Gender Reveal Scratch-off

Since we did not have time in the schedule to have a party for our only gender reveal, I still wanted to do something fun for family and close friends.  I went with the scratch-off idea.  I got cards printed with all of the words from Jamie Konet, which turned out to be so cute.  I then colored a heart when we got the gender results.  I covered the heart with a peel-and-stick laminated sheet which was painted and then punched.  The paint was two part paint and one part dish soap.  It actually seemed to scratch off really easy.  Although I didn't properly measure it out, so the mixture was probably just a bit too much soap.  Also, the punch did not turn out great.  I read about someone else using a punch, which is why I did it.  I think it was the punch I was using and not the idea.  We are calling the baby "Lucky" at the moment so I tried a four-leaf clover punch.  I think it was either too small or at least parts of it were too small.  I only got a few which looked completely whole after punching.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun to do the project.  It has been a while since I have had a chance to do any project really so I was really itching for one.

Ice Cream Soda Favor

So I got to host a pre-baby outing for a friend.  Since it was an outing I didn't do any decorating or anything that would involve too much work or creativity.  However, being the way I am I must do something, so I did a favor.  The momma-to-be had mentioned something about a milkshake while talking about things so I guess I kind of stuck on that and ended up with an ice cream soda favor.  It was super easy to make.  I figured everyone would find something to do with a few extra washcloths.  Actually the hardest part was finding the glasses since there did not seem to be too many choices (not too common of an idea yet I suppose).  The washcloths are just folded in half, laid on top of one another and then rolled up at a slight angle.  They were then stuffed into the glasses. I did sort of twist them down farther into the glasses, going in the same direction as the roll.  And then added a cherry on top for giggles.

birthday board

So this is my version of the birthday calendar board that I have been seeing on pinterest.  I have actually wanted to do this kind of thing for a while.  I have just been waiting for a good moment to request someone make me the frames.  Mother's Day was a good time.  This is STILL not complete, but I am tired of waiting.  It will have a piece of molding to cover the edges of the pin board and calkboard separating them from the calendar.

This board is pretty large, being 3' x 4', but we have a large family and I figured there would be more family and friends in the future.  The lettering is from the cricut.  The hooks are from the local hardware store.  I measured everything out and made the grid.  Pre-holes were drilled for the hooks and then they were screwed in the board.  The only place I could find little frames here so I made them work.  Other than that it was just painting and gluing.  We already had a pin board which I cut to fit my purposes and I used chalkboard paint on wood for the other half of the message area.

Book Club Dinner

So the pictures aren't all that great.  I don't know what I am doing so I am blaming it on my camera not focusing as well anymore.  Below is the dinner I put together for book club.  I guess I didn't take a picture of the pasta dish with bread that we had for our main course.  The bread was just store bought but the pasta was a lighter summer pasta with tomatoes and chicken bites.

We started with an appetizer which ended up being great.  I wasn't sure how it would all work since I have only made this where it was all kind of mixed and not separate bite size pieces.  But it looked cute so I thought I would try it.

Caprice



Then we did mini wedge salads with bluecheese dressing, tomatoes, and bacon bits.

Mini Wedge Salad

 Of course it is book club so we had some wine.  This time it was a white sangria with lemons and strawberries.  It was great for summer and the fruit was awesome!

White Sangria

 Finally we had dessert.  I found a recipe for this, but since I don't like coffee I used extra chocolate.  It was a bit odd to eat and make but it ended up being pretty good.  I could not find the mascarpone cheese so I just used a substitute which was easy to find when searching online.

Tiramisu Roulade sans espresso

Milk and Cookies Party

 Our little cookie turned 1!  So this is how we celebrated.  It turned out pretty cute.  The only downside was the rain outside which delayed the carnival games from starting.

The desserts were the biggest hit.  Along with some typical chocolate chip, peanut butter and oatmeal raisin cookies, we had some speciality items.

We had s'mores...

And chocolate whoopie pies...

And rainbow pinwheels...



And brownie batter dip with fruit...



And cookie dough batter dip.

We also served milk!



We had set up some carnival games outdoors under shade of course because it is already warm outside.

We had "pin the mustache on the face...

And "milk toss" which is sort of like bowling...

And "ring the bottle" to round it off.

Our favors were bags for the cookies and some paper milk cartons filled with goodies, which included "milk straws" which are flavored beads in a straw to add to milk, grape mustache candies, and a milk to go.



And the birthday girl out her own special whoopie pie.  I was going to make her a cake that looked like a cookie, but decided the whoopie pie would be cuter.

The paper milk carton was a free printable from papercrave.com which I then blew up to make it a size which I could actually stuff.  The cute glass milk bottles were an online purchase with cross-stitch hoops as rings.  The milk toss game pieces were also an online purchase, as well as all of the goodies for the cartons.  I found the products at multiple sites.  And all of the the recipes for the speciality items were online as well. I found them some many places but just used the one that sounded best to me.

Baseball Baby "Party" (Shower)

A friend and I hosted a baseball themed baby "party" which was for couples.  The decorations were actually her doing and the food mine so this is how it all came together.  We did have some outdoor games.  One was a baseball bag toss which did not seem to have as many fans as the lawn jenga.

This is the table centerpiece and the typical stringed goodies.  The centerpiece is made of washcloth flowers which actually don't look like flowers in this picture.  The two cups surrounding it had crackerjacks which were part of the favors for the party.  The baby will be a girl and the daddy is an Astros fan so there stringed goodies included a cute Astros' dress for her to grow into.

The welcome table included a softball for guests to sign, some diapers for doodling, and the take home favors.  It also included a cute Mr. Potato Head in Astros' gear.  We also put our favors in this table just layed out for folks to take anytime they might want them.  The favors included Big League Chew, Cracker Jacks, microwaveable popcorn, and some baseball suckers.

The food was some traditional ballpark food, or at least that was the intention.  We had hotdogs and nachos.

And then who can escape the ballpark without some sweets.  We served sundaes in miniture ballcaps of various teams to make the experience complete.

growth chart

I decided to get creative and make a personalized growth chart for my second baby, rather than buying one like I did for the first.  I have to go back and do some of my own personalization to the first one now ;)

The frame is 4'6" x 36" and this gave me plenty of room to get things on there and have a chart that went up to 6 feet, just in case...

Lawn Jenga

This rocks!  We went to a birthday party at a bar about a year ago.  I saw these and have been wanting my own set ever since.  I finally got my wish for Mother's Day!  We played with them for the first time last weekend, and they rock!  Really easy to make as long as you have a saw.  It is just 2x4's cut in the length  of three of them.  A router was used to smooth the edges and a sander for the sides.  Then they were coated in linseed oil.  Cedar was the wood we used for lack of a better option.  Although cedar is good, it is kind of heavy so something lighter would probably be easier for playing.  However, the cedar does make the garage smell fabulous!

Mother's Day Butterflies

I wanted to do something cute from the grandgirls to the grandmamas.  I decided to do the butterfly footprints.  They turned out alright.  I got very frustrated at my first cricut try, so I ended up just writing the words.  It probably had something to do with patience and time of night.  I have used it since and had much easier attempts at taking the cuts off the mat.  Feet didn't all turn out all that great (my subjects were not all that easy to work with) but the gifts were loved anyway.

Elephants

I was asked to make the kids "costumes" for the end of the year musical.  I felt kind of honored even though there was really not much to make.  They were to be elephants so I made them ears and a nose.  It was all pretty easy and quick, even though there were 18 of them.  Luckily there were a few missing for the performance.  The toddlers didn't really end up wearing the noses anyway since they are pretty young.  The performance went very well relatively speaking ;)

I just traced what I thought looked like an elephant ear.  Made the pink a bit smaller than the grey.  I doubled the grey so I would not need to stitch anything but the edges. I also thought that would work better for putting the headband through.  I cut two small slits in the grey for the headband to slide through.  It stayed on just like that.  I was prepared to stitch it in or use so glue, but when I tried it just like that it worked.  The nose is just a paper towel roll painted and then some cuts in it to bend down like an elephant nose.

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

This being the first year of teacher appreciation gifts for me, I have been picking things up from pinterest which I could use.  I wanted to do something small all week, so here is what I did.  The sayings I found on several different sites, all of them having about the same ideas.

Monday:  "Teachers cannot live on apples alone, they need hugs and kisses too.  Thank you for all the love!" 
The Urchin Bowl pattern is from Amy Herbst again, http://www.herbsthandmade.blogspot.com/ . 

Tuesday: "You're so kool, you made lemonade out of our lemons!"

The cups are things that seem to be very popular these days, so I thought I could use them one day. The cups are filled with single serve packets of lemonade and kool-aid.

Wednesday:  "You top the cake!"
The jars are filled with cake mix.

Thursday: "Thank you for helping our toddlers become smarties!"

I found the owl buckets at JoAnn's when looking for a few other things. The "wise owl" seemed to go well with smarties.

Friday:  "Enjoy some relaxing time for yourself.  You deserve it!"
The novelty bags are just filled with some lotion and hand santitizer. I was running out of creativity by the end of the week.

I had a few to do which were more random rather than an everyday teacher, so I just put some of the stuff together in a box.  It had all of the elements except for the cake mix.

Easter treats

Well I have been doing a lot of pinning, so I see a few things that give me ideas for when we host.  And we did actually host Easter dinner so I got to use a few of the ideas.  I wanted to try making these http://doitandhow.com/2012/03/12/crescent-carrots-with-egg-salad/ but I wasn't allowed to do egg salad, so I had to come up with another filling.  I decided on cannolis.  The cannoli filing that I found was so easy and very yummy.  The "carrots" didn't turn out all that great but it seemed everyone appreciated the effort.

I also colored the deviled eggs which turned out much cuter than I thought.  And the dying was so easy!

http://www.ehow.com/how_5506666_dye-whites-boiled-eggs.html

 

And then I decided to make some treats for the nursery kids at church.  I couldn't find any triangle shaped bags, so I had to use Wilton piping bags.  They worked great, except for the purple circle at the top of the carrot.