Family Pictures in the Forest {2013}

* * *   * * * FUN with FLOWERS * * *  * * *

 

I love having beautiful images of my adorable family and I'm spoiled and SO lucky to have a good friend, Jen of Jen CYK Photography to take amazing pictures for us. The girls grow so fast and time flies by so it's so important for me as a mom to have photos like these... Of course, it's not easy photographing kids... moodiness, hunger, boredom, and eventually exhaustion set in quickly this time around but it was all worth it!

* * *

You may have seen last year's tea party family pictures {here} that turned out so colorful and fun! This year, I knew I wanted to bring in lots of color in a new way... and I wanted to "style" the shoot with things that are meaningful to us as a family. So I thought about how much my girls and I love flowers. And I knew I wanted to a location in the midst of nature (Vivi's favorite thing!) I chose all white for our clothing and picked super bright colored flowers that looked like what you would find growing wild in a meadow. I also brought along a bold, bright floral print quilt for us to sit on and some containers to hold the flowers.

  * * * 

I love how it all turned out... the gorgeous natural setting, the neutral and casual feel to our clothes, the pops of color from the florals... and best of all, the sweet smiling faces of my favorite people in the world!

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Pretzels & Brew Birthday Party

 

The past 5 years, I've gone ALL OUT for almost every birthday celebration for my 2 daughters. You may have noticed that I get VERY into the details of each event.. it's always so much fun but soooo much work! This year, I challenged myself to do something outside of my comfort zone- throw a party somewhere other than our house and allow the venue to take care of {almost} all the details.

My husband and my oldest daughter, Vivian, have birthdays only 4 days apart so I wanted to find a way to celebrate them both at one event. For a long time, I had been wanting to visit a local spot called  "Brewbakers" where you can make soda, pretzels, as well as brew your own beer. It turned out to be the perfect place to host a father/daughter birthday party! {see more pictures of the brew party click here.}

I didn't have to worry about what to feed everyone.

I didn't have to create any fancy "tablescapes".

There was NO cleaning or decorating to do.

The activities were planned out.

But, I HAD to do something...!!! I decided to put time and effort in to having fun, customized, functional party favors for each guest. With the help of iCustomLabel and their amazing, high-quality printed labels, here's what I was able to create...

MONOGRAMMED ETCHED GLASS MASON JARS 
to hold the root beer guests could take home!

This was my first time etching glass... I created shapes with painters tape, vinyl lettering, and contact paper. Then applied the etching cream and had instant etched glass! These jar/jugs were 99 cents each and were the perfect and useful favor for guests to enjoy for years to come! Here's how they turned out:

 you may have noticed the charms hanging off the jars...

PHOTO SHRINKY DINK CHARMS
printed on my home printer, then shrunk and attached to ball-chain necklaces.

I attached these adorable charms to lobster clasps to make it super simple to attach it to other things like key chains, backpacks, etc. They were wrapped around the etched glass jars for guests to take home. Check out how cute they turned out!

I love wearing my mini photo strip charm that has all my favorite people on it! :)

Guests also too home their own bottles of root beer. (I customized labels with their faces on them as well as a birthday party version.) And I even had custom-printed drink carriers for them!

Jen CYK Photography

And of course, I had to pass out candy (I'm kindof obsessed w/candy). I made little custom printed favor bags full of gummy soda bottles as well as baggies full of hand-dipped white chocolate pretzels. I tried my best to NOT over think things and turned a cardboard box in to my "display" for the favors. I thought it was fitting since the venue was literally a bar packed with stacks of boxes of beer bottles! :)

Jen CYK Photography

Oh, yeah, and I made placemats, too!!

 

This was definitely a fun venue and a great birthday party we'll always remember!

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Jen CYK Photography

Family Picture Time!

{Moore Family Tea Party + Photoshoot}

June, 2012

 

Family photo time- here are some images from our tea party in the lemon groves taken by Jen Cyk Photography. I thought it would be fun to make our family photoshoot more of an activity instead of just saying "smile at the camera." I brought a ton of props from home- cozy, bright-colored pillows, a blanket, a suitcase full of jewelry for getting fancified, and of course a mini tea party set for the girls to enjoy playing with!  I wanted the photos to be colorful as well as reflect things we love! Thank you, Jen- for taking beautiful pictures of my family- it was a fun and memorable night for us!

More Tea Party pics here.

Hostess with the Mostess - a super amazing and inspiring party planning website published our tea party photoshoot (thanks to Jen for submitting the images and writing a great post to go along with it)! Check out how adorable the post turned out & recommend browsing their site- they have so many great ideas for any party theme you can imagine as well as lots of great ideas for DIY projects!!! 

Anthropologie Inspired Tea Party Photo Shoot + Tips for a DIY Family Photo Session

 

Mugs made by my sister {Jennifer Swingle}. An awesome Christmas gift inspired by the Anthropologie monogrammed mugs! Love them- and they look great as decoration in my kitchen!