Baby Boy Shower Details

 
We (my family and I) had a great time putting on a shower for our niece Kayla.  I turned out so cute and I am delighted to share the details with you today.  Kayla knows she's having a boy and chose shades of blue with a sailboat motif for her baby's room.  We just took that idea to create the invites and decorate for the shower.  I used the sailboat from the New Arrival cartridge, but added a couple of "brackets" to the sails to keep them attached to the mast with my Gypsy.  This made cutting out tons and adhering them much easier, as they were then in 1 piece instead of 3!
After the invites went out I made a design for party favors.  We wrapped up Hershey bars with a cute little baby (New Arrival).  I stamped the sentiment and used a black pen for the faux stitching.
Some time ago I picked up several packages of chipboard star albums in the clearance aisle of M's.  They came in very handy for making the banner that hung above the food table.  I attached the letters to the star shapes with foam, so it's a bit dimensional.
The morning of the shower was so hot (South Carolina!).  We held the shower in my sister's backyard, near her pool, under tents.  We had a gigantic fan on one end that kept us relatively cool.  At one end we set up the gift table with our diaper cake in the center under a clothesline of baby clothes.  I love this idea because the clothesline is so adorable and easy - and it's part of the mom's gifts, too!  I had precut all the pieces for the diaper cake beforehand and my niece Angie helped me assemble it while the rest of the family went shopping for all the great menu ingredients.  We were quite proud to show off the finished product when they returned.

Another decor item I made that I really liked was the strings of pennant or circus flags.  This was really easy!  I hand cut triangles from my scraps of blue paper and then just sewed them together on my sewing machine.  We put these in various places, including the fence next to the gate where guests entered into the backyard shower.  Each guest had her photo taken here and these photos were later added to an album page.  I pre-made these pages also for Kayla's baby shower album.  I designed the page with two journaling boxes on my computer and then printed them at home.  I added the mat for the guest's photo and provided lots of cute paper cuts (Thank you, Cricut!) and adhesive for each guest to decorate their page and write a special note to Kayla and baby. 

Some of the other decor items: we covered water bottles with blue paper and a sailboat; paper sailboats on tooth picks scattered amongst the mini snacks and desserts; an awesome sailboat cake (my sister Kathy made it!); and don't forget to check out the baby carriage watermelon (also by Kathy!).

I had such a great time designing the decorations and an even better time with my sisters and nieces setting up for the party and during the party sharing joy with Kayla as we all anticipate the arrival of her baby boy!
 

Cute Elephant Card

 Baby Shower this weekend for my niece.  Can't wait to show you all the fun and super-cute decorations I made.  For today, I am sharing this cute card I made for the mom-to-be.  I used the elephant image from Holiday Cakes Cricut cartridge, welding two together.  I cute the layers from the Baby Boy DCWV Stack (love this stack!). I added a brad for his eye and a little ribbon on his tail.  So sweet!  I linked up with Monday's Challenge (Shape cards) over at Kimberly's Craft Spot.

Spring Flowers, Caterpillars, and Canning Jar Gifts

So much fun to go the Scrapbook Store and pick out pretty papers.  So much more fun to pair them with favorite photos and create a visual memory on a scrapbook page.  I love the flowers and soft colors of this line from American Crafts.  Who couldn't resist these pretties with sweet names like "My Darling," "Thing of Beauty," and "Neato"?  Check out the rest of the "Peachy Keen" line at their site.  I thought I was all clever when I used the barcode strips (so cannot even think about letting them go to waste!) but I visited the American Crafts blog today and found out they're having "Barcode Strips Week!"  So much for thinking outside the box :)  On this layout, I also punched the title from little letters on the paper sheet called "neato" and made my own cute yarn flowers.  I hand-drew and cut out the flower shape (you could cut a shape from your Cricut, too) and then ran it through the xyron to made it sticky.  It was just laying down the yarn and sewing on a button after that.  Easy Peasy!  Oh, that's another one of the paper names from this line!

 

After making the layout, I used more pieces to create some mini cards.  For each little card, I also cut a shape from my Cricut (Storybook cartridge) for the center.  I made envelopes to match and put them in a canning jar as a gift.

I also made more cute cards using kraft cardstock and leftovers from a layout using a couple of sheets of Jillibean Soup kraft patterned paper.  This layout and line of papers was really what gave me the idea to put cards into a canning jar in the first place!  My layout and cards use Chilled Strawberry Soup - "Fresh Lime Juices" and "Light Corn Syrup".  I also used a bunch of the house, tree, and other corrugated cardboard shapes, which I inked to give them more definition.  The green trim is cardstock punched with a Fiskars edge punch.  The cute little worm is from Create a Critter cartridge, the font is from Jubilee, and the jar is a cut from Kate's ABCs.  The other die cuts are from one of the coordinating paper die cut sheets from Jillibean Soup.  It's called "Pea Pod Parts" and has a lot of canning references, thus the gift idea of putting itty bitty notecards into a canning jar.  I used wide-mouthed jars so the cards are easy to get in and out.  I made a set of 6 using the Jillibean and a set of 8 using the American Crafts.  I would love to open my pantry and find cute canned cards instead of beans and pickled pears, wouldn't you?

Practical Scrappers

Check out Practical Scrappers - my mother's day silhouette cards were featured this week on their Challenge Me Tuesday post.

More Cards and a Sneak Peak

I wish I had time to post everything I make on this blog.  Usually when I don't post for awhile it's because I've been super busy with projects and life.  I have been spending a lot of my crafting time preparing for an upcoming baby shower.  I also had birthday, anniversary, and graduation cards to make, and 30 bridal shower invites, too!  It sounds like a lot, and I suppose it is, but I love crafting.  It makes me happy to create things and even happier to share them and use them to make other people smile.  Here's a look at some cards recently made.

The "You're a blast" rocket card (Just Because Cards) was made for my favorite 9 year old's birthday and the two silhouette girls (from Forever Young) were made for a couple of my favorite ladies.  For each of these cards I placed the image on an Action Wobble Spring - super fun little springs that allow the rocket, or girls, to "dance" and wobble on your card - such fun!  You can get your own wobbles on this website: AWi.  Beware - they are very addicting once you start to use them, you'll want to put them on everything! 

 My last card is also a new technique for me - a window card with a suspended heart.  Check out this site for a great video tutorial: Kimberly's Craft Spot.  This is another idea that can lead to many new ideas.  For my card, I decided to suspend a heart, cut from Gypsy Wanderings.  I made the card with "manly" black and white prints so I could give it to my hubby for our anniversary.  By the way, we celebrated our 16th anniversary and I dearly love this man ever so much more than I could every dream! 

The last creation to share with you today is a little sneak peak of just a few of the items I've been working on for the baby shower.  I have lots more, but haven't photographed everything yet.  I can't wait until I can show you everything AFTER the shower (don't want to ruin any surprises!).  So far I've made the invites, a set of thank you notes, a chipboard star banner, candy wrapper favors, water bottle wrappers, die cuts for on a diaper cake yet to be assembled, and my favorite: an 8x8 page template for shower guests to decorate (with coordinating papers and die cuts) and write a special message the baby and mom.  Each page also has a spot for their photo from the shower.  It's going to be so cute and such a special keepsake.  Oh - just today a sewed paper flags (triangles) and stars into an adorable set of cute banners to hang around the party room.  It was so easy. 

Until next time!  Keep creating and sharing.

National Scrapbook Day Layouts

This weekend I was able to have an entire day (WOWIE!) to scrapbook.  I ended Saturday with a total of 20 pages done, which brought me up to December 2010 in H.'s album.  I was pretty pleased with that, and with having a whole day to myself.  Here's a few of my favorite layous from the day.  I hope you got your scrap on this weekend, too!

I really like the simple look of this first one and the kraft cardstock makes the pink really stand out.  I journaled about losing H.'s beloved bunny and his return in a flip up journaling spot.  The bunny and letters are from ZooBalloo.

The second layout used some fun bright papers from American Craft.  The title letters are cut from Alphalicious.  "You know you have a girl in the house when your open up your kitchen cupboards and there are a couple of Barbies inside!"

The "pajammin" layout was made by first cutting a paper circle, then arranging and adhering my photos on it and tracing the circle again to make the photos into a circular collage.  The title letters are from Baby Steps.

Mother's Day Cards, Spring Cards, Birthday Cards & Take Out

I have been super busy lately planning a baby shower - I will reveal those cute results later in the month (don't want to ruin the surprise!) and am also working on Bridal Shower invites (my little brother is getting married!).  I have made lots of cards lately so I thought I would share some of them here.  The zebra card was for my niece's birthday (Paisley cartridge).  The robin card (from Kate's ABCs) was for a friend.  The take-out box - okay it isn't a card, but it's cute and I never posted it.  The bunny and grass images are from Gypsy Wanderings and the stamp is from Stampin' Up.  I put a few chocolates in it for a friend. 
This week I also made some mother's day cards.  The silouhette image is from A Child's Year.  The papers are from DCWV Lemon Stack - they are so beautiful.

I will be spending all day Saturday scrapping - I'm so excited!  It will be a nice little "getaway" with my bestest friend.  I hope to get lots of pages done and will post my favorites next week.  I hope you have a great weekend, too, and are able to find some time to get creative.