Patriotic First Birthday - The Details

Hi! I know I promised I would be back with an update on which projects we were going to do for the party, but I got caught up in actually doing the projects that I didn't have time. I thought I would at least share with you a teaser post of all the details we did for Miss Emma's Patriotic First Birthday Bash. Mind you I will come back with an updated post detailing the day! I made a ton of crafty/treats and it was just perfect!

Here we go:

Streamers // Homemade Banner // G.G. Made Apple and Cherry Pies // Rice Crispies // Chocolate Dipped Oreo's // Jello Cookies

Cake Inspiration

 

Painted wood pallet

Firecracker Centerpieces with peanuts!

Tin can bowling, the kiddo's loved this!

Gigantic bunting decor

Corn Hole!

 Sack Races, with flag guides and handmade sacks

Miss Emma enjoying her homemade smash cake!
Banner inspiration here and here

More banners and balloons!

DIY Drag Along

Before Emma arrived I had these vast plans of making a million little items for her. I planned parties and her nursery, but my energy and time fell by the wayside and she arrived with not a thing made by her mommy. I was quite sad. I had started a diaper bag, but it never got finished, and it still sits at my parents waiting for velcro and snaps.....such is the life of a parent.

A couple of months ago we were at my parent's house and we went into my mom's quilt store. I was in utter amazement by the adorable fabrics that the owner stocks her shelves with and quickly fell in love with some pink and teal graphic fabric to make a small little blanket for Miss Emma, or a "Drag Along." A mini blanket that can be taken in the car or just to snuggle with. At the same time I bought
the fabric for this quilt I also made her. Honestly my child didn't need another blanket, but mommy needed to make her something and that's where this little project came into play. Read below for instructions on how to make this adorable little carry along blanket

What You'll Need:
(9) 8.5"x 8.5" squares of fabric
(1) 25"x 25" square for backing (Minky)
(4) yards Rick Rack

Directions:
1. Ideally you want to have a minimum of (5) different fabrics for this project. Layout your fabric until you have a pattern you like. If you want to have custom embroidery done, start with that first. I chose to right set my embroidery on my center fabric. Since my baby girl's nickname is my "lil birdie" that's what I went with for my added touch. Sew your 9 squares together into (3) rows of three and then sew each row together until you have completed your blanket top. Make sure to press your fabric seams to one side to nest your seams easier.

2. Flip your blanket top and minky fabric so that right sides are together. Round your corners using a round tool or whatever you have on hand (a bowl works nice.)  Pin your ric rac so that the center falls on the edge of your fabric top. Place your minky right sides together on your fabric top and pin in place.

3. Sew a 1/4" seam around the entire edge, leaving a 4-6" opening for turning. Turn your project and press your seams flat. Pin your turning opening inside 1/4" and sew a 1/4" top seam around the entire blanket.

4. Place your baby on it and admire your work! Completed blanket size 24"x 24"

See, she really did need another blanket, just so I could take that cute photo of her! Love my lil birdie! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below! Original pattern by Suzanne Zingg.

Super Sunday

We took the weekend off and made the trek up to my parents last weekend to just relax and watch the big game. Lately I haven't been in the mood to go to parties and would much rather just have low key events where we can snuggle our honey over and over. That's a party to us.

While the pups went crazy all evening on Friday and most of Saturday, the rest of us just lounged about in our pj's most of the day. Miss Emma took her naps and tried a few new food items. Then we got dressed and went to Saturday night Mass at my mom's new church. Since we have been thinking about Emma's baptism lately it was nice to go to church and remind ourselves of why we pray, why we baptize and why we hold God in such high regard. After much discussion we have finally chosen Godparents for Miss Emma and hope to ask those individuals soon. We hope to have her baptism before her first birthday as well....fingers crossed.

Sunday before the big game my mom and I escaped to the basement to make Emma a new sleep sack. Using her existing one for reference, my fantastic mom was able to figure it out and I have lots of photos also. Tutorial to come soon. While we were playing Emma was too...rolling around on fabric and having a grand ole time. #crafterintraining. Once it was naptime Daddy rocked her in the rocking chair and we all watched Property Brothers. 

At 2:30 we all went upstairs and prepared for the game. We put Emma in her Patriot's outfit and promptly took a million photos of her in it. Honestly she was just too cute! She was obsessed with her leggings and kept pulling on the boys. We thoroughly enjoyed watching her in her outfit. She had some carrots and puffs then jumped around in her exersaucer before naptime and halftime. I honestly didn't watch too much of the game, but was completely underwhelmed by half time and all the commercials. Lucky for daddy his good luck charm worked and Emma's team pulled it out in the last five minutes. He was so happy. We ended up making potato sliders and chicken wings. My mom made a dump cake and we grazed on snacks of veggies, pickles and chips/dip all afternoon. It was a fun and relaxing day.

 Patriot's Outfit with navy bloomers: BebeSucre

What did you do super bowl Sunday?

DIY Pinata - Gender Reveal Party

I was in hardcore "save money" mode in planning our gender reveal party. I knew I wanted to incorporate my craft side and make lots of cute and fun things for the party. I came across the idea to reveal the gender using a pinata. Basically you can fill it with colored confetti and when its broken open the specific color is showered down, but I wanted to make it like a traditional pinata and fill that bad boy with candy. We decided that we were going to write the pertinent information on the candy and once it was broken open then the guests would have to rummage through to find the piece. It was a fun and new way to reveal to our family and I loved it. The next decision was what would the pinata look like. I scoured the internet until I decided that I didn't like anything in my price range and that "it didn't look that hard to do." So I enlisted the help of my hubby and we made our own Question Mark pinata.

What You'll Need:
Cardboard (Big pieces)
Pencil
Xacto Knife
Masking Tape
Crepe Paper (I used streamers from The Dollar Tree)
White Glue
Scissors

Directions:
1. Draw out your shape onto the cardboard. Since mine was a big question mark and I wanted it to look proportional, so I had to re-draw it a couple of times to get the shape right. To make the question mark you will need (2) sets of the main shape, (2) 6"x 6" squares, (4) 4"x 6" squares and several long 4" wide strips for the sides.

2. After you cut out your shapes, its time to assemble. Take your masking tape, one main body and the 4"W long strips and start to shape and tape them to the main body. Tape the sides all the way around and repeat with the back. Use the same technique for the dot of the question mark. I made sure to glue a string attaching the dot to the main body. Don't forget to cut a fill hole at the top and add in your hangar before you decorate. It will be easier to do it now.

3. Take your streamers and cut 3/4 of the way up the sides ever 1/2" down. Take your glue and apply a strip of glue to your base and attach the streamer. This is the time consuming part. Sit in front of the tv and listen to your favorite show and just keep applying streamers in sections all the way around until its completely covered.

4. Take a gander at your completed pinata, and let your hubby pretend to take a whack at it with some wrapping paper.

This is a super simple project, but time consuming. I would say to start working on it at least two weeks before your event to ensure you have enough time! At least now I know how to do it, so if baby girl ever asks me to make one for her birthday parties, I know I can!

Have you hosted a gender reveal party? How did you announce your little ones gender?

Shower for Baby Aidan

I have been posting about all the craft projects for our dear friends Mr. and Mrs. H's new addition, and I finally can post everything I made and a couple of shots from the shower because it has finally passed! Yay! She had an adorable Owl themed shower and the minute I saw her invitation I knew exactly what I was going to make. I meticulously stalked her registry to make sure that the bought items I was going to include were still on there when I was finished. I MAAAAAY have gone a little overboard on the handmade gifts, but honestly I so thoroughly enjoyed making each piece and I know that they will be loved forever. Her little bump is just the cutest!

Let's talk a little bit about the shower. Her friends and family were the warmest and kindest people! I was standing in the corner, because I didn't know anyone really, and her girlfriends from high school took me under their wings and brought me into their circle without question. That was so sweet. We had wonderful conversations from all aspects of life.....all the ladies were around the same age but we had newlyweds, engaged, old time marrieds, (raises hand) and mothers. The conversation went all over but it flowed nicely and we laughed and laughed. The family was outpouring of hugs, smiles and AMAZING food!

They played many games.....some I have played before and others were new to me. Old favorites included the pin game....I lasted a long time, but eventually got it taken from Sam....who ended up winning the game. Guess the baby food.....we were able to smell them which did NOT help at all. Let me say that when we do have kids, we are making our own baby food.....that stuff was nasty! How many Jordan almonds are in the jar and the guess how big the belly is, which I won! Hehe.....I tend to be good at this game. My trick when you think you are right (always put it on yourself) back it off an inch.....not only are you not going to be as big but it tends to work for me. I came within 1/4 of an inch! Yea. New games to me were: wrapped baby items that you had to feel and guess what they were.....man was that difficult. We all had concentrative faces trying to guess those baby items....It was harder than it outwardly appeared. Next was memory. Which apparently there were 18 items on the tray, but I only remembered 10.....not very good. We also played bingo too.

Decor was amazing and this homemade owl cake from her mother-in-law was something to be envied! It was fancier than our wedding cake!!!! I love the little owl with the tree branch!

Are you all anxious to see what I made? Have I talked too much thus far? Ok well get ready for photo overload! Above is the basket of everything she got. It almost all didn't fit in there. I had to play puzzle to make it work. From her registry I bought her these adorable Owl Crib Sheets from Carter's for Babies r Us, a couple of Pacifier's to go with another part of the gift, and as a free gift with purchase I got a cute Dr. Brown's holiday bottle as well. Now here we go with the handmade items:

Like I said earlier, the minute I saw her invitation I knew what I was going to make. This little guy stuck out to me on Pinterest and I had to make him. He is made with denim, upholstery fabric and felt with a little rick-rack and trim thrown in for good measure.

Carseat Canopies have been all the rage with crafter's and DIYers alike. They are easy as well as functional but I wanted to make mine a little different and throw in my quilting skills also. She told me at the shower she had been looking for one for months but couldn't justify the price of buying one....well now she has one of her very own. Also I found the cutest baby fabric!

Another Pinterest find, but this one was just too good to pass up. This diaper bag has multiple straps so that it can easily hook onto the stroller and then re-attach as a messenger-type bag. It's got a denim front and upholstery fabric inside so it's durable and still will work for mommy and daddy to use. The hubby has pre-requested that I make one to hold onto because he liked it so much.

I made her four burp rags with the cutest material ever! That square material has mini animal silhouettes on it. Elephants, rhinos, giraffes.....sooo adorable!

She got a couple of bibs from my denim bib stash....the construction worker and the red stripe were the last "boy" ones.....people need to have some girls here!

She needed some nursing pads as well....these were the only things that didn't coordinate with the whole gift, but I made them girly just for her.

The cute minkie taggie blanket has now found a home. I really enjoyed making this project! She also got two pacifier clips and two diaper/wipes cases.

I discovered that the owl looked really good on my recliner. I think I need to make one of these cute little guys for myself. Thanks for bearing with me. I know that it was a long post, but I hope it was worth it. I really had soo much fun coordinating this gift for baby Aidan, and I hope he gets a lot of use out of it! I will be posting tutorials for the Owl Pillow, the Quilted Carseat Canopy and the Convertible Diaper Bag so I hope that you stay tuned for that! :-)