baby showering

I tried my hand at some "graphic design." I admit I can't remember a lot from my classes in college that taught me how to use the sophisticated programs of indesign, illustrator, and photoshop. Dang I wished I would have paid more attention!

I love those programs and need to get them, but right now I try to make do with my free dinky version of photoshop: gimp. It's a free download and does a lot of what photoshop does, not as user friendly, but once I tinkered around for a while I made sense of it. I managed to make my sister's invites, yay! I know she is into elephants from her pinterest boards...so I put some on there =)

I wish it wasn't pixelated on here and I messed up some things for privacy purposes, but you get the idea. Yay for jessi! She is beautiful and will be such a good mommy.

gramps camp

My parents are such hip grandparents. I'm so excited for our future children to get to know my sweet mom and dad. A few years ago they started a thing called "gramps camp" where the grandkids who are over the age of 5 (or out of diapers) get to come to the grandpappy's house for a few days to play with cousins and do cool stuff. This year their theme is "Adventures under the sea." I sort of volunteered to make their t-shirts which was a task since there were 10 to make. I decided to use the freezer paper method which is simple and yields good results. I forgot to take a picture of the front...but I got pictures of the back and all the kids names: girls' names in the shape of a dolphin, boys in the shape of a shark.All you do is use an exacto knife to cut out the parts you want to be painted on the shirt and then put the SHINY side down to the shirt. That's the part that sticks to the shirt when you iron over it.

I added some bubbles

Yay for gramps camp! Wish I could be there to play with all of the little ones. Hope the sharks and dolphins play nice with each other =)

the bib

and here is the bib I made..not perfect. but functional!

succulents

At bed bath and beyond they sell this beautiful painting of a succulent plant of some sort. I never really knew what they were until seeing this and realizing it was beautiful! Apparently they're like cactus sort of maybe? but like lovely green gushy flowers. They would do well in my house in our window. I'd love to plant a garden and be all self sustaining! We live in an apartment with no yard but according to a valuable source: if there is space in the flower beds outside our buildings...we can take it! Gardening is a skill I have yet to tackle..I need my older sister to help me =) She is the master! For now I like looking at these photos.....

feelin' crafty

My friend Ciara is having a little girl and her shower is on Saturday. I've been dying to try my hand at some actual baby "clothes" so this was the perfect opportunity. I admit I am no Martha Stewart and my sewing is not perfect, but the website Make it and love it has been very helpful. She puts things simply and you don't have to be an expert to do what she does. Lots of tutorials on everything.

I've made a little dress and some flowers so far. Next I'm gonna make a bib. These tutorials proved useful:

Repurposing: ti-shirt to a dress

Catch all laminated bib

Felt flower spiral

I kind of made my own version of these things so they're how I like them. Here they are voila!

Here is the dress I made from a onsie (no I did not make the shoes, they are just so perfect though!)

I basically made a little skirt to sew onto the onsie. I put a couple of pleats in the front for fun and sewed on some extra ribbon we used in my wedding.

Ahh these shoes kill me! I found them at Target, last ones on the shelf. They're sized for newborns and yes I know newborns can't walk, but so what? They can look stylish too for all the thousands of photos first time parents will take of them.

I also made a bunch of little felt button bows. Simple really. I am not a tutorial master but this is what I did:

Need: hot glue/gun

felt

scissors

buttons

scrap fabric

First I measured and cut out 5 circles the same size: 4 for the petals, 1 for the based. I used my husband's acid reflex bottle to trace.

Once I had them all cut, I cut 2 slits in one for the base. The hair clip will slide through there later.

I picked some of my scrap fabric to cover a button with. Can you tell I love green and yellow?

Then I put some hot glue on the top of the button to attach a little square of fabric. Then on the back I gradually added hot glue and spun it around to make the fabric lay flat on the front of the button.

Then one by one I folded each of the 4 circle petals in half, then again so it was in 4ths.

I put a dab of hot glue between the folded 4ths and held it til it dried. Then it looks like a fortune cookie. Once each of the 4 circles looked like fortune cookies, I glued them down to the base so it looked like a fluffy pie. I slid the hair clip through the back slit, cut earlier, and put hot glue under the ends to keep it in place.

Then I glued the button down in the middle of the petals. When you press it down it make the petals stick up on the edges.

So I made several of these. I found you can easily clip these onto clothes too. Ahh making baby stuff is so much fun.

baby on the brain

No I'm not trying to tell you something. haha. With my sister expecting and as well as everyone else around me, I can't help but love the baby craze. I'm just in that stage of life I guess =) When that time comes for us, I would love to do something like this I found here a while ago (except I doubt I'll have any of my belly skin showing):

Haha as in funny

Saw this image online today from here. Upon seeing this my husband would say: "Funny as in haha or funny as in odd or unusual?" Well honey, we're not quittin' at death. Love you forever!

This is trippy cool. Believer, Jen Stark - Stop Motion Animation Limited Video Edition of 10 - Audio by Dan Deacon

Jen Stark - Believer from Show & Tell Gallery on Vimeo.

Baby showering!

My adorable little sister will be the cutest mom of the cutest little girl in a couple months. It still freaks me out a little, but not enough to not have a baby shower in the works!

Despite what my sister thinks, she is tiny. But tiny will this shower not be! It's gotta be epic! This week I went to my sister-in-law's cousin's bridal shower (sounds distant I know, but I am an adopted cousin =) and the theme was so great I've been trying to figure out how to make it work for babies. Each guest at the bridal shower got an invitation giving them a theme in which to bring a gift; mine was: first kitchen. I thought that the whole shower was first kitchen but turns out everyone who came had a different themed gift. Ex: first home, first night away from each other, first meal, first time entertaining, first game night etc. How cute is that? So for babies...would that be first diaper change? first portrait? first outfit? Not sure. There are a lot of firsts with first babies but I don't know what they are really since I do not have a first baby of my own.

Any thoughts? what other firsts that would make feasible shower gift ideas???

Image from this website

If she were having a boy, mustache binkys would be so appropriately hilarious. From here.

I very much like this elephant invite, adorable!! courtesy of hostessblog

What shall I do what shall I do...