Little Red Dress

Hi guys! Are you having a good summer? We're having lots of fun around here! I just thought I'd pop in and show you this cute little dress I made for a baby shower.

I didn't use a pattern, I just copied the shape from a dress I'd seen at the mall.

I just love piping on little girls dresses, don't you?  So cute.

It was tricky to find a good spot to photograph it; in this house of boys, there's not much girly stuff around.  :)  I tried the hooks in my "baby's" room.  Zoom out a little, though...and it's obvious it's a boy's room!  

It was fun to have an excuse to make something for a little girl!

Ducky Birthday Party

Perhaps you have noticed that I have scaled way back on my posting. I realized near the end of last year that this blog, and all the cute craftiness that went with it, were taking my focus away from where it should be.  I was becoming guilty of craftiness for craftiness' sake, something I said here that I've always disliked.  Not only does it take away focus from my family and other priorities, it's also expensive!  So, things got a bit sparse while I was busy.

But, I don't want the blog to disappear, so I decided I'm going to occasionally write some posts about parties and projects that I did before I started this blog.  There's no law that says my projects have to have been done right before I blog them, right?  :)  Plus, I have a few projects coming up that I'm doing because I want to or need to, rather than as fodder for the blog, so I'll be posting a bit more often.

The party I'm posting today was my youngest's 2 year old birthday party (he just turned 5...).  It's probably the cutest party I've ever thrown.

At the time, he was WAY into ducks.  Duck books, duck toys, duck songs, he loved it all.  So, what better party theme than rubber ducks?

The centerpiece of it all was this cute duck cake.  I modified this tutorial from Betty Crocker to make it.  

I made a bunch of cute garlands by punching out blue and yellow circles with a punch and then sewing them together on my sewing machine.  Seriously the fastest thing ever.  I just pedal-to-the-metal-ed it with my machine pedal and stuck a new circle under the presser foot each time the previous circle moved through.  

I also picked up a bunch of cheap and cute rubber duckies to sit around as decoration.  My little guy has thoroughly enjoyed having a bath full of duckies ever since.  :)

The blue punch (I think it was Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid) was so cute with little duckies floating in it!  And, I was so excited to find out that Target's store brand's generic "goldfish" crackers looked like little ducks!  

The birthday boy and his guests were all just toddlers, so the entertainment was low-key.  I gathered every duck book I could get my hands on, from our bookshelves and the local library.  I read them all a story, and then let them peruse their own books.  

And, in a slightly crazy move, I actually let them all play with rubber ducks in an actual bathtub.  I mean, how CUTE is this rubber duck bathtub?!  I put a plastic tablecloth underneath and only an inch or two of water in it, and it actually turned out fine.  No spills.  

 

 It was such a fun party.  Now if only my little guy was still that little!  :)

These boy party ideas were also featured on Spaceships and Laser Beams.

Baby Dear Baby Shower

 

I had so much fun putting this baby shower together. Baby Dear was my favorite book as a little girl. I especially loved its beautiful illustrations. I still have a thing for Little Golden Books today (I collect them, even).  I'd been looking for an excuse for years to throw a Golden Book themed party and this little girl baby shower was a perfect chance to do it! 

 

I tried to have a bit of a vintage feel to the shower, since the book was written in the 1960s.  In a moment of serendipity, right as I decided to have the shower feel a bit vintage, my mom called and asked if I wanted a stork decoration.  She was cleaning out some storage and thought I might like it.  Yes!  This cute little stork, while not from the 1960s, was used at my baby shower--the one where I was the baby!  It may be from the 1980s rather than the 1960s, but it definitely gave the vibe I was going for. 

 

 I used some sweet girly fabric to make a pennant banner. 

 

 

I think my favorite part of the decor, though, was this Baby Dear banner:

 

I scanned in illustrations from the book, found a similar font to the one used on the cover, and worked some Photoshop (Elements) magic.  I printed the resulting images out onto cardstock and cut them out.  I attached the letters to baby pink ribbon and hung it in my living room.  I think it's adorable, if I do say so myself. 

 

 

 

(Well, really, my favorite part were the invitations, but I already wrote about those...)  :)

 

 

 

I scattered some Little Golden Books around the party area, especially ones that were illustrated by Eloise Wilkin (the illustrator of Baby Dear).  Her little baby cheeks and pudgy fingers are so cute. 

 

 

 

Add in some doilies and yummy food and you've got a fun vintage Golden Book party!

 

  

 

 

 

I made cupcake toppers with some pink scrapbook paper and these 1-inch Pretty Vintage Little Girl Circles from Free Pretty Things. 

 

 

 

It was really nice to have an opportunity, in this house full of boys, to enjoy such girlishness!  It was such a fun baby shower!

 

Baby Dear Baby Shower: The Invitations

I recently threw a baby shower for a dear friend of mine.  I collect Golden Books and have been looking for an excuse to throw a Golden Book party for years.  I even found a site that puts books in diaper cakes here. Baby Dear was my favorite book as a little girl, and I thought it would be perfect for a Golden Book themed shower for a baby girl.  I was a bit giddy with excitement over the idea of a Baby Dear shower.  :)

With a book theme, of course the invitations have to look like the book, right?  I scanned in my old copy and prettied it up a bit in photoshop (30 years takes its toll on a well-loved children's book).

I erased "A Little Golden Book" from the front cover and replaced it with "A Little Baby Shower" in a similar font.  

I just love that I was able to get the back cover and the trademark spine on my invitations, too.   (Even if the spine is a worn silver now instead of the original gold.  I like the worn look better, so I didn't try to fix it.)  

I even put in the inside cover, with the bookplate and everything.  So cute!  The party information was written in a similar font to the original story and I put in an illustration from the book.  

I am seriously in love with these invitations.  I guess I'm just a Golden Book nerd.  :)

Disclosure: I was compensated for a sponsored link in this post.

Rain Shower Baby Shower

I'm having a lot of fun getting to use a bunch of different shower ideas for all these baby showers I've been throwing! This time I used a more literal interpretation of baby "shower." :)

I hung rain clouds over the food table (using Martha Stewart's tissue pom tutorial, with some added raindrops hanging from fishing line).

And, the cupcakes were topped with clouds!

Lemon drops went with the rain-drop part of the the theme.

And, we had little umbrella cheeses, too!  (Idea from Cute Food for Kids, there are so many cute ideas over there!)

It was another fun baby shower!  Though, I am a little glad to be done throwing parties for a little while.  :)  They can take a lot out of you.  :)

Flower Garden Baby Shower

I have a lot of friends who are having their first babies, so I'm throwing a lot of baby showers lately. This is my latest baby shower, a flower garden baby shower!

Having all boys, I enjoy getting to do girly stuff now and then, so this floral baby shower for a sweet baby girl was a lot of fun.

Here's the food table:

My favorite part of the food were these hydrangea cupcakes.  (Tutorial from Glorious Treats.)

(Picture by TiffanyB Photography)

I also tried out these flower pot cookies.  They didn't turn out like I wanted (they don't look much like the original), but after untold hours of working on them, I was going to serve them no matter how ugly they were. Sigh...  I need to work on my piping skills.

I should have started them more in advance than I did.  Then I would have had time for the frosting to set better so they could actually have stems, rather than just lean against the picks.  Oh well, they're kinda cute anyway, if you don't know what they're supposed to look like.

And, of course, we had various fruits and veggies and dips.  I got all those cute flower bowls and plates for free from Kohl's and JCPenney.  Do you guys get those $10 off $10 coupons from JCPenney and Kohl's?  I do, but I rarely shop at those stores, so rather than getting $10 off what I might normally buy, I just find things I like and get them for free.  I've gotten pretty good at finding just the right things to come right in at $10.  :)

And, like I always seem to do, I served lemonade to drink.  It's easy, not fussy, and won't stain my carpet if someone spills.  :)  This time around, though, the lemonade came with a fun flower straw!  (Tutorial from Martha Stewart.)

I've made the Martha Stewart tissue poms before, but this time I made them smaller and turned them into a fun garland.

(Picture by TiffanyB Photography)

(Picture by TiffanyB Photography)

I liked my pink pom-pom flower garland so much that I kept it up for several days after the party.  I couldn't quite bear to take it down, it was so cute.  :)

And, of course, you gotta have flowers at a floral-themed Party!  I loved having an excuse to buy myself flowers.  :)