Clothesline

The banner for my friend's baby shower is finished. I am so happy with how it came out.

When I was growing up, every single backyard in my neighborhood was filled with freshly laundered clothes by 10am on a Saturday morning. Although doing the laundry is still not my favorite chore, I love the smell of clean clothes on a Saturday morning.

I found these miniature clothespins at Michael's and they were the perfect finishing touch.

Baby Shower

One of my co-workers is pregnant. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to throw a party. More specifically, a baby shower. This will be the first baby shower that I have hosted and I can't wait to throw another one. All of my friends need to get pregnant this very instant. Baby showers are so much fun to plan. Plus she already knows she is having a girl so I got to use alot of pink and make pretty things.

Over the course of the next week I will post the party favors, banner, flower arrangements, and table scape.  But first we must start with the invitation.

I used my New Arrival Cricut cartridge to make the outfit and the duck. I used my fiskars boarder punch for the bottom edge and I rounded the top two corners. They came out super cute.

No two are exactly the same. I used different papers for the base of the card as well as for the outfit. A great party always starts with a great invitation.

Baby Banner

Along with the party favor tags below, I also created a banner for the baby shower. A banner is a lovely addition to any party. I used my cricut machine to make this one but you could make one out of any shape you like. The bottles and babies were from the Everyday Paper Dolls cricut cartridge and the letters are from the Robtz cartridge. The wonderful thing about this banner is that it can serve a dual purpose - the parents could place this in the baby room after the baby shower.

Hungry Hungry Hippo

My best friend was roped into co-hosting a baby shower for a friend of hers. The BFF does not do parties. She doesn't feel comfortable in the kitchen although she can make much more than what she gives herself credit for. She has a fear that no one will come to her parties which of course has never happened. And, she says she doesn't have a creative bone in her body...that I agree with.

She called and asked if I would do the party invitations - I of course jumped at the chance. Who could say no to the opportunity to make cute baby themed invitations. I began to ask your standard questions: what is the party theme, what is the sex of the baby, what colors should I concentrate on etc. I was given a few pieces of information to work with. Her friends were having a baby boy so I couldn't make it too pretty. The soon to be parents wanted a couples baby shower so the invitation had to be appealing to both male and female guest. I was also told they needed the invitations in a week.  "Ahh nuts", I thought. Creativity takes time, perfection patience. "Not to fear" I told the BFF, "I got this".

I recently purchased the Create a Critter Cricut cartridge. This was the perfect cartridge for this project. Adorable animals scream baby.  I made four different invitations - the hippo (showed below), a giraffe, an elephant, and a lion. The hippo is what attracted me to the cartridge in the first place.

As a young child I always wanted the game - Hungry Hungry Hippo. Sadly, I never got it. The letters and numbers were made with the Robtz cricut cartridge.

What is your favorite childhood book?

A good friend of mine was having a party for her son. She wanted to do something special for his first birthday party but she didn't want gifts. More specificaly, she didn't want toys or clothes. Her son is her first and the first grandchild on both sides. Believe me when I tell you he has more toys then he will ever play with and more clothes then most adults. For example, I am pretty sure he has more shoes than I do.

She loves to read. She read to him almost everyday he was in her womb. So I thought, why not have everyone bring him their favorite childhood book. Great idea right? His library would grow and their gift would last longer than if they bought a simple toy or piece of clothing. This little boy made out like a bandit.  Guests brought varies children's books as well as young adult books. I personally bought him the Percy Jackson Series. I did not read this as a child, but I truly loved the series as an adult.

Her theme was monkey. I helped make her party invitations, which came out super cute. We did a waterfall card (similar to a previous post). A few days before the party, I decided to make a gift for her; some thank you cards.

These were so easy. Here is what I used:

The cuddlebug was used to emboss the leaf background. I used my cricut (everyday paper dolls cartridge) to cut out the monkey and a 2 inch round punch was used to add some interest to the card. I decided to use white on white because I wanted the monkey and the thank you sentiment to stand out. She loved them.  I hope you do to.

What was your favorite childhood book?