When Jackie Cate Photography asked for a floral crown for a “milk bath maternity session” I had no idea what she was talking about! I was pleasantly surprised to see how gorgeous the photos from this session came out!
What a unique idea–and the floral crown is showcased beautifully!
A few months back I had the pleasure of being photographed for a “friendor” series my friend Grace of True Grace Photography was doing for her blog. The full feature can be seen here on her website…but I have included some of the photos from the feature below. I love that Grace captured virtually every step of my process: the flowers, supplies, container and tools that I use; the way in which I lay out my flowers while I’m designing; the way I place and hold the flowers and foliage as I create a design; AND even some photos of my two little daughters by my side as they often are while I’m working.
Here are some photos showing the process from start to finish… showing a lovely compote design and bouquet completed by the end.
And wanted to finish this post one of my favorite photos of the bunch…Aria is tired of Mommy working too much and it shows! 😉
Thank you Grace for featuring me and my girls as part of your series! We loved working with you and can’t wait to have our family photos taken this fall with you!
Somehow in the midst of our busy wedding season and having my second daughter Vivian, I totally forgot to post the amazing photos of my daughter Aria’s Jolly Holiday Mary Poppins-themed 3rd Birthday party that we had at the studio this August. The party was so awesome that it was featured on Hostess with the Mostess blog in September, which you can check out here. My awesome friend Jennifer Kaye Photography took the photos (as she does every year!) and it was such a fun, unique party–you have to check it out! It was so awesome it was ALSO was featured on Catch My Party Blog as well here!
I love the classic movie Mary Poppins and am happy to report that my daughter loves it as well! We enjoy singing all of the songs together and she really loves the part where they jump into a colorful chalk painting and enjoy “a Jolly Holiday with Mary” while dancing with penguin waiters and racing carousel horses through the English countryside! I felt this would be an awesome party theme for her third birthday…“A Jolly Holiday with Aria!”
I like to include a portrait or likeness of my daughter in all of her birthday invitations, so for this one I made a custom silhouette of her that reminiscent of Mary Poppins herself. I used this “cameo” for signage, stickers, seals, and even on some cupcake picks! There were 60 cupcakes so lots of decorative picks were created for them including 3-D paper rosettes, penguin ones, kite ones, and little birdies too. Decorations were very important to make it feel fancy in our otherwise messy floral studio space so I draped the shelves with curtains and covered all of the tables with tablecloths and made lots of floral arrangements in tea cups, cute signage and used vintage plates and glass apothecary jars to display food and favor items. The main floral piece was a gold candelabra on the gift table which looked like something the Banks’ family might have owned!
A “chalk painting” was also needed to really nail this theme — so I did a chalk pastel piece inspired by the movie and had it blown up to be a photo backdrop. I decorated a carousel horse with a floral wreath and used it as the perfect “Jolly Holiday photo booth” for all of the guests to pose in front of. It was awesome to see all of the guests post their family shots to Facebook and Instagram! It was very well-received!
Food and drinks were also integral to the theme; I really wanted delicate tea sandwiches and other British-inspired items to be the main focus along with some delicious cupcakes and desserts! We also did a Mary Poppins-themed “favor buffet” with nods to the movie including boxes of sidewalk chalk, mini kites, rulers (to see how you measure up!), tuppence and other goodies! When there are a lot of different ages of kids attending our parties, I think a favor buffet is a great option so parents can pick things that are age-appropriate (and abide by their dietary standards) for their kiddos!
We also had some great Mary Poppins games and activities at the party. Including: “a spoonful of sugar (cubes) relay race,” “pin on the bowtie penguin” game, sidewalk chalk creative time, and we even had out 3 vintage Mary Poppins eBay finds: Mary Poppins Carousel Game, Jolly Holiday Jigsaw Puzzle and a Mary Poppins card game!
Of course the guest of honor wore a Mary Poppins hat and gloves (for about 1/3 the party) and dressed in white to honor Mary’s Jolly Holiday attire. Aria had the best time ever at her party and everyone would agree it was practically perfect in every way!
I recently had my second daughter on 8/15/15 and we are totally in love with her. Our sweet baby Vivian is the perfect addition to our family and she is a great baby and has even adjusted well to coming to work with mommy. I was back at work right away after having her, but before I went back we were lucky enough to have my friend Jenny at Jennifer Kaye Photography capture her first week of life with beautiful newborn photography. Of course, Jenny and I love a good creative collab so I brought the baby and a bucket of flowers and some family heirlooms and worked with her props to create some beautiful settings for my beautiful little baby to pose in.
I also whipped up not one, but TWO floral crowns. The first was a very simple but chic ring of hyacinth blooms. The second was a big, fancy mix of blooms and foliage that included Veronica, zinnias, spray roses, seeded eucalyptus and my current favorite flower: Pieris Japonica. While I loved the floral crowns on her, the pièce de résistance was Jenny’s twig basket that I ringed with flowers + foliage. Vivian fit perfectly within the ring of pink and white zinnias, spray roses, pieris, snapdragons, lisianthus, Veronica, ivy, seeded eucalyptus and other blooms.
My favorite non-floral newborn vignette was our “generations of awesome women” setting. We placed Vivian in a box atop my vintage baby quilt from my late Grandma Norma and covered her with a baptismal gown sewn and embroidered by my late Grandma Vivian (for whom my daughter is named). The box was surrounded by other pieces of significance–the vintage teddy bear belonged to my mother Patricia, the vintage Barbie (from Barbie’s 2nd year in production) belonged to my mother-in-law Mary and it was wearing clothes knitted by her late Mother Wilma. The blue snuggle bunny belonged to me and I cuddled with it all the time in my first few years of life and the final generation represented of course was the baby…I love that I could pay homage to all of these amazing women in one photo.
Perhaps my favorite images though, are those of my two daughters together. We took these “sisters” photos a few days after the original newborn images and Jenny even captured a few of the three of us Janes gals together. Aria really loves her little sister Vivian and is an awesome big sis!
I love my girls, I love these photos and I loved having my talented friend Jenny capture Vivian in her first week of life. I highly recommend getting newborn photos done–and highly recommend Jennifer Kaye Photography.
Super excited that our Vintage Garden Tea Party Wedding is featured on Hostess with the Mostess blog today!! Featuring photos by Jennifer Kaye Photography, treats by The Sugar Path, attire by Veiled in Elegance at the beautiful venue Blumen Gardens in Sycamore–this photo shoot was AMAZING!!! Also can’t help but mention our beautiful models Jenny Weber and my sweet little daughter Aria!!! What wonderful muses to have in this gorgeous space!!!
Thanks again for featuring us Hostess with the Mostess!
Aria’s Vintage Circus 2nd Birthday was held at the perfect location–an old bear cage-turned picnic shelter at Fabyan Park in Geneva, Illinois. Talk about a cool venue! Once the venue was set the creative juices started to flow resulting in a bunch of fabulous Circus Party ideas some of which I’ve never seen before! All of these amazing photos are by Jennifer Kaye Photography.
Key features would include the venue of course–it might be the only park in the world that has an old bear cage that was turned into a picnic shelter! We decorated it to the nines with bunting banners, balloons, signs, posters and lots of circus-themed paraphernalia.
Once we had the venue and theme nailed down, I designed a custom invitation inspired by a vintage circus poster. I used a primary color palette, bold outlines, vintage fonts, banners, dot patterns and distressing techniques to make it look more like the screen-printed signs of yesteryear even though it was all done digitally. I was even able to do an illustration of the birthday girl, “Ringmaster Aria”, that inspired the ringmaster outfit I later sewed for her for the party.
Other highlights would be the vintage ‘circus’ drums, including a huge base drum that was the centerpiece of the main table with some smaller drums repurposed as stands for cakes and cupcakes. There were also a bunch of very successful DIY projects including a light up “A” marquee letter and a handmade paper mache “circus bear” that perfectly matched the bear on the circus poster invitations.
Large banner signs, bunting banners, and smaller signs decorated the inside and outside of the bear cage shelter. Red and white striped tablecloths topped all of the tables along with buckets of peanuts and brightly colored floral arrangements in antique Barnum’s Animal Cracker tins. We had a variety of sweets and treats including cookies with vintage circus art on them (which I painstakingly made myself!), a bunch of varieties of popcorn, peanuts, circus peanuts, cotton candy, saltwater taffy, cupcakes, and oodles of other yummy candies. Picnic-style foods including potato salad, hotdogs, “Acro-brats”, hamburgers and fried chicken rounded out the menu choices and lemonade, juice boxes, soda pop and good ol’ ice water were the beverage offerings. There were also some non-edible “prizes” for the kids that included Play-doh minis and little circus rubber duckies.
Activities and games included “Pin the Nose on the Clown”, “Color-Your-Own Circus Poster”, “Design-Your-Own Clown Hat” and a face makeup area. Many of the kids were turned into clowns or circus animals by their parents. There was also a faux photo booth area in part of the bear cage—with signs that read “Do Not Feed the Animals” and “BEWARE Animals may Bite”. Kids of all ages could be seen standing behind the bars of the cage for a photo op. It was very cute!
The guest-of-honor, “Ringmaster Aria”, wore a handmade ringmaster jacket and red sparkle shoes. She had a small black top hat designed but I ended up wearing it instead as it is very hard to get a 2-year-old to wear anything on their head for very long. I also made a little wooden person cake topper with the exact same outfit on for her birthday cake and she loved it!
Aria’s Vintage Circus 2nd Birthday Party was amazing and everyone LOVED it and had a great time! I was so happy to find a venue that inspired me to create such a magical experience for everyone especially my wonderful daughter!
And below are some photos of some of the details as I was working on them (my apologies for the photos!)
Some of my favorite projects included the wooden cake topper “Ringmaster Aria”, the signs for the candy buffet and the DIY Marquee Letter “A” that I made with the help of my husband!
Circus Ticket-style invitations that I made with custom illustrations of my daughter and some animals!
Just my luck they actually came out with vintage circus poster stamps this summer! How awesome are these?
Below are the maps I made for the invitations!
Here is the outside of the Bear Cage shelter!
More details…
Posters/signage I made
The Ringmaster costume I sewed/designed with hat by RBK Creations.
Cookies I made (baked and cut out the cookies, iced them, and painstakingly applied the wafer paper circus clip art!)
Finished marquee letter lit up; circus posting coloring page; vintage circus drum sign
In April we participated in FORM: Art + Floral which was an awesome exhibition at Room 1520 showcasing a 14 floral designers doing interpretations of 14 pieces of artwork. It was a fun creative challenge and it raised money for a great cause (Snow City Arts). We will definitely do this show again next year too!
Below you can see the poster/invitation I designed as well as the collage mixed media art piece I was assigned and my floral interpretation of it. It was hard to come up with a concept–but most of my idea started with the bird images I saw in the artwork and then I thought of the idea of cutting ti leafs into feathers and my idea (literally) bloomed from there!
Photos by Jennifer Kathryn Photography
We are SO happy to announce that the beautiful Children’s Book Baby Shower we did for our past couple Missy + Dan is featured on the ON TO BABY blog today! Take a look at how fabulous it is and PLEASE leave a comment on the blogpost, Pin it and share on Facebook!!! We are SOO proud of this one! Make sure to read the full story about this shower on On To Baby today!!!
Vendors:
Flowers, Props, Invitations, Games, Banners, Event Design & Coordination: Kio Kreations
Photography: Hazelton Photography
Venue: Cress Creek Country Club
Cookie Favors: Chris’ Creative Confections
Cupcakes: Chicago Cupcake
So many details! I made banners, table numbers, pockets, game cards and of course beautiful flower arrangements! There were vintage toys, blocks and lots of fun natural materials too…it was sheer perfection!!!
Please enjoy some more amazingness below…and you have to check out Chris’ Creative Confections and Chicago Cupcake. Perfect for showers, parties, weddings–and really any and every event you have!!!
Want to see another beautiful Children’s Book themed baby shower? We did the same theme for MY baby shower almost 2 years ago–it is featured on Hostess with the Mostess here!
We are so happy to have another wonderful event featured on the Hostess with the Mostess blog! This time it was my daughter’s amazing Enchanted Forest First Birthday Party! So many fun details to see–make sure to check out the full post here!
I made all of the paper items including the fun invitations and assorted signage. I also sewed Aria’s dress and made all of the felt animal masks. I also created a ball toss game and “favor station” for the kiddos to enjoy. The “Grandma’s”, my aunt & cousin and I made most of the food (but we catered the main entrees from Q BBQ and Brown’s Chicken & Pasta) and of course we also made the lovely flower arrangements! All of these details came together to make a magical enchanted party for my awesome little one-year-old!
Contact us to make your parties perfection!
Photos by Jennifer Kaye Photography
I just started private art lessons with a new almost 10-year old student and art entusiast named Cassie. I’ve missed having an artist to guide in all things art so I was so glad that her mom contacted me. We’ve been busy doing some drawing fundamentals stuff in the first few classes we’ve had thus far.
The first day of class we worked on Pattern Development. I thought this would be a fun way to learn techniques while experimenting with all of the new art supplies I had her get for class. She got some “artist quality” colored pencils, a graphite pencil set ranging from 2H to 6B, a kneaded eraser (which might be her favorite thing as she sculpted it into a cat shape), blending stumps, a sketchbook, a bristol board pad, and a nice pen set (ranging from 005 to 08mm). She will never go back to lame kid’s school supplies for drawing again!
The second class we focused on Shading Techniques such as hatched line, cross-hatch, scribble, and learned how to create smooth gradients. We also delved into complimentary colors and how combining them creates a nice dark color which works great for shading. I made worksheets for all of these things so she could work on finishing them up at home. We only have an hour together a week so we usually don’t finish everything in class, but she always understands the concepts enough to complete them outside of class and bring them back to me the following week. I am really proud of her! She is a great artist!
I also made a worksheet for Cassie to further focus on Shading Techniques using a series of circles and a “light source” to determine where the highlight and shadow would fall on the ball/sphere. Cassie used graphite and a blending stump for these–I think she did a great job!
We also did some good old Still Life Drawing with some fresh white roses and vases I had at the studio. I shined an OTT-light at the vases to cast a shadow for the drawing and dimmed half of the overhead lights so there was more contrast on the still life. My work is the featured below with Cassie’s so you can get a better idea for the exercise. The first still life of the 3 flower vases we started with fine, faint, hard (2H) pencil lines to get down the shapes of the vases and flowers. Then we went in with some stronger, thicker, softer (HB, 2B, etc.) pencils and accented edges, emphasized shapes and contours, adding some shading, etc. We finished the pieces by adding some colored pencil accents. I love how they turned out!
After completing our still life exercise, we then worked on Couture Line Drawing techniques–which Cassie found challenging at first (as did I many years ago!) You can get the general feel from hers that it is a rose in a vase so I had her practice this technique more in her sketchbook as her “art homework”. As a result of the at-home practice she is getting better and better at contour line!
If you are interested in any of these worksheets, please leave me a message on this blogpost and I can email them to you. I have 2 pattern worksheets, the shading/light source ball worksheet, and the 2 ball/cube shading/line technique sheets. All featured in the projects above.
Sarah’s Alice in Wonderland 30th Unbirthday was easily one of the most insanely cool parties we’ve ever designed pieces for! Not only did we do fun florals, but we also made signs, banners, drew on the bathroom mirror, designed photo booth props, made a bold floral fabric backdrop and we even hung umbrellas from the ceiling! It was AMAZING. Here are just a few of the details from this awesome event…
Amazing photos by Soda Fountain Photography.