New Bee Mine Valentine's

Happy Friday!! This has been such a fun week for me creating lots of new invites and birth announcements. I can't wait to show you! But first, Valentine's Day is right around the corner! These BEE MINE Valentine's would be perfect for your little lovie to hand out at school or daycare. You can purchase in my etsy shop for just $10. 

I can customize another file for you to print these two-sided with just the background or your child's picture :)

 {photos taken by Photos by Vitella}

I also created a new Valentine's themed Birth Announcement {available in the shop!} and love how it turned out! Perfect for your newest little love...

 XO, m

linking up: Tatertots & Jello

Hey Mr. DJ....

Yay! Finally a post about weddings - get excited :) I'm at that age where I've been lucky enough to attend a lot of weddings over the past few years. Like a lot, a lot. Weddings are my FAVE. I love nothing more than a good wedding. And a GOOD reception has a lot to do with that....and by that I mean the music + dancing. Nothing worse than going to a wedding with poor song choices and nobody feeling it. 

Let's rewind. I've been in a lot of weddings; seven to be exact. I was the first one to marry out of our friends and close family which allowed me to help many of my friends out with various things for their weddings. {Which I loved because I love helping!} The one thing I always volunteered doing was to give my song request list. And I must say it's a pretty darn good list. I know everyone has different musical taste but for the most part weddings are all similar in a sense - a few slow songs and some good party jams! 

Before I give you my secret list (haha), I must stress not every super popular song is a good choice to play at your wedding. For example, Pumped Up Kicks is probably one of the most popular songs right now on the radio. At a wedding, probably not. Falls in the awkward category of not fast enough/not slow enough. Taylor Swift's "Love Story" is always popular but again, not a good dancing song. Are you just going to sway and snap your fingers or what? See, you're singing the song in your head and you know I'm right. ;) I could go on and on - no, please don't play "Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry. Just not a good choice. Very catchy song, but I just don't take it seriously at a wedding. Or "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus. Yowsa. I will be the first to sing along when it's on the radio, but I remember it being played at a wedding and I had to leave the dance floor b/c I didn't know if I should travel back to high school and meet my friends at the movies or throw my hands up and act like this is the best jam EVER. Haha. I know, I'm not funny. It's fine ;)

Another suggestion I have when finalizing your list is to not put too many songs on there because it gives the DJ too many options that could go wrong. I sometimes feel bad for DJ's when nobody's dancing b/c it's probably not always their fault since most of the time they are going off a list. A typical dance portion of a wedding is 2-3 hours so choose your songs wisely. First Dances, Garter/Bouquet Tosses, etc. take up a good chunk of that time too so you're left with about 1.5-2 hours of fun, if you're lucky. OK, enough rambling from me - here's my list...

Slow Jam Faves

At Last - Etta James
What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
Marry Me - Train

Old School Must Haves

You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC

Livin on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
Billie Jean or Thriller - Michael Jackson
Don't Stop Believin' - Journey
Jump On It - Sir Mix-a-Lot
Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners

Country

I Need You - Tim McGraw + Faith Hill
Chicken Fried - Zac Brown Band

Then - Brad Paisley
Friends in Low Places - Garth Brooks

Party Rockin' Jams

Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO
Just Dance - Lady Gaga
Yeah! - Usher feat. Lil John & Luda {in case you care, this is my jam!}
DJ Got Us Falling in Love - Usher

Give Me Everything (Tonight) - Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo

Boom Boom Pow or I Gotta Feeling or Let's Get it Started or The Time - Black Eyed Peas
Dynamite - Taio Cruz
Sexy Chick - David Guetta feat. Akon
Low or Right Round or Good Feeling - Flo Rida
In Da Club - 50 Cent
Sexy Back - Justin Timberlake
The Way I Are - Timbaland
Like a G6 - Far East Movement
Get Low - Lil Jon & The East Side Boys
I Like It - Enrique Inglesias

I purposely left out the obvious must play vs. do not play list of songs - some like The Cupid Shuffle and The Cha Cha Slide, others say no way. My only suggestion would be to spice it up with "Teach my how to Dougie" or "Soulja Boy"...haha. Always fun + comical to watch or take part in :)

Enjoy! Hope this list helps when trying to narrow down your favorites! :) XO, m

New Snow White Inspired Birthday Party Collection

I had so much fun designing this collection - so fun and vibrant! Perfect for your little girl who loves Snow White. Not sure if you've ever noticed, but the one thing I always try to include in all of my invitations is a picture or two. Who doesn't love seeing a recent photo of your little one on their invite? Here the photo is inside the "mirror on the wall". You can purchase this new collection in my etsy shop. :)

XO, m

New Vibrant Owl Birthday Party Printable Collection

A sweet customer of mine contacted me a few months ago wanting a girlie Owl/Woodland Forest birthday party invite for her daughter's 2nd birthday so I jumped at the chance and here's what we came up with...

She then contacted me about doing matching printables but really liked my Merry & Bright holiday kids party collection so we went with that and I changed a few things up to match her mostly pink and lime theme. Love how everything turned out!

  

And now some photos of the fabulous party Morgan's awesome Mommy and Daddy threw for her! Doesn't it look so fun and cheery? LOVE it. Absolutely wonderful job, Alicia! I'm sure Morgan loved every minute of all the hard work you put into it.

You can purchase this new girlie owl invitation in my etsy shop for only $35. Want everything? You can also purchase the "Merry & Bright" printable collection for only $40 which includes the following printables that will be emailed to you in a .jpg format for you to either print from home or send to a local printer.

5x7 Invite

Cupcake Toppers/Party Circles

Happy Birthday Banner

Water Bottle Labels

Food Labels

Favor Tags

New Captain America Birthday Party Printable Collection

 I designed a new Captain America Inspired Birthday Party Printable Collection! You can purchase everything in my etsy shop. 

What do you think? Lots of new party collections coming to the shop real soon! Finishing up a fun construction themed set for a client that I think you'll all enjoy :) XO, m

2K Facebook Fans Fabulous Giveaway Winner

Thank you to all who entered the giveaway for reaching 2,000 facebook fans! Amazing!!!

Now for the winner......

Lucky comment #94 - Carlissa Brotherton

Congratulations, Carlissa! Please email me to claim your prizes :)

Free Valentine's Day Printables

I was asked by sweet Nancy to designs some Free Valentine's Day printables for Living Locurto. Um...yes, please! :) You can download these files for FREE by clicking here.

 

So here they are....thought I would do something more fun. Heart Papers perfect for bunting, 10 Things I LOVE about you paper and a fun 5x7 classic subway art printable perfect to dress up your home this Valentine's Day.

I have the 5x7 subway art displayed in my dining room where I decorated my little corner cabinet for hearts day :) See full post here.

 I'd love to see what you do with these - so send me some links/pictures if you do :)  Enjoy! XO, m

New Girly Monkey Baby Shower Invitation

I was contacted by a client to create a girly monkey themed baby shower invitation to match this bedding collection except mainly use hot pink and lime.

 

 {Image via babysupermall.com}

Here's what I came up with :) 

Love how it turned out and so did the customer :)  You can purchase this invitation in my etsy shop for only $15 for the digital file. Matching party printables coming soon! XO, m

A little Valentine's Day Decorating

Some of you may have seen my earlier Facebook status about how much I love Target's dollar section. It's seriously amazing. I bought so many of the favors for my daughter's Elmo party there and it's always a go-to spot to grab some goodies for only a buck - and that's what I did. They have the cutest things for Valentine's Day so couldn't resist and only left spending $10 {in that section anyways}. ;)

So I bought some things thinking I was going to use them for an upcoming Valentine's Day playdate but ended up decorating my favorite corner cabinet in my dining room. Here are some pictures I took using Instagram...

OK, so those adorable white sweater vases from Crate and Barrel weren't a $1. They were a Christmas gift from my mom and I've had them sitting there for a few weeks not knowing what I wanted to put in them since I didn't like them just standing alone. I used the $1 bag of festive pipe cleaners from Target and wrapped them around my finger for a fun effect and VOILA! Now, I know this may not go with most people's decor but I actually really LOVE how it turned out + didn't hardly cost me a thing! Plus, my hubby didn't say anything bad about my little pipe cleaners masterpiece so that's always a plus ;)

The subway art seen in the white frame is a new FREE Valentine's Day printable I created {along with some other fun designs} that you will be able to download for FREE on Living Locurto real soon! Get excited!

I also got a small roll of heart wrapping paper for only $1 so I cut out some strips to lay on the bottom of each shelf for an added touch. I'm going to put some candy in the heart basket and maybe some left over fringe garland I have laying around from past parties to put around the top edge :) So, what do you think? I have a 2 year old so wanted to decorate a little for Valentine's Day this year - usually I just skip to Easter. Are you still with me or did you already run to Target? ;) XO, m

{Linking up}