Headbands

My daughter-in-law Dana found here an idea on Pinterest for an elastic headbands station to have at her shower.  She liked this idea because it allowed the guests to personalize something for baby Laila during the shower.  I set about figuring out how to get it done! After visits to JoAnn's, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby I found all the requisite supplies mostly on sale.  Luckily the main part, the stretchy headband materials was sold by the spool at Hobby Lobby and I caught it on a sale day.  I was able to pick up about six different colored spools and ended up getting about six headbands per roll.  I cut them in about 12-14" lengths and sewed the ends together.

In addition to the headbands I picked up matching colors of felt, fabric flowers, pre-made bows, jewels, small butterflies, and small button shapes. The flowers were different colors and patterns (polka dots), different styles (zebra print), mostly daisies, and some other flowers.  I took and pulled off or cut off the flowers from the stems and then hot glued them on the bottom to make sure the centers and the flower layers stayed together.  When I looked at putting them on to the headbands though I felt they weren't going to lay flat on the headbands and would be too heavy for the headbands.  I looked at the original idea and saw some felt circles in the example so went back and picked up some matching felt.  I took my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and cut the felt using the largest flower on the die.  I cut about 6-8 of each color so they could be used to glue the flowers on and then glue on to the headbands.

So we set up a separate area at the shower with hot glue guns and all of the different components laid out on the table and told everyone at the beginning of the shower where everything was located and invited them to make their way into the dining room to create their own special gift for baby Laila.

To make sure Dana and Kyle knew who had created each of the headbands, I cut tags with my Cricut and cut 12" lengths of thin ribbon (1/8" wide).  On each of the tags I stamped the word From: on one side and then asked each Guest Headband Designer to sign their creation and tie the tag to the headband they made. The guests were eager participants and enjoyed creating some really pretty headbands for Laila.  We can't wait to see her wearing each and everyone of the gifts.

Here is a group shot of all of the completed headbands.  They really turned out nicely. She will be quite the styling little girl!  Keep on Imagining, Creating, and Enjoying every day!

Mesh Wreath

Mesh wreaths have become all the rage as of late.  I decide my first try would be to make one for Laila's baby shower.  I spent a couple of different trips to Michael's, JoAnn's, and Hobby Lobby to check out the supplies, costs, ideas, and colors of mesh.  I spent some time reading through one of the books while standing in the aisle at the store.  After looking at the picture directions in the book I figured I could do this without spending the $10 on the book.  I'd rather spend the money on the supplies for the wreath.

Since I had already started the diaper cake with the bright pink colors, I followed through here.  I chose burlap looking mesh and then a hot pink mesh to coordinate with it choosing to alternate the burlap and pink mesh (I used the smaller 6" rolls versus the large 12" rolls). Once I had finished fixing the mesh to the wreath base (by using pipe cleaners in hot pink), I started adding flowers.  I took pretty Gerber daisy flowers in various shades of pink and white and glued them around the wreath with some pearl accents behind them. The pearl accents were a strand picked up from the floral section at the craft store.  I separated the different strands to maximize them as I wanted some behind all of the flowers. Additionally, I added some pretty butterflies from the floral section of the hobby store and the word Love across the bottom of the wreath. It was in the wood letters section at the craft store and already painted white, so I left it exactly as it came. The letters spell out Laila's full name: Laila Olivia Vivian Elizabeth. She will share names with two of her great grandmother's.  A beautiful tribute to both sides of the family!

Once I hot glued everything together I added a small butterfly on the corner of Love.  Kyle really liked the wreath...enough so he wants to put it in Laila's nursery.  Now I've gotta figure out how to ship it to them in Indiana!

Until next time...Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

More Butterflies!

My son Kyle's baby shower was held at his in-laws home out in Courtland on a Saturday afternoon.  The weather in March in Northern California (similar to most areas of the country) can range from cold, wet, rainy and 30 degrees to warm, sunny, dry and 75 degrees.  Lucky for us we got the warm, sunny, dry, close to 75 degree weather!  We were thrilled as we had decided to have the shower outside.  The in-laws home in Courtland sits on a large piece of property and there is a long driveway with shade trees and ample space in front of the garage area so we decided to utilize that area.  We rented round tables, tablecloths and even a EZ-Up cover.

Since the other decorations were leaning in more of a pink/brown theme, we carried that through to the rest of the decorations.  Chocolate brown table cloths, pink burlap chevron runners on the tables with strips of pink mesh in differing shades running down the middle.  Since we have tons of calla lilies in our yard, I volunteered to bring vases full of the lilies for table centerpieces.  Dana's sister Taylor worked some magic with bows on the vases and adding accents to the tables.  I followed through with the butterfly theme by cutting some more of the butterflies I had previously cut for the wands but in a  pearl pink instead of a glittery pink.  I cut them out of an old file folder and then covered with the pearl looking paper.  I had some leftover paper from my large rosette's on the other project as well and used my Tim Holtz rosette die to make some smaller rosettes.  I picked up some floral wire stems and attached them to the back of the butterfly with hot glue and a small round paper circle to cover up the end of the wire.

Back to the front of the butterfly.  I took the small rosette and hot glued it to the front of the butterfly.  Then I used some more of the pretty pink jeweled brads from the last project and added that on top of the rosette. When I cut the calla lilies for the centerpieces, I popped a couple of those butterflies in each of the vases to carry the theme through.

Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Chalkboard Hearts

It's A Girl! We were very excited when we found out that we were having a new granddaughter!  We found out back before Christmas and have been eagerly anticipating the coming of little Laila Olivia.

When we knew we were having a baby shower here, I went looking for some unconventional ways to display the news in the decorations. Everyone of course knew it was a girl, and I wanted a unique way to display that.  While in Michael's I found these cute little chalkboard hearts.

The hearts were plain chalkboard hearts with no embellishment.  I painted the dowels with the white frosty paint used on the butterfly wands.
I decided to use some pink glittery letters I had in my stash to spell out the sentiment.  I then added some hot pink glitter all around the edges of the heart and let them dry.  Finally I sealed them with a high gloss sealer and then to finish them up I decided to wrap the sticks attached to the hearts with some pretty pink flowery ribbon from my stash.  I glued it all the way down the sticks wrapping with a nice even spacing.

I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to use them at the shower but when we decided to put the diaper cake on the gift table, it was natural to just pop them into the top of the diaper cake!  See you soon!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Butterfly Fairy Wands!

My late friend Jayne was a wonderfully creative person who was inspired by the most unusual things and made some really beautiful and unique paper pieces. One of the things she had made was a decorative item for her niece's baby shower, shown here.  It is a butterfly fairy wand!  She had a butterfly die she used to create the base for the wand using some chipboard which she then covered in scrapbook paper on both sides.  Once she did that she cut some rosettes with the Tim Holtz rosette die. This die has two sizes of rosettes, pre-scored so all you do is cut with your Sizzix or Vagabond and then crease and glue together.  The die even has a circle to cover your glued spot in the middle of the rosette.  She put one rosette on each side of the butterfly.  Before she affixed the larger of the rosettes, she painted the stick a silver color and then wrapped it in some ribbon we found in the dollar bin on one of our craft shopping lunches.  She also backed the larger rosette with some of the ribbon and added some ribbon tendrils.

I loved the idea and have used it as inspiration to create my own set of fairy wands for Laila Olivia's baby shower.  The butterfly die I have is a little different in that it is more solid with only a couple of cut outs on each wing.  I decided to go with a (what else) heavy, pink glitter card stock for my butterflies. Liking Jayne's original idea of rosettes I did a reverse to her design and made the rosettes larger than the butterfly by using my Cricut and the Ribbons and Rosettes cartridge and cut these large rosettes with a small heart border. I then cut the smaller rosettes with the Tim Holtz die and used the smaller one on the front of the butterfly.

For the wand portion I used pre-cut dowels in 12 inch lengths you can purchase at any craft store.  I then painted them in a pearly white paint I had leftover from my "Grandkids" project.  I then grabbed a number of different rolls of ribbon from my stash...mostly pinks and browns, some I had also picked up to match the polka dot theme we had going on the cake ribbon and started cutting different lengths.  I hot glued 5 of these differing lengths to a small 3" strip of ribbon and set aside.  Once the paint on the wands was dry I wrapped each wand from top to bottom in a variety of ribbon allowing some of the pearly paint to show through.  


Next I hot glued the ribbon band to the back of the butterfly and then hot glued the wand on the back as well.  Once dry, I hot glued this piece to the large rosette and let them set.  I had picked up some brads, a variety pack of approximately 3/4" size in two shades of pink.  I took the brads and snipped off the prongs on the back with my wire cutters and then hot glued the brad to the top of the small finished rosette.  The brad became the center of each rosette.  Finally I hot glued the rosettes on to the front of the butterflies.


Here is a close up of my finished "Fairy Wands."  I made enough to use as part of the decorations at the shower and once the shower was over my daughter-in-law kept some for Laila's nursery and the rest were given to their nieces who attended the shower.  I'm very proud of my little creation!  They were fun to make and share at the shower.

Go on, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Diaper Cake -- Round Two!

When I made my first diaper cake last year, an order was placed for the future from my then daughter-in-law to be, for a diaper cake whenever they decided to have a baby!  In fact she asked how I was going to be able to ship it out to them in Indiana!  Well, we didn't have to ship one out to them because they came to California to visit us before little Laila Olivia is born.  Dana, like many of us, loves to peruse Pinterest for ideas.  She had found this idea for a diaper cake and I set about trying my best to recreate it.

Here is a shot of the finished cake.  I changed the idea shown above in the following ways.  I chose to use some hot pink sparkly mesh ribbon as the base on each of the layers and then added the corresponding leopard print or brown and white polka dots ribbons.  I hot glued them on to the mesh and then wrapped that around each layer hot gluing it in the back to give it a finished look.  For the layers I used different sizes of diapers. For the top layer I used newborn diapers, for the middle layer I used size 2 diapers and for the bottom layer I used size 4.  I used the leftover newborn diapers in the center of the bottom layer to finish it out.  I took cake boards and cut circles out of some butterfly scrapbook papers from Susan Winget and KandCompany and covered the boards with that.

The little leopard print slippers I had found at Wal-Mart before I'd seen the cake idea, so they matched perfectly with the ribbon I was able to find at Hobby Lobby. I set those on the sides of the bottom layer.  In addition to the leopard slippers I also found a pair of pink sparkly shoes to set on top along with the pink butterfly headband shown here.  The original idea had a big bow on the top but I liked the idea of the shoes instead.  Can never have to much bling as far as I'm concerned.


I picked the scroll alphabet letter L for the front and thought briefly of painting it a different color but stuck with the white.  I tied it on to the second layer ribbon with a matching piece of thin ribbon threaded through the mesh.  Additionally, I found some soft baby spoons, some baby washcloths, some hair barrettes, some little girls socks, and a couple of pacifiers with little flowers on the buttons. All in different hues of pink!


It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  I thoroughly enjoyed all of the things I made for the shower, but I do think this cake turned out even better than what I had anticipated.  Of course any chance to buy pink girly things I'm totally on board with cuz there need to be more girls in my family!  Current count is 6 grand kids, 5 boys and 1 girl, so the upcoming birth of Laila is greatly anticipated!  Grandma and Grandpa need some more girls to spoil!

More fun projects to come, including how I dressed up the little hearts on top of the diaper cake shown here in this last picture.  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Another grandbaby!

We are expecting our seventh grandchild.  Yes, you read that right seventh!  Our oldest son and daughter-in-law are expecting their first child.

She is due in early May...I'm personally holding out for my birthday...other family and friends want her born on their birthday's, so we'll see if she accommodates any of us or just comes on her own terms!!! I'm inclined to think that is what will happen (smile)!  The kids decided they wanted to come home before their little bundle of joy arrives and so while they were home we (both families) hosted a baby shower for them.

In anticipation of the birth of our newest granddaughter, I wanted to make some pretty girly decorations for the shower.  Additionally, my daughter-in-law peruses Pinterest just like many of us and had found some cute ideas for different baby shower games and activities. I was able to gather the materials from the local craft stores and we were able to have a little hair band creation activity at the shower as well as the rest of the games and fun.

The day for the shower turned out to be a beautiful Northern California spring day with sunshine and warm weather, so the outdoor festivities went off without a hitch.  I'll be posting a few of the projects I did for the shower over the next few days.  Little Laila was well loved in advance of her upcoming birth.  Come back and check out some of the special things I made for her!

See you soon!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!