WREN handmade

2nd Birthday!

We recently celebrated Leo's 2nd birthday. We shared the day with his buddy Elliott who is one day older. I chose a train theme since Leo is pretty obsessed these days with choo choos. I tried not to make it a character theme as I know those days will come later. It was a fun party and I thought the two boys looked adorable in their conductor hats and bandanas. Take a look.

For the invite, I used an old illustration from a Golden book. I just loved the whimsical illustration. 

I made a paper train banner which hung from the ceiling.

Leo had a ton of fun just playing with the train around the perimeter of the table, at his reach.

I loved this homemade wrapping from his friend Elizabeth. 

Hosting parties with 2 kids + a bunch more is hectic but so fun. I only wish I had gotten more photos. Happy 2nd birthday Leo!

A stripey 1st birthday!

We celebrated Leo's 1st birthday this weekend and it was a great time. We live far from family but amazingly we had lots of family members here to celebrate along with our friends. The theme was stripes and we asked the attendees to dress accordingly. Just about everyone wore some sort of striped combination and it looked very festive! 

I ordered striped party supplies from Shop Sweet Lulu, which has very cute stuff. We had various snacks and cupcakes and mini pb and j's. It was fun to mix and match the stripes.

I love all the different stripe patterns going on.

I customized some store bought blowers to go with the theme.

We filled lots of balloons with helium and I made a stitched paper garland.

A custom birthday hat which of course Leo wouldn't wear even for a second.

The birthday boy was in awe of everyone singing to him!

I made a "1" iron-on for his shirt which he wore with seersucker shorts.

Friends and family watching intently as Leo took a long time to open his gifts.

And finally I make a backdrop behind the food table of Leo's monthly photos. I have mentioned these before, the onesies are from Culpeper General. It was hard the last few months to get Leo to sit still for the photos so I'm pretty glad to be done with that project! It looked great and is so nice to have a complete set though.

All in all a nice celebration of the past year with our little guy!

Happy Spring!

We hosted an Easter brunch yesterday which was quite festive and fun. Surprisingly the weather was very warm, in the 70's and all the trees and plants are in bloom in Brooklyn. What a nice celebration of spring.

I cut some flowering pear branches from the tree outside for some last minute arrangements.

I decorated eggs this year with a wax stylus, traditional Paas dyes and a few darker Ukranian dye colors. I drew freehand patterns and also made "placecards" using eggs for each person attending. The stylus is a little tricky to make perfect lines, so I decided to embrace the wobbly lines and more organic look.

Each person got a hard boiled egg with their name on it, to eat then or take home.

I was happy to set the table using my LuRay dishes which I think looked very Eastery in the pastel shades.

The napkins are from Winter Water Factory and the linen runner is from Dwell Studio.

Our friend Katie brought a nice assortment of cheeses and made these cute labels for them.

I made orange poppy seed cupcakes from the May issue of Martha Stewart Living. The whole poppy story is really inspiring!

All in all, a nice afternoon. Sorry I didn't get any shots with the actual people, it's always a whirlwind once the party starts when you are hosting. Hope everyone had a nice Passover or Easter!

The wait is finally over...

We have been waiting over a year to post photos of our wedding. It was really hard to keep a secret. Well, the Martha Stewart Weddings summer issue is soon to be out with our wedding. The photo gallery is here.

We have such fond memories of the day and I was happy to be able to add so many craft and handmade touches. It really was a special day. More photos here. Our photographer was Jacob Pritchard who did such an amazing job.

Once Wed did a nice post on the wedding too!

We had a nature theme and got married in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I love the woodland scenery. Gerald Menke (pictured below) played solo during the ceremony the band The Dixons played old time country music at the reception.

 

I made my bouquet out of silk butterflies, some of which I repainted in coordinating colors. Hannah Milman made the bridesmaids bouquets from scented geraniums, daisies, sweet pea and other flowers.

 

We rode away on white bikes complete with "Just Married" flags. Ben worked so hard on finding just the right bikes. We then rode all the way home through Brooklyn with people cheering for us the whole way. It was magical.

A festive weekend.

Saturday night we hosted a party for my friend who just graduated from grad school. Even though lots of our friends were out of town we had a great turnout and it was a lot of fun. Here are some shots just as the party got going. I hung a vintage paper garland and got small balloons filled with helium.