Navy and White Old School Camp Themed Welcome Gifts

Who doesn't love a good care package? A special note, goodies packed with love, your favorite snacks to savor when away from home. When I was a camp counselor in high school, my mother used to send me cookies, marshmallows, my mail from home, and written summaries of what was happening on my favorite soap opera, All My Children (Yes, I'm old.).

Anyway, when you go to a wedding and get a welcome gift, it's kind of like getting a little care package from someone you really care about. ESPECIALLY if the wedding you are attending happens to actually BE at a camp!

And that brings me to my latest wedding welcome gifts project! The client was actually the brother of a former-camper-turned-client of mine for whom I did work during the summer of 2010 (see my posts on that event here and here). Daniel and his now-bride, Maile, got married on August 25th at Camp Pasquaney on Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. Sheer bliss, if you ask me!

They had a weekend filled with fun, relaxing events centered around camp! Good times with friends, bride's side vs. groom's side soccer game, and swimming and boating, and a wedding, of course!

The welcome gifts reflected the camp spirit and easy weekend. We used the seal from Camp Pasquaney to make the gifts personal for this event. A pine tree motif was added to the seal to complete the camp theme. 

A play on a classic camp postcard welcomed each guest with a note from Daniel and Maile!

In addition to the postcard, guests also found a list of their camp "Activities" and places to sneak off camp for some good "Grub" in the area. In case guests forgot their canteens, water bottles were also included in their care packages. 

A great weekend for everyone in a beautiful setting!

Congratulations to Daniel and Maile!

"Through the Decades" 40th Birthday Celebration

I really wanted to start this post with the quote, "Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...", because it's an iconic quote from the 1970s. However, seeing as this post is about a 40th birthday party, I thought it wouldn't be the most appropriate way to honor these two really groovy people!  

Quotes and 70's jargon aside, 1972 wasn't so long, long ago, and it was a very special year because Marcy and Dave were born! Husband and wife, Marcy and Dave both celebrated their 40th birthdays in August and planned a big birthday dinner with friends and family. But, this wasn't just to be any birthday dinner. They wanted to make it fun and special, and have a good time reflecting on their lives so far.

I was honored when Marcy asked me to help her create a fun twist for their celebration. Since there were going to be a good number of people in attendance, Marcy thought that having name tags for the guests would be a great way for everyone to get to know each other. But. how to make them fun?

Since there were going to be just about 40 guests, we decided to create a "through the decades" theme. Each guest would get a name tag with their name, along with a year, and a factoid about that particular year. The years spanned 1972 to 2012, to reflect Marcy and Dave's life. The factoids were fun tid bits about both popular culture AND important moments in Dave and Marcy's lives. 

Each decade was designed in a graphic style reminiscent of that point in time. Researching THAT was so much fun!

We decided to style the name tags more like badges that the guests could wear around their necks. Thus, fun conversation starters were born!

Here are some images!

A sample of the name tags. One from each decade.

My, how technology has infiltrated our lives! Close up of the nametag from the 2000s

Close up of the name tag representing the 1990s. Can you identify the font?

Like, totally awesome! Name tag with an 80s flair (A personal note. Marcy, my client, is from New York, hence the factoid. Being from Massachusetts, I had to have a moment of silence before formatting this particular tag. Sigh... Bill Buckner...)

Atari's packaging of the video game PONG was the inspiration for the name tags representing 70s style. 

Table names were also created for the party. One for each decade.

80s name tag and table name

Table name and name tag representing the 1990s

Table name and name tag in style we all recognize!


This was just such a fun project to work on! It was fun to find out interesting facts about the past 40 years, and about Marcy and Dave. Coming up with designs to reflect the style and culture of the past 40 years was also an exciting challenge!

I truly loved this project, and I do have to say, I had a blast through every step of the way.

Happy Birthday, Marcy and Dave! Here's to 40 more!

And, with that, I say,

"Goodnight, John-Boy"
(cheesy 70s reference)

Goings on at Woods&Company

Well, it's been quite a summer for me! I've been very busy as a family and have had a lot of work to do for Woods&Company!

Personally, we had a nice long vacation to visit my family on the East Coast, where my daughter was able to have some quality time with her grandparents and cousins. I connected with friends and my husband and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Once home, we went right up to Napa to spend a long weekend celebrating my husband's grandmother's 90th birthday. That's right, I said NINETY! And she's still going strong! A few weeks back at home and then it was an impromptu trip for my daughter and I up to Donner Lake last week to spend some time with my in-laws. My husband had to work, so it was just the two of us (one of the perks of being home full time with your child is that you can have fun trips and not worry about using your vacation time!), and Katy's grandparents. They love spending time with her and I actually got some time to relax!

Through all of this, Woods&Company has been busy! I have a lot of fun projects in the works and opportunities for you to see us and get to know us.

Some of the fun projects include welcome bags for a summer camp themed wedding (right up my alley!), invitations for a fall in Boston themed bridal shower, favors for that bridal shower, embellishments for a fabulous "Through The Years" 40th birthday party, and graphics/marketing work for a local bakery that does a lot of wedding and birthday cakes. I am so excited about all of it, and I cannot WAIT to share the stories and photos of all this work.

In addition to all of that, Woods&Company has many new items on the etsy shop. In addition to listings that can be customized, I've been developing some of my designs to be "off the shelf" for you to purchase immediately. Take a look for your next event!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/woodsandcompany

And don't forget that you can now access my etsy page directly through my Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/woodsandco

Moving on, I am excited to announce that I will be at the San Francisco Birth and Baby Fair on Saturday, September 29th at the Fort Mason Center here in San Francisco! I will be selling a limited amount of product there, as I am going to be focusing on taking custom orders for birth announcements,  baby shower invitations, birthday party invitations, favors and party embellishments. THis will be a great opportunity to see the variety of work that I do.

Get your tickets here: http://www.birthandbabyfair.com/

Finally, I have a special opportunity for all of you in the works that will allow you access to some of my products at a discounted rate! I will talk more about that in the next few weeks, so be on the look out for my posts!

Whew! I have a lot going on! All this work going on really showcases the breadth of work that I do. I still do Welcome Gifts, but I can work on any sort of event you have coming up from bridal showers to birthday parties, I can make your event special with invitations, favors, gifts, and other embellishments.

Happy Summer, and hope to work with you soon!

Sarah

Summer Is In Full Swing!

Well, I can't believe that it is already July 25th! The summer is certainly in full swing and passing by so quickly!

Personally, I've been having a very busy but fun summer so far, filled with many activities, vacations, and celebrations.

And, of course, I have been busy working on many projects! After completing the Las Vegas Bachelorette Party goodie bags, I was asked by the same client to help her out with some favors for a bridal shower.

She wanted to do some sweet treat but wanted to dress it up a bit from the typical favor. I had been playing round with some small jars from Ikea that look like mini candy jars. I used some in some samples that I did, excited that I could use them in a real project.

We played off of the style of the shower invitations, using a green flower motif set on a polka dot background. The jars were filled with chocolate candies and the tag was attached with a cream colored ribbon. Simple but cute!

Paisley Green and Pink Bachelorette Goodie Bags

I've been doing so many invitations and paper goods lately, it's nice to do a gift project!

This project was such a fun little one to do, and for a great client. I do get a lot of projects through friends and word of mouth, and this is no exception. My dear friend Suzy, whom I met through our fabulous mother's group, has a summer full of weddings that she is in, AND she's due to have her second baby in July! She is definitely a busy mom. She asked me to help her out with a few events and I happily agreed!

Suzy is off to Las Vegas this weekend to relax and celebrate a bachelorette weekend for bride Tara. Since Tara's wedding colors are a sage green and bright pink, I followed this theme for the goodie bags. Suzy wanted something cute, practical, and fitting the style of the bride. 

Since the girls are going to be spending a lot of time by the pool this weekend, I found a cute green paisley tote courtesy of CreativeJenV on etsy, that they can stash room keys, a bottle of water, their phone and other small items to take poolside! To keep the gals protected and satiated while at the pool, included in the bags are a pair of Wayfarer style sunglasses, a travel size bottle of sunblock, and a small bag of Peanut Butter Pearls from Recchiuti Chocolates from San Francisco.

The tags are printed on cream paper and mounted on bright pink cardstock with white polka dots. The fonts used are Didot in bright pink and Honey Script in sage green. The stickers for the chocolate bags were printed on white labels, cut out, and adhered to clear cello bags.

Congratulations to Tara, and remember: "What happens in Vegas...";)

Blue and Green Preppy Welcome Gifts

I have been doing a lot of reaching out to fellow wedding vendors recently, for reasons which I will be getting in to in another post soon. 

However, I have been hard at work on developing some new things for Woods&Company, and since I have been setting up some meetings with local wedding planners, I created this preppy blue and green sample wedding welcome gift and coordinating favor and "late night snack" for wedding goers. The gift serves as a leave behind to these vendors to show their clients exactly what Woods&Company can do!

The inspiration for this design came while I was on a run a while back here in San Francisco. I already had the blue and green theme in mind, but the idea behind the events list and the note on the box came while I was winding my way through the Presidio of San Francisco.

The Presidio recently opened The Inn at the Presidio, which is a former unmarried Officer's quarters from when the Presidio was an active military base. The building is beautiful. They are also re-doing the Officer's Club, which is literally next door to the Inn, and a beautiful small chapel is also on the grounds. In this imaginary wedding, the couple has blocked out rooms at the Inn for their guests, and are hosting the welcome BBQ there, as well as the farewell brunch. The wedding ceremony takes place at the Chapel of Our Lady, and the reception at the Presidio Officer's Club. I had such a great time dreaming up this wedding while on my run, I'm kind of disappointed that it doesn't exist! Someone, please, have a blue and green preppy wedding in the Presidio!

Anyway, this gift is very simple, but satisfying for the guests. Two bottles of Voss water, a bag of "savory" snacks (gourmet kettle chips), a bag of "sweet" snacks (locally made gourmet chocolate chip cookies) and a card outlining the weekend's events. The contents of the gift are placed in a brown kraft gable box with a welcome note adhered to the front. 

I also created favors and "late night snack" packaging for this imaginary wedding. The favors are simple small glass jars filled with candies and adorned with a tag. The "late night snack" came to fruition because the Inn at the Presidio has a back deck with fire pits. I thought it would be fun to hand out "S'mores Kits" to each guest toward the end of the reception. These come complete with graham crackers, chocolate squares, marshmallows and even a personal skewer with which to do the roasting!

And here's the whole design!

I hope you enjoy the images, and as always, this design and all others that I have done are available to you. This specific design is available in my Etsy shop.

For more information, please contact me at woodsandcompany{at}gmail{dot}com. 

Enjoy!

Kraft and Red Kids Picnic "Essentials" Kits!

Woods&Company is fortunate enough to be on the preferred vendor list at The Ranch At Little Hills in San Ramon, California. The Ranch At Little Hills is an outdoor event venue located in the San Ramon, that offers a beautiful, intimate setting for your wedding. 

In addition to weddings, they also hold corporate events and picnics. And, at some of these events, they have children in attendance. Amy Lateur, the assistant manager, reached out to me to create a special gift for the children who will be in attendance for their various picnic events during the season. I thought this was a great idea.

We came up with the idea to create a "Picnic Essentials Kit" for kids to enhance their time at the Ranch. Something that would let them have some fun. We settled on including a little snack of animal crackers (no need to include a drink; water, juice and sodas are provided by the Ranch throughout the event), some fun, funky kid-size sunglasses for the East Bay sunshine, an inflatable beach ball to toss around with your friends, and a good old-fashioned water gun to have some fun on a warm day. 

All these goodies were packaged in a brown kraft paper gable box adorned with a white label reading, "Picnic Essentials Kit" and featuring a row of those original party crashers...ants... marching along the bottom!

These gifts are great for any type of picnic and even for any little ones attending a daytime wedding (you may want to exclude the waterguns...ha ha!)!

[Please excuse the quality of the photos...I wound up having to take them with my iPhone, as my camera is out of commission for the next few days.]

Vendors used:

*Gable Boxes: PaperMart

*Sunglasses, Beach Balls, Water Guns: Oriental Trading

*Animal Crackers: Stauffers

*Kraft Sizzle Shred: The Packaging Store

Blue and White Baptism with Mission Style

When it comes to events, Baptisms are not something I get to do very often, so when my friend Allana wanted some help with her son's big day, I jumped at the chance! 

Allana is a very creative and talented person, and she created her son's birth announcement and baptism invitation by hand. She is a fantastic watercolorist, and she designed a beautiful graphic of purple-blue watercolor and white interlocking squares for Clarke.

Her work is absolutely gorgeous. 

When Allana and I discussed the event, we decided that it would be neat to have some more paper goods as well as some favors for the event. Allana generously shared her images for my use, and I created favors, food tags, and signage for the event.

Because it was a baptism, we decided that a candle would be a very appropriate favor.  I found some white votive candles and placed them in simple mason jars. A tag commemorating the event was then attached to the jar with a white ribbon.

The day was glorious and held in Allana and Matt's backyard in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco. Guests enjoyed delicious food made by the new parents themselves. Corn and bean salad, sourdough bread, pulled pork made on Matt's Big Green Egg, and locally made tamales from a few blocks away. For dessert, assorted cookies accompanied a traditional Tres Leches cake also made right in their neighborhood. 

 Congratulations, Clarke!