On the Fifth Day of Christmas

Mrs. Claus spent the weekend decorating and decided a sale was in order for this week!

We know that everyone is busy around this time of the year, and party planning for a Little One (or a Big One) isn't always on the top of the "things-to-do" list. We want to help take the burden off of our customers (and put it on us!).

Now through Thursday, the more you purchase, the more you save! (These coupons can also be used at our www.twoearlybirds.com store, just send us a message!) This is a perfect time to pick up those invitations or banners to add to your holiday festivities!

Thanks for stopping by! We hope you come back tomorrow, when we'll have some helpful planning ideas!

It's Time for Oktoberfest!

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a great start to their weekend. It's going to be another scorcher here today- the last few days have all been in the high 90's (which is saying a lot for us out here). Luckily, the mornings are nice and the cooler weather gives you some time to think clearly, instead of just wanting to nap and not do much of anything- hence the reason I'm writing now!
One way to look at it is that with the "end" (??) of summer begins fall! We're getting closer and closer to cooler temperatures, leaves changing, Pumpkin Spice-everything, and Oktoberfest! This week has been occupied with getting items ready for a few of these parties. We're currently working on two- a "Gardenfest" party (which sounds like a lot of fun ;) ) and a Little One's First Birthday. Here are a few pictures of what we have so far:

 

There are a few more items that need to get finished this weekend. Hopefully a good chunk will get done this morning before it gets too hot and no work will get done! 

Oktoberfest items available here.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!!

We're Back! (And Brought Along a Few Friends!)

Oh, my!! We're back! It has obviously been quite a long time. I'd love to be able to use some amazing, awesome excuse as to why we haven't posted anything here in such a long time, but after trying out some new endeavors, this little piece kind of got pushed to the back burner. Not forgotten, just kind of like the week-old leftovers in the fridge. In the meantime, we have been working on putting a cohesive look to our little business, a new "stand-alone" online store, orders, and every day life (who knew naptime for the Little One would turn into naptime for the Big One, too? Or at least the Big One being used as a pillow?)
After debating internally for a while, we have decided to take the next step and open an on-line store. Not that we don't love our Etsy store, but we thought maybe it was a good time to branch out and try something new, and hopefully bring along a few friends and make some new ones! We have more items available in this store, including many new invitations (for now. One section at a time!) The link to this new store is www.twoearlybirds.com/our-store. Like everything in life, it's a work in progress!
I guess now that the mundane is done (tried to keep it quick and simple!) we have a few new projects planned over the next few months. (Hopefully we can keep on top of things and not let it slide like we've done in the past...) With the new movie "Finding Dory" coming out later this summer, we decided to start Dory-themed party line. We probably should have started with invitations, but sometimes an idea comes to you and you have to run with it! This was one of those projects:

This piece features everyone's favorite Blue Tang and Clown fishes.

The fish and letters are pop-dotted, of course!And the middle space features a little under water scene, with a little Peach and a seagull in the corners:

I can't wait to see what the rest of the decorations will look like! A few other banners and the circle garland are next up on the to-do list!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a fintastic day (get it?!)!

Happy 1/2 Way to Christmas!

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a great week- I know I am! Nothing planned or anything, but a good week, nonetheless! I did receive the best compliment from a customer about yesterday's invitations, which has left a huge smile on my face, though, so I guess that's always good!
Anyway, today's project is celebrating the fact that today is indeed 6 months till Christmas! (but who's counting?! Oh, wait, I am!!) To start my holiday planning, I designed a few treat bags for the upcoming holiday season:

How cute are these two?! I've been trying to come up with some more gingerbread-themed projects for this year. Maybe some cookies in these? We'll see! I'm just hoping that I get everything done in time this year! The next two pictures are of each of the bags up close:

I added a little glitter to each of the bags as their "frosting". I was contemplating adding some to the white outline, but I didn't want to ruin them, since it was already placed on the bags. Next time! And a little more sparkle, on their bows!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day and here's to hoping everything gets done in the next six months! Come back tomorrow for  (hopefully) a new project I was asked to work on!

Who Doesn't Love Custom Requests?!

Good Wednesday morning! I hope everyone's week is going well. Mine definitely is, so far! Not looking forward to the extreme heat, but can't help but chuckle when the news station has a report on air conditioning. This is not what we're used to around here. At least the hearty New Englander in me is still kind of still used to it. Anyway, aside form yesterday's summer cards, I have been working on a handful of custom projects for a few customers. Today's project is definitely one that came out much better than I planned! Here are some invitations I created this week:

This set has quite a bit to it. The lady had seen our website and asked me to come up with a ninja turtle-themed invitation for her and I showed her a few of the other projects we made. She absolutely loved the pizza box card we made a few years back so we went with it. This is a close-up of the box and actual invitation:

My favorite part of the set was the envelope! After quite a bit of trial and error, I got my cards to fit into the envelope. To add a special touch, I added some patterned paper to the flap and thought that the front needed something instead of it being just green. I realized that the white "name tag" with patterned paper would be perfect.

And just in case we didn't know what the theme of the party was, the flap of the envelope is embellished with a little ninja turtle. Good thing I checked with her to make sure these get hand-delivered! Hopefully she likes them as much as I do!!
Thanks for stopping by! I have another custom project I absolutely love to share with you tomorrow!

You're One in a Minion!

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is having a fantastic day! I've been quite busy, and somewhat successful, in my crafty creations over the last few days. I have set a few goals for this summer, one being to create and list a new project or two every day. So far, I have posted a total of two new items. Another goal- to update our website. Success? Nope. Not yet. Good thing there's still plenty of summer! Anyway, as promised, here is a sneak peak of what I've been working on:

How cute?! I decided to create some minion-inspired items. I love seeing the new commercials with these guys and can't wait to see the movie! I know, not your typical almost-30 year old, but oh well! Anyway, over the last few days, I have been working on these projects, with a few more planned for the rest of the week. The first round includes some banners, a garland (which, unfortunately, didn't win the fight after being tangled), and some adorable confetti! We also have some invitations/cards and favors, of course! Now the next step is get them all posted on Etsy!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Ooh, La La!

Oh, my! It has been quite a while since I've posted here. It has been quite a busy month and a half. After Baby came along (luckiest Auntie, ever!), parentals visiting, and the last month of school, it didn't leave much time for crafting. I was fortunate to get some time to craft, but never as much I'd like, of course! Now that summer is here, I have gotten more done in the last two days than in the last two months combined! I am currently working on a few orders and a lot more new projects to list. One of these days, this hard work will pay off, I'm sure of it! I wasn't sure which one to start with, so I decided to go with an invitation I was asked to design a while back. This was for a repeat customer who is having a pink Parisian-themed party for her daughter:

 This is what I came up with. I figured that every little Parisian princess would love the color pink, lace, and sparkle, so I went with it! The inside is double-sided and printed to look like the inside of a passport.

The left is the side that is designed to look like the passport, with a die-cut Eiffel Tower. The right side has all of the party information. And it is all tied together with the scroll design on both sides. Needless to say, my French is a little c-rusty (get it? Like the bread). Or, should I say, non-existent. I'm pretty sure the words are all spelled correctly!

Thanks for stopping by! Stop by tomorrow for a sneak peak at the new line of items we've been working on!

A 'Super' Weekend!

Good afternoon, friends! I hope everyone is having a great weekend! The last few days have been pretty busy around here with some rather large orders. Almost all of the orders have been for superhero things, including favors and invitations. I'm pretty sure I can make the favors with my eye shut (OK, maybe with a little peak) In the last week, I've made 100+ of them, and that's not including the last (much smaller) order of 20 I need to finish up tonight. I was also asked to work on some custom, personalized invitations for a little soon-to-be 5-year-old's upcoming Spiderman-themed birthday party. This is the final product:

The customer wanted all of the information to be hidden below the band, so as you look at it, it says "Swing on by to celebrate Harper", with the Spiderman character on top. Hopefully I didn't forget any of the small pieces for her name... (I had a few extra that I'm not positive where they came from. I did a triple-check though, so hopefully it's all good...)
One of the little things I add to (almost) all of my orders is a card. Since most of the orders are for a birthday or special occasion, I figure a greeting card is usually needed. Since they usually use up some scraps and I know how big everything is supposed to be, they don't usually take too long. And sometimes it's the small things that make an impression! (Who wouldn't want to get a card like this? Much better than a store-bought one, in my opinon. But I guess that's not fair, huh?!) Anyway, I thought I would share some that I've made this week, starting with the Spiderman one:

These are two I made for a set of twins. One was dressing up as Super-girl and the other as Wonder Woman

There are a few others I've made, including Hulk, Superman, and Batman, but I think I'll keep them to myself for now and save them for another day!
I guess now that I'm all caught up with my orders, that means I should probably spend the rest of my weekend working on the boring stuff. Like cleaning the apartment... I'm pretty sure the parents wouldn't want to have to carefully maneuver around all the crafting stuff once they get here later this week! (By the way, totally looking forward to it!!)
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great day!

A New Chapter!

Good afternoon! I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend! It has been an uber busy week around here. Between work (having to leave the apartment at 6:15, before the sun rises, is never fun. And on top of that, spending the week with rambunctious 7th graders...), crafting work (at least that's fun!) and party planning, I was definitely looking forward to last night, which was my first chance to relax a bit. And fall asleep at 10:00!
As you might have noticed, we have gone with a springy baby boy themed with the newest update to the blog and our other pages. We are right in the middle of baby season, and figured that there will be quite a few baby posts coming in the next month. To signal the start of baby season, we held the first of two showers for Sister last night. Fortunately, she has amazing coworkers who helped put it all together. Since it was her school shower, we decided to go with a storybook theme. Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures, but others did, so I'll post them when I can! I was put in charge of the decorations, or at least the paper ones, including the invitations. To set the mood, we went with baby Winnie the Pooh taking a bath in a tub, along with a Pooh quote. (I didn't get a picture of these. Yet. But there were a few comments on how cute they were!)
Two things I did take pictures of were the cupcake toppers and party favors. The menu matched storybooks, so we decided to make blue velvet cupcakes for dessert, which went with the book "The Velveteen Rabbit".

The toppers were kind of quickly thrown together, but feature both solid and polka dot paper, along with some circles punched from real story books. (The top one fittingly says 'Stork Laundry'!) And here are the party favors (I apologize for the poor picture):

The favors were chocolate chip cookies that go along with the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"! The bag toppers have the little mouse holding a pop-dotted chocolate chip cookie and reads: "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll say thanks for coming to our shower!"
I also created a banner for the shower that read "Welcome Baby". Since I took the pictures with my phone, and the position of the banner, I had to take a few to get all of it.

The first and last spaces have story books on them, and the middle one features the very hungry caterpillar, all pop-dotted, of course!

And it wouldn't be a party without the new momma opening her gifts:

Soo many cute things! I don't know who was more excited- mom or auntie!!Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend!

Cowabunga, Dude!

Oh boy, talk about flashbacks to childhood...
Good afternoon, friends! I hope everyone has been having a good week. On the bright side, it's already Thursday! One more day to go! After a somewhat difficult day, I figure I'd write a quick post this afternoon. So, today's post is a quick birthday card I made for a little girl who is celebrating her 7th birthday today:

 

As you might be able to figure, she's a big fan of the Ninja Turtles. As I said, it was a quick card to make. I wanted to go simple with it because it was a late-night request. As with most of my cards and projects, pop-dots were used in abundance:

I decided to use orange as the accent color because Michelangelo (or Mikey, as he's called now-a-days) is her favorite. I was also tasked to make some invitations and decorations for her upcoming party, which I hope to post in the next day or two.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a fabulous evening!

You're Invited to A Holiday Soiree!

Good morning! We hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend. Today’s post is going to be considerably shorter than yesterdays. After a little lull, we spent some time over few days working on some new projects for our shop, including these invitations:

We wanted to get a “head start” on the holidays. Funny story- we’ve had “Start Christmas so it’s done on time” on our to-do list since August (no lie) and we finally did so. (Maybe we’ll get our July birthday gift done now… ) We made invitations for a few themes, including the ever-popular “Ugly Sweater” party, a “Nutcracker Sweet” party, and a penguin-themed invitation.  Hopefully we’ll be able to add a few new invitations and matching items over the next few days. Or the next few weeks. The way we see it, you can’t have a party without invitations, so they're the best place to start!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a fantastic day!

Welcome, Fall!

Good morning!  And happy third-day-of-fall! We hope everyone is having a fantabulous week so far. Our week has been pretty good. The first days of the new season have definitely been fall-like. We’ve finally had a good rain storm for the first time in quite a while. The biggest problem with the rain is the wet pant cuffs... We’ve also been working at school. It’s always fun to work in the same school and grade as each other and mess with the kids a little. Sometimes you have to go with the “No, I’ve never met her before today” when they ask if you’re related. Good to know most of them can tell the difference between their everyday teacher and the sister.

Anyway, today’s project is a quick fall-themed home décor project we came up with. We wanted to post it on Tuesday but unfortunately didn’t get around to it until today. It is a set of fall-themed wall signs.

We were inspired by some prints we found online and maybe possibly a new line of projects to sell. Just what we needed- another set of items to create!! Especially since we were talking about what to focus on last night!! We decided to go with some fall images, including a cute scarecrow, a tree with its changing leave, and a set of little pumpkins. The last one is a little “sentiment” that reads “welcome fall”. How cute are they?!

Now we have to figure out if we want to frame them or make them into canvases. Either way would be super cute! We like our version (compared to some of the other ones we’ve found) better because they are thought-out and 3D (even a little) compared to just a printed image.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your day and come back tomorrow for some more fall-themed party items we’ve been working on!

Willkommen to An Oktoberfest Birthday!

Good afternoon! We hope everyone is having a superb weekend so far. We have been pretty busy over here, between school and crafting, and unfortunately we haven't had much time to post here. Now that we have some time this weekend (we're finally all caught up!), we wanted to share some pictures of party decor we made for a customer. These items were for two youngins' 2nd and 4th Oktoberfest birthday party.
A party isn't a party unless there are invitations. These are the ones that we made:

(The background isn't very nice. Sorry.) Since it was for a boy and a girl, we had to include a little German girl donned in her dirndl and the little boy in his lederhosen. We also thew a die-cut flag and little pretzel on top. The next few pictures are of the decorations we made. The first picture is of the centerpiece skewers that are going to be placed in some mums:

We included the little boy and girl again, and a "happy birthday" sentiment. When we were coming up with different shapes to include with the package, we went a little "design-happy" with this party and came up with these little gingerbread-inspired hearts. We made one for each child, with their name and age. Each piece is double-sided, so the centerpiece can be seen from either side. The next picture is of some of the cupcake toppers. This is where we really went happy with the designs:

These little guys range in size from 2.25"-3" or so. We included the little boy and girl and personalized hearts again. We also decided to do two with their ages. The last ones feature the German flag, a salted pretzel, and a little barrel. It's hard to see, but the barrel features some sparkly accents drawn in. These are also double-sided to see from any angle. The next two pictures are of the favor bag toppers and blank food tents:

 

The first are the toppers that read "Danke", or "thank you" in German (one of the few German phrases we, and probably a lot of people, know.) These feature the little boy and girl again, along with the flag.The images measure about 2.5-3". These get stapled to the top of little baggies. The blank food labels also feature the pretzel and barrel. The taller images here measure about 3-3.5". 

We really enjoyed working on this party package! It was the first "legit" package we worked on and hopefully not the last! 

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a fantastic weekend!

Cute New Halloween Projects!

Good afternoon! We hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend so far! We are enjoying one of the last weekends of summer, hoping for fall to come along with its cooler weather and pumpkin flavors- both perfect for getting those creative juices flowing! While we have been busy with some finishing touches on classroom decor (which is super adorable and pictures will be shared once everything is complete!), we have found some time to add new items to our Etsy shop. Our newest listings are some Halloween party decor items we've created. This is the start of our newest line:

The first project we want to share is a party invitation featuring the cutest little witch and her cauldron. Of course we used a ton of pop dots on the embellishments! This party theme would be perfect for any little ghoul or boy! The next picture is of a matching banner:

This banner reads "Happy Birthday", but we also made one that says "Happy Halloween". Both banners feature the same little witchy teddy bear and her cauldron from the invitation. The last spacer has a cute little teddy, all ready to go trick or treating in his pumpkin best:

These little guys, and the letters, are also pop-dot embellished. We wanted to add a special touch to the letters with some rhinestones.
Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully we'll have some more items to share later!

An Elmo Birthday!

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far. At least it's already Thursday! And a day closer to the weekend. We have been uber busy around here, with the start of the school looming and everyone having their kid's birthdays. We actually had little to do yesterday, so we took a little break. However, we wanted to share some of our newest projects with you. The first is some decor for an Elmo-themed party for twin 1-year olds (how cute?!) Unfortunately, some of the pictures have quite an orange tint to them...or at least the wall does...
The first project is a super cute and colorful 'Happy Birthday' banner:

The banner features Elmo holding the number 1and two presents on the end:

Of course we used pop-dots on the letters and images, and the polka dots add another cute touch!
The next item we made was a set of cake toppers. The first piece is Elmo, along with two Sesame Street-inspired name signs:

 These three toppers are double-sided and are on 8" sticks. We added some ribbon to the name signs. The last thing we made were some goody bags for the kiddos:

 These little cuties feature an excited Elmo, because who wouldn't be happy at a party?!
Thanks for stopping by. We'll have some more new projects to share with you this week.

Relaxing in the Summer Sun, Just Letting off Steam!

Good afternoon! We hope you are having a wonderful week so far. It's been quite hot here- feeling like a snowman in the summer (hence the title!) So, how do we let of our steam? We craft, of course! No surprise there. But, we have a few new banners to share with you today. They go along with our new "Frozen"-inspired party decorations. The biggest one is our 'Happy Birthday' banner:

The banner is bookended with Queen Elsa and Princess Anna, with Arendelle Castle in the middle. (For those of you who haven't seen the movie and have no idea what we're talking about, the movie is great, and should definitely be watched! It also makes winter seem a little closer on those hot days.)

 

We also made two other banners. We don't usually make all of these banners, but we wanted to add some listings to our Etsy shop. So, the first one we wanted to share was a high chair/"I am 1" banner and a personalized name banner: 

 

Everyone's favorite snowman makes an appearance in the "I am 1" banner:

Each snowflake piece features a popped up image, either a character or letter. And of course, we added glitter with the writing and tulle, which is a little hard to see. We also added matching ribbons to hold the pieces together.
Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully we'll be able to post the rest of our complete "Frozen" projects tomorrow. And then we can go on with a new set! Have a fantastic day!


View our Listings Here: "Frozen"-Inspired Banners on Etsy