Independence Day in my family means heading to the mountains of North Carolina for a family get together at my Aunt 'Nette and Uncle Davy's home. They have a home on a golf course and we all drag chairs out onto the tee box and watch the fireworks that night. This photo is one of my favorite family photos. My grandmother (in the center with the light blue shirt) and my father (on the right with a red shirt) both recently passed away so this photo is especially dear to me even if I no longer look anything like I do in this photo (I'm the one on the front row with the short brown hair).

July 4th Invitations

My blogging career has been sporadic at best. I get so busy at work that I forget to blog and my life at home has been a roller coaster ride for the last 6 months. I am, once again, trying to get back to blogging. It always helps when I have new products that I am excited about.

We have just released a new group of invitations for the summer so I have started with a July 4th patriotic themed inspiration board for your enjoyment. The beautiful children in the hammock are my nephew, Will and my daughter Aubrey from Independence Day 2004. My how they grow so quickly!

The invitation, called "Fireworks at Night" can be purchased from Invitation Box, by clicking here.

Halloween Party for the Kids

Children's parties are always so much fun. My daughter is 12 (going on 25) and she is WAY too cool now to have what she calls a kiddie party and I call a whole bunch of cute! I always like items that worked on different levels like the witches hats on the right. Just buy individual frosting in orange, green and purple, buys some candy for decorations, make or buy some chocolate cookies and buy some chocolate ice cream cones and you have both a craft and a snack.

For older children (the ones you can trust with the scissors), you can buy lots of large black paper and they can make the bats and decorate your foyer.

And my daughter may be way too cool for a kiddie Halloween party but she's still all about bobbing for apples. I on the other hand, prefer my Halloween apples candied with the hard red coating.

If you are interested in this card or would like to see other options we have for Halloween, click here.

I'm Inspired!

So I was thrilled this week when Kati, over at The Finer Things and Rebecca at Tastefully Entertaining used one of my cards to create an inspiration board for a Halloween wedding. (Thanks so much for the mention!)

I was so inspired, I decided to try it myself. I went for a different card than they used just to mix it up a little bit. To see the entire Halloween collection, or to purchase, click here.

What fun it was to look for elegant Halloween wedding ideas. I totally love the dress (Ralph Lauren). It has an Eliza Doolitle feel to it but could totally be used as a wedding dress.

I enjoyed doing the inspiration board so much, I have decided to try it with some of my other invitations.

Hope you like it!

Color

Well, Pantone came out with their fashion colors for the fall and I thought I would share both the fall colors and the spring colors.

I check for these color forecasts habitually and they always make me think of the diatribe that Miranda Priestly goes on about Andy's blue sweater in "The Devil Wears Prada" . . .

You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.

People tend to think that colors just "become" popular, but what most don't know is that there is an entire industry devoted to forecasting what colors are the next big thing. I'm especially liking the blues and greens for 2008. I have been in a "green" phase for a while now, especially what I like to call "bright olive" and I have included a silk blouse in this color. My kitchen is very close to this, maybe a little bit darker and people often say, "Wow, what a great color. I would never have thought to paint such a bold color." Or, depending on their personality, they may say, "I love this color but I could never live with it." I just know that it makes me happy every time I go in my kitchen, even if it didn't make the Pantone list.

And fashion designers would agree . . . good design is about following the rules while great design is knowing when to break them.

If you would like to see or download the entire 33 page pdf from Pantone, click here.