baby shower — pleasure in simple things

Tag: baby shower

sprinkled with love

August

I truly believe personalization is the key to a great party. And, creating favors that do a great job of embracing the occasion are a key component of any successful celebration!

I have a great example from a recent family baby shower I wanted to share – it should definitely get your creative juices flowing!

So, the mom-to-be had a passion for a particular brand of sprinkles. The future dad had always loved animal crackers. What better way to personalize a baby shower favor, than to incorporate these 2 loves! How?

To execute this into a baby shower favor, a tin baby-sized cup was used to house some animal crackers. To elevate the garden variety animal cracker, they were dipped into white chocolate and then sprinkles before getting packaged in cellphone bags. Baby bracelets crafted of beads by the grandma-to-be were attached to each cup as a place card and a ‘sprinkled with love’ tag was added. Cute, right? Of course, there were many ways to carry through the sprinkles (like the cake!) and animal themes throughout the rest of the party!

Can you think of a cool way to incorporate personal elements into the favors you create for your next celebration?

Thanks for stopping by!

Remember to take pleasure in simple things, Jackie

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state shaped sugar cookies

May

Remember when I made the state gift tag for a baby shower I was attending? I was attending a party in Connecticut for a baby being born in Florida. I really wanted to acknowledge both states in my gift and I came up with the idea of using both shapes as a gift tag. (See the gift tag by clicking here.) As the date of the shower got closer, I thought “Wouldn’t it be cool to make cookies in the shape of the two states to add to the dessert table?”

I had visions of spending many hours cutting each state cookie out by hand – since once I have an idea like this; I have no choice but to follow through on it! No question, I have cut out many unusual shaped cookies in my day – particularly for children’s birthday parties. In the past, I have made cookies of each one of the Wizard of Oz characters and all the Ninja turtles – cutting out each shape carefully with a dull knife.

With visions of cutting tons of Florida and Connecticut shaped cookies using a knife, I wondered if there might be state cookie cutters available. Sure enough, I searched the Internet and quickly found, not only could I order a cookie cutter for any state, but I could get them pretty darn cheap! What a time saver!

So, I made my sugar cookie dough, rolled it out, and cut out the shapes of the two states using my new cookie cutters. What an awesome way to acknowledge the two states!

Are the wheels turning? Are you thinking of all the ways you could use state cookie cutters? Showers, rehearsal dinners, reunions, graduations – even Christmas tree ornaments! So fun!

I decorated my state cookies to match the colors of the baby’s nursery – pink, gold, and white. (Did you see the shower gift I made? Click here to see. )

After the shower, when the baby gifts got packed up to be sent to Florida, the Florida cookie cutter was tucked into the box. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by. Remember to take pleasure in simple things, Jackie

Sharing with Crafts a la Mode, The Shabby Nest, and House of Hipsters.

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personalized baby canvas diy

April

I have a baby shower coming up and I really wanted my gift to be a personalized one. Because the baby’s name was already chosen and is a unique one, I knew it would not be possible to find anything premade with a personalization of her name.

So, I found out the colors of the baby’s room and came up with my own gift that includes a personalization. I painted a canvas to coordinate with the baby’s pink, white, and gold room and it includes her name!

Isn’t this a sweet gift?

If you want to try your hand at making one, here are the steps I took to create the canvas:

-Paint the entire canvas (18” square) with an off white acrylic paint.
-Divide the canvas into an odd number of evenly spaced horizontal stripes.
-Cut a heart shape (mine was approximately 12”) from paper and use a couple pieces of rolled tape to hold it in place – this will mask out the heart shape that you will later paint pink.

-Use painter’s tape to mask off the areas for painting the gold stripes.
-Paint alternate stripes in metallic gold – starting and ending with gold -paint right over the paper heart, but be sure to keep it flat and not to let paint seep under it.
-After the gold paint dries, use a pencil to very lightly trace the outline of the paper heart onto the canvas.

(Note: If you don’t feel comfortable hand painting the baby’s name in the heart, you can use stick-on letters at this point by positioning them in the heart shape and removing them carefully with a craft knife after the pink paint dries. Or, you can stencil white letters on top of the pink paint after it dries.)

-Remove the paper heart and use a brush to fill in the heart shape with light pink acrylic paint.

-After the pink paint dries, use a pencil to lightly write the baby’s name inside the heart.
-Using the pencil marks as a guide, paint the baby’s name with white paint.

After everything was dry, I went back and did a final touch-up on anything that may have needed it.

Then, I added my own lasting sentiment for the soon-to-be-born baby! :)

I am really excited about the gift! I will share more pink, white, and gold baby shower ideas in an upcoming post! And, maybe even a photo of the canvas in Leverette’s nursery! ;)