Adamaris's Quinceanera Invites

Last month, hubby, Baby Henry, and Mommy went to Ecuador to celebrate Henry's little sister's Quinceanera, or Sweet 15. Quinceanera's are very popular in Latin and South American countries. They are the equivalent to our Sweet 16, which is what I had since I was born and raised here in the States. 

As a gift, we told my in-laws that I would make the invites for them. I already had an idea in mind: an explosion box. I had never done one before so this would be a first for me. Also, I knew NO ONE in Ecuador had seen this type of invite before. Starting in September of last year, after our church wedding, I started showing my mother-in-law ideas and color schemes. I showed her the explosion box idea from a few pins on Pinterest (my go-to place for EVERYTHING!) and she loved it!

Below I've shared a few pix of us in Ecuador. Everyone was in love with Baby Henry. He had fans from all over and on a daily basis he was surrounded by women (there are 3 in Henry's immediate family).

Here is Baby Henry with his grandparents friend Yuly, her daughter Ailee, his grandma Lauri, his aunt Adamaris, and his aunt Anabel.

Ailee loved touching his little face.

Here we all are making the 50 invites for the Quinceanera. I brought all materials with me. Most everything was precut or prescored. I brought ribbon, lace, embellies, glue gun, glue sticks, paper, punchers, my Martha Stewart scoring board. I thought of everything!

And yes I have red hair now!

Baby Henry joined us but he watched Thomas while we worked day and night for about three days straight. These had to get done pronto!

He wasn't really interested in us. Thomas had his interest.

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And the finished product. This is the outside.

Completed explosion boxes were lined up against the wall.

I used different colored ribbon according to what was left. For example, once I was out of coral, I went to brown, and so on.

Bam! Did this just blow your mind! It's a mini cake! Whaaaaaaa???? Shyeah!

I... Made... It... Myself...
I won't tell you what I used to decorate the cake but let's just say it added the needed touch.

And here's a pic of Daddy and baby. This is one of my favorite pictures.

Two Baby Showers and We're Finally Home!

So in February my mother-in-law Laura held a baby shower for me in Ecuador. It was sort of a farewell I guess since Henry's embassy appointment was later on that month and then we finally picked up his Visa on February 28th. We booked our flight back to the U.S. (a first for him!) a few days later and now we are back home, yay!!!!! We were really holding our breaths! He is a bonafide U.S. Resident now.

So here's a picture of my baby shower in Ecuador. The video in back is of a music video, in case anyone thought otherwise. That is my darling husband. He has the best smile ever! I love him so much!

And here we are back in the U.S. First thing we did? Shop for a crib for baby Henry!

I loved the white one in back, but it's so expensive!

On March 22nd, we held our U.S. baby shower with all my U.S. family.

This is the cake I had made from Luigi's Bakery.

And next to the cake are the souvenirs I made. Since the theme of the party was flying, I decided to make little suitcases as favors. I stayed up til about 5am the day of the shower to finish making these!

These are the invites I had made by Vistaprint. They are boarding tickets. This invite set up the whole theme for the party. We were coming home.

Here's a closeup of the suitcases. I made the little labels as well.

I was in a hurry so inside I only had time for some small sacks of candy.

Closeup of the labels.

The suitcases were all different types of designs. I found a template for them online. I searched everywhere. It was not easy I must admit.

My Most Favoritest Christmas Card!!!

as my dad was telling me whose card was whose, we realized two people we had forgotten. So I had to do two cards last minute. One was Card #450 and the last one was this one. For this one my dad asked me to make a super pretty card for my cousin Wilson cuz he made a big impression on my dad this past summer when my parents went down there.

Apparently Wilson is a great dancer!!

I knew I wanted to make an easel card because they're so elegant and I wanted to use Angel Tilda. But as I finished up and was about to lay the image over the front I couldn't shake the feeling that it wouldn't look right. So I looked in my drawer and remembered I had seen one of my pretty poinsettias that Pam had gotten me the day before. So I pulled it out, added pop-up dots and voila! I added the gold charms later on.

When I showed my parents this card they were amazed! They LOVED it!!! I had to make the envelope myself because I don't know how to make my Cricut cut out square envelopes. The ones it makes are too wide. It took me a couple of hours to do everything but well worth it.

Enjoy!

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This pic came out a little dull.


This one is closer to the actual colors of the card.

Non-Magnolia Christmas Cards for Ecuador

These last two Christmas Cards are for my uncle Hugo and my uncle Ruben in Riobamba. My dad liked these very much. They both have the Nativity scene in them.

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