Gift bags

So either I have a cold or I have the worst allergies ever.  I can’t tell.  It started off really differently from a traditional cold so I’m hopeful that it’s just allergies.  Which is really possible because on MLK day Sean and I raked leaves, cleaned the gutters, and probably stirred up all kinds of allergens.  Sean even climbed a tree to get on top of our roof since we don’t have a ladder. 

See?  Crazy.

But, the point of this post is not to talk about my allergies/cold or cleaning gutters, it’s to talk about the gift bags I made for my sister’s baby shower.  So, I went to Michael’s with an idea of what I wanted and just started looking down the aisles.  I stumbled on some blue gift bags, Martha Stewart stickers and the tiniest clothespins I have ever seen.

The stickers came in a variety of items, not just elephants as is my theme.   But, they were just too cute so I couldn’t leave them out.  And, the “Thanks so much” stamp was something I already had from Impress  So,  I just put them together and got this:

So there you have it, my little thank you bags.  Now I just need to fill them.  What would you want in your bag?

Baby Shower Part II

Well, I talked about this previously, but the baby shower for my sister is really soon!  The last time I chatted about this, I was wavering between tricycles and elephants as the theme for the shower.  Most of you all chose the elephant route, and I agreed!  But, I am obsessed with bunting flags too so I knew I needed to figure out a way to incorporate them.  Well, my friend Morgana offered to design the invites for me.  I sent her some information and a few samples of what I was going for and she got to work.  I loved the way they turned out.  What do you think?

So, keeping with the theme, we’ll have an elephant cake from Dallas Affairs.  And then to throw in some of the bunting, I’m making signs for each of the different food items with these bunting flags:

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For those of you planning a wedding, it’s actually from a wedding invite, and there are a lot of other cute free downloadables too. 

Ok, so now that you know how I’ll label the food, what will we actually be eating?  Well, I’m still deciding, but I have some ideas.

Prosciutto and Fig-Spread Sandwiches (cut in cut bite-size pieces):

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Endive with crab and avocado:

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Artichoke-Parmesean Crostini:

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Veggies and dip:

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Goat Cheese-Stuffed Mushrooms:

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And for drinks, I’m thinking lemonade for the non-alcoholic drink and Prosecco Sangria for the ladies that want to have a good time:

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It’s not blue though, does that matter?  I tried to find a tasty blue drink and I came up empty-handed.  Pink ones are a lot easier to come by. 

And, for a parting favor for the guests, I’m thinking about elephant cookies:

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I think I want to package them in little bags sealed with a mini clothespins.  Sort of like this, but smaller and for a boy baby shower:

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And, I would love to put them out on display in one of these adorable little suitcases:

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So, what do you think?  Any suggestions?

Baby Shower

So, I’m pretty sure I mentioned that my sister is pregnant, but I don’t think that I mentioned its with a baby boy!!  We are super excited!!  I have 2 wonderful nieces, but no baby nephew, so this is big news.  Anyway, it’s hard to believe that her due date is just around the corner, March 3rd.  Which means that it’s time to get serious about the baby shower.  I recently started looking for inspiration for a theme and I’ve come away with two ideas: elephants and tricycles.  This could only be surpassed by elephants on tricycles.  Ok, that’s probably lame.  But, I am having a hard time deciding between the two ideas, so I need your help.  Here are some of the tricycle inspiration ideas courtesy of Style Me Gorgeous:

In addition to the tricycle theme, she also added some alphabet themed items:

And adorable kid-inspired favors:

Cute, right?  I always loved anything with a vintage bicycle, so obviously I was going to be on board with the tricycle.  But, then I saw the elephant, also from Style Me Gorgeous and now I’m not sure what to do:

Hello, did you see that candy buffet?  I die.  Well, she had more:

And, if you’re not feeling cuteness overload with elephants, what about this invite from Rock Paper Scissors:

It mixes another one of my favorite things, bunting. 

So what do you think?  Do you like the elephants or the tricycles?

Homie Said What?

So a couple of months ago I went to my doctor for a check up.  I took the opportunity to talk about preparing to go off the pill and to ask about what I needed to do to be sure my body was good and healthy for when we wanted to try to have a baby.  He muttered something about prenatal vitamins, vaccines, checking for immunity to german measles, the dentist and a high protein diet.  High protein?  Um…I’m vegetarian. 

Not that I don’t get a fair amount of protein, but I wouldn’t call what I have a high protein diet.  So, I asked him what he considered high protein and what special considerations I needed to make since I was a vegetarian.  You want to know what his first comment was?  “You might want to rethink that whole vegetarian thing.”  Now, if this was my friend, or just a casual conversation with a coworker I would have blown it off, but this was my mother effing doctor.  Rethink my non-dangerous lifestyle? I thought it was pretty crappy.  But instead of getting angry, I asked him again what high protein meant.  He said 50 grams a day. And then he asked me if I ate things like tofu, eggs, and beans.  Yes, yes and yes.  So he changed his story and said, “Well,  if you’re eating things like that, you should be totally fine.”  What did he think I was doing?  Chowing down on just lettuce every meal?  Clearly he should have asked me these questions before jumping to conclusions. 

I was just turned off by the whole thing, and I grew increasingly more annoyed as the day went on, which of course meant that I was no longer in his office to say anything.  I’m not planning on switching doctors, but hopefully he’ll be more thoughtful next time.

Pregnancy Book

I know some of you have already seen this, but it was way too effing cute to pass up, so I had to share for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. 

Instead of just taking photographs of her baby bump at each stage of her pregnancy, Johanna decided to change it up a bit and document each week with a picture and a little story.  My uterus hurts when I look at these pictures. 

I die.

She used Fiano to make her little book, but that’s really a site for professionals.  So, if you’re just an amateur, like me, then I’d recommend Blurb.  I’ve heard really good things about them.   Also, the fonts she used are “sketch block” and “print clearly.” 

And, no I’m not pregnant, but this is the freaking cutest thing ever and I am looking forward to documenting each moment when I am pregnant. 🙂  If you want to read more about the book, go here.

Croquembouche

At the baby shower, we made a delicious croquembouche.  It was the perfect fit for this French country themed shower, but to be honest, I was terrified to make this.  We didn’t get started on it until about 11:00 and the shower started at 11:30, so I thought we were F’d.  But it all worked out, so that should let you know that it’s not hard at all.  At least if you do it the cheater way like we did.  We bought the cream puffs instead of making them, but everyone loved them so, I think that it worked out. 

Here’s what you need:

• cream puffs
• sugar
• water

That’s it.  See, easy, right?

So, we started with the cream puffs.  We got them all ready for dipping by lining them up on wax paper:

Then, we dissolved the sugar in the water.  We made an “x” in the sugar with our finger to let the water slowly soak into the sugar.  Here was the hardest part for me, I couldn’t stir it.  I just had to let it happen on it’s own.  It was KILLING me.  But, slowly put surely it got to where it needed to be.  It had a tiny tinge of yellow to it:

Then, we submerged it into an ice bath to stop the cooking (sorry no picture of this).  And, we started dipping the cream puffs and lining them up along the plate.  Continue doing this until you make a pyramid.  The bottom layer should have about 20 cream puffs and then decrease from there for each subsequent layer. 

You’re supposed to have all the tops facing out, but that wasn’t really working for us, and it turned out just fine.  But if you want to be really fancy, you can do it like you’re supposed to. 

Then, once we had lined them all up we used a special tool to drizzle the caramel topping over them.  I’m not sure what it’s called, if you know feel free to tell me in the comments. 

Then, it was done!

Ok, so it wasn’t a perfectly straight croquembouche, and since this is a winter dessert, the humidity definitely prevented it from getting as crunchy as it should have, but it was definitely delicious!  I can’t wait to make it again.

Bebe sign

Remember when I was trying to make Martha’s ‘bebe’ sign?  Well, I had the shower this past weekend, and I’m happy to say that the sign looked great!!  Here’s how I did it.

Supplies needed:

• wire wrapped with rafia-like material (I found it at Michael’s)
• needle nose pliers with wire cutter
• lavender stems with buds

Okay, so I started with the wrapped wire:

And I just started bending the wire into the correct letter shapes with my fingers.  I used the pliers to help when I wrapped the wire around itself to hold it in place, and to cut the wire from the spool:

I found the “e” to be a lot harder than the “b”  I kept having to readjust.  For the b, I did basically the same thing.  I made the loop at the top first, wrapped it through itself, and then made the bottom part of the letter:

Here’s how it looked before the lavender:

Then, I took my lavender plant and pulled off some stems to wrap them around the wire (don’t worry, I still have a very full plant):

Just repeat and repeat on each of the letters until they are completely covered.  I didn’t need to do anything to keep the lavender in place, it basically just stayed put after I wrapped it.  I did tuck it a couple times where necessary:

And, hanging at the party (sadly, I did not get a good picture):

The mom-to-be loved it and took it home with her.  I’ll share more stuff from the shower, including the croquembouche we made.  Yum!!

Baby Shower

From a bridal shower to a baby shower.   So, a friend and co-worker of mine is having a baby.  Her shower is next weekend.  I am not throwing it, but I am going to it and I’m excited about it.  So, Monday morning I was at a meeting sitting in for my boss (I promise this is relevant), following the meeting, my boss’ boss (got that??) asked if she could speak to me for a bit.  I thought  it was probably about some legislator calling and figured we’d have to come up with a response.  Well, it wasn’t.   She pulled up the Martha Stewart website and asked me if I could make something for the baby shower that she’s hosting.  Apparently, she thought I was super crafty after seeing all the stuff I did for the wedding.   I was so flattered, but also terrified.  I better make the shit out of whatever it is she wants me to do.  And what is it that she wants me to do?

This:

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No, not the whole tablescape (damn you Sandra Lee for getting into my vocabulary!), just the ‘bebe’ sign. 

Well, it doesn’t look that hard.  I’m more concerned about finding the right materials.  She suggested that I just come over about an hour before the shower to work on it then.  Well, my neuroses will most definitely not be ok with that.  I told her I would likely work on it this week and bring a letter in so she could see what it looked like and make sure she liked what I was putting together.   Now, this lady is SO nice.  If she thought I was in the least bit worried about it, she wouldn’t have asked me to do it.  She just realized that I liked all the wedding stuff, and figured that I would enjoy this project.  And I do, I’m just so worried that I’m going to make something crappy and she’ll regret that she asked me to do it. 

To make myself feel better, I contacted my wedding florist and she gave me some tips and pointers on how to make it and where to find the materials.  I hope I can pull this off!  I don’t want to disappoint anyone.  I’ll keep you guys posted on how it all plays out.  Any suggestions or tips?