Pregnancy Reveal Done Right

My friend Annie recently revealed she too is knocked up with the rest of my friends. She was trying to keep it a secret, but I'm basically an ultra detective and figured it out. Really, I just bluntly asked her and she was a terrible liar. But, that means I've been keeping this huge secret for way too long. She finally gave me permission to come up with some creatively awesome way to tell the rest of our friends that she was pregnant. After squealing with delight for way too long, I started researching ideas. When I thought all was lost and I was going to have to do something so 2011 with a Prego spaghetti sauce jar, I came across a pin for a fake US magazine cover. Typically, I am very against this sort of thing. It just isn't my style. However... I kept looking at that pin thinking about how it actually made sense in this situation. Annie keeping her pregnancy a secret this long was quite scandalous. The girl ran a Ragnar Relay in Vegas and pretended to drink for the past 10 weeks. Plus, our friends are very close and nosey. They ask inappropriate things that are really none of their business... hence why I found out before anyone else. So. After convincing Annie of how it was actually quite tabloidy that she kept the secret this long, she gave me permission to make a cover. 

Since I'm new to PSE, I thought this would take me quite a while. However, after some YouTube tutorials and trial and error, it actually didn't take me that long. My favorite part about this is that picture of Paige, Annie and Leslie was taken at Paige's baby shower... and they were all THREE pregnant - Paige and Leslie just didn't know it! 

We were able to print these out and attach them to real US magazines. Annie then handed them out to everyone at a Christmas party as their "lame Christmas present" and voila! Pregnancy reveal done right!

Pinterest Craft Project Attempt #106

I've tried my fair share of Pinterest craft projects, some successful and some turned out a bit like this:

That being said, I decided to take another chance on myself and Pinterest craftiness. I am in the midst of planning a bitchin' lovely Valentine's party, and thought I'd make my friends Valentine's presents this year. I completely failed on the Christmas gift front so I'm doing V-day presents instead. Since I think I'm a professional at anything I attempt, I decided to use my newly minted graphic design skills. Because, you know, I have Photoshop so that must mean I can do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. Here was my Pinspiration:

If you check out the original designer's Etsy shop, she has tons of cute printables. I especially love the Diet Coke one. I have to love you A LOT to love you more than Diet Coke... Anyways, back to my attempt as a graphic designer. I decided to make one for myself first because anything in Photoshop takes me about 3 hours the first time I do it. The second time it takes 15 minutes and typically looks better. While I don't think mine is as clean or pretty looking, I do think it looks good enough to display in my house. 

Uhhhhh, please excuse the Christmas tree in the background... no it's not January 15th and my tree isn't still up... 

I think it looks pretty darn cute on our sofa table, if I do say so myself. And yes, my child is named Dexter...
and he has four legs.

Once I accomplished that, I decided to make framed printable for my friends. A few of my friends will receive V-day gifts of printables similar to mine. However, my recent-baby-having friends got something a little different. 

Please excuse the glare - I haven't quite figured out how to take an amazing picture yet. But, I thought this subway art baby project turned out quite cute. I was able to use some inside jokes (aka calling their baby "The Hulk" and the Dad posting a picture of baby Graham with #NFLDraft2036) which I think makes this more personable than the every day subway art printables you see.

Out of all my printables though, I think this one might be my favorite:

This one goes to my amazing friend Sarah who is a lucky alum of the University of Oregon - GO DUCKS! This one was so much fun to make and could be easily personalized to whatever your team/alma mater might be.

With all my Valentine's gifts taken care of, I'm moving on to the actual party planning. I'm thinking red and gold with white accents. In fact, I think I better get myself to Hobby Lobby & Ikea right... now...

FYI: I've received a few requests to put my tutorials up for PSE on how I made these. Unfortunately, I'm really not comfortable doing that at this time. I am such a newb to PSE that I pretty much google everything - hence why it takes me 3 hours to do a project the first time and then 10 minutes after that. I promise that once I feel more comfortable with the program I will pass on my words of wisdom... if I even have those... In the meantime, feel free to contact me with requests for printables. I am really happy to make these for anyone that asks! Especially if you're a Duck fan... special pricing! :)

Cards, Cards and More Cards

With my newest obsession of Photoshop Elements, I have made a few really fun projects for myself and friends. I've already posted my own family Christmas card, but I also made a card for my friend Leslie who just had her baby. She wanted to do a combo Xmas card + birth announcement, so we went for something simple that I found on Pinterest. All I had to do was download the PSD template, spend hours doing what I'm sure a real photog could do in 2 minutes, and voila! Card ready for print.

Front (pic taken by the Dad!)

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