills & talents to help others "celebrate life's most important moments"!