Baseball Party Decorations

We hosted my grandson's first birthday party at our house--out of necessity, we have wheelchair access, and my daughter Jess wanted to make sure her brother Nick could attend. 

 

Jess did all the planning and designing of the party, and I just helped her make it happen.  Here's a cute pic of Jess and Finn before the party:

 

That hat!

 

Jess made the birthday boy's cute hat from felt.  Here's a closer look at it:

 

Jess used felt that had been treated with fabric stiffener, cut out a "1," added a fuzzy pompom tot he top, and a bit of elastic. The back had a seam covered in cute red ribbon. It must have been comfortable, because Finn didn't mess with it at all and wore it for the whole party, even while enjoying his cupcake.

 

The party was baseball themed with colors being dark red, navy, and white. Because our beloved Cubbies were in the playoffs, it turned into a a Cubs theme too. This is before they broke our hearts in the NL playoffs--Wait 'til Next Year!

 

Because we are Cubs fans, we have a lot Cubs paraphernalia, so I took down all my regular decorations in the dining room and replaced them with Finn/Cubs/baseball themed items, costing very little to do.  Here's the mantel:

 

The two canvas photos on the far right and left sides are all pictures from Finn's newborn photo shoot. The Wrigley Field replica "Be Alert for Foul Balls" sign (signed by two Cubs players) and the Rizzo doll belong to Finn. The book with Harry Caray on it was a gift several years ago, the brick is leftover from Jess's high school graduation party, and the bat is a wedding gift from Jess to Neal with their wedding date wood burned into it.  The only new item is the banner.

 

A closer look at the banner:

It was made with my Cricut, CTMH cartridges, and baker's twine. Easy!

 

We added balloons (cheap) to the opening between the living room and the dining room. Tom was in charge of this project, which he accepted since he could use his air compressor--and he'd do anything for Jess and Finn.

 

Here's the whole string:

 

Jess picked up some inexpensive baseball lanterns at the local party store, and we hung them over the kitchen peninsula:

 

And we made another banner for over the buffet where the presents were stacked

 

 

More pictures of Finn clustered together for decoration, along with a brick and antique blocks spelling "Go Cubs." Cost = $0.00

 

 

More baseball themed decorations for the table:

 

 

I use this leftover glass container from Jess & Neal's wedding for EVERY occasion and holiday.  I consider it magical. Anything I put it in becomes a decoration.  This time I used baseballs.

 

 

I used a cheap platter and hot-glued baseballs to the bottom to make a stand for the baseball cup cakes we served.  After the party, I removed the baseballs from the platter and the glass container. They're now in the garage waiting for a future game of catch. No waste and little cost.

 

 

I used one piece of cardstock cut into the shape of home plate for a mat for the glass container. Too easy.

 

Here's a good look at the high chair (& Finn!):

 

The banner is three felt triangles with cs letters cut from my Cricut. Scraps of every red, white, & blue ribbon I had are tied to the ends. The whole thing was taped to the high chair tray. I'll reuse the ribbon pieces in future projects.

 

Here are some pics of the room all decorated before the party:

 

 

 

It turned out great and everyone, especially Finn, had a wonderful time. The decorations were fun even though they were really inexpensive.



1st Birthday Party!

It's hard to believe my grandson Finn's first birthday has come and gone already.  We had his party at our house so my son Nick could attend (wheelchair access).

 

How cute was he in his birthday-decorated highchair?  The theme was baseball and the Cubs, before their disappointing loss in the playoffs--Wait 'til Next Year!!!  The color theme was dark red, dark blue, and white. Another blog post soon with all the decorations.

Halloween Layout / H2H "Doodle" Challenge

The last couple of years, I've really started liking Halloween--not in the cute ghosts or childlike trick or treat style, but the creepy, skulls & voodoo doll style Halloween.

 

We'll be in New Orleans again for Halloween, this time with our whole Parrothead gang, taking in all the entertainment, food, and libations connected with any time spent in the Crescent City, and I've already made a layout for a picture not yet taken.

 

 

I just finished the layout, then decided to check out what the H2H Challenge is for this week, and it happened to be "Doodling," so since I doodled on the edges of the layout corners, I thought "two birds/one stone" and went ahead and tacked it onto that challenge blog.

 

I started with a plain piece of CTMH black cs. I used Dylusions orange and white paint and stencils for the background.  Ever since I was fortunate to attend a few Dyan Reavely classes this summer, I've been obsessed with using her Dylusions line, so I thought it would make a great background for a creepy layout. I let the painted background dry for a couple days (I only needed 24 hours, but I just didn't get back to it before today).  I added the white "doodling" a/k/a scribbles on the upper right and lower left corners using a Uniball Signo broad gel pen.

 

The white mat started as a pristine 5" x 7" piece of CTMH white daisy cs, then I distressed it with black CTMH ink and drew some black scribbles/doodling in the corners (these are hard to see after I topped it with the orange B&T paper).  I also crinkled the corners to make them look well worn.

 

The orange B&T is a little bit smaller than 5" x 7" (I didn't measure).  I distressed it with brown ink and attached it at an angle.  (I think it might be paper from Little Yellow Bicycle, but I'm not sure--it was in my unorganized stash of Halloween papers.)

 

The ribbon is CTMH's black striped grosgrain, and I applied it with Scor-Tape.  I ran a long piece of tape on the layout, then twisted the ribbon as I put it down, so it's all messy.  I added some small pieces of tape here and there and folded the ribbon over onto itself to keep it in place. I purposely left the ribbon ends frayed.

 

 

The rose was made with CTMH's Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. It was very pretty, then I smashed it flat and even tore it a bit and distressed it with black ink.  The tulle is also from CTMH. The three misc. brads and two stick pins are old CTMH embellishments from my stash that are happy to finally have a home, I'm sure.

 

 

The metal embellishment is from Tim Holtz, and the "Scary" insert is a sticker from Little Yellow Tricycle.

 

Here's the finished layout again:

 

Now I just need an awesome photo from the French Quarter on Halloween, and it's done! I'm sure I'll post it again once I do have that perfect picture.

Felt Ornaments

I've been making these little felt ornaments for a little over a year. Saturday, I finally put them up for sale at Spring City Vintage in Colfax. Admittedly, I priced them a little high, but I kind of hate to part with ANY of them, so if they come back to me, then I guess I'll have to keep them!  I shared a few on my Halloween Party post last year, but here are some more:

Pumpkins

Button-Eyed Owls

Sleepy Owls

Sugar Skulls

Voodoo Dolls

Snowflake Ornaments

Tree Ornaments



Gingerbread Man & Christmas Tree

Stars



Hearts

Penguin

Birds

Fish

Some of my ideas came from my head, and some came from Pinterest.  I drew all my own patterns and just freehanded some and then used the first cutout for the pattern for the others of similar design.  Everything is sewn by hand because the sewing machine and I don't play well together.

30 "Blows"

Happy 30th Birthday Gift

My office pal, Annie, turned 30 last week, so I made her a little birthday surprise. As a twist on my "30 sucks" sucker bouquet (a link to that post is HERE), I created a "30 Blows" gift with 30 pieces of bubblegum. Here's how it turned out:

I did all the writing freehand, which was really pretty sloppy before I embellished/doodled over it. I kept with the colors in the gum wrappers: blue, red, & white, except for the lid of the ball jar, which I covered in bubblegum pink.

 

The top sign is just affixed with a handmade easel:

 

A handmade tag, some leftover ribbon, and done!

 



Social Crafting

Painting with Friends:

 

Having never tried one of those "wine and canvas" group painting classes before, I was super excited to do it. Paint is really not my preferred medium, especially with a brush. I enjoyed it soooo much, I've been telling all my friends we need to go do it.

 

We went to Social Crafting in my hometown of Monroe. It was super reasonably priced.  If you live in central Iowa, give them a look. Paula, one of the co-owners, said they'll take their show on the road to the Des Moines area too for a nominal fee.  Here's the website: http://www.social-crafting.com/ or find them up on Facebook on the Social Crafting page.  Here's a shot of our group hard at work on Wednesday night. 

  

 

And one of Jess deep in thought about her painting:

 

Here's our group with all our "masterpieces."

 

 

And my finished piece.

 

Creative Minds Are Rarely Tidy canvas

 

Creative Minds Are Rarely Tidy  (truth.)

 



I finished up this canvas today.  The background is a Dyan Reavely-inspired background, using her new Dylusions paints from Ranger.  I stamped "Creative Minds Are Rarely Tidy" using the CTMH "Cocktail" alphabet and added some dots and white-pen embellishment.  The flowers are misc. ones from my stash, and the centers and black flourishes are all CTMH. The lighting was too bright in the bottom right-hand corner when I took the photo.  The black letters are actually all as dark as the upper left. 

H2H "Poppy Color Challenge"

I haven't participated in an online challenge for awhile, so I decided today's the day.  This challenge is from the Heart 2 Heart challenge page.  Here was the inspiration photo:

 

And here's what I made:

 

Obviously, I added a lot of black accents to the suggested colors.  I started with black cs for the card base, then added a CTMH Lagoon cs base mat, then a white cs mat, then a CTMH Sunset cs mat. I ran the final and top piece of white cs through my Cuttlebug for the embossed dots. I added white doodled dots around the black border to make the card more whimsical.  The poppies and sentiments are from CTMH's stamp set "Wavy Blooms." I colored the poppies with Copic markers (YR04, YR68, & R05). The flower centers are CTMH large black sparkles.

The Sunset cs, bottom left poppy, and "happy" are all attached with dimensional adhesives.

I have a friend who loves orange who has a birthday coming up, and this just might be her card!