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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Planning a Memorable Birthday Party

People are celebrating birthdays everyday of the year. If you happen to be planning a birthday party for someone in your family this month perhaps you can gain a little in-site from this post. We all know that with out purposeful planning a party can turn out badly and make us feel uneasy about the outcome.  Here is a list of ideas to help you with the planning process for your next birthday party.

1) Decide on a theme for the party, appropriate to the age of the child or adult who’s birthday you’re celebrating.

2) Decide on the number of guests you’ll be inviting, be sure there’ll be enough room at the venue or home to accommodate everyone.

3) Once you have a theme, choose invitations that relate and spark the interest of your guests.

4) Choose decorations with the theme of your party in mind.

5) Decide on the menu, food and drink for the party. Decide whether you’ll be ordering pizza or supplying the food yourself.

6) Choose a cake, whether you’re making it yourself or ordering one decide on this now.

7) If you are going to be playing games, decide on which ones and be sure they are age appropriate for your guests. If you need prizes decide on those now too!

8) For the kids, goodie bags are usually expected, so be creative and fill them up with stickers, buttons, key chains and treats appropriate for girls or boys!

This should help guide you through your next birthday party and allow you to relax a little knowing you are prepared.

I’m always working on new party themed invitations and birthday items for my store. Here are some ideas for birthday themes. Perhaps you’ll choose one for your next birthday celebration.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Living Life Through Sports

I remember when my boys were younger and life seemed to revolve around their sports.  Soccer, softball, swimming kept us pretty busy throughout the year. I’m sure it is still that way for most families. Some may just be finishing up the soccer season and moving right into softball or baseball right now. Perhaps like many, you enjoy watching sports maybe you play on a team yourself or perhaps you are involved in your children’s sport.  Watching, cheering, coaching. It seems we live in a sports driven world. One can watch sports on television at any time of the day, TSN offers continual sports. If you can’t catch the game when it’s on, now you just Tivo it and watch it later. One can go to sporting events and enjoy the camaraderie of like minded sports fans. Sports are huge!

In keeping with the sports theme I’ve been designing football and soccer themed t-shirts this week. A fun way to show your love of a sport by wearing a cool design and fun saying. Come by my store to see more… Designs by Shell

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Preparing for a Trip to Europe

In less than two months from now I will be experiencing my first trip to Europe. It’s exciting and a little over whelming too! So many details to think about. People have been very helpful in giving us travel tips and guide books to help prepare for the trip. This past week my husband bought me a new camera. It’s a Cannon, long shot with 14x optical zoom. I’m so exciting for all the amazing pictures I’ll be able to capture. My ‘cool pix’ camera will be retired or given to my boys. It was a great point and shoot camera but it only had 7x optical zoom, I took tons of awesome shots with that one but now I’ll be able to take great distance shots and have even better images to put on my store products. 

For my store Designs by Shell, I have many items that I’ve sold my photography on. Nature scenes and flowers have been a big theme for many items. Postage, postcards, calendars, mugs and business cards all sell well with my pictures on.  I’m blessed to live in beautiful B.C. where we are close to mountains, oceans, nature parks, and flowers galore. There are always tons of places and many opportunities to take the camera out and get some great shots. So know I’ll have to practice with my no ‘cannon’ camera and get it all figured out before our trip.  

Here are some of my products that I sell with pictures I’ve captured on some of my other trips. Come by my store to view others.

Technorati Tags: travel+photography,,,,,,

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Funky Monkeys

Today I was really struggling with what to blog about. My husband tried to help, he came up with this title ‘funky monkeys’. That was it, just the title… I said, ‘what am I supposed to talk about’  he said it would come to me so I had to take if from there. So I started thinking about ‘monkeys’.

Monkeys are distinguished by their long tails. A primate that is not a human. Monkeys are very intriguing and fun to watch. There have been numerous books written about monkeys, how about ‘Curious George’ a well known children’s book about a monkey and his adventures with a man in a yellow hat. There have been many movies centered on the entertaining monkey, like MVP – Most Valuable Primate, this was a funny movie about a monkey who plays hockey. It received great ratings and kids and adults of all ages where entertained by this one. There were other movies about monkeys like, ‘Ed’, ‘Dunston Checks In’ and of course the ‘Planet of the Apes’ series.

Aside from being the topic of books, songs and movies monkeys are one of the most popular animals at the zoo! It seems people can spend endless time standing around the monkey cages just watching the behaviours of these interesting animals.

Monkey themes have become popular on all kinds of consumer products from clothing, gift items, electronics and so forth. Monkey birthday party decor has also become popular.

I recently created a page about 'monkey themed' iphone and ipad cases, you can view it here! I love to draw different cartoon monkeys and have come up with several different monkey designs for items in my store. I’ll share some with you here, if you’d like to see more please come by my store, Designs by Shell.  

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Flowers and Weddings - Enough Said

With the dawn of the spring season comes new beginnings, fresh growth and new adventures. Flowers and weddings are at the top of the chart during springtime.  With spring comes beautiful flower options for your wedding. One of the first things to do when planning your wedding is to choose your color scheme. Flowers that lend themselves beautifully to a spring wedding include tulips, daisies, lilies, roses, blossoms and of course my favourite hydrangeas. Colors can be soft and dreamy or vibrant and bold. Choosing wedding colors is a very personal choice, go with colors you really love not ones that you just settle with. This is your big day and you want it to reflect your taste and style.  Here are a few fabulous color combinations that would be gorgeous for a spring wedding.

Lavender with ivory

Purple with silver

Pink/coral with melon green

Baby blue with chocolate brown

Yellow with white

A visit to a florist or garden nursery can give you ideas for wedding colors and show you the types of flowers that are available and blooming in the spring. Once you’ve chosen your color scheme you’ll want to find all kinds of things that coordinate to ensure the perfect wedding. There’s the save the date cards, bouquets, table centerpieces, invitations, wedding postage, table seating cards and so much more.

I’ve been busy working on some wedding designs, so inspired by the flowers of spring. Here are a few below, if you’d like to see more come by my store Designs by Shell for a visit.