A+ Fabulous Baby Shower Getting Props

My homegirl, Meredith, sent me this link to this cute blog giving our baby shower props

When I joined Delta Zeta sorority in fall 98' it was a really special time in my life. Tamara was my chapter president and it has been an honor to know such a kind-hearted, good person all these years. I didn't let anything keep me from going to Mena, Arkansas (AKA - Middle of nowhere near border of Arkansas/Oklahoma) for her wedding and I really wanted to help celebrate her baby shower. By the time I got with Meredith, the hostess with the mostess. She had an action plan and a theme all picked out. Thank goodness! I really only did paper goods for this ultra cute shower.

I love old fashioned mail, so I did the invitations.


I also tore it up at the Lilly Pulitzer store. I think I bought pretty much every item that was offered in Desert Tort from the Madison Ave. boutique here in New York City.

I can't wait to print out some photos from the festivity and share with them!

Also a paper good; I made the baby name banner and the Martha Stewart tissue paper poms.
My husband actually helped me trim the edges on the tissue paper poms because he saw that stronger hands could cut the layers more smoothly. That man of mine sometimes really swoops in on a craft and offers some sweet advice.

To make this banner...


...I found a font that I really liked, then printed the letters out at the same height - almost filling a sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper. I placed/held the printed out letter pages over Watercolor Paper because it's rigid. Yes, MUCH more rigid than card stock.  Here are our letters cut-out of heavy watercolor paper.

Yes, essentially I free-handed these while holding down letters on top. If you're not strong in your exacto knife skills- You better glue that shit together or trace.

After I had the letters cut out and loved them, I decided to spray-mount them to the Desert Tort wrapping paper/gift wrap. I laid the gift wrap down on the biggest spot in my tiny apartment's floor and sprayed spray-mount while my husband was sleeping, so he would not act-out in protest.

The little "tick" marks are to help me lay & spray-mount the letters on at random angles, so the pattern was totally random when I flipped them back over. I wanted it to look like the turtles are running all over the place and it does!

After the spray-mount "set,"  they got trimmed out again and made neat and had the paper bleeding all the way to the edge like this.

I put them in the biggest book I had on hand - Gore Vidal's "Lincoln" I let them "Cure" Overnight. And I wanted to decide how to proceed.


I liked the letters so much plain that I just cut slits NEAR THE TOPS of the letters and threaded cute ribbon through. I left a ton of "overage" ribbon on each end so Tamara could tie them up easily and cut the tibbon ends off at home to her liking.


Rounding out the paper goods competition - I scanned-in the packaging from the Desert Tort merchandise and photoshopped it into the placards. This is graphic design and craftiness at it's best right here. Thank you, Henderson State University. The font is MA Sexy from dafonts.com - Love that site!

Meredith requested these, and so lovingly attached to a much-raved about pink & white houndstooth paper.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="461" caption="Meredith does not mess around, ya heard?"][/caption]

Testament to our Badness: We coordinated all of this with her living in Central Arkansas and me living in NYC. We set Gmail & G-Chat on FIRE working all this out and piecing together ideas. We were cutting it really close to Tamara's due date for MY travel schedule. The baby loves us and did us the biggest favor by STAYING INSIDE TAMARA'S BODY until a few days after the shower.

I'm also proud of us because Meredith has 3 little boys! All 6 & under and I do not own a real table.

I knew I'd seen a lot of buzz on Linkedin (lame, I know) about this Lilly Pulitzer Delta Zeta print and luckily, Meredith keeps an eye on LP business. I really enjoyed going to the Lilly P. store and while I'm not sure if I'm ready to wear Lilly Pulitzer on my body- I'm definitely ready to rock her prints on accessories and other goods.

I really wish they would "sponsor" my NYC Cycle Chic front by giving me one of the new Lilly Bicycles, but maybe I'm dreaming. WISH ME LUCK!

New Love in Pink & Green

I feel like I have a lot of photos to share. Here we go!



I was riding home from work and there were news vans and satellites everywhere and road blocks and I immediately thought - "Must be more bomb threats" But oh, no! It was Obama! He visited the NYPD to congratulate them on their quick work on the recent dumb bomber wannabe.

It was awesome because as you heard people say "It's Obama" to one another, they ran TOWARD the barricades to catch a peek. If it had been George Bush, I would have scrambled to find some rocks to throw. All these delivery boys were standing still on their bikes. I loved the excitement. I immediately took a turn on my bike past a barricade and a policeman whistled me back. So I was about a block away. This is the view across Park Ave.


This was my outfit that day. This is the best skirt ever and it has pockets.


This is a rainy-day outfit where I did not ride my bike. I was short a freaking NICKEL on the bus and I called out "Anyone got a nickel" guess who tried to help? Yeah, no one. The bus driver let me stay. A nickel!



This is from Obama madness afternoon. These buildings look so tall it makes me a little queasy to look at this image:



Friday at work, I used some technical drawing skills from this really hard, unforgettable class that I had in college. I helped make the cardboard insert pattern for this sweater-set that my company is manufacturing.


I like my new job. I love it in that I don't stress. But I really need to start watching what I eat and work out. My technical seamstress eyeballed me and asked if I've gained weight. Of course, I have no real idea and did not have statistical data to participate in an educated discussion. So she broke out the measuring tape and yes, my waist was 1.5" bigger than when I was officially measured. I've eaten a lot of white bread and I've been drinking a decent amount of beer. I told her this and it was as if I told her I murdered someone. Or punched her in the belly.

So here is my lunch from Friday - It's a crazy, skinny girl lunch in my opinion, but I guess I need to move in a new, less-fat, direction.
It's HALF of a vegetarian sandwich and some watermelon.
Two of my favorite blogs are PriorFatGirl and TheSkinnyWebsite, so I'm going to start showing what I eat more often and talking about this new thing called "exercise." I'm going to immediately cut my dairy intake by about 75% - 90% and I bet it's going to be huge/helpful.

I switched to Almond Milk a few days ago for my coffee. No sugar. Just almond milk.

2 days after my waist measured 1.5" bigger, it was only 1" bigger. I have a measurement that I need to keep it under. Do you want to know? I will whisper in your ear if you really want to know. My bicep-girth also has a specific measurement that needs to be maintained.

This is my Friday outfit:

I don't wear a lot of scarves, but I think I should.

I'm co-hosting a baby shower in June for a sorority sister and we are doing the Lilly Pulitzer "Desert Tort" motif as our theme and I'm loving it!
I went to the Lilly boutique on Madison Ave. and got the party supplies.

The shopping bag has nice grosgrain ribbon that I tied onto my back rack and easily rode home. I only lived a few blocks away. I was nervous about the wrapping paper falling out.

I really enjoyed myself at the Lilly boutique. Even though I'm sure I was the poorest, dirtiest looking person they've ever seen. It was very un-New York in there.


My favorite thing was the cursive and other freestyle wall-painting.


I'm trying to decide what item I could wear. This mirror was really huge and beautiful.


This is the invitation. So freaking cute!

I'm in love with Lilly P.!