Strawberry Baby Shower

My friends threw me a huge, girly, strawberry themed baby shower a couple of weeks ago.  So much love and effort went into every detail, thank you to everyone who helped put it together and came to celebrate with me.  It was a night I will never forget.

 Party favor gumballs with a cute thank you note.

 It was an "open house" style shower, so my friend had a door prize game.

 The advice notebook was so cute, I loved all the entries.

The clothes are being washed and all the wonderful baby gifts are finding places in her room.  Now, the waiting begins!  Just a couple more weeks, hopefully.

Heaven Vinyl Art

This was made for my brother and sister in law in honor of their little Ian.

My friend painted the ombre effect using acrylics and I cut and placed the vinyl.  The canvas is a 12x12 if I remember correctly.  We found the phrase on Pinterest.

Diaper Castle

 A friend of mine is due with her first girl just a couple of weeks before me.  I made this as a gift, along with a couple of other small things, and it served as a table decoration for the shower as well.  Perfect!  I just browsed around Pinterest to see what others had done and kind of made it up as I went.

All of the diapers are size 1.  The bottom level is 3 rows of 20 or so diapers each.  I wound some washi tape around the three rows to hold them in place while I cut the ribbon to size and attached with double sided tape in the back.  You can see my polka dot washi tape through the ribbon if you look closely.  I used it on each level and to wrap the individual turrets.  It held the diapers in place and is easy to peel off without damaging so you can actually use the diapers too.

The second and third levels are circular.  I folded each diaper in half and awkwardly held them in a circle while I taped them together.  It would have been much more difficult to just attach the ribbon around without the washi tape.  Those diapers are small and slip easily.

Each turret is one rolled up diaper, individually wrapped in washi tape and ribbon.  I cut some semi circles out of scrapbook paper and made a cone shape, secured with double sided tape.  Lastly, the flags were made with green washi tape wrapped around a toothpick.

I didn't secure any levels or turrets to each other since it needed to be transported to the shower and assembled there.  It is really easy to assemble, and since it was a table decoration, it wasn't necessary for it to be super sturdy.  As long as your washi tape and ribbon around each level and turret are secure, you are good to go.

Congrats to Vanessa and her little princess....coming soon!

Tshirt Vinyl Extravaganza

We had a T-shirt making party the week before Christmas.  This wasn't all of them, but a few with images from our favorite comedy group and a "Snowman" shirt for Mark.  

Hope everyone liked them and that glitter vinyl is pretty amazing.  Brooke will have to let me know how it holds up in the wash.  Love my Silhouette!

Moss Covered Letters and a Ward Christmas Party

 Our ward has fantastic Christmas parties, almost exclusively due to the vision of one very talented lady.  Luckily for all of us, she loves to do this kind of thing and I know everyone looks forward to it each year.  Luckily for me, I was asked to help with a portion of the decorations; a sign for the theme of our party.  The whole evening was based on the book "The Tale of Three Trees".  

I was planning on doing something with forest green cardstock and maybe some gold glitter, but at the last second I stumbled across THIS idea from Uncommon Designs.  I knew that's what we needed to do!

 I printed out each letter on copy paper and then cut them out to make stencils.  I traced each stencil onto cardboard to give the moss some sturdiness.  Last, I traced the cardboard letters onto the back of the moss sheets, cut out the moss, and hot glued it to the cardboard.  Lots of tracing and cutting, but well worth it, I love the way it turned out.  I had 20+ letters to make, each letter was about 10.5 inches tall, so buying the nice wood ones from the craft store was not in the budget.  The cardboard worked great and is a nice alternative if you need more than just a few letters.  

I used coupons to buy the moss sheets (from Hobby Lobby in the floral section) and just used some cardboard boxes that were in my garage.  The whole project cost me about $23 dollars, with some leftover moss to spare.

 The party was wonderful and I think everyone had a great time.  The food was fabulous and the decorations were amazing.  We had a short presentation for the kids including reading the book together and singing some Christmas songs.  Santa came and passed out candy canes.  The rest of the time was spent stuffing ourselves silly with yummy breakfast foods and talking with friends.  A perfect night...can't wait until next year!

 We had several real Christmas trees donated and then given away to families in need after the party.  The whole room smelled like an evergreen forest....mixed with french toast and bacon.

 Hot Chocolate Stand with all the fixings

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Missionary Tag Christmas Tree

 A few months ago, my Grandma had a brilliant idea for her Christmas tree.  She wanted missionary tag ornaments, one tag for each mission served.  We brainstormed a bit and finally came up with the final project above.  So far, we have 31 missions served on six continents, literally all over the world.  These missionary tags include those who have married into the family, couples missions, and missionary presidency callings.  I think about half of my cousins are still in high school or younger, so we have many more tags to make over the years.  We will keep adding to it and watch it grow.  I loved working on this project and am so grateful that my Grandma asked me to participate.

 Each tag was printed on photo paper and made using Photoshop, measuring about 2.5 by 3.5 inches.  I saved my files, so as new missionaries serve, I just have to edit the text and print more of them out.  I cut each tag and mounted them on some thick cardstock using a thin layer of Modge Podge to adhere and seal the top of the tag.  The silver twine is attached with a dab of hot glue on the back.

 The family's first mission was served in 1899.

Scanned photos of my Grandma's finished tree.  I love how it turned out!  

When I mailed off the tags to my Grandma, I added a gold starburst (seen on the right hand side of the picture above) to represent my aunt, Mary Ann, who passed away unexpectedly this year.  We know that she is serving her own mission now, one that knows no country or city boundaries.  A bittersweet Christmas without her here, but we know she would love this tree.

Book Review: Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson

Blackmoore: A Proper Romance by Julianne Donaldson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kate longs to escape her embarrassing family and run off to India with her single aunt.  Her one wish before she leaves is to stay at Blackmoore, the country house of her two best friends.  An opportunity to visit arises at last, but with a terrible cost.  She must secure and refuse three proposals while visiting in order to travel onto India.  It's a hard task considering Kate has no idea how to flirt and there is one man at Blackmoore that she would rather say yes to than refuse....

I give this book 3.5 stars.  I would have given it a much higher rating, but I was unsatisfied with the ending.  Normally that isn't  such a big deal to me, but knowing her other books and how well she summed them up, I expected the same for this one.  It wasn't a bad ending, just lacking in information.  The book is fun, clean, and romantic.  A good "get away from it all" read.  I will definitely read and probably purchase more books from this author.


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