Eclectic Vintage Baby Shower

A few friends and I threw a baby shower for our sweet friend Kristen.  It was so much fun to put this one together!  I have to say a HUGE thanks to my mom for all the antique and vintage doo-dads.  I asked her if I could go shopping in her house for all the prettys and she said yes.  I did go hog wild and it was fu-un! :)

 The framed pictures and paper roses and flowers on the table, the silhouettes on the wall and the button strand hanging from the light fixture are all courtesy of fellow hostess Eun H.  Eun volunteered her house and let me rearrange her furniture. :)  Thanks, Eun! Thanks to Carrera for the punch and sodas!  Yummy!

 I was really excited to be able to do a fabric strip garland.  Took a while, but I think it turned out well.  I got the fabric at Hobby Lobby.  I also found the corrugated metal initial letters at HL.  I just painted them, wiped off some spots to give it a vintage feel and then painted some little love birds and vines on them.  I then tied on some ribbon and hemp twine so they could be hung up.

 The cakes were chai tea latte.  I used jello molds to bake them for a vintage looked and then thinned out the icing to glaze the smaller ones.  The taller, more ornate one, got the powdered sugar treatment. :)

 Eun had the idea to surround the cake with oranges and blueberries.  It looked awesome!

 Aren't those mason jars with the baby's breath in them fantastic?  Fellow hostess Lucy did those along with the paper chain garland hanging from the ceiling and the pinwheels!  Thank you, Lucy!

Of course I had to do a chalkboard...it was necessary, I promise!  (Is there a support group for chalkboard addicts?)

 I had a good time shopping for the prizes and favors.

 Thanks to my mom for donating the pear chutney in the jars!  I just topped them off with fabric and pennants and twine.  I found some cheerwine and cherry limeade in old skool bottles at HEB and then put old fashioned candy in a goody bag and tied it with a paper straw around the neck.  Voila! prizes.

 The favors were old fashioned candy in favor cups wrapped in a goody bag.  Done and done.

 This is the already-a-mommy mum/corsage. :)  This took while, but I'm happy with the results.

 Eun provided this fabulous veggie tray...that we were totally sampling for an hour before the shower...;)

 Hummus and pita chips, yum!  Thanks, Rosy!

 Lucy did a fantastic job on the diaper cake!  Isn't it gorgeous?! Love!

And here are the two beauties we celebrated!  It was really laid back and so fun, more along the lines of a girls' night.

Modern Chevron, Stripes and Polka Dots Baby Shower

I had the privilege of putting together a really fun baby shower for our friend Lucy.  It was fresh and fun and thoroughly modern.  Lots of clean lines.  LOVE!

The cupcakes, wrappers and toppers were made by Laury and Kristen.  You ladies rock!  This was my first time making a diaper cake and I had a blast...I'm thinking it won't be my last. ;)  I found those tissue pom garlands at Hobby Lobby...have I mentioned how much I love that place!  I also got the fabric for the pennant banner there. :)

 Thanks to Rosy and Carrera for the yummy finger foods!

 The prizes were buckets of candy, nail polish and other little fun things.

 Laury and Kristen made the awesome chandelier.

Thanks to carrera for the delicious oreo pops!  Yum!

And of course, we cannot forget the absolutely necessary chalkboard.  #chalkboardlove

Baby Shower Fever!

We had ourselves a baby shower for some very dear friends yesterday, Sean and Christyn.  They are expecting their first baby boy near the end of the month!  So exciting!!  I am so blessed by a wonderful group of ladies in our church and home group.  I basically co-ordinated the plan, donated a few items to the cause and they brought the party with them and then took the party away when it was finished!  Fantastic!  I have to admit that my house was in complete disarray and it took most of last week to get it cleaned up and into party shape.  I need to start praying for a maid...for realz!

Anyway, we had such a great turn out.  The men folk came, too, and Sam started a fire in the fire pit in the backyard for a focal point addition to the party. ;p  They mozied back and forth between the fire and the food and occasionally to speak to their respective spouses.  :)  We had a full house, that's for sure and not enough seating, but that didn't seem to matter.  Lucy took over photography duty and I'm so glad she did because I didn't even think about it!  So, I have visual aids for blogging purposes!  Yay!  Plus, she was totally having way too much fun experimenting with my camera.  Work your artsy-fartsy skillz!  We had fun, managed to get one game in, ate lots of yummy food and the parents-to-be made out like bandits with the gifts!  Mission accomplished!

After everyone left, Sean and Christyn stayed so that I could do the indoor portion of the maternity shoot.  I was having lighting issues and then my fabulous husband had a stroke of genius and brought in our green house lights and he and Sean set up a make shift studio in our dining room.  It worked out really well and now I am going to see if getting different bulbs and making some diffusers for them will make it any better for future use. :)

At some point during the process, the guys decided to take a field trip to do something guy-ish...looking at a derelict truck at a junk yard. ;p After plenty of fidgeting and different poses and pondering and all the jazz that goes with the territory that is my life, we got done with the shoot and they offered to get pizza for dinner.  Fine with us!  Then we hung out til after dark and they went home and we eventually got everyone into bed.  Lots of fun packed into one day!

Anyway, I decided to use an online photo editor and played around with the pics and they turned out pretty well, even though I do say so myself!  I will eventually play around with editing the outdoor shots that I took a week or so ago, too.  I still have lots to learn by doing more shoots and figuring out what works and doesn't and all, but for now I am content with how it all came out.

So, here follows a bazillion pictures!  Enjoy:

Lucy made the diaper cake and did a fabulous job!  Leah A. made the topiaries and most of the hanging pom poms!  She, too, made fabulosity!

 I made the banner....felt is my friend. :)

 Hanging pom poms are my new favorite party decoration!

 Beautiful mom-to-be

 Lucy busted out her mad gift basket skillz and put together two of them from our home group.

 This was the beautiful and super yummy cake that our friend Christina made!

 Christina had to wrestle and wrangle fondant and I believe she now has the same relationship with the stuff that I do...we agree to just be strangers. ;)  I blame Lucy!  She had the idea for the baby bum cake, I then googled for visual aid purposes and then asked Christina if she wanted an, um, interesting challenge. ;p  She agreed and the masterpiece above was born!  She did a fantastic job!

 I, of course, had to make a funky, inspired at midnight mobile for little Liam's room.  Felt and ribbon brought together by hot glue....I'm in total like with these crafting mediums!

 Sam opened the festivities by praying over Sean and Christyn.

 Ummmm, Lucy!  You were s'posed to be praying!  I'm tellin'!

Food yumminess!  We had sandwiches, a veggie tray, a fruit salad, a cheese and cracker tray, cinnamon bread (I could have eaten a whole loaf of that stuff!  Accolades to Kim M's mom!), ducky s'mores, breakfast casserole (tater tots, scrambled egg mixture, shredded cheddar cheese, sliced up lil wieners and biscuits), punch, coffee and hot chocolate.  I'm thinking we can get together to do this food combo anytime!

 Christina also put together this fun baby ornament tree!  I love this idea!  She was so funny.  She said someone had given it to her and she saw this idea and also saw a way to give this tree to a new home. ;p

Laury and McKayla chowing down...

Baby food tasting was one of the games and then we were supposed to play baby charades and just ran out of time.

Caught in the act! 

 This was on the punch counter...the duckies would not cooperate and kept tipping over.  Can't really blame them, they didn't sleep well the night before.  Ailey kept trying to take off with them!

 Man-gathering around the fire.

 Ladies who braved the cold to eat outside.

LOTS of gifts!

Ducky s'mores!  Yum!  Saw the idea on pinterest for heart ones for valentines and just decided to make them duckies instead.

Heather right and Christina left.

 Baby food tasting...

 I think there was much pondering going on....

 Eun and Kristen chillaxin' in the corner.

 Sean even joined in!  

 Ms. Leah A. in the foreground there..

 Time to open prezzies!

 Sweet Nadine!

 No, Sean, it isn't a hat!

 Saw this idea while googling. :)  He like it and wore it proudly.

Mommy corsage. My take on a google inspiration. ;p

Lovely Lucy and Laury.

And now....the indoor maternity shoot.