Our sweet mermaid

I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged about Emma’s first birthday party!  She is almost 14 months already, oops.  Life is busy these days, sorry friends! 

I started looking for ideas on Pinterest and just online in general a few months before her birthday and I know I wanted to have a Mermaid/Under the Sea theme!  It all started with the invitation designed by my sister, Jen.  She owns Lil Mop Top and has wonderful invitations and cards for sale on Etsy.

Then I went to work!  Luckily we were having an outdoors party (and it was a BEAUTIFUL day) so we didn’t need a ton of decoration.  I tried to make as much of it as possible to save money, but I did buy a few things.  I bought these blue poms at Party City and then the coral colored ones on Etsy.

For the food area.  We kept it super simple.  We just did sandwiches, fruit, chicken salad, and cupcakes.  My mom made the cupcakes, thankfully!  There was a lot of people and I couldn’t do it all so she offered to help make them.  I did make the cupcake toppers.  I bought the digital prints off Etsy and just put them in the circles, cut, and then taped them to toothpicks.   The photography was done by a good friend a few weeks before and I found a great deal on Wolf Camera for the canvas.  All of the coral serving pieces were super cheap from Target and the blue ones were even cheaper from Dollar Store!  Bam!

The favor table was part of my favorite area for the party!  I made a banner with the Cricut using the Life’s a Beach cartridge and I think it turned out so adorable!  The favors were just buckets loaded with pool toys, bubbles, and sunglasses.  Everything was purchased from Walmart, Dollar Store, and Michaels. 

For adult favors my friend Kendra, from Simply Pressed, made these adorable coasters for me.  Check her out!  She came make anything you want and is super easy to work with.

I found an old wooden high chair at a garage sale for $5 that just needed to be fixed a bit, which is no problem for my family!  Ran up to Home Depot and bought a small amount of coral paint and I loved the final outcome.  It was pretty ugly beforehand!  I don’t have a picture because I got a new phone… oops.  Anyways, I then used the Cricut to cut out pendants and shapes to decorate it.  Her smash cake was made by one of our best friends and it was GOREGOUS!  Exactly what I was thinking and I am so happy that she offered to make it for us.  It was perfection and DELICIOUS!  How great are my friends?!

Cracks me up that Lilly was eating what Emma dropped.  She is so sweet to share.  And, do you think she liked the cake?!

We had a slip and slide area for the kids and of course there was lots of swimming.  We had a GREAT time!  We are blessed that Emma has wonderful family and friends that love her dearly!!

Playroom Round 1

I am finally getting around to decorating and making a great playroom for Emma.  Taking forever since we have been so busy!  I think it took me 2 months to finish sewing her pillows.  Oops!

Pretty sure I bought fabric when Emma was about 4 months old and she is now 1!  Finally talked Jeremy into helping me make a simple window treatment this past weekend.  He and his dad got to work (his dad basically has a hardware store in his barn so we go there instead of Home Depot or Lowes).  Here is what we started with.

Basically get a thicker piece of plywood and cut it into any shape that you want.  I kept it super simple since it is for a playroom.  Then nail in the same thickness on the sides so that it will stick off the wall a tad.  I am pretty sure we only did 4 inches.  Here is why!

We took a piece of 2x4 and cut 2 rectangles out for each side.  Then, we cut each of those at an angle.  We nailed the ‘top’ to the two corners of the valance.  The other piece we put two L mounting brackets on.  It will make perfect sense soon.  Next step is to staple on batting.  Make sure that you don’t cover the bottom of the 2x4 because you will need it flat.

Now do the same thing with your fabric of choice.

Here is where you need to get a little smarty smart.  Figure out where you want your valance, then you will screw in the half of the 2x4 with the brackets on.  I took a picture of this close up but my computer is acting all cray-cray so sorry Charlie.

Since you did that at an angle your valance will slide on PERFECTLY!!  Super easy huh?!  We use this technique anytime possible.  Thank you to Kendra’s mom for showing me this a few years ago!

Next on my playroom DIY list.  Disney princess inspired wall art.  Sounds adorable huh?!  Well, in my head it is!  Hopefully it all works out.

Another Shower!

Wow.  Has it really been that long since I blogged?!  Life is crazy and goes by too fast for sure.  My best friend, Staci, is having a sweet boy in early October so myself and two other friends threw her a shower recently.  And, I would love to share about it!

We saw some inspiration of a nautical theme shower on Pinterest, so we went ahead and went with Ahoy! It’s a Boy! theme.  I had my sister, Jen, make the invitations that you purchase here.

Can you see the coasters in the picture?!  Well, one of the hostesses, Kendra, just started her Etsy shop and made the cutest coasters for the favors for our guest.  We also had them out for people to use throughout the shower.  You can purchase the coasters here.

Next came the adorable diaper cake!  Thankfully my sisters and I share a Cricut and I have a friend that let me borrow the Life is a Beach cartridge and it had the perfect cutouts!  We got SO much use out of the Cricut!  We used it to cut out his name, all the anchors, the life preservers, the sailboat, the boat wheel, EVERYTHING!  Anyways, I think this is my favorite diaper cake thus far.  Love how it turned out.  On the net we put baby safety pins and we cut out lots of squares (thank you cricut) and people were asked to write their blessings for Barrett on the cards.

The food table was simple.  We just did a few light items since it was an after lunch shower.  The napkins rolled around the silverware is all thanks to Pinterest!  Super easy too.  Kendra made mini-cupcakes and we, again, used the Cricut to cut out small anchors,B’s, and flags and used those as our cupcake toppers.

We had this grand idea of making adorable cookies that we saw on Pinterest as an additional party favor.  After Kendra and I spent a few hours working on them we quickly realized our anchors looked like a male body part and we had to throw that idea out the window!  We are still happy with our the others turned out, but good gosh that was a lot of hard work!  Hilarious night!

I am lucky enough to know someone that let us borrow these antique baby bottles and it turned out adorable.  Only one broke, I will take that as a win! :-)

I love wreaths.  I should go to Wreaths Anonymous meeting about it.  So I wrapped white yarn all around it.  Using the Cricut I cut out all the letters and used zots for the yellow ones.  Then we  painted the BOY letters blue since we bought those are Hobby Lobby.  Hot glued them to tooth picks and poked them through the wreath to stay in place.  Then using twine just wrap four areas.  Easy!

Using the Cricut I cut out circles, his name, and then all the other symbols and hung them using twine to be our center banner for the gift area.  Staci sat right there to open everything and she got a TON!

Finally, I made this as part of my gift to Staci.  I saw the quote on Pinterest (SHOCKING, huh?) and knew it fit her perfectly.  My sister was nice enough to get it into pdf and size it right for me.  I then ordered it as a poster from Walmart and used Mod Podge to glue it down.  Once it was dry I sanded it lightly and covered it with another coat of Mod Podge.  I love how it turned out!

I cannot wait to meet Barrett!!  Only a few more weeks to go!

Hunger Games…. I know, I know..

Everyone and their dog has seen the movie by now.  Hopefully you read the book before you saw that movie because the books were amazing!  Speaking of, here are things that I found to be different and stuck out to me.  Some are rather random!

1 – When I pictured the cornucopia I was pictured the Thanksgiving gold basket weaving one! ha! Oops.

2- What happened to poor sweet Madge?!  Sorry ‘bout ya.

3 – Thresh didn’t get killed by the mutants…. but killed either way.

4 – Speaking of, the mutants were the tributes and I was looking forward to seeing how they were going to do that.  Is that morbid of me??

5 -  Peeta was a little taller in my mind.  But, I still like him!  (Although, I am still Team Gale!)

6 – Were the Avox in the movie or did I just not see them?  Isn’t that what the people were called that had their tongues cut out?

7 – I thought they were in that cave for like 5 chapters!

Anywhom… I LOVED the books and I really enjoyed the movie too!  Which, I was surprised because I usually don’t like movie adaptations.  Enter Twilight crap movies.  Which, the trailer for the last one came on while we were waiting for the Hunger Games to start and it looked equally as horrible as every other one.  I think it is just that I cannot stand Kristen Stewart as Bella.  I would almost be happier if they killed her character off.  Sorry to say it, but I did.  So there.

And, Gale.  Wowie.  Looking forward to seeing him more in Catching Fire! :)

Somewhere over the RainBOW

One of my great friends, Stefanie, is having a baby girl in March and I helped throw a baby shower for her at my house over the weekend.

We wanted to do something different that we haven’t seen all of Pinterest (love) and that we haven’t already seen at our own friends’ showers… so we came up with a build a bow collection.  My sister, Jen, owns Lil Mop Top and helped design our ADORABLE invitations.  I got TONS of compliments on them and everyone seemed to love the theme.  So happy with the outcome!

*Hard to see everything because I saved the copy weird, BUT check out her Etsy shop to see this invite and all of the others that she has for sale*

A few months ago I saw a picture of a string of origami bows and I knew I wanted to do that as part of the décor.  I didn’t think it would be so hard to find a video on how to make these but it was!  After some research, the bows were made and ready to go.

These bows added with some balloons were the main decoration for the fireplace and mantel area, which is where we put all of Stefanie’s presents.

The activity for the shower was a RainBOW of blessings.  I cut out a bow shape and traced it onto 6 different pieces of scrapbook paper and cut those out (duh).  I made a chalkboard and bow holder and put the instructions to write a blessing on a bow and using a baby clothespin attach it to the bow holder for Stef to take home.  Stef had mentioned to me a month ago that she wanted to make a bow holder that she found on Pinterest, but little did she know I already made it for her!

*Check out Refreshingly Chic and like them on Facebook to find out how to make the bow holder and chalkboard yourself!*

As you can see there is also a wreath in the decorations.  I have a SLIGHT wreath obsession, so what better to do than make one for Stefanie to use at the hospital and then in her home!  I bought some white yarn that has a glimmer of iridescent to it and wrapped the whole wreath in it.  Then using the Cricut I made a banner that spelled out Baby Girl.  I got the letter A and painted it red to match her nursery and my lovely husband wired it on there and Wah-Lah!  Wreath complete.

One of the hostess made a diaper cake and another made favors for our guests.  The favors were Rice Krispie treats, YUM.

Next was the food.  We had about 25-30 people RSVP and it was from 1-3pm so we wanted to make sure people got plenty of options.  On Pinterest I saw a rainbow of fruit with marshmellows as the clouds so I knew that I wanted to do that.  Sara, hostess, made the cupcakes and made the cupcake toppers, which I thought were perfect for the shower theme.  Sadly, I couldn’t eat one, but I am sure they were delish!  I also added balloons entering the room with the food.  I never get to use balloons with shower so I used them a lot! ha!

Here are some pictures of my sweet Emma playing with my friend Kendra’s baby, Asher.  They were too cute together!  And, of course, some pictures of Stef opening presents.

Hope you enjoyed the shower!!!