Felt Rosette Wreath - 1st Attempt

I am always looking for new ideas and techniques for craft projects. I love learning new things and often gravitate towards simple techniques that deliver high impact designs. I found this simple, yet somewhat time-consuming project originally on The Idea Room and then saw it again recently on Craftily-Ever-After where she used the same technique to make a rosette ball. I fell in love with the fluffy texture of the felt rosettes and had to try it myself.

My first attempt at this felt rosette wreath did not turn out so great. I went to Michaels to purchase supplies for another project and decided to see what I could get there to make these felt wreaths. I ended up only finding a small, round, green styrofoam wreath and some sheets of craft felt. I bought the felt in light pink for Valentine's Day.

Not too bad from the front, but I ended up running out of felt during the project so the sides of the wreath are not covered.

I originally traced the circles in pencil and tried to cut them exact and was left with lead marks on the ends of my felt rosettes.Which just made the wreath look dirty.

Not my greatest success, but not a complete failure. I knew I could make this technique shine with the right materials. So I went to Joann's and bought heart shaped styrofoam wreaths, round styrofoam wreaths and yards of colorful felt. I started with the heart wreaths for the upcoming holiday... here's a sneak peak.

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Stay Tuned: Fluffly Felt Wreath Success & Tutorial

Thank You Cards

Saying "thanks" is so important. Whether it's for the little everyday things or the big occasions, a hand-written thank you card can be really special for the recipient. It can be fun for the person writing it too when you create your own personalized cards.

I adore creating based on a theme (if you hadn't already noticed), so I created thank you cards for our wedding in our color scheme. I used a large "Thank You" stamp and stamped it in various colors from our theme on the front of a simple white folded card. I embossed the moss green "Thank You" in the center of the card to give it some extra definition.

I needed to create A LOT of cards for both my bridal shower and our wedding so I chose a simple design that was easy to reproduce, but still looked nice and festive.

If you are hosting or planning an event for someone, I love the idea of creating thank you cards in the designated theme and giving them to the guest of honor as a gift. I did this for my sister-in-law when I hosted her baby shower. I chose to do two different designs based on the pink and chocolate brown polka-dot theme. The first card I did was very simple. I used a large "Thanks" stamp and embossed it in pink in the center of a white folded card. I punched out chocolate brown circles of various sizes and added them to the front of the card to incorporate the polka-dots.

The second card I created for my sister-in-law was a variation on the baby shower invitation design. I started with a large circle punched out of pink paper. I used a "Thank You" stamp and embossed it in chocolate brown onto the pink circle. I affixed the pink circle to the bottom right hand corner of a white folded card. I then punched pink and chocolate circles of various sizes and added them to the card in a similar pattern as the invitation.

You can personalize these cards in so many ways, there are endless possibilities. So give Thanks!

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Coming Soon: Home Decor Craft Projects Galore!

Shower Games - Who's That Baby?

So every shower has games to play and no matter how cheesy they may be, it's tradition, so its gotta be done. However, when planning this shower I attempted to make it as fun as possible while limiting the cheese factor. I think I succeeded.

I always love a good puzzle so everyone participated in a baby-themed word scramble and a "name that baby animal" quiz. We also did a baby trivia quiz which was a lot harder than you would imagine. Winners for these games received a gift card of their choice. We also played baby gift bingo to try to spice up the gift opening portion of the event. Everyone wrote items that they thought the Mom-to-be would receive in their bingo card squares. I punched out a million circles in brown cardstock for this game (ouch!). Then as gifts were opened, guests placed a circle on the squares they guessed right until somebody got "Bingo". The winner won a fabulous gift basket.

The final game we played took some preparation ahead of time by not only myself, but the guests as well. On the bottom of the invitation, we asked guests to bring a baby picture of themselves to the shower. As guests arrived, I assigned their picture a number and hung it from a clothesline with a small clothespin indicating that number. Once the game began, everyone had to write the corresponding number next to the name of the person who's baby picture they thought it matched. I used my favorite colored baker's twine in pink from Divine Twine for the "clothesline".

I chose to use clothespins and a "clothesline" instead of pinning the pictures straight to the board so I could avoid writing numbers on the photos themselves and sticking extra holes in them. Besides, doesn't it look cuter?

Since many people did not know each other prior to the shower, I created nametags so that guests could try to identify individuals based on the way they look today. I (of course) had to create the nametags to follow our theme, so I printed everyone's name onto pink cardstock and punched them into small circles. I then punched larger circles out of dark brown cardstock and layered the pink circle over it. I attached the two circles together with a white eyelet. I used an eyelet so I could thread pink embroidery floss through it to create a necklace of sorts. That way guests wore it around their necks and didn't have to deal with an adhesive back or pin in their clothes.

The winner of the baby picture game also received a fabulous gift basket. Shower games can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be, use your creativity and everyone will have a good time.

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Next time: Sticking to your theme with a Thank You

Decor Details - Congrats!

We held the baby shower at a restaurant so the decor we used was minimal due to the natural restrictions of decorating an event at a venue that was serving dinner that night. So we decorated with pink and brown balloons and created some faux floral centerpieces for the tables. My Mother-in-law found some adorable pink polka-dot containers that we lined with brown tissue paper and arranged pink flowers inside.



Also for the tables, I created placecards so everyone knew where they were sitting for lunch. I bought pre-folded placecards from Paper Source in the same pink as the other paper details (invitations, favor labels, etc.). I embossed each place card with the same chick in chocolate brown that I used on the invitation registry card . Instead of printing each person's name on the card, I stenciled their name in dark brown. I ended up using colored pencils because they came out the cleanest and didn't bleed like markers. I ended up having to trim the placecards as well because they are quite large out of the package.

The final decor detail was a "Congrats" banner that we hung over the space where the Mom-to-be opened her gifts. I found a template for a circle banner from Martha Stewart during my wedding research (Martha Stewart Weddings printable banner) and had wanted to use it ever since. I thought it worked perfectly with our circle/polka-dot theme, so I printed the templates onto pink cardstock. After cutting each letter I needed to spell the message, I punched two small holes at the top of each circle. I then threaded ribbon in our theme through the holes, spacing the circles as I saw fit. I made two strands so I could hang one word above the other.

From afar...

Up close...

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Next: Shower Games

Shower Favors

Everyone appreciates an edible favor, right? I wanted to try to encorporate our theme and personalize it for the Mom and baby-to-be as well. I came across the million ways you can customize M&Ms during my wedding research and thought what a perfect idea it was for the shower. M&Ms are small and round, kinda like polka-dots and come in a ton of colors. So I ordered chocolate brown and light pink customized M&Ms for shower favors. You can't personalize the brown ones because it's too dark to print on, but I ordered the pink ones with the baby's name on some and an image of a pacifier on others.

I love little jars and found some on sale at Michaels. I bought pink circle labels from Paper Source and printed "It's a Girl!", the Mom-to be's name and the date of the shower in dark brown ink. I affixed the labels to the top of the jars and wrapped ribbon in our theme along with a diaper pin charm around the top of the jar. Everyone received a cute little jar with some festive and yummy M&M treats.

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Coming Up: Random Decor Details

Diaper Cake - Not for Consumption

I think every baby shower nowadays has a diaper cake. It's an adorable way to decorate the event while also gifting one of the major baby necessities in a cute, fun way. Of course I had never created a diaper cake prior to this event, but there was no chance I was going to give up the opportunity to give it a go. I searched the internet for various tutorials and inspiration for creating and decorating the cake. I found a very helpful tutorial for making a professional-looking diaper cake on You Tube (Diaper Cakes by Becca) and kinda modified it along the way to fit my materials. The tutorial was for a three tiered cake, but I decided to go crazy and make four tiers.

I purchased 180 newborn diapers and did not end up using all of them. In keeping with our pink, chocolate brown and polka-dot theme, I found as many different varieties of ribbon in this color/pattern scheme. Luckily this is a popular design right now so I was able to find a bunch. I then purchased some cute baby booties, pacifiers, and toys to add to the different tiers. Each tier had it's own ribbon theme and then I attached the embelishments where I thought they looked and fit best on each tier. Lastly, I created a plaque of the new baby's name out of pink and chocolate cardstock. I printed her name in the same Albemarle Swash font I used on the invitations and added some cute baby stickers around the outside. Ta Da!


Diaper Cake in all its glory



Bottom Detail



Right Side Detail



 



 







Name Plaque Detail



 





Baby Booties and Cake Topper Details 



Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Next up: Favors

Baby Shower Invitations

The first element I designed for my sister-in-law's baby shower were (of course) the invitations. It's the first thing that has to get done, so it's the first thing I designed. Everything centered around pink and chocolate brown polka-dots, so I chose all my paper products to reflect that theme. I used some of the same details as we did in our wedding invitiations and added some new elements as well. I got all of my supplies from my favorite store Paper Source.

I started with the invite wording and placement. I chose two fonts (Souvenir and Albemarle Swash) and printed the majority of the text in dark brown ink on white cardstock. I used the Souvenir font for all of the details and the Albemarle font in pink for my sister-in-law's name, the name of the event location and the R.S.V.P. I chose to center all of the text on the white card, round the corners and emboss "It's a Girl!" in pink at the top. I affixed the white card to a chocolate brown backing card and rounded those corners as well. To incorporate the polka-dots, I wanted to do something with some more dimension and pop. So I punched a variety of different sized circles out of pink and chocolate paper and affixed them in a pattern around the text of the invite. I used Zots (clear adhesive dots) to attach the circles to the invite card. Here is the finished product.

I love a good envelope liner and I found the perfect pink paper with white polka-dots. I chose chocolate envelopes which proved to be somewhat difficult when addressing them. I found a good solution to that problem although it was a bit time consuming. I ended up printing the address in black ink onto the chocolate envelope and tracing it with a white paint pen. You could faintly see the black ink on the envelope, just enough to trace, but not enough to see once I covered it.

 

 

In addition to the invite card, I wanted to include a separate piece with the registry information. I decided to print the info in chocolate ink on a pink card cut into a circle. On one side was the list of registries and the other side I embossed a cute chick stamp in chocolate. I ended up using this chick stamp as a secondary theme throughout the shower. Here is the entire invitation suite together.

 

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Next: The baby shower staple... Diaper Cake!

Baby Shower - Polka-Dot Theme

Hi again! As I described in my last post, my sister-in-law gave birth to my beautiful niece on January 2 (!), so the next event I was asked to help design after our wedding was her baby shower in December.  She chose to decorate the nursery in a pink and brown polka-dot theme, so we designed her shower around the same concept. As I said before, choosing a theme makes designing the details that much easier, so every element of the shower depicted this color scheme and design.

Here's a sneak peek of one way I incorporated the theme...

Photo by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Next up: Shower Invitations

Happy 2011!

Hi everyone, I'm back! Happy New Year to all of you, I hope you had a fun and restful holiday. Our New Years was fun and full of unexpected suprises. We took a trip to the Jersey Shore/Atlantic City to spend a long weekend with our friends from college. 8 people and 4 days in a house turned out to be extremely fun and relaxing. We had a blast and on our way home last Sunday we received some suprising news... my sister-in-law was in labor and had her baby at 2:58 pm on January 2! She was 3 weeks early, so it was very unexpected, but we arrived at the hospital 20 minutes after she gave birth so the timing ended up working out for everyone.

Needless to say with being away from work for over a week, becoming an Aunt and everything else going on, I have not had an opportunity to start new posts for the next event I designed/planned. I will be helping out my sister-in-law with the new baby this weekend and beginning of next week so I hope to start posting about the Baby Shower (!) once things have calmed down. I have a lot of cute ideas from the shower and some new crafts I have tried over the last few months that I would LOVE to share... so stay tuned!

♥,  Sarah