A Baby (boy) Shower

This month I had the pleasure of hosting my cousin's (who is like a sister) baby shower.  She chose to wait until after baby was born to have it. She didn't find out if she was having a boy or a girl and she wanted to get lots of stuff that was for a specific sex. 

I made an adorable invite on photoshop, which I'm not going to share because it has his picture and all of is info on it. We had the party at the new grandma's house for space reasons.  So I didn't want to get to carried away with decorations.  Plus it makes for a lot of extra work.  I don't recall decorations from one shower I've been to over the years.  But I do remember key pieces that were really unique.  So  I made the most adorable diaper wreath (if I do say so myself) for decor.

The menu was delicious of course and made all by me that morning.  We had deviled eggs, cheesy potatoes (a recipe I completely made up that day!), little wieners, pasta salad, snicker salad and cake and punch.  Naturally I got the punch idea from Pinterest.

I did mine slightly different than the recipe.  I used white grape juice, 7 up, vanilla ice cream and blue food coloring.  None of the 3 grocery stores I tried had blue colored kool-aid.  Plus, I did not want the added sugar.  I tried a batch at home using blue Gatorade that tasted a little different, but still wasn't blue enough to emulate water.  The food coloring version was delish!

Whenever we have lots of family together, we always take the opportunity to update our 5 generation picture.  This is mine.  We are SO blessed!

We played 3 games.  First was a trivia game I made.  I created this using facts I found on the Internet.  I have created a free download for you to use - not the typo I have! oopsie!.  And if you want specific sighting or you want to fact check the answers, just google the questions.  

The trivia game I created has a typo! Oops! It's a nice ice breaker I suppose! :)

And the answers!

 Second was "guess what's in the bag" where you put miscellaneous baby items into lunch bags, number them, and then have everyone guess what's in the bag by feeling them.  I used all items you would find in a diaper bag to make it a little less complicated.

 Lastly we played gift bingo. I used the free cards I found.  But if you google "baby shower bingo card", you will get a lot of options to choose from.  You use the gifts the mom receives as your bingo squares and then whoever gets bingo at the end wins the prize.  If no one gets bingo, then the host can call out random items until someone gets bingo.  Of course this generated a 3 way tie for the last gift when I did it.  So I had a few extra baby trivia facts I didn't use on the first game.  I used the question, what's the average time it takes a dad to change the diaper?  They all guessed a time, and whoever got closest to the real answer won. 

I wanted all my prizes to me things I had made.  So this part was a lot of fun too!

2 votive candles, a bar of soap and a lip balm

dish cloths (I love those!), a bar of soap and a lip balm

a brag book made from toilet paper rolls and scrapbook supplies, a bar of soap and a lip balm

Like I said, that part was LOTS of fun! :)  I also of course, made my gift for the mom and baby too.  Another puff quilt...

It was a pretty easy event to put together.  And with fairly minimal stress! If there is enough interest, I'll do future posts on the specific parts of the shower (how I made the diaper wreath, my recipes, the puff quilt, etc)  Thanks for checking this out!

tutorial tuesday - butterfly wreath

It was my second day in a row of non stop mommy/wife stuff.  So I didn't even get to a thought for today's tutorial, let alone actually creating it.  Thankfully, I found a tutorial from another obvious creative crafter who must have been thinking of me when she created it! (Quite the feat considering she has zero idea who I am!)

This simply gorgeous wreath tutorial uses several of my loves: wreaths, butterflies, and lots of bright color! She does such a great job and I love the finished product so much so, I may need to add this to the to-do list!  See for yourself!

Obviously, I haven't tried it yet.  But knowing how I like to do things, I noticed a few things I would change.  I like to make sure that when I make something, its going to have as long a life as possible.  So I would make sure I made it several pages/layers thick.  Probly using a watered down modge podge or school glue mixture? Secondly, while this wreath is perfect just the way it is, I think it would dramatically alter the look if you added just a few sprigs of either tiny flowers, or boutinere (I don't know how to spell that and spell check says that is right - I think spell check may be broken!) leaves or even the pearl sprays.  Or maybe even baby's breath?  I like baby's breath, but in VERY small moderation.  It gets over used a lot, and I think gives it a bad rap... Also, I would TOTALLY get the kiddos in on this one! Just imagine how much better the finished product would be if you each had butterfly on it? Or maybe you do something different.  Like each pick your favorite part of a season.  Like your favorite fall leaf.  Or your favorite thing about spring.



 My mind wont stop. But my body says enough - my lids are honestly closing as we speak, which makes correctly typing difficult! 

So, awesome right? I would love to see your project. (And mine!)

Tutorial Tuesday - Coffee Filter Wreaths

This isn't a hard project (in my opinion) but I was surprised at how long it took. My wreath and tutorial differ from most because I pin it instead of just hot gluing it in.  Also, hopefully you can learn from my blood, sweat and tears what not to do.  (ok, not quite that much, but it felt like it at times) 

Here we go! Obviously, you need a wreath form (I did the green vs the white round ones because the styrofoam is easier to push into) and I started with these floral pins, but quickly switched to regular straight pins to save my poor fingers.  Plus they are cheaper than the floral pins.  However, the floral pins obviously give better hold, so a thimble might elliminate the sore finger issue.

You need to fold the coffee filters.  I only did one at a time, but perhaps two at a time would give a different look. 

Half, quarter, sixth (I think) Just fold halves three times.

Then its time to start pinning!

You can fold a bunch, or do them one at a time.  I alternated between the two methods as my mood suited me.

I pinned in quite a few before I began fluffing them.  I tried not fluffing to see if that step could be skipped as a time saver, but if it were a wreath I was putting on my wall, I would prefer them fluffed.

See what I mean? Fluffing makes them look fuller and less coffee filter like.  And when the wreath is done, you'll be really glad you took the time to complete this step.

It's hard to say how long it took me to finish the first third of the wreath, since I'm never full time crafter.  But if I had to guess I would say roughly an hour - hour and a half.  At this point, you're fingers will hurt, you might even be board with the entire process.  My little sister suggested I stop here and be done with it. "call those flowers or something" but in all fairness she was trying to get me to help her scrapbook.

Two-thirds done.  This is where I started shaping the wreath.  I decided not to wait to the end because I've been known to get carried away with my shearing.  So I just started to trim them all to the overall same lengths and worried about the exact shape later.  Also, you will now probably think that you are so close to the end based on the green to white ratio.  However, that would be very misleading. I would say I had at least another hour + left to go at this point.

NOW you are almost done! :) When I got to the place where the two directions met each other I started fluffing them before I pinned them instead of after like I had been doing. 

Here is the wreath finished being pinned.  You can see it still needs to be shaped (by the cetner) and also trimmed a little bit more to keep the edges more even.

Now you have some choices.  You can leave it and call it good.  Great wreath as is.  Or you can color it with inks. You could add some embellishments.  Or you can do like I did and add a simple ribbon.

Hubs picked out Red ribbon which just looked to christmas like for me.  I wanted yellow, but didn't have any.  So, pink it is! Which I think works perfectly. 

ta-da! (See more pics on my etsy.)
So go ahead, give this one a try!

The Best Ideas

While doing what I (probably) do best, parusing the internet, I got a little side tracked.  And like always, I have no idea what I was originally looking for when I ended up where I did.  It's borderline frightening sometimes!  I used to have my staple places I went to for inspiration and tips or ideas.  And I realized, I'd been so busy with my new crazy life lately, I can't remember the last time I checked.  So it was pretty awesome when I ended back up on the Crafting Mother herself's site.

Of course I mean Martha Stewart.  Jail suit or not, this chick knows how to do things with other things my brain can not even accept.  But every now and then she has something even the average bear like me can do.  I accidentally ran into one such project...or so I thought.  I have always like things in nature.  And I love when you can take something in nature and make it into something really amazing.  Like Martha's Pussy Willow Wreath.

Gorgeous right?  And it's mostly just gluing.  So even my 6 year old should be able to handle that right?! So I set out to my local craft stores to get the supplies.  Wreath base - check.  Pretty ribbon - check.  Lots of glue choices so I can decide if I outsmarted Martha - check.  Now I don't have any pussy willow branches with hundreds of little pod thingys laying around, so I thought I should buy those too. 

I got to the section where they should have hundreds of branches, but they didn't have that many.  They had 3 bundles.  And each buddle had like 2 1/2 branches.  And they contained a total of approximately 36 pods.  Ugh.  The icing on the disasterous cake, they were on SALE for something like 7.99.  Honestly, I don't remember if that was their actual price or sale price, but who cares!!

So, while Martha's creation is unique and beautiful, it is not very realistic for this wreath making chick.  Not for a loooong time anyway.  Sometimes, the best ideas really aren't right in front of you. 

If you have hundreds of pussy willow pod thingys laying around and you want to try Martha's wreath, here's the instructions.  If you have hundreds of pussy willow pod thingys laying around and want to give them away, let me know!