Catching Up: Pastel Baby Shower: Party Decor

Aunt Ruth wanted a onesie theme for the shower to compliment the diaper invitations. She picked out the cake and I ran with it from there.

Guests were greeted by onesie place cards.

I used the same polka dot fabric as the invitations in six colors to assign seats at the six tables. Each table had a floral centerpiece and color flag in an antique baby bottle, which Aunt Ruth borrowed from her neighbor.

All of the paper products were color-coded to match the table's flag. I photocopied the different fabrics onto white cardstock and printed the menu onto the "custom paper." There was an adult menu and a kids' menu.

For the kids' menus, I stitched the photocopy to make a pocket envelope. The kids' menu was printed onto the pocket, which held an activity book that I created. The covers of the activity books also had color-coded onesies. (More details to follow later this week.) Each kid received a pack of crayons wrapped in colored fabric and blue baker's twine.

In addition to menus, each place setting had a note asking the guest to leave a note for the parents-to-be and big sister to read to the new babe on his "birth" day. I ran baby envelopes through a Xyron machine and used zots to  attach the envelope "stickers" to the note cards. The envelopes contained 2" x 3 1/2" cards for the messages. At the end of the party, I pasted them into a scrapbook. I used photocopies of the fabric to cover the pencils.

Each place setting also included a diaper or onesie sugar cookie from my favorite bakery, which is now defunct. (Booo!)

The favors were placed in cellophane bags sealed with stickers that I made by stitching hand-cut fabric onesies with iron-on messages to circle shapes, which I then ran through my Xyron. Yes, I hand cut 36 miniature onesies. (Technically, I cut over 300. Because I am a loser that likes to avoid going to the gym. More pix to follow.)

I also made a fabric banner. The center of the banner was a onesie from the high school that my in-laws attended. Unfortunately, there wasn't anywhere to hang the banner, so it was a banner fail.

Previously: The Invitations
Next: The Kids' Activity Books

Catching Up: Pastel Baby Shower: Invitations

***I had been saving these next few shower posts for something that didn't pan out and then I hoped to get some better photos of the party items. Since neither of those happened, I'll just hide behind being really, really busy and post them under "Catching Up." Which isn't a total lie, as according to blogger, I started these posts in July!***

In February, I helped Aunt Ruth plan a shower for my sister-in-law, who gave birth to a shiny new boy in March. I say helped, but Aunt Ruth really planned and hosted the shower. I just plastered pastel polka dots and fabrics anywhere that would hold them.

The invitations were my first project on my new sewing machine. I thought that I'd polish them off in an afternoon  while on Christmas vacation. Well, I thought wrong. Thankfully, no one noticed the flaws that I shed so many tears over. And they all thought that I intentionally bunched up the corners so they'd look like Pampers (I didn't).

I had two versions - white with blue dots and a blue lining and vice versa. I was so hard on myself about these, but now that I've been away from them for awhile, they look pretty good!

I printed the party details on iron-on transfer paper, cut out the pattern, and ironed it onto the sewn diapers. I then added a round sticker asking everyone to bring their favorite children's book.

I lined the envelopes with leftover fabric. Each envelope was lined in the opposite fabric of the invite. A few were also lined in some striped fabric that Andy vetoed for the invites because "it looked like old man pajamas.

A word about these liners. I was getting the envelopes ready to mail at about 10:30 p.m. the night before they HAD to go out. I tried lining one and thought, "That was easy." I believe that I went to bed at about 4:00 a.m. that night. And it was a school night.

Everything was packaged in a gravel-colored envelope from Paper Source (obvi).

{All bad iPhone photos by me}

Up Next: The Party Decor

Poor Kate

From today's Merriam-Webster home page:

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Now that's FUNNY. (But not really when you read the whole thing.)

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Andy is also funny:

• Tina: "I don't get why Passion Pit is considered hipster. They're pretty pop."
• Andy: "White guys with beards."

We were leaving the house yesterday and laughing about who knows what when he said, "I hope our kids have our sense of humor because otherwise it's going to be a long life."

Catching Up: 2009 Christmas Cards, Part 2

After I blew my entire 2009 Christmas Card Cash and Time Budget on my Regretsy Illustrations, I was kind of forced to send out our Christmas Cards with the illustrations of strangers. Also, by this time, Paper Source had sold out of all of the stock that  I needed.

So I ended up with blue Christmas cards containing a cartoon drawing of a man that kind of looks Andy and some hag in a stupid sweater:

All of my Facebook friends knew the deal, but you know that the other 75 people on our Christmas card list were probably thinking "WTF?"

Note to any Chicago girls that might be interested in twine for their Christmas invites, it's not to be found anywhere but Paper Source within the immediate downtown area. Sur La Table and Williams-Sonoma will act like you asked them if they sold buzz saws if you call to ask for it. P.O.S.H. sells blue baker's twine.

Hallow's Eve 2010

Halloween was a hoot this year. As you know, my friend and I dressed up for work.

On Saturday, Andy and I went Trick or Treating out in the suburbs with our niece and nephew.

Our nephew was Yoda, and hated it. His big sister was Alice. (Sorry, only faceless photos allowed on the Interwebs for kids that don't belong to me.)

We saw some quite excellent and funny monsters.

And then we went to the annual concert at the Double Door. I dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein.

Or more appropriately, Edna Turnblad does the Bride of Frankenstein**.

I bought my wig at Paper Source. Not kidding.

Andy was a pirate. He says, "Arrrrrgh! Look at me pants that I made me-self because my wife was freaking out over her costume, she was."

We've clearly moved out of the honeymoon phase, as try as I might, I couldn't get him to wear this  because it would be "hot."

And now it's time to pack it all in until next year. :(

**So about the BoF dress. I used the instructions from Martha Stewart's Gray Bride costume, which I am totally making one year.

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However, the instructions say to use seam binding and a large needle. I spent three hours trying to do that. The seam binding and big needle are too thick to get through the bunched up tulle, but too large to sew it. I spent three hours and a lot of curse words trying to do it her way before giving up and grabbing some 1/4" thick, 25 cent ribbon and a plain needle. It took about an hour to stitch it together the old-fashioned way. I'd also recommend adjusting the amount of tulle based on your size. I probably could have used twice as much to make it more opaque.