DIY: Diaper Motorcycle

Back in May I attended (and helped host) a baby shower for my boyfriends brother's girlfriend, Shawna.  The shower was on the smaller side with about 10 guests, most of which were older women {grandma's, aunts, grandma-to-be's friends... plus a few cousins who are having kids of their own. And me.}.  Because the shower was being hosted at my boyfriend's cousin's house, with most of the guests from out of town, we didn't do much decorating {gasp, I know!}.  With that in mind, I wanted to make something super cute as a centerpiece and focal point for the party - so I found some directions here for a Diaper Motorcycle.  I chose to make this as part of my gift for Shawna for two reasons - 1. The daddy-to-be is head over heels {literally} in love with BMX biking {and he's really good at it!} and 2. They were going with a monkey theme for their nursery {perfect for a BMX biker's kid, right?}.

This was actually quite easy to make... you just have to have patience!  I will give a quick overview of what I used to make my diaper bike, but please head over to the web site I used for more detailed instructions and photos.

Materials:

- 2 cloth bibs {you don't want plastic or they won't form to the wheels like a hubcap}

- 3 receiving blankets {I used 2 blankets to connect the wheels and a burp rag for
  the handle bars}

- 1 4-oz bottle

- 1 wash cloth

- 1 stuffed animal

- 1" ribbon {used to wrap wheels when complete}

- Linking rings {you can find these in the toy aisle of Target, Walmart or at Toys R Us
  I'm sure}

- Diapers {this is where it gets tricky.  The site told me to use 70, but they used size
  2 diapers.  I ended up using 36 because I was using size 1-2... it just scaled down
  the size a bit, which worked with my stuffed animal, anyway}

- Additional toys/clothes that you want to add to it {the site said to use socks as
  part of the handle bars, I actually bought some wrist rattles and used those
  instead}
- Rubber bands

I was going to bring your through step-by-step instructions, but because I don't have a visual to show you for each step, and because I think the web site does a great job detailing what to do, I suggest you take a look there. 

Have you made a diaper motorcycle before?  How about other types of diaper cakes or items as a gift or decor for a baby shower?  We would love for you to share them with us!

Real Party: Heels to Wheels Baby Shower

I just love a unique themed party, it's just so refreshing, so when I came across this baby shower on Catch My Party, I bookmarked it for future reference, and to share with you, my readers!  I think I was so drawn to this party because I consider myself to be a city girl - I've always grown up near Minneapolis (though always living in a suburb), and I can't really ever see myself being able to move to the country (trust me, my parents live out in the boonies in Mississippi, and I know FOR SURE that's not the lifestyle for me... at least not at this point in time of my life).  However, with that said, I'd like to think of myself as a little bit country (you know, because I like country music, cowboy boots, horseback riding, barbecues, etc.)  Oh, and no worries, I'm not too offended if you real country folk are rolling your eyes at that last sentence! :)

Anyway, enough of my rambling and on to the reason for this post - the baby shower!  The theme for the shower was "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" because the mom to be was a city girl turned country girl.  An extra cool concept the hostesses added for this party was asking their guests to dress according to what they felt they were - a city girl or a country girl.  The decor included hay bales covered in quilts, cutouts of cowboy boots and black heels and a real pair of cowboy boots used as vases for some country-like flowers.  The hostess separated the food up into "city food" and "country food", as well as "city drinks" and "country drinks" - such a fun way to continue the theme into the food and drinks!

Some country girl seating!

simple decor - flowers in tin cans

City girl appetizers

country girl desserts

some caramel corn served in an old wood box - too cute!

country girl drinks

what country party would be complete with out mason jar drinking glasses?

one of my favorite details from the whole party!

This shower theme is great for hostesses on a budget, as most of the decor for this shower were items most country girls have laying around!  Head over to Catch My Party to view more photos from this cute shower!

Do you have some friends who were raised city girls but turned country?  How about country girls turned city girls - would the party have the same effect if the situations were switched around?  

Real Party: Pink Baby Shower

Sorry I have been so MIA lately, I've been working pretty hard on trying to get my content for the release of the web site written for my web designer.  I've also been working diligently on getting the printables for my nieces Baptism prepared in addition to assisting with the planning of my "sister in laws" (she's not really my sister in law, but the girlfriend of my boyfriends brother, it's just easier to call her a SIL) baby shower that's coming up in May!  We recently found out that they're having a boy - how exciting!!

When planning events I love to get inspiration from other parties... and while I'm planning a BOY's baby shower, I had to share this adorable GIRL baby shower... because it's just too cute not to!  Today's real baby shower comes from Michelle of the Crazy for Design blog and it's just beautiful!  The color scheme - light pink, white and silver - matched perfectly for the winter-themed shower.  The dessert table set up and the adorable printables really made this party!

How gorgeous is this set up?!  I'm loving this color palette!

The favor tree... what were the favors you ask?!  White chocolate on a stick!... mmmm!

The dessert table was made up of white chocolate/strawberry mousse, lemon sandwich cookies, handmade marshmallows, cheesecake pops, chocolate covered pretzels, brownie pops and cream puffs - all homemade by Michelle.... um, YUM!  In addition to these handmade items, there were donut holes, caramel popcorn, chocolate kisses and strawberry malt balls.  Michelle's sister-in-law also brought over her own homemade cupcakes and chocolate covered pretzels.  Talk about DEE-LISH-OUS desserts!

To read more about the details of this adorable winter baby shower, and see more photos, head over to the Crazy for Design blog.  Bonus: if you're interested in ordering some of these printables for your next shower, Michelle is offering them in her Etsy shop!

Pink and Yellow Baby Shower

Some of you may remember me writing about the baby shower I planned for my sister - it will be my first niece, so I was just ecstatic to be planning her shower.  Some of you may also remember that we had a huge snow storm the day of the shower and most of our guests showed up 45- to 30-minutes before the actual start time the event, thus causing me to miss any photo-taking opportunities.  I really wanted to show you all the work I did on creating the custom printables for the party, so I took some at home.  Please pardon the poor picture quality, as they were taken in my basement with poor lighting.

{enjoy}

Custom Welcome Sign

Cute wire basket {from the dollar store}

custom cards for shower

I made vanilla covered pretzels using pink candy melts

custom favor labels were created for the shower, too.  They read "Thank you for joining me to celebrate my sweet baby girl"

Custom Hershey Kiss labels

Cupcake toppers

I hope you enjoyed viewing some photos of the designs I created for my sisters Pink and Yellow Baby Shower.  I'm so sorry I wasn't able to get pics of the actual shower... and after looking at these, I think I need a better camera! :)

Teressa's Navy and Pink Baby Shower - the details

The shower I co-hosted for my good friend from college went great this past Saturday - much more laid back and less hectic than my sister's shower last Saturday... but I think that has something to do with the weather and a smaller guest list.

My other friend from college, Kelsey is starting her own photography business and took some photos of the shower for me - I can't wait to see them!  You can check out more of her great work here, at Kelsey Ann Photography.

While I don't have any of the photos yet, I wanted to give some details of the shower... with the pictures to follow!

Teressa {the guest of honor and momma-to-be of twin babies} wanted a friends only shower to avoid an event getting too big {after last weeks shower for my sister, I totally understand this!}, so she invited around 17 people and we had 10 or 11 people in attendance.  Because she isn't finding out the sex of the babies {she has way more will power than I would if I were pregnant with twins}, I wanted to go with a theme that matched colors for both a boy and a girl, so we went with dark navy blue and a fuchsia/hot pink - I think she's having a boy and a girl, so I think the colors worked great! :)  I'll post photos soon of the invite and envelope I sent out... it may be one of my favorite creations so far!

The shower started at two and after some mingling and chatting, we started the games.  We played three different games - the first was a bottle game where every guest was given a bottle filled with 4 oz of lemonade and they had to drink it the fastest (through the nipple mind you).  The game was hilarious to watch... and I honestly never realized how hard it was to drink out of a bottle... especially with sweet lemonade (note to self, lemonade hurts the jaw when sucking it through a bottle).  The next game we played was a quick game of The Price is Right.  My co-host, Tanya, picked up a bunch of essentials for babies and mom, and each guest had to guess the total cost of the everything - the mom-to-be was quite fooled by the cost, as she quested more than $20 below the actual cost of the items!  Our last game was a relay game involving a clothesline.  Each guest was given a teddy bear to hold on their hip while they took onesies, bibs and socks down from a clothesline and dropped it in a laundry basket on the floor - the variance in time was crazy!

After all of the games everyone filled up on lunch and dessert.  Tanya brought all the food for lunch and I made all of the desserts.  For lunch, Tanya made pulled pork sandwiches (they were so delicious!), chips, vegetables, a pasta salad and I made a jello salad.  For desserts, I made vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting, pink rice krispy bars and brownies. I dyed the cupcake frosting and rice krispy bars pink because I didn't think anyone would want to eat a blue dyed cupcake - can you imagine how that'd temporarily dye your teeth!?  Guests were also asked to fill out a "wishes for the babies" card for Teressa to keep as a memory.

The last part of the shower was reserved for the opening of gifts!  Teressa received a lot of fun stuff - including plenty of toys, which made her husband extremely happy!  She also received a lot of diapers (she's going to need them with twins!), some clothing, and other essentials for the babies.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the shower!  Like I mentioned, there are photos coming, so you can put an image to the novel I just wrote!  I will leave you with one my favorite maternity photos of the mom and dad to be, taken by Kelsey Ann Photography.

Aren't they too cute!  I think this photo should be an ad that is in a pregnancy magazine!

I dare you....

.... to come up with as many words that can come to mind that you correlate with a baby girl. Some examples: beautiful, soft, angel, princess, spoiled...

I'm working on a project and need your help!!! :)

Real Party: Baseball Baby Shower

Happy Monday!  I hope everyone had a great weekend... personally, I think it went by way too fast!  I was in a wedding on Friday that turned out gorgeous... my best friend from high school looked like a life-size Barbie!  I'll post pictures when I have some!

Anyway, I came across this adorable baseball baby shower awhile back on the Oh Baby! Custom Shower Decor blog and just had to share it!  Baseball season is coming to a close as playoffs near the beginning of October, so I thought this would be a fitting post... plus, I'm in dire need of baby shower inspiration and I love this shower!

How cute are these baseball invitations?

The menu for this baseball baby shower was so fitting!  Hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, peanuts

a close-up of the cotton candy cups

I love the idea of having an old fashioned popcorn popper at the party!  So cute!

These baseball cupcakes look adorable... and delicious!

Sandi, the talent behind Oh Baby!, made the adorable bunting for the party

Guests took home gourmet rocky road popcorn... don't you just love the baseball takeout containers?

I'll be planning my sisters baby shower in a couple of months, and will also be hosting a shower for one of my good friends from college who is having TWINS this coming winter!  Who has some great ideas for a baby shower for twins that is gender neutral?

Real Party: Giraffe Baby Shower

I found this adorable Giraffe Baby Shower featured on the Half Baked Cake blog from Dimple Prints blog and was just swooning over it!  I love giraffes... especially when they're designed with babies in mind (there's something so cute about a baby giraffe!).  The other element I loved of this party was the colors - the yellow, orange and grey combo worked so great together!

This party was actually sent to Dimple Prints by one of their customers... Dimple Prints designed the printables - invites, mailing labels, banner, cupcake toppers, etc.  Check out how great everything turned out!






























Head over to the Dimple Prints blog to check out more great details about this super cute baby shower and other parties they've hosted and helped create!