Happy Valentine's Day...

From the worst blogger in the world! Seriously, I am trying to get it together! This year, one of my resolutions was to blog more and show more of what I have been up to. I am thinking I need a schedule. I like to throw all my irons in the fire then juggle them while they are hot, lol. I also burn bridges while I am standing on them, bahahhaha. Just kidding. Anyhoo, SOOOOO - I have many new goals this year, as mentioned and another one of them is beefing up my party printables and actually putting together party photo shoots to showcase them. I have many other goals, but I am not telling anyone - someone might try to hold me to it. So, if it gets done, well, yay, surprise - if not, I don't  have this guilt eating at me that I said I was going to do something and didn't. WHICH - BTW - is another one of my goals this year, to stop telling people I am going to do something - which I then usually flake out on them. I have good intentions, but very lazy bones. Read my weight loss blog for more on that.

Okay, where was I? Oh, so Valentine's Day - Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways...

I decided to put together a mini table for Valentine's to showcase some of my invites, and party printables. The other thing I want to showcase is the different ways you can really customize your digital prints and have some fun with them. Oh, okay, I will tell you the other thing I am working on... I am opening another Etsy shop that will feature printed invites, in which I will print, decorate and do all kinds of fun stuff to for a crazy amount of money. :)

Let's dive right in now, shall we?  Let us first oooh and ahhhh over my table set up and how I am so anal and meticulous, that I freak out if a marshmallow is out of place. You want me to really plan your party now, don't you?


 

I would like you to note the table runner I made, that you can't see. It is gorgeous. Red lace layered over cream lace with roses on it. Yes, it is gorgeous. 

These are the three valentine invites I printed for this display. They printed nicely. I also decorated envelopes to match them. These are 5x7 prints. I printed these particular ones at Walgreens. I got plain colored envelopes for the 5x7 size at Hobby Lobby, along with the stickers.

You can see a few more of the party printables here, the bag toppers, bottle wraps and buffet tags. You may be noticing my awesome tea cups at this point. 

I know, you are asking WHERE did you get those???? Well, I made them. Actually I just decorated them. I could NOT find any Valentine tea cups I liked. SOOOO - I went to every second hand store in my area until I found some plain white tea cups - and I put stickers on them. You could paint these also, but I want to be able to use them for other shoots and change out the stickers to match themes.

This is one of my newest Valentine invitations this year. It was my inspiration for the table set up and for the party printable tags. This is just a plain print, again from Walgreens with a pink envelope from Hobby Lobby.

Here is where I got fancy! These prints I just got at my local print and ship shop, they did a great job with the color. This is just on a simple white card stock. I trimmed the edges down a wee bit and added a very thin ribbon all around. Some I left with just the ribbon and some I adhered to glitter paper. You will have to trim down the sides if you are going to add a lace or ribbon, or they won't fit into the envelope.

This is what the back of the one I added glitter paper too. This is just a simple print on card stock, I adhered it to the glitter paper first, then trimmed it down and added the ribbon. I got this glitter paper at Walmart. It has two sheets in it, pretty cheap and you can get about 2 - 5x7's cut from it and use the scrap for other things. I just used a hot glue gun to add the lace ribbon, being careful not to leave glue globs. My glue gun has a small nozzle for such things, because I am fancy and anal like that.

This is what they look like just laying there, being pretty.

This is one of my best selling Valentine invitations. This was just printed at Walgreens and I used the same pink envelope from Hobby Lobby and added some rose stickers. Easy breezy. 

This is another print at Walgreens, but I did something really fun with the envelope. Those are just felt heart stickers added and I used a small glue gun with a brown glue stick to make fake chocolate to look like it is dripping.

You may be noticing my cupcake now. I made those faux cupcakes, but bought the pink and white petite fours (is that typed right? I am too lazy to look it up - again - see my weight loss blog for more on that.) Anyhoo, yea, I have been making faux cupcakes and they are so much freaking fun. A lot of work, but FUN. I love decorating them. 

These are the treat topper printables. They double as buffet tags. You basically just print these out, cut them out, fold in half. For the treat bags, you can find those at Walmart, again super cheap, over in the area that you get the cake decorating stuff. Fill the bags with goodies, fold your tags over the top and staple. Seriously - could it be any freaking easier? 

Moving on to bottle wrappers. So - all bottles are not the same size. This is frustrating. I am learning to make much longer wrappers so you cut them down instead of them being too short. I found these cute little juice bottles at Dollar Saver, or something like that. It is our Dollar Tree, where everything is NOT a dollar. It sucks. 

So, with these, what I did was used my scalloped scissors and just cut along the edges and used the felt heart stickers I got for the tops. I think I got a big ass bag of them for like a buck. 

And here are the water bottles. I didn't scallop the edges because, well, I wanted them to be different. And I used my same felt heart stickers to add some interest. 

So, yea. I throw the best fake parties ever. And it is great because I can just sit back and enjoy myself. 

Okay, so if you landed here and are like "You are amazing! Where can I find your designs?" Majority of my stuff is up on Etsy. Here is the link : https://www.etsy.com/shop/BellaLuElla

I have added an Ebay store, but selection is limited there, along with my website. Honestly, Etsy is the best for bringing me traffic. They advertise my stuff all over the place and I am very grateful for them. 

Okay, so hopefully lots more blogs coming soon. I am planning on doing a party at least once a month to showcase my many talents. My ultimate goal is to move into party planning, but I am working towards that. Next step is definitely working on the printed invitations that are Cynthia-fied. I am also going to start selling some of my other handmade stuff on that shop too. I just have to finish up some stuff, take pictures and get the stuff listed. Yea, I live to create - it is my air. 

Catch you peeps later. 

x0x0~ cynthia