Baby Shower - Decorations Around the House

Yup, more baby shower stuff.  This post will focus on the general decorations put around the house.  Not everything was photographed, and the photos I did take weren't all that great (sorry).  Honestly, I'm not a great decorator, but I volunteered for the job... I just did the best I could, with the materials I had, in the time I was given.

This was the main sign/banner type thing I made.  The top row of pinwheels are actually layered with two pinwheels, the larger one with double-sided paper, the other a plain colored paper.  I went with a semi-rainbow look with them.  The little poster I made simply with markers and some colored tape.  And more pinwheels with circles around them, because my mom wanted them there :).  

Baby Shower: Diaper Cake

Continuing on with the baby shower stuff!

This was my first attempt at a diaper cake.  I didn't look up any real instructions or tutorials, since it looked pretty easy.  Luckily my assumption was right, the most annoying thing was rolling the diapers and trying to put them together.  I don't exactly do things the correct way necessarily, but it worked out.

I'm not sure how most people make diaper cakes, so I basically winged it with what I had on hand.  In order to keep the rolled up diapers rolled up, I used my daughter's little hair ties (those flimsy ones that come with a few hundred or them in a pack)... I can never get them in her hair properly anyway.

When it came to trying to get them into a nice circle I simply built out.  I used a cord/rope to help keep things nice and tight.  I circled the cord around the diapers, tied it, then slowly built out, loosening it as needed to fit more diapers.  There's probably an easier way, but that's what I did ha ha.  At the end I tied everything with a ribbon or three and took off the original cord.

Baby Shower - Diaper Babies

When I was shopping for baby shower stuff, I came across some baby socks and washcloths that were on sale.  This reminded me of a diaper baby that was made with these very two items and a diaper.  I think I was pretty lucky since the baby socks and washcloths actually matched, not only that, but they also matched the general color scheme of blue, green, orange that had randomly came up with all the paper I had been choosing.

If I can find the tutorial that I vaguely remember to make these, I'll be sure to post it.  They are very easy to make, and oh so cute!

The materials.  6 diapers and washcloths, and 3 pairs of socks (yup, 6 socks too!  go figure).

Basically, you roll up a diaper, swaddle the diaper with the washcloth, then roll the sock up a bit on itself and it becomes a little hat (kind of like a beanie).

I did add a little paper to draw silly faces on them, and slipped them underneath the sock and washcloth.  I didn't want to draw directly onto the diaper. Googly eyes would have worked too probably.

Since I didn't have any real ideas for these cuties, they ended up on top of the giveaways.  Basically so the little kids wouldn't start digging into the cookies right away ha ha.  It worked too.

While they didn't workout with the whole theme of everything, at least they found a place :).  Originally I thought it would be cute for the mama to be to take them home, but some people ended up taking them with their giveaways, oops!  

Baby Shower - Thank you gifts

Even though we had a fairly small baby shower for my brother and his wife (mostly family and some close family friends), we still had little giveaways for thank you gifts.  I wanted to keep it fairly simple so I made chocolate chip cookies.  I packed 2 cookies in a clear plastic treat bag, and used the stickers found in this post to seal them up.  All in all I ended up with 32 little packages of yummy goodness for people to enjoy.

I was quite happy with how they turned out.  The stickers worked like a charm and the cookies were also quite tasty.

Curious about the cookies?  I actually based my recipe on Alton Brown's, The Chewy.  Although I did have to change a few things when I discovered that I didn't have enough brown sugar for doubling the recipe.  So what did I do?  I substituted part of the brown sugar with more white sugar and some molasses.  I couldn't actually give any measurements since I sort of just threw it in.  I may try to recreate it next time, maybe take down some measurements too.  I actually like my accidental cookies a bit more than the original recipe (which I have made a number of times).  In my opinion they turned out chewier, more moist, and had a richer flavor (if you like a slightly molasses flavor).

On a side note, I now want to make pinwheel everything!  Stickers, cards, tags, random stuff like that.  

Upcoming posts...

We had the baby shower, and now things can get back to normal in my life hopefully.  At least until the next one, next month.

Hopefully I can write a few posts regarding what I did for it.  I tried my best to take some photos, but by the time everything happened I was pretty tired.  I'm actually still tired, so I better go get my rest.

Sorry for such a weird short post, but I just kind of want to give people a heads up of what's to come.  MORE baby shower stuff.

Stamped Birthday Card - Robots!

Remember my failed attempt at a card here?  Basically, I couldn't make an idea pan out.  So instead I just came up with another idea.  And I got to use what have become my favorite stamps to use.

I used a set of 3 robot stamps on a silver cardstock, then colored them with markers (Prisma, since they work nicely on the paper).  I then used a paper edger with robots and gears on some black paper.  Stamps some silver gears behind it.  Layer everything on, and this is what I came up with.

Honestly I'm not that thrilled with it, but my husband seemed to like it a lot.  It's one of those things where I want to change something, although I have no clue as to what it would be.  Maybe the colors, maybe the background, maybe lots of things.  It's too late now though, it's long been given away.

Meanwhile I've also been busy chugging away at the baby shower decorations.  I'm surprisingly on schedule, at least so far.  I think I'm done with the majority of the decorations, and we will just have to set everything up before Sunday.  For the next 3-4 days I will be cooking and making lots of goodies for the party.  Here's a sneak peek at the thank you stickers I'll be putting on the goodie bag.  I don't think we had a theme for the baby shower, but I'm making one I guess.  Pinwheels.  Because they're cute.  It all started with a banner/sign I made, and it sort of snowballed from there.

When/if I get more pictures I'll post them up.  I probably won't be posting much until after the baby shower on Sunday though.  Hopefully my brother and his wife and everyone else will have fun.

Baby Showers - continued

I went to the store to purchase baby stuff for the baby shower.  I have a few ideas on how to decorate the diaper cake that I'm planning, which will involve lots of ribbon, some pinwheels, and maybe some diaper babies.  I still want to buy MORE stuff though, so hopefully I'll have something that's full of little goodies for the parents and baby :).

Baby Showers!

It's raining babies!!!  Well almost.

I have no idea what's in the water, but there are a TON of babies that have been born in the last year, and will be born in the next few months.  My sister, my sister-in-law (brother's wife), and my other sister-in-law (husband's sister), are all due between September to January.  That's only the family, that doesn't include all of my friends that I know who are also expecting!

On Sunday we have one baby shower, and I've sort of volunteered to help with decorating, food/desserts, and the giveaways.  I don't think I'll be doing a ton of decorations, the shower will be mostly family and close family friends.  Plus, this is the second shower being thrown.  I do want to make a few things at least though.  I'm planning on a banner, and I'm trying to figure out if I want to try out a diaper cake, or something along those lines.  Most of the food will be ordered from near by restaurants, but I will be making some fresh baked pan de sal (bread/rolls).  For desserts my mom has requested broken glass jello, and a fruit salad (not a healthy one either ha ha).  As the giveaway I'll be baking cookies and hopefully making a nice little tag to put on it or something.  I'm not sure if I'll be making anything else.

Now... for presents... I wanted to make a special blanket, matching pillowcase, matching burp cloths, and maybe a soft rattle for them, but I don't know if I'll have time before the shower.  Luckily I already have some made.  I think I'll will make them a different set for when the baby is born :).

Sorry, no photos this post, but I'll try my best to get some of what I do finish!  I will definitely be a busy little bee for this week.

Ginger Chicken

From time to time I will browse and post things to Pinterest, I try to make an effort to at least try a few of the things that I pin, otherwise it's pretty useless for me to spend time doing it.  I suppose if you're just pinning about things you like that's fine, but I try to pin things I would want to try to cook and create, or simply use them as ideas.

This brings me to something I pinned a few days ago, Ginger Chicken.  Strangely enough I found it while I was looking for blueberry lemonade,  I decided that I wanted to try out the recipe since my husband had ordered this really tasty ginger pork at our favorite local Japanese restaurant.  I was thinking if I really like it I can change up the recipe and use pork.  Luckily I had most of the ingredients in stock, I was only missing sake and scallions (which I wanted to omit anyway, first change in recipe).  A shopping trip to a Japanese market fixed the missing sake.  Even though the trip is a bit far (20 or so minutes drive) for one item, my daughter and I were able to enjoy lunch at one of the food shops there :).

Anyway, I ended up almost doubling the recipe since the pack of chicken thighs I got had much more than the recipe called for.  As I was prepping all my ingredients, and letting the chicken sit in the marinade, I decided that I wanted to add some onions to mix with the chicken (second change in recipe).  While I steamed some veggies for a side dish, I sliced half a large onion, making very thin slices.  I thought it might be best to cook them after I finish the first phase of cooking the chicken.  In the end, I liked how everything turned out.  While I did exclude one ingredient, and add another, I think I followed the recipe fairly well (for me, that is).  Definitely watch your temperature, since there's a good amount of sugar with the honey, things can burn if it's too hot.

A bowl of rice, topped with the ginger chicken, steamed veggies (carrots, broccoli, and zucchini), and sesame seeds for garnish.  Yum!

Too all you pinners out there, if you haven't started trying all those awesome things you're putting up on your boards, maybe you should!  Out of my food section I've tried at least 1/3 of all the things I've posted, 5 out of 15 so far.  They won't all be home runs, but you may just find a few gems.  I think I'll be keeping this recipe :).

Stickers, stickers, butterfly stickers.

I purchased a Xyron 5" Creative Station a few months ago.  I was interested in making my own stickers, either for my personal use and/or to sell (I still haven't decided that myself).  I finally decided to break it out of my closet and see how it works.  I've done two test runs on some butterflies (remember these?  except a single layer), and I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the results.  I may experiment and use them somewhere, I just haven't a clue as to where yet.

Now that I can make stickers, will I try to rule the world?  I doubt it.  Will I try to decorate, scrapbook, make cards, tags, and other crafty things?  All signs point to yes!  I may need to share my new power with another crafty friend of mine, I think he'd like it.  Actually, he'd like it more if it were a button maker I think.

Don't be surprised if you all end up with flower stickers next, or something else equally as awesome/lame ha ha.

Choosing to be a Stay at Home Mom

When I had gotten pregnant in 2010, we were fairly certain I would be a stay at home mom.  There were a few reasons behind this.

First off, I wasn't working full time.  I had a annual contract for a part time teaching job.  Each year I would get a pink slip and maybe they would offer me a job the following year (maybe not).  So I didn't exactly have job security.

Second, even if I did stay teaching part time, day care is expensive.  Why would I spend a good portion of my paycheck to have someone else take care of my child?  I had a friend who had the same position as I did, and she would tell me that some months her nanny would get more of  her paycheck than she did (some months are light on work days for school breaks).  I know nannies are expensive, but even regular daycare would be pricey for us.

Thirdly, and I think most importantly, we both wanted one of us to be at home with our child.  It's time we can never get back, and it goes by so fast.  I also believe that having at least one of our parents stay at home when we were young affected us.  My dad stayed home with my 3 siblings and me once he retired, and before I was around my mom took care of the kids.  My husband's mom was at home during the day when they were young, later picking up a night job.  We saw the sacrifices that our parents had gone through to raise us, and I believe in giving our daughter the same.

This is Caitlyn, she's definitely worth it!

We don't have a lot of extra cash lying around, we don't go on extravagant trips, we don't have a ton of expensive material stuff (that we don't really need), and I'm okay with that.  We do have what we need.  We both do what we can for our daughter, and it's worth it :).

Side Note: We don't do this completely on our own.  We have help from our family, specifically our parents.  And we're lucky that if my husband and I want to have a night off, they are more than happy to take care of their grandchild.  We have truly been blessed.

Thought Process: Idea for a birthday card... from a pumpkin?

While browsing randomly on Pinterest I had come across this Halloween decoration.  I initially thought that it was a very cute idea.  I haven't done much decorating for Halloween since I was a teenager, so I didn't think much of it, let alone bother pinning it.  For some reason I kept thinking about this cute pumpkin.  I then thought that those O's looked awfully like 0's, which then led me to think how they would easily be numbers...

This is where it leads to birthday cards.  I have a 1st birthday party to attend to on Sunday, and I thought that a 1 would be easy to fabricate with buttons on a card.  I broke out my button box and tried to throw something together, gluing about 16  buttons onto a pieces of paper.  Let's just say that it currently looks like crap.  Of course it's also glued onto a blank white background (how boring!).  I didn't think this through.  I was hoping to have the phrase cute as a button pop up on this card, but it's not working out.  I need to step away for a bit and rethink this idea.  I also want to find a way to salvage these buttons I haphazardly glued already (it's late, I'm not thinking properly).

I did have an alternative idea.  Similar to my button idea I would create a number one out of circles (most likely blueish in color), then I would cover the background in muted color circles as well.  I'm not sure if this idea will be any better than my buttons, but I'll most likely find out.  If this sees any progress I'll be sure to post something up :).

There are SOOOO many babies around that I can definitely reuse this card if I get something solid thrown together in Photoshop.

Another thought, I can make those circles look like buttons, if I really want to carry on with that idea.  It really is starting to get late, so I better either sleep or start working on this card.  Until next time!

The Sewing Machine is Here! And Dinner?

I was surprised to see how fast the sewing machine (that I mentioned in my last post) got here!  The first thing I did was read the manual, well... I mostly skimmed the stuff that I wasn't planning on doing quite yet, and read the basic parts.  It threads and winds the bobbin a bit different than the previous two machines I've used, but it's fairly straight forward.  I had enough free time to make two pillowcases.

So far I'm liking the machine.  I like how quiet it is, I could probably use it when the baby is napping (if it was already set up.  I don't have a permanent table to work on, only an old, flimsy, folding poker table).  And I REALLY like the automatic thread cutter!  I'm not wasting thread with each time I have to cut and start a new thing (so technical).  In short, so far I'm digging the SINGER 9960 Quantum Stylist 600-Stitch Computerized Sewing Machine, but I will need more time to give any sort of real review.  I also hope I won't break the poor thing.

And just for fun, this is what we had for dinner tonight!  Shrimp Fra Diavolo and Lemon Spaghetti, as requested by my husband.  While I wasn't going to give the semi-spicy shrimp to my baby girl, she did love the lemon spaghetti!  This was even after she had eaten some chicken, rice, and squash.  My girl just loves to eat :).  The recipes are from Giada De Laurentiis.  Soooo tasty!  Almost everything was eaten up!  We had enough for my husband's lunch tomorrow and a little extra to take over for my mom to try it.

YAY! I'll be getting a new sewing machine!

I've been without a sewing machine for maybe 2 or so weeks now.  There's a few reasons I'm getting a new one, but first and foremost I tend to beat my machines up.  I'm not formally trained, I haven't taken any classes, I learned the very basics from my mom (that includs how to thread, thread the bobbin, basic tension stuff, and how sew a straight line).  The machines I've used have all had issues, and I'm going to guess that I was the problem (user error).

Now that I do have more knowledge and experience I wanted something a little bit more than the basic machines I've been using (preferably one I haven't utterly destroyed, seriously, I have no idea what's wrong with me).  On my Etsy shop I've had several inquiries on personalizing an item with a name or something else, so I wanted my next machine to have that capability, even if it's fairly basic.  I also know a ton of babies that are to be born soon, so maybe I can make some personalized gifts!  I have read mostly good reviews on this machine, so I'm really hoping that it will survive my hands.  After it arrives on Tuesday, I hope to dive back into sewing!

I'll definitely let you know how I like it.  I'm not terribly good at reviews, but I can at least tell of my experiences.