The Misadventures of Crafty McBlonde

I love a baby shower! I love traditional, co-ed, and now, most especially - Space Themed. 

My lovely co-worker is closing in on her last couple months of pregnancy and when she showed me the super cute invitation her husband had designed for their co-ed baby shower, I asked if they needed any help, because I couldn’t resist! 

They had such a great group of people planning their shower, and it was so fun helping them with decorations and games. 

The baby’s room will be Orange, Purple with hints of chocolate, so we combined that with their fun “Laser Space Kid” invitation and created the decorations around those two themes. I don’t think it could have turned out any better!! 

The “Welcome Baby” banner was created using my handy craft robo, as well as the Baby Girl signs we hung from the light fixtures above the bar. I used left over pom poms from my wedding decorations to line the bar and had tulle poms on the backs of every other chair (the orange tulle was also left over from my wedding- REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!) 

We had some twirling stars and spirals hanging outside on the patio. The space, ‘Disiac is so beautiful to begin with, and we lucked out that the bar and windows had a lot of our color pallet. 

The hosts of the party brought delicious mini cupcakes from Baked By Melissa and the favors were amazing cookies from Schmackary’s that they wrapped and closed with a custom sticker (they had them made on Zazzle - too cute!) 

I found the image of the little astronaut girl on google and lucky for me it was a royalty free image! 

Kali and I came up with such great games - pulling inspiration from all over the internet. 

We found the “Pin the Sperm on the Uterus” and “Baby Bottle Beer Chug” and “Play Doh Babies” from “The Rubyspikes Guide to Hosting a Baby Shower That Doesn’t Suck”

We found the Celebrity Baby Name Game on “For the Love of George” and I made up the scramble using a few different ones I found online. 

One of our favorite parts was the “Note to Mom & Baby” which I found as a free print out on “Grace is Overrated”. It was so cute and I was a little surprised how well people responded to it! Total hit! 

But of course, these weren’t very space themed, so we created a “Space Mission” for each person that came in, to help them “Conqure” the Laser Space Kid Shower. 

(I whited out their names - if there are typos, don’t tell me). 

A few “enjoying the games” pictures… 

Sporting all the items I knit for the new baby :)

Most importantly, the new Momma and all her friends & family had a wonderful time! 

Little Jack had his baptism a couple weekends ago. His lovely Momma and I  hung out the night before and created this beautiful banner using the ol’ craft robo. (Now called Silhouette and can be found on http://www.silhouetteamerica.com). 

It was such a great addition to the brunch held afterwords. 

The week before the Baptism, I helped her with the creation of the yummy favors! Chocolate dipped pretzel rods. We highly recommend this simple and delicious treat for a great favor!    

We used a super easy trick for melting the chocolate (both milk and white) that my Step-Dude passed along to me. You have one person stir the chocolate and the other hold a hair dryer pointed at the bowl (inside the bowl is fine, but if you are using metal you can also point it at the sides). Be careful! The bowl gets SUPER hot, but it works so much better than the double bowler or microwave! 

And finally, Jack enjoying lunch with Momma (in the booties I made for him!) 

This year is my third year walking for the Revlon Run Walk with The Actors Fund Team. 

Last year I attempted to knit something for every person who made a donation to my page. I think I finished 2 or 3 people shy of my goal.

This year, I have been using my craft robo to create original pieces of paper art for each donation I receive on my page. 

Just a few examples of what I’ve made so far! If you’d like one of your own - donate to http://tinyurl.com/cpnyrrw  :)

My dear friend is the ED of a great non-profit. 

KEEN NY - KEEN is a national, nonprofit volunteer-led organization that provides one-to-one recreational opportunities for children and young adults with developmental and physical disabilities at no cost to their families and caregivers. KEEN’s mission is to foster the self-esteem, confidence, skills and talents of its athletes through non-competitive activities, allowing young people facing even the most significant challenges to meet their individual goals.

Lucky for me, my pal is bringing the newest session very close to my home, and I have asked to head up the crafting session of the day! I’m so excited - and last night I did a mock up of what we’ll be creating on Saturday. 

We’ll be creating cupcake liner flower wreaths to welcome spring! The idea was inspired by this tutorial by Steph Hung. 

I started with the leaves - folding the cupcake liners and then cutting a pointy leaf shape. 

We’ll be using paper plates on Saturday - but I used the back of a pizza box and colored it green! 

Using multiple sizes, I cut folded and cut rounded corners to make the blooms. 

Using a glue stick I attached the flowers to each other, and the base of the wreath. I layered a few cupcake liners in some of the flowers for even more texture. 

I used brads to give some of the flowers a little something extra, but we’ll be using crayons, markers, paper etc to do this on Saturday. 

I hope you enjoy! 

I created two smashbooks surrounding our wedding. One was a planning book that had a ton of my ideas for the wedding, the other was more of an album - featuring each “wedding event” that we had. 

It began with our engagement story and photos, our engagement parties (two, 1 in Brooklyn and 1 in New Orleans) and then our wedding showers (mine in St. Louis and the one my office threw for Ben and me). 

Then there is a section on my bachelorette party - not one on Ben’s bachelor party (no photos were taken for some reason) and then the wedding. 

I still have a few photos I need to add, but it turned out so wonderful! I of course have a “wedding” album as well. But this one is pretty special to me! I love all the smashbooks out there. I can’t wait to use them all! 

A friend is having her second baby and decorated the room with a circus theme. Too cute. I decided to knit an elephant and a lion for the new baby for her “sprinkle” (rather than a shower). 

I used the free pattern (free pattern found here)  from Sarah Keen.

I knit it in the round, rather than in pieces  to reduce the amount of seaming I would have to do. The pattern has each piece worked flat and then seamed. 

When I was stuffing the body, I used some felt and dried lima beans to make a weight to even out the elephant’s heavy head and trunk.

I hand sewed the felt and sectioned the beans into 4 parts to make sure they stay in place.

I tucked my weight in the bottom, added a little more stuffing and sewed him up! He’s just waiting for eyes and he’ll be all set! 

Anyone who has been to our apartment knows that I have a HUGE craft supply problem. Since we moved in 4 years ago, the dining room has been overrun with yarn, paper, stamps, etc spilling out onto any surface available. 

A very smart friend suggested we turn our under used “office” into the space for crafts - in an attempt to contain the beast and keep the house a little cleaner. My honey requested that we combine both spaces making it a craft/office. 

I set to measuring and sketching… more on that later - and here is the (nearly) finished product! 

looking in from the hallway

my glorious shelves - there’s even room for suitcases and storage on top!  

I love a little ikea door hang for random items like spray paint and glue collections… (that’s right, I have many kinds of glue) 

Smash pride! Crafting books up top and knitting books on the bottom! 

To finish up the room, I’d love to add pegboard above the drop leaf table in order to store scissors, pens a plenty, etc.

Of course - I had to break in the new space with a little collage mail-art!

I’m sure we’ll be making small changes here and there -  but so far I am LOVING the new space. It’s almost like we have an adult apartment… almost. :)