Vintage Holiday Cards with Basic Invite

Since baby West was born over eight months ago, I have discovered that all the cliches about motherhood are true. I watch him sleep. I love him so much it hurts. Time goes by too fast. You get the idea. I am not someone who likes to conform to what everyone else does and says, so this was hard for me to accept. I like to be a little bit different. This is why I held out so long to get an iPhone; I liked being different with my Blackberry. For my wedding, I had my nails painted in Essie "chinchilly" which is described as greige (gray + beige). Sidenote: I'm still obsessed with this nail color! I would argue that we traveled to Iceland (in 2014) before it was the "cool thing to do". But I digress...

Now, one of my favorite things we've done since welcoming the baby has been taking family photos (I know, I know... total cliche! But I am embracing it now!). In my last post, I shared that we took newborn photos when West was just five weeks old. Coming from someone who has over 1,000 photos on her phone of her less-than-one-year-old baby, my rule is that you can never have too many photos (especially professional ones!). Fast forward to last month, we took some special Fall family photos with Lyndsey Yeomans that I knew would be perfect for our Holiday Card.

Since this is our first year sending out Holiday Cards, I was so excited when Basic Invite reached out and asked if I wanted to work with them. Let me tell you about a few ways that Basic Invite is different. 

Nearly Unlimited Colors - They allow almost unlimited color options with instant previews online. Once you select a design you can change the color of each element on the card to over 180 different color options so you can make sure the card is exactly how you want it down to the littlest detail.

Custom Samples (my favorite offering!) - They allow you the ability to order a printed sample of your actual holiday card so you can see exactly how it will print as well as feel the paper quality before you ever have to place your final order.

Address Capturing Service - They offer an address capturing service that allows you to simply share a link on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media to request friends and family’s addresses which will be stored in your account and can then be selected during the design process. They also offer recipient address printing at no cost on all Christmas card orders (which is a huge perk and time saver)! 

I always thought it would be too overwhelming, time consuming and too expensive to order holiday cards. But, I was wrong! Basic Invite makes it so easy.

First, I filtered, sorted and browsed the holiday cards. I created an account and added my top designs to my FAVORITES. Then I looked at my FAVORITES section and compared all the ones I "favorited". I decided I would order customized samples of my top five. I customized those designs with photos from our photography session.

Below are three of the samples that I ordered (images via online proofs):

Here is what they look like IRL (Photos taken with my iPhoneX, unedited):

So, which one did we end up choosing? It's a surprise and you'll have to wait and see what comes to your mailbox!

You may also want to check out Basic Invite for business holiday cards, vintage christmas cards or vintage inspired holiday looks. Until the end of November, you can get 30% off at Basic Invite with  coupon code "holi30". I can't wait to see what you end up ordering!

This is a sponsored post for Basic Invite. However, all opinions expressed are my own. #ad.

Newborn Life (Alternate Title: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead)

Now that we are starting to emerge from the new parent/newborn haze, I am finally able to start blogging again. West hasn't been napping as much during the day, so it's been hard to find time between breastfeeding + supplementing + pumping every 2-3 hours.  I have such a newfound respect for moms! How in the world do you find time to do anything for yourself? Let alone work full time! We both transitioned back to work in late April and I am still not quite sure how to juggle it all. In time.

We are both very lucky in that we are able to work from home. Jake does have to go to campus to teach classes a few times a week, but the rest of the time he is home with us -- unless he is golfing, that is. We have childcare so we can actually get work done -- now that would be insane if I tried to work full time and watch him. Basically, I would not get anything done. Ever. So again, we are lucky that West can be home and we don't have to ship him off to daycare just yet. 

When West was five weeks old, we had some newborn photos taken at our home and I wanted to share some of them with you all. We worked with Sunny Kim (@sykimphotography) and she was one of the sweetest, most calm people I've ever met. I was rushing around trying to see where the best lighting in the house was and she was like, it's OK... let me worry about that! I don't think Olive even barked at her one time! Olive is very protective of us so you know that is a BIG deal.

I thought about doing maternity photos but decided if I was going to choose between that and newborn photos, I would pick newborn -- and then the baby could actually be in the photos! We are deciding which ones we want to frame and its so hard because we LOVE THEM ALL. In honor of West turning 5 MONTHS old next week, here are the photos from when he was 5 WEEKS old.

Enjoy!

And of course, Olive made a cameo. It was so cute, she was in a bunch of pictures and we didn't even realize it while we were taking them. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. She is the best doggie, and best big sister to West. <3

xoxo,

Nursery Reveal

One of the first things I started thinking about after I found out I was pregnant was the nursery. Actually, thats not true. I started planning it long before I got pregnant. I knew I wanted a neutral and lighter wood theme, and I always planned it to be very gender neutral. I originally wanted to do neutral rainbows but that never panned out. I'm not exactly sure why but I ended up going in a different direction once I started actually purchasing things. 

The first thing I bought was a rug which I found out was discontinued after I ordered it and my order was abruptly cancelled. After that ordeal, I decided to design the room around the wallpaper that I'd picked out. Since the wallpaper was on the more ornate side, I wanted to keep everything else very fresh, neutral and simple.

The ironic part is that West has been sleeping in the snoo in our bedroom since we brought him home from the hospital. So he probably hasn't spent more than 10-15 minutes at a time in his room yet. I did nurse him a few times in the rocking chair in there but for the most part, we hang out either in the living room or in our master bedroom. Part of me is looking forward to moving him into his room, the other part of me is not because its a bit of a hike to get from our room to his. Although, our house isn't even 1,500 square feet and it's only one story so I can't really complain. 

So without further ado, here is the big reveal. I hope you like it! I know I am obsessed with how the room turned out and want to add wallpaper all over our house now! This particular wallpaper is actually removable wallpaper tiles and it was so easy to install. I highly recommend it if you are looking to wallpaper something. 

These photos were taken as part of our newborn session with the lovely Sunny Kim when West was 5 weeks old in mid-March. I'll share more photos from our session soon. 

Sources: 

wallpaper | make-a-face | bottle rattle | wood rainbow | crib | hamper | rocking chair | ottoman (old) | rug | the night sky | peanut changer | curtains and bookshelf were handmade by friends + family

Please let know if I missed anything! 

xoxo,