Hooded Towel

I made this hooded, appliqued towel for some friends of ours who are having a baby. I followed this tutorial for making the hood and added the "E" to jazz it up a bit. I also trimmed the hood in blue bias tape. Cute....... and good for years of use!

A Colorful Birthday

Recently, we had a colorful crayon birthday party for our Sweetbaby. While looking for invitations, I stumbled across this cuteness from Chica and Jo. They provide the template for you to add your party info. I got boxes of crayons at the dollar store, and then I wrapped them in scrapbook paper.

I then found several cake examples online and decided I'd give it a go (never made a b-day cake before). The cake was a simple, rectangular white cake. I made a delicious buttercream icing recipe from allrecipes.com, and the "crayon tips" are halves of ice cream cones. My Mom used to decorate cakes, so she gave me her decorating tips etc. I used the star tip for the cake and painted the colors onto the ice cream cones with a brush, some water, and cookie decorating icing.

Here's our fun, birthday garden flag. Typically, I sew one of these from a placemat (just the right size for a garden flag) but for this one I just cut the shape I wanted from some crayon fabric I found at JoAnn's. I hot-glued some curly birthday ribbon on the top and bottom and put a red "2" made from adhesive vinyl using my Cricut Create.

The kiddos had a ton of fun taking a whack at this crayon pinata in our front yard....okay, so they didn't want to share the bat. The hubster just threw candy when anyone took a swing. It was a hoot! You can buy this {here}.

Last, but not least...I made a super-fun balloon birthday wreath. This will be used yearly no matter what the theme! You can view it in my post on reusable birthday party decorations. Too cute!

Yay Link Parties!

My First Feature! Yay!

Last week I linked up to New Nostalgia's Anti-Procrastination Tuesday party with my post on reusable birthday party decorations which included a balloon wreath and a felt, no-sew banner.

This is the first time I've been featured, so this is super special to me! Thanks so much to Amy for making my week! I am honored! You can see her featured posts from last week{here}!

Sunbathing Cookies

When my son turned one, his birthday party theme was simply, fun in the summer. I was thinking about how much I enjoyed decorating these little cookie sunbathers and thought I'd share the cuteness!

A friend used a gingerbread man cookie cutter and made the sugar cookies for me. I then "dressed them in their swimsuits" with prepackaged cookie decorating icing. (One little rascal is weaning nothing but a smile ;-) They are lying on "towels" cut from pieces of scrapbook paper and are lying on a "beach" of light brown sugar. The little drink umbrellas added a nice touch!

I also loved the sunshine plates in the picture below. I got a bunch of yellow plates from the dollar store. I cut some of them into triangular shapes ) like cutting pieces of pie and then hot glued the pieces to the underside of another plate to create the sun's "rays."

I can't believe this was a year ago...time flies!

Yay Linky Parties!!

A Tutu Wreath

I've been on a wreath kick for a few months now. A friend recently had a beautiful baby girl and wanted some kind of tulle wreath for her front door. My research began, and I was "tickled pink" (sorry..couldn't resist :-) to find JUST what I was looking for. This has to be one of the girliest things I've ever made. It's just "tutu" cute!



The "flowers" are rolled up aqua tulle, and the "leaves" are pieces of lime green tulle. It took a while to tie all the strips onto the wreath, but I'm so pleased with the look of it! Well worth it!

Ironically, the wreath in the tutorial is black and was made for Halloween, You can find the tutorial I used {here}. 


I had so much fun with it, I think I'll make the Halloween version this fall.


Linking up:

Teacher Gifts

I've been thinking about all my teacher friends out there, so I thought I'd share a couple of end-of-the-year teacher gift ideas.

This one is a cutie. I keep seeing Mason jars being used for all sorts of adorableness, so I thought it would be a good choice for a teacher gift. Simply attach a gift card to her/his favorite restaurant, store etc. and you've got yourself one unique gift.

The jar has a rectangle of chalkboard vinyl on it, so it can be reused to hold pens, pencils, and such. The lid bears a circular piece of scrapbook paper on which you can write a sweet message to the teacher. I chose Kroger's yogurt pretzels ($2.79/bag) to fill the jar because I thought the white looked nice with the chalkboard rectangle. Oh, and I also LOVE them!!!!

Personalized Citronella Candle

Another very useful idea to which one could attach a gift card of choice is a citronella bucket candle. I personalized this one with some adhesive vinyl and ribbon. Cute, useful, and handy for attaching a gift card.


In case you can't tell, I always loved getting gift cards. It was so nice on inservice training days to be able to go out to eat at a restaurant for FREE thanks to a sweet student.


Here are a few other lovely teacher gift ideas I stumbled across during my recent blog hopping. =)


Crayon Monograms : Love this idea...may do one for my son's room b/c he LOVES to color!


How about a cute clipboard with a vinyl monogram? If you have a Cricut and some adhesive vinyl, you could do this!


Here are a few more ideas found at Skip to my Lou. Gotta love that hand sanitizer!

Show your kiddo's teacher' some love for year of hard work! Feel free to leave a link to your own teacher gift ideas below!!

Yay link parties!

Chalkboard Mason Jars

Don't Miss It!

If you've ever been interested in trying Shaklee products, NOW IS THE TIME! There are three days left for you to recieve a FREE membership with only a $30 purchase.

 
 

Through May 20, 2011, when anyone new purchases at least $30 in Shaklee, the $19.95 ^† Shaklee membership fee will be waived! As Shaklee Members, he/she also will get …

• 15% discount (off retail prices) on product purchases
• Special promotions, offers and discounts
• Unconditional money-back guarantee
• Access to MyShaklee.com, Shaklee’s center for health and wellness news and information from Shaklee’s Health Sciences Team, and product experts

† Because of the low cost of entry, Members who join free will not be shipped a new Shaklee Member Kit.  http://greensmith.myshaklee.com/

Not sure where to start? How about one of the Get Clean Kits, or perhaps some Basic H, a 3-pack of spray bottles, and some Basic G? I've also been using the Basic H wipes and Germ Off wipes EVERYWHERE!

There are so many wonderful products from which to choose. I hope you'll take advantage of this special offer!!

Reusable Birthday Decorations

When I started planning for our Sweetbaby's second birthday (still can't believe he's two....) I searched for cute decoration ideas, and more specifically, I wanted to find something that could possibly be used each birthday. I was so happy when I saw this adorable balloon wreath in one of the pictures on A Blissful Nest.

I immediately began my hunt for a tutorial, and found one {HERE} at  How Does She...

It took longer searching around town for the best prices on balloons and floral pins than it did to make the wreath. In the end I decided that Dollar Tree and Walmart had the best balloon prices, and Walmart had the best floral pin prices. ($1.00 per bag) I used a LOT of balloons because I wanted it to be very full.

Here's the wreath I made! Yay wreath!

I had fun making this, and it received tons of compliments at the party. It looks so happy and cheery....just makes me smile. Probably my favorite thing though is that it can be used again and again for ANY birthday party we have.

In keeping with the reusable decoration theme, I was also able to reuse a pennant I made for Sweetbaby's first birthday party. I love that we'll get years of use out of it for him. I kept it simple...green/white striped ribbon, felt, and some hot glue. Yep, it's a no-sew project! The first year we hung it on the screened-in porch. However, this year, we hung it in the family room/play room. I look forward to many more years of using it!

I'd love to read about or see any reusable party decorations you've made!





Linking up to: