Baby Shower Banner

Ever sense I started paper crafting, I began making banners. I had not given much thought to them before. We would have store bought "Happy Birthday" banners for milestones such as 40th & 65th birthday parties. Now I seem to be making banners for every occasion. For whaterver reason, they are now very important to me. I push them on everyone.

"Oh you're having a baby shower, you need a banner. I can make you a banner.  If you're having a house warming party - you definitely need a banner. I have a great idea for a banner. Come on, let me do it." 

Now, under normal circumstances my friends wouldn't buy a banner, wouldn't even think about putting a banner up. But when someone offers to make you one, it's hard to say no.  Especially when that certain someone is persistent and oh so exited to do it. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, my friend had twins - a baby boy and a baby girl. This banner seemed appropriate. 

In case you can't see it, it says "Hello Double Trouble". The base of the banner are leaves. The letters are made from safari pattern paper. There are a few animals "strategically" placed throughout the banner.  I don't think anyone noticed it but I loved it.

No party is complete without the favors - Part 4

My favorite Muppet characters from Sesame Street where Bert and Ernie (Ernie especially). A typical Bert and Ernie bit began with Ernie devising a hare-brained idea and Bert calmly attempting to talk him out of it. Usually, Bert loses his temper and Ernie would not know why.

An example of an Ernie and Bert skit is the popular "banana in my ear" joke:

Ernie: Hi, Bert!

Bert: Hey, Ernie, you know that you have a banana in your ear?

Ernie: What was that, Bert?

Bert: (more loudly) I said, you have a banana in your ear, Ernie. Bananas are food. They are to eat, not to put in your ear!

Ernie: What did you say, Bert?

Bert: (shouting) WOULD YOU JUST TAKE THAT BANANA OUT OF YOUR EAR?!

Ernie: I'm sorry, you'll have to speak a little louder, Bert! I can't hear you; I have a banana in my ear!

Comic genius. 

Some of my favorite bits where of Ernie and his rubber duckie. I just loved the rubber duckie song as I'm sure you did as well. Sing with me now:

Rubber Duckie you’re the one,

You make bathtime lots of fun,

Rubber Duckie I'm awfully fond of you

Vo-vo-dee-o!......

Ahh, the good old days. In the spirit of Ernie and his rubber duckie, I had to get a rubber duckie to finish off my party favor bag. And of course they couldn't be just any rubber duckie, they had to follow the theme of the baby shower - animal/safari.

Is this not the cutest thing you have ever seen? The people at the Oriental Trading Company have it going on I tell ya. I had a hard time selecting my favorite one.

I mean could you pick a favorite?

They are all just so adorable and rubber duckie like. I will admit to you (but don't tell any one) I almost kept them ALL! I didn't feel like other people would appreciate them as much I would. Hopefully they all found good homes.

I hope this series inspired you to give awesome party favors at your next party.

No party is complete without the favors - Part 3

It is no secret, I am more of a paper crafting person than a sewing project person. However, I am slowly trying to dive into the fabric world. I have all of these grand sewing projects in mind. Mostly from tutorials I've found online. I love the internet. You can find so many projects online where people were kind enough to give you step by step instructioins on how to create their ideas.

My biggest problem (in both life and crafting) is my lack of patience. When I want something, I want something done now. And since I don't know how to thread my machine and it would be simpler to just go over to my mothers house and have her set up her machine (and get me out of a sewing jam if I get into one) I tend to just go over there. I think I am making progress though. I now own a sewing machine. I haven't opened it but isn't the first step admitting you have a sewing machine....or is the first step admitting you have a problem. Regardless, my third party favor for my friends baby shower was a sewing project inspired but Martha Stewart - a tissue case. Find tutorial here.

Here is my version a little dressed up.

The flowers were cut using a cuddlebug die cut and then sewed on with a button. As a new seamstress, felt has become my go to fabric for projects because you don't have to hem the edges. Felt doesn't fray. Here is what the other side looks like.

Now you may remember, I went for a spa theme for my party favors and you may be asking yourself how does a tissue case fit in? And my answer is - you may have to blow your nose during your spa day. In which case you will need tissue. Makes sense....right?

Stay tuned for final party favor show and tell later this week.

No party is complete without the favors - Part 2

To go along with my spa themed party favor bags for my friend's baby shower, I included little jars of bath salts.

I purchased the jars from Hobby Lobby and the bath salts are from Target. A very inexpensive gift but it packed a punch I thought.

In order to jazz up the jars a bit more I placed stickers on all four sides. Two sides had pictures of animals (the theme of the baby shower) and the other two sides had the initials of the babies (in case you forgot, my friend had twins - a boy and a girl).

 I wasn't really sure how many boxes of bath salts to buy so I ended up with an extra box of each. Instead of returning them, I added them to the soap when it was in the liquid state...to help with my color issues...it didn't really help as evident in my previous post. However, my soap did smell lovely.

Next up - tissue holders. "How is that spa themed?" you ask. Well you are going to have to tune in next time to find out.

No party is complete without the favors - Part 1

For my friend's baby shower I was in charge of invitations, party favors, and the banner. Two of her other friends were also sharing the hosting duties and seeing as how we were in different cities, coordinating the shower was no easy task. I wasn't in charge of all decorations which posed a problem in keeping everything cohesive.

My friend didn't really like the idea of your traditional pink and blue to represent the boy and girl she was having. This information, however,  wasn't shared with her other two friends. So when I discovered this little fact (after her friends bought all this pink and blue stuff) I had to alter my color scheme a bit. Which, let me tell you, trying to keep a very pregnant woman and two other people I hardly know happy, is no easy task.

My compromise was to have pink and blue items inside the bags but the bags themselves would be earth toned. The outcome wasn't so bad.

I'm a fan of themes. They provide direction and focus for me. Of course this is not to say I don't go overboard with a theme :) For this baby shower I went for a spa theme. Each bag contained 5 items

1. Soap
2. Bath salts
3. Bath Fizz ball
4. Tissue holder (ok not spa themed but they are so cute)
5. Rubber ducky 

The little bags you see in the picture above have cookies for any little kids that attended.

For this post I would like to share with you the soap that I made using a soap brick, dye, and animal molds. You first need to melt your soap in either a double boiler or in the microwave. I used a double boiler because it was going to take me a while to mix the dyes correctly and I needed the soap to remain hot.

 

Once the soap was in a liquid state, I poured in soap dye to change the color of the soap from white to pinkish and blueish. 

I then poured the soap into some animal molds and waited 20 minutes for them to dry. The end result was fabulous.

Ok so the pink and the blue didn't really come out pink and blue. But have you tried mixing colors to create pink and blue. No easy task I can tell you. Below is how they looked in their package.

Everything looks so much better packaged don't you think?

Stayed tuned for Party Favors - Part 2 Bath Salts.

Scrappy Bug - Where have you been?

Have you ever been so busy that you forget what day it is? Your alarm wakes you up and you can't remember why you set it. Well that has been me these last couple of weeks. I've been busy with home improvement projects (which I will share later) that seem to take up all of my free time. Before then....I'll blame the holidays and pure laziness. But I am back with a vengeance. Expect several posts the next couple of weeks.

A good friend of mine was pregnant with twins (she delivered a boy and a girl a few weeks ago) but before these bundles of joy came into our lives, her friends and I gave her a baby shower. I was in charge of invitations, party favors, & banner. Three of my favorite things to make.

We had an animal theme baby shower. Or maybe it was safari theme....I don't remember now. My friend is not very keen on traditional girl and boy colors i.e. pink and blue so her invitations had  earthy tones.

In case you can't tell from the picture, these are elephant heads raised with dimensions. Other invitations had monkey heads and giraffe heads as well as an animal combination. These were super simple to make and not your typical baby shower invitation. I loved them and more importantly so did the mom to be.

In a few days I'll share my party favors. They were a little over the top but I couldn't help myself.