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Party for our Willy, Nilly, Silly Ole Bear

Since Esther was only a few days old she has had the nickname of “Esther-Bear.” She was a VERY vocal little baby and was always making growling noises. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but she has always loved Winnie-the-Pooh. As young as 18 months old she would “sing” the little Winnie-the-Pooh song. So, I’ve known for a long time that we would do a Pooh theme for her Second Birthday.

Now, many of you know that Esther’s birthday is actually in December…so, why did we have her party in February? Well, the week her party was originally scheduled for in December all three of us girls got nasty colds that developed into upper respiratory infections. Sadly, the day before her party I just had to cancel. I meant to reschedule for sometime in January, but there seemed to be a lot going on in January and it got pushed back to February.

Okay, first for some party details:

This was our party space…we went to one of the smaller parks in the city so there was just the one pavilion with three tables. But that was perfect for our little party.

I made a little pennant banner for our Esther-Bear. I finally invested in some paper crafting tools, like a corner rounder and a scalloped punch. Making decorations for this party was a breeze with those.

And this was our food table…we served strawberry lemonade (which is one of our birthday party traditions) along with…

Veggies from Rabbit’s Garden and…

Silly Ole Bears (aka Gummy Bears) and…

Hunny Combs and…

some Tigger Tails.

These were really easy to make and you can find a bajillion tutorials online. Basically I got those Wilton orange candy melts, melted them and dipped my pretzel rods in. I let those cool and then I melted chocolate and drizzled that over the orange. I will say this…I totally used the wrong kind of chocolate. I mean, it was tasty, but it didn’t really set up hard like the orange did. We had to keep them frozen/cold right up until the last minute because the chocolate got really sticky. I just used some chocolate chips we had on hand, but apparently that was not the right kind of stuff to use. I suppose I need to use some sort of candy making chocolate. It didn’t really matter…they were a BIG hit. Adults and children alike gobbled them up. So, I declare them a success.

And of course there were cupcakes!

I will say that making these was my best baking endeavor ever. I didn’t really do anything from scratch, but there were still really yummy. I took two different batters (a butter yellow mix and a lemon cake mix) and blended them together. The result was a tasty, moist cake with a slight lemon flavor. For the icing we doctored up the canned butter cream icing with about a half a cup of creamed honey (we found ours at Trader Joe’s) and a quarter cup of cream cheese (just to cut the sweetness some). These cupcakes were SOOO good. They were light and sweet, but not too sweet. Just perfect.

Some other things that contributed to their success: 1) I actually measured out 1/4 cup for each cupcake, so they were nice and uniform. 2) I purchased appropriate tips for piping. 3) I researched some methods of frosting cupcakes so I could get the look I wanted. 4) I purchased the super cute bees from a confectioner on Etsy. They were perfect and added just the right touch.

The other little cupcakes were a surprise from my mom. She knew the theme and made those super-cute little cupcakes. Basically they are little bears in a bathtub. They were very yummy and had the surprise of ha Rolo candy hidden in the center. Thanks, Mom!

For the favor bags, I just got regular red paper bags and I glued this image to the outside.

At the dollar store I found Winnie-the-Pooh puzzles for the older kids and little Winnie-the-Pooh stamp sets for the little ones. Each kid also got a couple lollipops, a bag of Teddy Grahams and a little bee magnet. Of course, I neglected to get pictures of the magnets, but you can see a couple extras decorating the food table in the pictures above.

It actually ended up being a perfect day for a party. We decided to have her party at a park and I am not sure I will ever go back to house parties again. Even with transporting everything there and back, it was just so much easier! We had wonderful weather (although a bit windy) and the kids had a great time playing on the playground and exploring the “Hundred Acre Wood.”

*Note…I feel kind of weird posting pictures of other people’s kids…so, you just get to see mostly mine. But don’t worry…she did have friends there!

Waiting not-so-patiently for her party to begin.

Sliding!

Whee!

Swinging with her little cousin

Just a girl and her bear.

Dinah and her Granny off to explore.

Getting ready to sing to our Bear.

Digging into her cupcake

Post-cupcake frosting face

Dinah “helping” her sister open presents

Happy (late) birthday, little Bear!

Thanks to everyone who was able to come! We had a great time!

We Are a House Divided

That kind of sums up Fall for our family. Most people who live up north are pulling out coats and warm socks while decorating with lovely autumnal colors. In Florida there is no Fall…it is October 1 and it was almost 90 degrees here today and there is no real relief in sight. I always joke that the leaves on our trees don’t fall off until the new ones push the old ones off in the Spring. And…in a college town Fall really means college football!

So, when it came time for me to take down my Summer wreath and put up a “Fall” one…my thoughts immediately when to doing a “House Divided” themed wreath. You see, while I live near the University of Florida and am married to a Gator, I am a (proud) alumna of the University of Georgia. And for those of you not from the South, ours is not a very friendly rivalry. The last Saturday in October things get a little intense.

But, we make it work…our love conquers all.

I’ve been eyeing those ribbon wreaths on Pinterest and was waiting for a good idea for using one and this ended up being perfect.

I got 1.5 inch grosgrain ribbon in red, black,orange and blue. I cut them all into roughly 10 inch lengths and finished the ends with little tails. And then I started tying…and tying…and tying. Then I went back to the store and got more ribbon and tied some more. Seriously…there is just about 100 feet of ribbon on this thing.

For the hanger, I painted our school initials and glued them to a white 1.5 grosgrain ribbon.

And now we can show off where our (divided) loyalties lie.

And, of course, I had to make my girls their “gameday dresses” this year. This year I used the Oliver+S popover dress pattern.

For the Georgia dresses I put simple white piping at the yoke to give it some visual interest.

On the Florida dresses I used ricrac…doesn’t it look like little teeth?

I also used my embroidery machine to add the team logos to the band at the hem. (I think I used the wrong kind of stabilizer, so just ignore the puckering there.)

The best thing about the Oliver+S pattern is that it is kind of adjustable because of the shoulder ties. As long as the girls don’t grow sideways too much they should be able to wear these dresses again next year. Bonus!

Also, I wanted to share my new trick with you all…I had a couple rubber stamps made with my logo. So, now I can use fabric ink to stamp my logo onto little tags or the backs of garments. I can even now include the size of the garment. So fun!

Happy Fall to everyone! And Go Dawgs!

Okay, ladies (or gents) that do machine embroidery, I need your help…what kind of stabilizer do you guys use for embroidery?

Onesie Making Party

Last weekend I had to the pleasure of hosting a Onesie Making Party for my little sister and her soon-to-arrive baby boy. One of the things Amber was excited about from even before getting pregnant was this idea. She had pinned a few ideas from other parties and because of my crafty proclivities it was a natural fit for me to put it together. Amber really preferred the idea of appliqued designs on the onesies instead of painted designs so we focused more on that. Lucky for her, she has a sister, mother, mother-in-law and several friends who sew.

But, first things first…I wanted to put together some cute, printed invites for Amber to put in baby Benjamin’s baby book. I loved the idea of a onesie shaped invite, so I designed my own. Here is a quick overview/tutorial? of what I did. It was very easy, but I had to cut it all by hand. (One day I will own a Sillhouette Cameo!)

First I designed my invites using Microsoft Visio, Photoshop and InDesign. I already had 5 x 7 envelopes left over from Esther’s birthday invites so I designed the base piece to fit inside those.

The little green onesie was designed to fit exactly over the words on the invite.

And then the little tie had flaps that I would stick through both pieces and would hold everything together. I printed them all out onto cardstock and cut everything out.

Next, I measured the placement of the tie flaps, marked them and used an exacto knife to cut slits in the all the onesies.

Once they all had slits I would paperclip each onesie in place on the base card.

Using the onesie slits as a guide, I made slits in the base cards as well.

The final steps were to insert the tie flaps into the slits, fold and tape them down.

And finito! I really love how they turned out. They were a lot of work, with all the fiddly cutting, but I think they were worth it. Now Amber has cute, one-of-a-kind invites to put in Benjamin’s book.

So, for the party…Amber and I had both been pinning applique onesie ideas, so I made sure to send all the invitees links to our Pinterest boards for ideas. I also printed out a few of the best ones for reference during the party, as well some templates for some simple designs.

I set everything out, along with several plain white or striped onesies that I had acquired over the last few months. I also pulled out all the boyish scraps I had. And the party began!

We had a great time deciding who would do what, choosing fabrics, and cutting and ironing.

My mom was on a tear…her motto was “No naked onesies!” and she created several.

Amber’s mother-in-law, Kathy, helped Amber create all the numbers for her month-by-month onesies.

And my poor friend Anna was stuck at the sewing machine all night (she was the best at actually sewing on the appliques). She is awesome…you should check out her shop. A Good Home.

We eventually let her go and my mom and I finished up.

Benjamin got a lot of really cute onesies…I think 18 total (not counting the month-by-months). Benjamin will be well outfited from 0-12 months!

(The picture above isn’t even all of them…you can see several in the “queue” for the sewing machine on the table.)

After the party and all through this week I used my embroidery machine to add the initials of each onesie’s creator. That way Amber would have a prompt to remember who made each cute little onesie.

Have you ever done a onesie party? Have you ever embroidered or appliqued a onesie? Man, was it hard…especially the newborn size…those are SO tiny. Does anyone have some tips for future onesie decorating ideas?

Guess who is still alive…

…that would be me.

So, I ended up taking a longer break than I had intended from blogging. Sorry to abandon you all, but life seemed to keep getting crazier and crazier. And then the longer I was away the harder it was to come back.

The time away has given me a chance to think about where I want to go from here and re-evaluate some things. I have some exciting plans in the works (if you “like” me on Facebook you got a teaser earlier last week) and the Fall always seems to be my busiest sewing time of year. (Check out the “To Do” list.)

But, for now, let’s recap the second half of my summer.

The biggest thing that I did was coordinate our church’s VBS program. We did a London Olympics theme this year to tie in with current events. We had an awesome week! We made the London skyline along our hallway and each room was a different area of London. Our volunteers did such a great job that I wanted to share some of our work with you.

After VBS my family went on a much needed vacation. We just spent a few days down in Orlando at my parent’s place hitting up some non-Disney things in the area, like SeaWorld and the beach. Last summer I made a robe for Dinah with the Beach Robe pattern from Dana over at MADE. My plan was to make another one for Esther, but just never got around to it last year. I had a little extra time before we left so I went ahead and whipped one up for her.

Esther nice and cozy after a long morning at the beach.

Sisters in their robes (with their cute, preggo Auntie)

For both robes I used Ikea bath sheets. I felt these were perfect because they were nice and absorbent, but not very fuzzy. Dinah’s has held up very well through two summers of use.

Dinah was trying to make Esther feel better after her traumatizing rinse-off in the waves.

I love these robes…we have even been using them as bathrobes.

"With some on top and some beneath, they brushed and brushed and brushed their teeth."

Esther LOVES her robe...she gets so excited to put it on after bath.

I do have plans to make a couple more with long sleeves to be used for bathrobes instead. Now that I have conquered my fears of bias tape I can complete one of these pretty quickly. Dana’s instructions are really easy to follow and I definitely recommend her pattern.

More toothbrushing cuteness

And the final thing I have been working on is planning and hosting a onesie making party for my sister who is expecting her first little one in September. I decided to make my own invitations for it and I will share how I did them and pics from the party in another post, since this one is already getting too long.

Thanks to those who are still around after my long break…hopefully I will be able to pick my momentum again soon!

What did you make this summer?

Early Summer Wreath

As I sit here and listen to the rain from Tropical Storm Debby, I thought I would share a fun summer wreath project with you.

I just love teal-y blues with red. Don’t you? I think it is just so fresh looking. So, for my early summer wreath I wanted to use those colors.

I love the ease of doing a yarn wrapped wreath, but felt like yarn wasn’t quite right for summer. Then I saw this on Pinterest and I knew it was “the one.” Fabric wrapping!

Source: charmingzebra.com via Harmony on Pinterest

I don’t have a full tutorial for you, but this would be VERY easy for you to put together. Here is what I did:

1. I got one of those straw wreaths from the craft store. Somewhere online I read a tip to use these instead of the foam ones if you are planning on just wrapping the wreath. They are WAY cheaper and just as easy to use. Simply leave the plastic wrapping on the wreath so you don’t have to deal with the pokey straw.

2. I bought a 1/2 yard of the blue fabric, washed it and then tore it into strips. I love the softly frayed look the edges have with tearing versus cutting. And believe me, you don’t need to be the Incredible Hulk to be able to tear your fabric. All I did was clip a slit (to get the tear started) about two inches from the edge on the shorter side of the fabric and then pulled and tore. It tore very easily and made the perfect strips. A 1/2 yard of fabric was the perfect amount to get to wrap the whole wreath and to have a little bit left over for hanging and to add accents to your flowers.

3. After that I wrapped and wrapped. I actually didn’t have to glue or anything. I just overlapped the ends when I needed to add a new strip. I also did all my overlapping on the backside of the wreath so it wasn’t as noticeable from the front. When I got to the very end I did use one small drop of hot glue on the back to secure the final end.

4. I made rolled roses of various sizes from torn strips of a couple fat quarters and leftover scraps from the wrapping the wreath. There are a ton of tutorials out there on how to do this, but the short of it is: tie a knot on one end, wrap the fabric around the knot a couple times, twist the fabric and wrap again. Hold the rose firmly and keep twisting and wrapping until you have the desired shape or size. Hot glue the tail on the bottom and put a few dots of hot glue between your “petals” to keep the rose together.

5. I used pins to secure the roses to the wreath while I was determining their placement. Once I finalized the design I hot glued the flowers to the wreath and removed the pins.

6. For the hanger I created a loop with one of my leftover strips by securing the ends with a dab of hot glue. I determined how far down I wanted it to hang and then I tied it in a knot. I did not glue the hanger to the wreath because I wanted options for how high or low the flowers would be situated.

And that is it! A perfectly lovely summer wreath to adorn the door to even the messiest home. (Gotta whitewash those tombs, eh?)

I hope all of you here in Florida can stay dry! (and your children don’t go too crazy being cooped up!) I wish we could some of this to some of my family out in Colorado!

sew in harmony

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