Shabby Chic Tea Baby Shower

I was honored to be able to plan and host a baby shower for my very best friend.  She is expecting her second little boy, so early in the planning we decided it would be a small intimate affair at a local garden restaurant. 

As guests sat down they were greeted with a packet. I found an adorable poem:

Inside the packet was a few games for the guests to play while we waited for lunch to arrive.  There was a celebrity baby matching game and a fill in the blank “mother” game.  Since we were not playing for prizes I included the answers at the back of the packet. The best part of the packet was the labor story mad lib game that I found.  The mom-to-be actually collected the stories at the end because they were so funny.

I knew that the tables would be small, so I made a small topiary for each table and limited the “extras” to a water bottle and favor.  We did bring our own tablecloths.  The ones at the restaurant are a fruit pattern that didn’t match my color scheme.

The water bottle labels were very simple and only said “Welcome Baby Ben”

The favors were little boxes that I cut out of kraft paper with my Cricut.  I attached a teacup to each favor and instructed guests to write their name on them to be used during the drawing for door prizes. The candy inside was a miniature Take 5 bar – the Mom-to-be’s favorite candy bar.

     

The shower was exactly what I had hoped for, a small quite affair that honored the Mom-to-be.  The best part was that there was very little clean up!  That is always my least favorite part of any shower.

A little Cricut Love

As a scrapbooker/crafter I tend to always want the latest and greatest new gadget.  Last year was no exception.  After playing with a Cricut at the local scrapbook store while making the cut-outs for our cake walk wheel for the Boo Bash, I fell in love.  It went to the top of my Christmas List!

I was so excited when I opened my gift from my mom, and I had a brand new Cricut Expression! I had heard so many great things from other crafters and scrapbookers that I was envisioning all the cool things I would be able to make.  Then I saw the price of the cartridges and got discouraged.  I played around a little with the two that I had and was able to make some cute Valentine's for my daughter's class:

I was pretty impressed with how quickly I was able to make these.  I had 30+ of the little lollipop flowers done in one evening.  After this project the Cricut just sat back in the corner waiting for the next time I would need it.

I don't think I turned it on for almost 4 months until I needed it to help me make the Closet Clothes Dividers that I made for my friends Candy Coated Baby Shower. Again, I just used basic shapes and letters.  I still wasn't willing to make any investment into cartridges.

Then I read a blog by Kelleigh Ratzlaff about programs you could use with your Cricut to cut ANY design and ANY font!  I have worked with digital scrapbooking supplies and was familiar with what could be done with Photoshop and a Printer.  I just always hated the cutting part.  Now that Kelleigh and Mari were offering cutting files I was very interested.   It still took 3 more months, but I finally bit the bullet and bought Sure Cuts A Lot.  I have spent the last few weeks finding cutting files and downloading them.  Now I have SO many ideas in my head.  Banners, favor boxes, cupcake wrappers, cupcake toppers, party supplies galore right at my fingertips!!  I have also found a few more digital scrapbook stores that sell cutting files, and I am always on the lookout for more:

• Deena Rutter at Design House Digital 
• Two Peas and a Bucket 
• Peppermint Creative

Later this week I will be showing you how I made our adorable Boo Bash invitations with digital scrapbooking supplies and my Cricut.  I can't wait till you see them!

Very Adorable Baby Shower

This Saturday afternoon I attended a baby shower for a friend at church.  The ladies that put the shower together did a GREAT job putting together a “Very Hungry Caterpillar” baby shower for the mom to be.  I don’t have any pictures from the actual party, so I decided to put together an inspiration board based on the ideas the ladies used at the event and some extras I thought would be fun to incorporate.
 
sources:
Food Display Signs
Table Decorations/Centerpieces
Lollipop Favor
caterpillar quilt
Fruit and Cheese Snack
Spinach Dip
Mini Cherry Cheesecake Tarts
Cake
Lantern Caterpillar
Diaper Cake

Parties from the Past: Pirate Party

For my son's 6th birthday he was at the height of his pirate phase. When it was time to pick a theme for his birthday it was no surprise that it was a pirate themed birthday he chose. My first step as usual was to create the invitation. I had a lot of fun finding the wording and changing it to fit our party and activities.

I will admit that my cake didn't turn out exactly how I planned. The cake was just too moist to carve the treasure chest. Luckily candy can hide a multitude of mistake's., and still tastes great.

The morning of the party my two swashbuckling pirates got all dressed up and posed with the decorations for grandma.

 

Everything was set up for the pirate invasion. The table in the middle of the yard is where lunch would be served. It also doubled as a tattoo shop for our pirate guests.

 

Once everyone arrived it was time for the first activity.   The search for gold coins that the pirates lost on the beach.  Even the littlest guest was able to participate in this game.

 

Then it was time to walk the plank.  We set up a balance beam over a blue tablecloth so that the kids had to walk over the water without falling in.  It is much harder than it looks when you have an eye patch on!

 

Then they needed to swab the deck.  We purchased cheap string mops at the dollar store and painted Styrofoam balls black to look like cannon balls.  We divided all the pirates into two teams and had relay races.

Then our Captain was delivered a special message from Grandpa the Pirate.  His treasure had been taken and hidden!  They unrolled the map and began their treasure hunt.

 

 

After their treasure had been found (and a mess of gold foil littered the beach) it was time for the piñata.  I am not sure where this HUGE wooden stick came from that the birthday pirate used, but it was quickly swapped out for a regular bat for the rest of the pirates.

 

The pirates then sat down for some lunch and cake before we opened presents and said goodbye.  All the kids went hope with their treasure bags full of gold coins, pirate bandanas, eye patches, tatoos and LOTS of candy!

Candy Coated Baby Shower

I had the pleasure of helping a friend put together the cutest candy themed baby shower. The Mom to be loves candy, so the hostess designed the whole shower around a bag of skittles. It was a “taste the rainbow” color scheme with black and white as the neutrals. It turned out fabulous. I helped by first designing the invitation. I loved how it turned out and it got rave reviews from the guests.

The hostess did a lot of planning during the months leading up to the baby shower, and there were many planning and crafting days to get everything perfect. One of the biggest projects was putting together the lollipop and skittle centerpieces.

The day of the party everything came together beautifully, I helped with setting up the candy buffet, while others set the tables and arranged the food.

The best part of the party (in my opinion) was the gift that my mom and I put together. It started with a simple idea of a gift basket and exploded into the best baby shower laundry gift basket ever put together.

The basket contained:

• Altered Letters (that spelled the baby’s name)
• A clothesline with clothes attached for each age from 0-3 months up to 4T
• Altered clothespins
• Altered plastic closet dividers for each size of clothing
• Hangers
• Dreft laundry detergent
• Dreft Stain Remover
• Snuggles dryer sheets
• Tide To Go pens

Everything altered was done using the same scrapbook paper that matched the nursery (tiffany blue/turquoise, black and white), that I also used on the candy buffet table.