Labor Day Sale!

Let's kick off this Labor Day weekend with a huge 30% OFF SALE! Use the coupon: LABOR30 to get 30% off your entire order from today through Monday. Shop Now!

What's New at Out of the Blue

Now that my kids have been back in school for a week, I've been busy getting back in the swing of things after a lazy summer. I've been working on lots of new designs for my Etsy shop, and I'm in the process of photographing and listing things a few items at a time. Here are three pieces I just added today. Hope you love them!

This cute charm necklace features a vintage pearl cage charm on a gold plated chain. Simple and sweet, this necklace is perfect for a simple t-shirt and jeans or layered with other necklaces to create a true statement piece.

My dictionary word jewelry is always a hit for a unique personalized gift! My latest addition is this oval antiqued silver locket with a dictionary word center. You get to choose the word, making this truly a one of a kind gift.

Finally, tassel necklaces have been seen everywhere this year! This is my take on the trend...a vintage silver chain tassel has been added to a gorgeous turquoise bead chain necklace. Love this!!

New Vintage Finds at Hoot's House

I am an estate sale junky! I'm especially a sucker for ones that make me feel like I'm taking a step back in time as soon as I enter the home. This weekend I went to an amazing sale that was absolutely filled with all kinds of vintage goodies! I'm in the process of listing my fun finds on my vintage Etsy shop, Hoot's House. Here's what I've listed so far:

These gorgeous retro curtains are amazing! The colors are so vibrant and the pom pom detail on the bottom is to-die-for.

This sale had lots of vintage children's clothing with the tags still on. These are some of my favorites. How incredible are those funky pants?! You can view the entire vintage kids section on my shop.

Finally, I picked up this beautifully detailed vintage brass elephant figurine. Perfect for a door stop, paperweight, or just for good luck!

Jayme's Carnival Baby Shower

I am so excited to finally get to share all of the details of my sister's carnival-themed baby shower we recently hosted for her!! My little sister, Jayme, is expecting her first child in September. We can hardly wait for Easton to get here!! Before she knew the sex of her baby, we started scouring Pinterest for ideas on different themes. One of the themes we were most drawn to was a super girly pink and gold glitter carnival themed shower. At the time, Jayme was convinced she was having a girl so we decided the pink carnival theme was it! Well wouldn't you know it...her next sonogram revealed that she would in fact be having a BOY! We decided to stick with the carnival theme but changed our color scheme to red, navy, aqua and gold. Here are all of the details of the special day we celebrated for Jayme and Baby Easton...

One of the hardest decisions I had while planning the shower was choosing an invitation that would immediately set the carnival theme. I wanted it to be fun and whimsical, but not too childish. I had a vision in my head, I just needed to find the invitation that matched my vision. Then I stumbled across SweetBeeDesignShoppe and knew I had found exactly what I was looking for! Tori was so easy to work with and was more than happy to make a few tweaks in her design to create the exact invitation I was hoping for. She even made matching inserts for the invitations to request that the guests bring a book instead of a card. I love this new trend in baby showers!! Such a great idea to help build a library that mommy and baby will get to enjoy for years to come.

This fun sign greeted guests at the front door. I designed the sign on Picmonkey.com and had an oversized poster printed at Walgreens. I was so excited when I found the vintage elephant graphic image on The Graphics Fairy website because it matched the invitations perfectly! The whimsical red frame was found at Hobby Lobby and I added gold glitter stickers to make it even more fun.

In the front entrance, I set up a sign-in table for guests as they entered. My sister is decorating Easton's nursery in a vintage baseball theme, so instead of a guest book, we set up a basket of baseballs and asked everyone to "autograph" a baseball and add a special message to the "Future Baseball Star".

In the chaos of setting up the day of the shower, I completely forgot to get a picture of our "Fortune Teller" table. I'm so mad at myself!! I had created this sign with a vintage palm reading image and the table was decorated with this ceramic hand that I found at Home Goods. There was a small antique German tin treasure chest filled with fortune teller fish that everyone had fun reading their fortunes with. I also had a prediction sheet on this table for all of the guests to play fortune teller themselves and predict when the baby will be born, how much he will weigh, how long Jayme will be in labor, etc.

I'm not a big fan of shower games, so I thought it would be a fun idea to have some type of craft available for everyone to do instead. I had seen the idea of decorating onesies on Pinterest and thought this would be perfect! I was inspired by a blog post by The Ragged Wren who had hosted a circus themed baby shower. She used a vintage suitcase for all of the onesies and I just loved the idea! I found a cute red suitcase at a local thrift shop and filled it with a variety of onesies, bibs and burp cloths.

I purchased the pre-made iron-on appliques from Love Dove Baby Designs on Etsy. The guests chose their design and then picked an item to apply it to. There were irons set up on each end of the onesie station.

The guests had a great time creating a fun keepsake for Jayme and Baby Easton, and when their creations were complete they were all hung from a clothesline strung across the windows.

Each of the guest tables were decorated with ivory table cloths, navy table runners and a different carnival themed centerpiece for each table. I created all of the centerpieces from a mixture of old and new tin boxes, milk glass vases, styrofoam covered in paper and ribbon, popcorn boxes, and gold spray painted plastic elephants and lions. I think this was definitely my favorite crafting project! I had so much fun creating each one.

We decided to go with plastic plates and silverware but wanted it to have a little bit of a fancy feel. I found these gold striped plates at Smarty Had a Party as well as the gold cutlery, navy pintuck table runners and navy cloth napkins. The scalloped aqua plates were ordered from Party City.

In the center of each place setting we included an advice card for the guests to share their wisdom with the mommy-to-be. These were also created on Picmonkey with the coordinating elephant graphic. This website was a life saver for me while planning this shower. I highly recommend it!

It wouldn't be a carnival shower without carnival food, so our menu for the day included hot dogs and sliders with all the fixings, potato salad, fruit cups, popcorn, peanuts, whirly pop shaped sugar cookies, sprinkle topped cupcakes, churro cheesecake, "fried" oreos and mini churro bites.

The dessert table was topped off with a sparkly gold sequin tablecloth and a marquee letter E for Easton!

Jayme received so many wonderful gifts from her amazing friends and family! Her smile says it all! Isn't she the cutest?!

After opening gifts, the guests had fun taking photos in our "photo booth" area. The backdrop was created from fabric strips that I hand cut and tied to a curtain rod. This was such a time consuming project that if I had to do over again I would definitely purchase instead of make! Haha! We had a few props for the guests to use in their photos. My favorite was the aqua frame with red curtains that Jayme and her fellow expecting friend Amy used to frame their adorable baby bumps!

As the guests left, we had a selection of party favors to choose from...cotton candy, animal cookies and cracker jacks. A cool little tidbit...the cotton candy was hung from the bed spring of the crib my sister slept in as a baby!

It was a fantastic day full of celebrations for my baby sister! Now Easton just needs to hurry up and get here because he has lots of people ready to love him!!

A special thank you to our mom, Dorothy, who was such a huge help with the crafting projects and running around gathering supplies and decorations. My 13 year old daughter, Shelby, was my right-hand girl and was there every step of the way dealing with my psycho party planning hysteria and helping out any way she could.(And I'm still apologizing for not getting a picture of her at the shower). Also thank you so much to my fellow hostesses Mary Ellen and Patricia and my Aunt Linda and Aunt Geraldine who were there working like crazy to set everything up for the big day! Couldn't have done it without y'all!

Ready for 2013

Wow...where did 2012 go? Last year was a whirlwind adventure at Out of the Blue and as a result I haven't posted on my blog in a while. This one woman show worked 12-16 hour days for several months to get through the holiday orders. I am so grateful for all of my amazing customers and the ability to do something that I am passionate about every day of my life. But this chick was in serious need of a little R&R so my husband and I decided to take our little family on a cruise for the holidays. We had the most amazing time and now I feel refreshed and ready to take on the new year!! Here are a few of our snapshots from our Disney Cruise to the Caribbean

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And the winner is...

The winner of our jewelry grab bag giveaway is Julie G. (gibberish)! Thanks to all that entered. Keep an eye out for more giveaways to come.

Mystery Grab Bag of Jewelry Giveaway

I am giving away a Mystery Grab Bag of Jewelry to one of my wonderful blog readers. The estimated retail value will be at least $100...but possibly much more!! I am cleaning out my studio and I have so much excess stock I've decided to offer some of it as a special thank you to one of my loyal followers. The photo above is just an example of the types of items you may receive. It will not be these exact items, but will be similar. To enter, just post a comment below. For bonus entries:

Like me on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter
Subscribe to my newsletter (sign up at the top of my blog)
Visit my online shop and tell me your favorite item.

A winner will be announced Friday, February 3rd.