Planning the perfect baby shower

There’s a lot of speculation around what the Duchess of Cambridge will plan for her pregnancy, birth and beyond. When it came to planning my own baby shower for my daughter Sienna last year, I decided to splash out and get cake and cookie expert Peggy Porschen to create some cookies and a cake in my chosen theme, which was owls. The results were adorable as you can see from these snapshots. I furthered the colour theme with pink balloons and was lucky to receive the cutest gifts including three Jellycat soft toy owls!

If you’re looking for ideas for your baby shower, take a look at what Hello!Lucky have on offer: super cute printable invitations and free (yes free) DIY template and instructions for creating your own pom-poms made out of cupcake liners! Your house or venue is sure to look cute with these hanging up for any type of celebration.

 Coming back to Kate and an imaginary baby shower for her, if I was sister Pippa, I would have a tea party in the garden at Kensington palace, I’d fill it with pretty vintage tea sets from Idyllic Days and funky flowers by Wild at Heart. Catherine’s friends would eat strawberries and cream flavoured mini red velvet cupcakes from The Hummingbird bakery and walk away with goodie bags filled with personalized cookies from Biscuiteers and smellies from the Cowshed.

Also, once the baby arrives be sure to check out Hello!Lucky’s birth announcements, they’re so sweet. Scott’s giraffe design was from their main collection and Sienna’s owl was a special custom design that Eunice Moyle was kind enough to create for us.

Happy birth and celebrations to you all!

 Vanessa Mason x

Featured: Pregnancy & Newborn

Hooray! Our Inchworm birth announcement is featured in the latest issue of Pregnancy and Newborn Magazine! With so many adorable announcements readily available, we're honored they chose our playful new card. The design was so popular we decided to transform it into a folded thank you note! It comes in single cards or packs of six so if you have a bunch of thank-you's to write, we've got you covered.

Pikku

When we spotted these silk screened cotton ribbons by Pikku on Parcel Post we stopped right in our tracks. Pikku has an entire collection of pillows, office accessories, ribbons, and wrapping paper! What a perfect coincidence it is that our custom birth announcements by Pikku go hand in hand with these accessories. We personalized our Mums birth announcement to match their lemony color scheme, and it's truly a match made from heaven.

Check out the entire Pikku shop here, and our Pikku birth announcements here!

Lucky Friday # 57, Peanut Baby Congratulations

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 57th edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): CZ, Jana and Margaret! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Inchworms card. Design: Peanut Artist: Eunice Moyle Inspiration: A certain little swaddled sweet pea. Who to send it to: A proud pachyderm parent of a precious little peanut. Works great for non-elephant expectant parents, too. Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: We thought of a mouse cradling a little cheese baby, titled "Curd." Didn't have the same... je ne sais quoi. Favorite detail: Just noticed the tip of the elephant's trunk is heart-shaped. Why letterpress? Elephants, like letterpress, make a strong impression.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

Mark your calendars!

We're thrilled to be a part of the upcoming Lab Event taking place January 14th, 2012 at the Cline Cellars in Sonoma, and after Monday night's inspiring kickoff party at The Collection ES our heads are bursting with fab ideas for the event. Stay tuned here for more information or you can visit their soon-to-be-released blog. Tickets will go fast so be sure to book in advance! Looking forward to seeing you all there!

(above: The Collection ES, below: Cline Cellars in spring)

Tickets available here!

Pikku Designs: New Pocket Tees

Pikku is debuting some dapper, darling new tees! Some of the Hello!Lucky boys got them as a surprise gift, and we had to share a preview.

Click on the images to visit the Pikku shop.

Have you seen our Pikku baby announcements? If you like these simple, sweet patterns, peruse our Pikku birth announcement designs. With a simple change of text they can be re-purposed as a birthday invitation, too!

Beautiful Decals by Shanna Murray

We are huge fans of Shanna Murray and found this  post on Creature Comforts about her new decal collection.

We think a customized decal would be fantastic as decoration for a wedding, such as "The Smiths" or " Eunice & Daniel"!

Or maybe a sweet note on the wall of a baby's nursery or playroom...

How darling!

Handmade, repurposed fabric toy mats/sacks

A good friend of Hello!Lucky makes these fun and functional convertible play mats/toy tacks.

Here's a visual step by step:

Brilliant! With all the little boys around H!L these days, we've got our eye on these!

Such cool and colorful vintage fabrics! Check out more of their work on Etsy at repurposedplayground.

Hello!Lucky's Everlasting Giveaway on Pingg!

We wanted to let y'all in on one of our best kept secrets! Many of our most darling birth announcements and kids' party designs are available on Pingg! If you don't already know about Pingg, it's a fab site that allows you to create adorable E-invites, for free!

Hello!Lucky has seventeen different designs to choose from, a couple that you won't find anywhere else. How sweet is that?

Click on the image of our Roller Coaster design to see it on Pingg!

Or, how about a Tea Party shower invite? Can we come too?

Pingg is super user friendly, fast, and it's easy to sign up through your Facebook account, or just through e-mail.

It'll be a great party! Wish we could come!

Felted, Crocheted Animals

Prepare yourself for some intense cuteness... we thought we'd indulge ourselves a little for Valentine's Day. We have a nostalgic weakness for crocheted stuffed animals. But then, the felted ones are a double-whammy of adorability (pardon the new word.)

Oh heavens! So cute! We have to share our Beaver Love for Valentine's Day.

A chenile duckie! We can't decide which is our favorite.  But how great are these for a baby shower, or for a new arrival?

MillieFern on Etsy made these— they are some of the best we've seen.  And of course, I bet you might find or commission a sock monkey.

Party Inspiration!

We came across this super brill on Somewhere Splendid - so cool and inspiring!

Love the loose, modern, fun approach and the quirky little animal details...

We have a seriously thing for neon pink and love the way it pops when combined with cool neutrals...

And, well, seriously, ANYTHING with a meerkat...!  See more here.

Raindrop Mobile at RealSimple.com

Check out our little DIY project on RealSimple.com!

This is a raindrop mobile that Eunice made to hang in her son's nursery - it's super easy to make and babies are mesmerized by the shifting raindrops...you can find the tutorial here.

Silk Tree Branch Mobiles by Moon-Lily Silk

Some of us have been traveling here at Hello!Lucky and we're a little confused about what season it is! We thought these delicate silk tree mobiles by Moon-Lily Silk were a refreshing way to look back while marching ever onward toward spring...was it?

Brought to mind our Autumn Leaves design.

And these brought to mind EIEIO's Lunaria design.  Lovely, modern and nature-inspired.

And of course, Cherry Blossom.

Such lovely decorations for seasonally inspired weddings!

And, they might look equally beautiful in a nursery, no? (A child's nursery, that is, not an arboreal one where they might get a little lost.)

Thanks so much, Jan, for sharing!

Confetti garlands

Oh, the possibilities!

Paper Pastries

Pretty Paper Pastries from Imeon Designs would make perfect favor boxes for your next bridal or baby shower. Fill them with color coordinated candy and trinkets!

Alphabet Prints

These new letterpressed alphabet prints from designer Jessica Hische would make a great addition to a baby's room or as a gift for a newly married couple. See them all here.

Pingg!

Check us out on Pingg!  We  have a brand spankin' new collection of online kids' invitations and announcements that you can e-mail to friends & family using Pingg's super easy interface!

You can check out printed versions of our new custom birth announcements (no party invites yet - patience, friends!) on our website!

Sugar Coated Events

We're in love with this gorgeous baby shower by Sugar Coated Events, via Concrete and Honey. The muted palette and pretty details would be perfect for a wedding, too...

Gorgeous candy bar, cupcakes and favors...

Love subtle tone-on-tone teacup flower arrangements. More beautiful pics (by Nicola Greenaway and Karen Greenaway) here.