16 November 2015
Update: We have a winner! Congratulations to Breanne, commenter number 47!
For as long as I can remember, Christmas cards have been a treasured part of my Decembers. I love the whole process — browsing potential designs, choosing a favorite, writing notes, receiving cards from loved ones, and displaying them in our home. I love that with so much sadness and darkness in the world, Christmas cards are a small reminder of the true light of the world. In fact, we still have Christmas 2014 cards pinned up in our kitchen because they make me so happy!
For the third year in a row we’ll be sending a Minted design, and I would love your help choosing a favorite!
1. Joy to the World Starbursts | 2. Wonder Filled | 3. More Joy | 4. Winter Brush Foil-Pressed | 5. Peaceful Pines
The wonderful Perry Vaile took a few photos of us for a Southern Weddings project earlier this year, and we’re so happy to have her talents gracing our card! The fall hues in the background lend themselves well to some of Minted’s mustard-y options this year — unexpected, but I like it!
I’m sure y’all are well aware of how amazing Minted’s offerings are. With their sophisticated design software, you can easily adjust your photo as well as the placement of all text elements, fonts, colors, and sizing. They also offer the most perfectly coordinated envelope designs, free envelope addressing, extra-thick stock, and custom card shapes!
BUT the thing I most wanted to highlight from Minted this year is their new completely custom art options! For example, send them your child’s drawing and they’ll print it either in letterpress or foil — what an amazing gift for grandparents!! I’ve said it before (here when they debuted their custom fabric), but this company continues to amaze me with their creativity and commitment to excellence. I am a forever fan for sure!
Now for the extra-fun part: I have a $200 Minted gift certificate to give away!! To enter, just comment below with either your favorite option from our Christmas card finalists, or the Minted design you’d most like to order for your family! (Or both!) I’ll randomly choose a winner next Monday! If you’re ready to get started, you can use code FOIL for a free foil upgrade or code JOY for 10% off orders of $100+.
P.S. Yes, our newsletter will be back! I’ve gotten many emails about this, so I wanted to say it here: I’m opening up three spots to design similar newsletters! $100 for a ready-to-print file, customized with your family’s stats and news. Email me at em (at) emformarvelous.com to reserve your spot or ask more questions!
Minted has graciously gifted us our Christmas cards, but I chose to write this post, and the opinions are my own! I have loved everything about Minted — especially their crowd-sourced designs — for many years, and I love sharing what they’re up to with y’all.
4 November 2015
Growing up, my family hosted a “scarecrow party” at our home every year. A dozen or so families joined us for a night of scarecrow assembling, chili eating, and ghost-in-the-graveyard playing (home base was always the bed of my Dad’s pick-up truck!). To me, this night was even better than Halloween.
When John and I moved into our house three years ago, I was excited to kick-off some new traditions around entertaining and hosting. Likely due to my scarecrow-making past, our first (and most successful) tradition is also fall themed: a soup and pumpkin carving night! Since we just celebrated our third annual event, I thought I’d share a few tips.
— Since ours is an indoor event, we’ve found that keeping the guest list to three couples works out well. That way, we can still fit everyone around the table (with extra leaves in place) for carving and eating.
— We provide two soups and guests help with the extras. This year, one brought a salad, one brought some drinks and dessert, and we added cheesy bread and more drinks.
— Since our event is on a weeknight, prep work the night before is key. John made one pot of soup and prepped ingredients for the second the night before, then heated the already-made soup in the crockpot and assembled the second on party day as soon as he got home from work.
— A few crowd-favorite soup recipes we’ve used in the past: Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Jalapeno, Award-Winning Chili, Potato Leek Soup, Tortilla Soup, and Hunter’s Minestrone.
— We try to be mindful of everyone’s time (especially since many have little ones now!) and have dinner ready to go when guests arrive (usually around 6:30). The first hour is taken up with chatting and eating, and the second with chatting and carving.
— Some couples carve one family pumpkin, and some carve two individual ones.
— I protect our table with a length of kraft paper. Pumpkin guts go in a big bucket in the middle after dinner. The only other tools required are a selection of kitchen knives for carving and writing utensils for sketching (bonus: the kraft runner doubles as a sketch pad!).
— May I suggest my Cozy Fall playlist for background music?
— Before folks leave, we take group portraits with each family’s masterpiece!
Do y’all have any hosting traditions to share? I’ve been thinking about adding a Christmas card addressing afternoon this year :)
28 July 2015
I’m interrupting our Paris adventure to bring you this past weekend’s big doing: Natalie and Joe’s baby shower! I loved this event so much that I just had to report in ASAP. My co-host for this shindig was the lovely Marget, Natalie’s sister and my sister-in-law. It seems like just last month we were planning Natalie’s bridal shower, so we work together like a well-oiled machine by now!
We knew family would be traveling in for the festivities, so we decided to make it a co-ed shower so everyone could attend. Marget had the idea to make it an adventure dinner party, and picked out the perfect corner of a Lower East side park, right on the water, as the location. Aside from the scenic views, there was easy road access just a few hundred yards away — always an important consideration when toting in chairs and tables!
We batted around a few aesthetic options, including red striped nautical and Liberty print, before settling on a perfect compromise — summer strawberry! We wanted something sweet and a little bit girly (they are expecting a girl!), but not too girly (it was a co-ed shower!). Here’s the invitation I designed:
Our first inclination was to rent chairs, tables, and linens, because we wanted to seat everyone at one long table. After calling around to many rental companies in Jersey City and Manhattan, we could not find a single one who would let us pick up our small order at their warehouse – and the lowest delivery fee was $250. This was a surprise to me, since my local rental company here in Raleigh will let me do this, but apparently it’s not that easy everywhere!
So, we regrouped and decided to buy slim Ikea stools (on Jordan’s suggestion) and folding tables from Target. We also purchased Ikea Tekla dish towels (perfect with the red stripe!) and planned to use white tablecloths I already had. Done and done!
Except that the day before the party, Marget decided to check the NYC Parks Department one more time to see if there was anything we missed. To our dismay, there was — the first time around, we had read that if you have fewer than 20 people in your party, you’re okay to have chairs and tables… but in the fine print, it said you had to have a permit — and you have to get permits 20+ days in advance! A quick call to a friend at the department confirmed that our park is patrolled frequently and they would definitely shut us down with no permit :( Agh! Several anxious texts later, we decided we would return the tables and instead group the stools around picnic blankets.
Friends, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When we arrived on Saturday evening to set up, the park was packed, and I think we might have attracted more attention than we wanted had we been setting up tables. The only thing that would have been nice would have been to have one table to arrange the food on – it would have been a little easier to serve if it had been higher up!
Alright, enough details — on to the photos! As you can see, we had the most beautiful day. The weather was perfect!!
Our menu: mild and spicy fried chicken (picked up from Popeyes and plated in a pretty baking dish!); grilled corn salad in mini mason jars (loosely based on this recipe); good potato chips and ranch dip; a cheese platter with fruit; pasta salad with cantaloupe and feta; homemade brownies, strawberry tarts, and strawberry ice cream; and root beer, sparkling water, and strawberry lemonade to drink.
Since we had a group diverse in age where not everyone knew each other, we decided to make conversation squares to grease the wheels. They were focused on childhood and parents — appropriate for a shower, and topics everyone has experience with!
We sent guests off with cookie treat bags – everyone got a sugar cookie shaped like a strawberry (the Gianna’s brand at Whole Foods!) and either a black and white cookie (in honor of New York) or a chocolate chip cookie (because everyone loves them).
It was so good to spend time with some of my favorite people. Just T-one month until baby girl arrives! (Hopefully!) Can’t wait to meet our new niece!!
9 July 2015
You’ve seen the spring woodlands baby animals inspiration board, and now it’s time for the real thing!
We ordered this invitation from Minted in “tree moss.”
First, a little background: this was Nancy’s one big shower, and the guest list drew from all walks of her life — family, church family, childhood friends, high school friends, more recent friends, team members, and more. We sent invitations to around 60 ladies, and only received a handful of “no” RSVPs. To ease the strain on my house and on street parking, her sister Mary Lindsey and I opted to make the shower an open house, and encouraged guests to drop by between 10am and 1pm. This worked out very well! Guests trickled in for the first hour, mingled for the second, and we opened gifts in the third (we were playing the gift opening by ear, but it worked out great). Some guests stayed for the whole time, and some stayed for a shorter period.
You may recall our Christmas deer. Bucky did an excellent job greeting at the front door outfitted with a custom sign.
As guests arrived, we encouraged them to pin on a pink or blue clothespin based on whether they thought Baby Ray would be a girl or a boy. I proudly wore one of the few pink ones, and was delighted a few months later when my guess was confirmed!
Our only other “game” was a prediction sheet, which we encouraged everyone to fill out before they left.
For decor, I picked up a few bags of moss at World Market and used that to fill in terrariums and cake stands. Callie was my terrarium queen – her loaners made all the difference! I also purchased spring flowers in white, green, and lilac from Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s the day before. (I was hoping they would have loose ferns or greenery at Whole Foods — I had seen both there before — but no such luck.) Lastly, I purchased a few potted ferns and repotted them in white pots. Tip: don’t buy them too far in advance, because ferns are notoriously hard to keep alive :)
The little animals are actually Christmas ornaments! I just folded their hanging loops under.
For the linen on the table, we used a few yards of Minted’s Branch Toss fabric. As a memento for Nancy, I had a pillow made from a piece of it for Baby Ray’s nursery post-shower!
Though I contributed a lot of the decor, thankfully, I had almost nothing to do with the food! Nancy’s mother-in-law and friends were amazing, and brought scones, sandwiches, donuts, parfait ingredients, veggies, muffins, and more. We did not want for delicious eats.
The tent cards are from Minted, too — here.
Another very special friend, Ashley of Ashley Cakes, helped us out big time with a beautiful dessert spread. Aren’t those deer cookies the cutest thing you’ve ever seen??? They were delicious, too!
The rest of the shower was simply spent loving on Nancy! Toward the end, her sister led everyone in a really heartfelt prayer, and others got the chance to join in and offer encouragement, too. I know that was a gift for this sweet mama-to-be — probably the best one she got that day!
Love you, Nancy!
Many thanks to the wonderful Elizabeth Tate of Nancy Ray Photography for all of these photos! It was such a joy not to think about taking pictures while getting everything ready!!