100 Layer Cake

Certainly you’re all familiar with the superduper talented Mimi of Mika78. And clearly we’re all going to want to be a little MORE familiar with her after this post is over. Because if you’re more familiar, as in like friends with her, she puts together an amazing bridal shower for you, complete with a little box of handmade goodies for your guests.

Look out Mimi, you’re about to get like 4,000 friend requests on facebook.

Mimi created this whole suite for one of her closest friends Christina’s bridal shower. Christina is, in Mimi’s words, and unbelievable woman and friend and Mimi wanted to create something really, really special to celebrate her bridal status. She and the rest of the bridesmaids planned an afternoon tea party at a cute restaurant in the West Village, which turned out to be exceptional inspiration for the invitation.

Because Mimi is so incredibly talented, thoughtful, and design-obsessed she scoured the city’s vintage flea markets for weeks looking for the perfect tea cups and napkins to incorporate into her design. Sigh. Does it get much more heartfelt? (Not to mention absurdly cute).

She worked with our now friend and DIY contest winner Bryn of Paperfinger (we didn’t know her when she won the contest, we swear), for the pretty calligraphy. Bryn wrote a bunch of different messages, including a quote Christina is using in her invitations, on the vintage tea cups using gold pen. And Mimi also included tea bags with little handmade tea tags in each guest gift.

AND Mimi made little fill-in-the-blank notes for guests to give to Chris at the shower. Everyone read theirs aloud at the shower and it turned out to be an excellent way to not only get to know Chris’s friends and family a little better, but also to allowed each woman to reflect on her own friendship with the bride-to-be. At the end Mimi collected each note and put them into a scrapbook for Chris. Such a cute idea!

The finished invite was literally a box full of goodies, tied up in baker’s twine and sent off to guests. If that doesn’t get you pumped for a bridal shower, we can’t imagine what would.

Guess what else? Because Mimi is genuinely the talented and thoughtful person that we already said she is, she’s made downloadable fill-in-the-blank cards for you all to print for an upcoming shower or party you’re hosting yourself.

There are 4 color variations included in the zip file. Even if you’re not hosting a shower in the near future, we highly recommend stashing these away for a time when they’ll come in handy. They really are too cute to pass up.

Download here: Bridal Shower Notes from Mika78

Thank you so much Mimi! Amazing work as always.

Ooh and you can keep up with everything Mimi does on her blog, SevenEight. Actually, there’s a little peek of Chris + Jay’s programs up there right now.

DIY-ish because it does seem a teeny bit unfair to call something DIY when the DIY-er is a designer by trade. But these were made at home, with the help of a Gocco, Paper Source, Ebay, and a few other widely accessible suppliers so they are technically possible for someone with a crafty set of hands.

Kristina made these for a shower she’s hosting in her backyard next month. She and Melanie have a running joke that they both want to plan rustic barn weddings (BAD)… which is fine, until you realize that 1) Kristina is already married and 2) Melanie is having a black tie Monte Carlo inspired seaside affair in Del Mar this September. Then it starts to become a little weird… especially when you know how often they refer to said fantasy wedding. To (hopefully) give them some closure on this topic, Kristina is throwing a secret rustic barn wedding artfully disguised as Melanie’s bridal shower. Or something like that. Don’t worry, Melanie is totally on board.

And like every good rustic barn wedding/bridal shower, you need super cute invites to get people in the mood, (Melanie - if you’re looking, don’t read the insert card or you’ll spoil your surprise):

All paper came from Paper Source, envelope liners were cut from vintage wallpaper purchased on ebay, lacey notecards were made using a Martha Stewart craft punch from Michaels, and the stamps are from a local stamp store.

We’re going to post more on the shower as it gets closer and of course we’ll show the party in action at the end of June.