finley's first birthday: a monkey party!

Remember this post? Unbelievably that was over a year ago! My sweet little baby girl, Finley, turned one year old this month. Alarming the way a year can fly by. And astonishing how in the span just one short year. a little person can grow and develop and become an incredible being full of personality.

Finley is a lovely little girl. She is sweet, spunky, easy-going and yet vocal and opinionated at times. She understands so much, and loves to make us laugh. She adores her older sister Sage. She smiles a lot at strangers and is quite a charmer. Physically, she is super coordinated and rolled over at 2 months, crawled at 7 months and walked at 11 months. I think she will get what she wants out of life.

Finley was given a Jellycat monkey when she was born and it quickly became her best friend. She loves Monkey and talks to it, hugs it, kisses it. So even though a 'monkey' birthday party wasn't exactly the most original theme, we just had to do it!

I didn't go all out here! I can go really nuts with decorating and matching colours but I held myself back and really wanted to throw a party on a low budget. Decorating with photos from the year helped a lot. Here are some pics from Finley's first birthday party...

Finley and beloved Monkey

I designed the invitations, setting the tone with a pink and green colour scheme.

UPDATE: These customized, printable monkey invitations are now available in my Etsy shop here!

Pink and green flowers - cheap flowers! I've never used carnations before but they actually looked pretty good in these old juice bottles I held onto. Tablecloth is from Walmart and was $2.

We kept things pretty simple...

...but I used a lot of photos I had taken of Finley in her first year. I usually take a photo of her on her monthly 'birthday' sitting in a white chair, and displayed each month here in an old window frame.

Instead of a candy bar, here is a kid's snack bar! Much cheaper than candy but still delicious.

By total mistake I happened upon these cool printable monkey masks for $5 at Caravan Shoppe. I printed them, cut out the eyes, and taped them to dowels.

The kids had a blast with the masks!

 

Simple tablescape.

 

This was a Pinterest idea...to put washi tape on cups! The tape pretties up the plain/cheap plastic glasses but it also allows guests to write their names on there so that the cups didn't get lost.

Target recently opened in Canada. And I was happy to find these cool plates and napkins in the pink and green colour scheme.

In the past we've had grand outdoor barbeques that involved lots of cooking. Not this time. We were smart. Pizza and salad! Yummy and simple.

And it's a good thing we didn't plan a barbeque because that is sleet you see on the window there. Yes, it snowed on May 12th! Usually it rains on any outdoor party I plan. But snow...that was a new one! So much for the jumping castle we had ready to go.

Here is my huge photo wall! I taped up photos of Finley from the year using washi tape. What I learned: some washi tape doesn't like to stick on walls. Half the photos had fallen on the floor the next morning (yes, the morning of the party). I had to re-tape all of the photos using painter's tape on the back! The washi tape still looked pretty though.

 

My sister, Auntie Shayna, made these yummy chocolate banana muffins

(photo taken by Matthew Segal)

 

My other sister, Auntie Melanie, bought this yummy monkey cake! Truly it was chocolate bliss. It was from Cakes by Stephanie.

Here is proof that the cake was so good...(photo taken by Matthew Segal)

...the birthday girl started eating the plate to get every last morsel of chocolate!

(photo taken by Matthew Segal)

So did she enjoy her birthday cake? Ummm...yah!!

 Loot bags with custom monkey stickers and washi tape of course.

What a great party it was! Despite the snow and the fact we couldn't use the jumping castle. Wishing the happiest of first birthdays to my sweet little girl. Happy birthday Monkey!

she cooks macro: christine cooks!

Have you heard of She Cooks Macro? It's a Toronto-based company run by the lovely Shauna Trupp. Shauna teaches classes on how to cook macrobiotic food, and she features recipes and beautiful food photography on her blog. I was honoured to design a poster for one of her upcoming events, Christina Cooks! where she is hosting Emmy Award winning Chef Christina Pirello. For more information, please see the above poster or click here. 

I had a lot of fun creating this poster. Shauna is a very positive, upbeat person with a strong vision. And I was happy because I was able to pull out my pencils and pens and draw with my real hand again (and not a computer mouse) which I've neglected to do since, well, the kiddos arrived. Definitely check it out! It looks like it will be a wonderful and inspiring weekend.

this makes me happy

my work: Tara Fingold Interiors website

Two postings in two days? I'm on a roll here! Lots has been going on lately with client work, but I am especially excited to share with you a website I recently completed for a client I've worked with for a long while. Many years ago, I created Tara Fingold Interior's logo, and to this day we continue to work really well together.

When Tara, an extremely talented interior designer, contacted me in the fall about redesigning her website, I jumped at the chance! You should see her work. Jaw dropping! You should see her home. Exquisite! So I was pretty pumped about creating a website that would showcase Tara's work properly in her classic, clean, elegant style.

Please take a peek. I'm so happy with how her website turned out! And take a boo at Tara's designs. Truly her work is outstanding. How awesome is her reclaimed wood wall?! I want to move in.

my new etsy store: olive + iris

Hello! And Happy Hallowe'en, Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Happy Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day too. Oh my. It's been a while. As much as I love blogging, life with two little girls while running a business is quite hectic. And if there is client work to be done, then my blog unfortunately takes a back seat. I'm going to try to catch up though, with everything that's been going on! New designs, my growing girls, and new exciting ventures. 

First off, I just re-launched my Etsy shop with a new name and everything. Olive+Iris is a design shoppe that sells ready-made, modern logo designs that can be customized for businesses, events or anything really! While I am still creating custom logos and identities for clients, this is a great way for me to create designs just for fun and a cost effective way for smaller businesses to attain a logo. 

I am hoping to update the shop soon with some printable invitations and frameable prints. Also I'll be retiring some of the logos once in a while, and adding fresh ones. Currently I'm having a re-launch sale there so please check it out! 

you are my sunshine party: sage is two!

Sage's first Picnic Party, was recently featured in SheKnows Canada and I'm so very honoured to be included in their Kid's Birthday Ideas article. It is a wonderful parenting website. Thank you so much!

Now available in a printable version in my Etsy shop, Olive+Iris!

It made me realize, though, that I haven't yet shared Sage's second birthday party with you. And almost four months have gone by. Whoopsie. This year the theme for her party was 'You are My Sunshine'. I knew I was just begging for it to rain that day by making sunshine part of the theme however we crossed our fingers for an outdoor party at my dad's lovely house near Uxbridge, just north of Toronto. Mother Nature gave us sunshine for the first half of the party and then a thunderstorm for the rest of it, however we were too busy munching on yummy cake and dancing to a mix of Raffi and Guns N' Roses {Sage is a real fan of 'daddy's music'!} to really notice.

I designed the above invitations using yellow, grey, white and turquoise and these colours quickly became the basis for the party's design.

UPDATE: THESE INVITATIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN A PRINTABLE VERSION IN MY ETSY SHOP!

 

Here is the birthday girl! Can't believe she is already two. What a difference a year makes. This lil girl is a real delight to have as a daughter. Beautiful inside and out, clever, funny, kind, wonderful. And no I didn't curl her hair...she would never sit for that long! Those are her natural locks and I'm jealous.

 

 

Lil Miss Sunshine, taste-testing the cuppies before the party started, to make sure they were ok.

Lemonade was served, of course! Hydrangeas, my favourite, were picked from the garden.

The spread. I used lemons a lot for decor too, as they are cheap and pretty.

 

I enlarged my fave photos of Sage from throughout the year and displayed them here and there.

 

Yellow beach balls in the pool.

 

Lil Miss Sunshine's lil sis {2 months old here}.

 

Dessert table and cake {birdie by Ann Wood}.

Washi tape was easily adhered to mini clothespins for the lootbags, which contained a Little Miss Sunshine book, a yellow swirly lollipop and some summery sunshiney stickers.

Enjoying a lolli...indeed this girl makes me happy when skies are grey. Happy second birthday, my Sagey.

finley's birth announcement + at {almost} 5 months

I just realized that I haven't yet shared the birth announcement I created for little Finley a while back. My friend Sarah Leeman of Bean Shoots Photography took this gorgeous photo when Finley was just 8 days old, and I added the graphic touches. I just love the coral, peachy and turquoise tones here and the brick wall backdrop.

Where is this little one now? She will soon be 5 months old! Wha? I know! She is busy rolling around, babbling, blowing raspberries, smiling and laughing, 'walking' around exploring {with the help of mama...ouch my knees and back!} and of course trying to chew on everything in sight. Not to mention getting very distracted and trying to keep up with her big sis. It's extremely hard and never-ending work but so totally wonderful too. I love this parenting thing!

wishbone chair replica

Have you heard of Copy Cat Chic? Well here is my version of it!

I was looking for dining room tables on the Structube website and came across this replicated version of Hans Wegner's beautiful Wishbone Chair, on special for $119! Holy smokes!

Or else you could just go with the original Wishbone Chair, retailing at $849 a piece. Better quality and well-made I'm sure. But ouch!

the beach

We are still in a babyland daze over here. And while Finley is an amazing little lady, it seems my mind, my body, my house are still a bit topsy-turvy. We haven't quite found a rhythm yet but we are getting there! It is certainly busy with two littles but fun in a really chaotic way. I like things to be orderly and tidy and that has gone completely out the window for now! But I am going with the flow and enjoying time with my girls who both seem to be growing way too fast.

On the weekend we visited Frenchman's Bay - only a half hour's drive from our house, it's located on Lake Ontario and has a beautiful beach. Even though we only spent the morning there, we felt like we had taken a mini vacation down south! It was lovely {if you just remember to not look to your left at the Pickering Powerplant} and Sage enjoyed the playground on the beach, throwing rocks into the water and talking to the seagulls. What a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

here we grow again: final installment!

The final installment of my 'here we grow again' belly pics! How is it that this little person was living inside of me just over four weeks ago?!