ABC’s for a baby shower

So remember the family that got the baby boy to adopt and then it looked like they might not get to keep him… well, they have him and everything looks like they are his forever family!! So we are having a baby shower for them tomorrow at my house.  I wanted to do something fun and special, so I made this set of ABC’s.

The mom, Amy is an elementary teacher, so I figure she will appreciate the letters and can come up with something to do with them :)

Each letter is on it’s own piece of 6”x6” chipboard and I thought would be great as a wall hanging or clipped together with rings or something.  The backside of each letter is covered with paper as well.  They come together as a great mix and match album type thing. 

Originally I was going to have all the guests sign each letter and use it for a sign in sheet at the shower, but after all the work and since they are just so cute a friend and I decided that they were too cute for people to mess up! So now I still have to make the sign in page.. oh well.

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Materials are mostly from CTMH’s Animal Cookies line.  I LOVE these papers!!  I did add in a couple of other papers as I needed more pages. The alphabet is your standard teacher pop-out letters.

See and you all thought I was just taking it easy not doing anything!  I have decided that crafting with a 4 week old, a 4 year old and a 9 year old is really hard and will probably happen only in the middle of the night for quite a while.  

I do have lots of in-progress items that I am hoping to finish soon, but man am I tired! I have to remind myself to take it easy and enjoy these precious moments with baby Kylie because in the blink of an eye she will be 4 years old and not need me to hold her all the time.

And just in case you all needed a sweet Kylie Faith fix… here she is at 4 weeks.

Celebrating with “the girls”

This morning I had the pleasure of having brunch with my mom, my sisters, my aunts, my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my daughters and my nieces.  It was quite the girl fest!

We were celebrating our baby girl that should arrive sometime before the end of August.

We all gathered at my sister Melody’s house, had a wonderful feast and then had a ball laughing at stories from the past.  The stories were supposed to be about a funny event as a parent.. but like many stories they evolve into sister stories.  When you are one of four girls and your mom is one of four girls, that makes for a lot of special memories.  Grandmother can get a story started and it all goes down hill from there :)

One days like this, I am reminded how truly blessed I am to have such a wonderful family. The bond of sisterhood that my mom and aunts have has now been passed down to me and my sisters.  How exciting to know that I am passing down the sisterhood tradition with my girls.  However, I must say, please God… just 3 girls.  Let my youngest sister Katy have the 4 girls!!

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Hostess Gifts: Stamped Tiles

I am in love with these tiles! I made coaster tiles for hostess gifts for my baby shower. I am thrilled with the results! Here they are packaged in groups of four.

To make the tiles all you need to do is a little planning beforehand and gather your supplies and off you go!

My supplies were:

1. Basic 4x4 white tiles

2. Brilliance inks in assorted colors

3. Color Box Gold

4. CTMH Promise of Spring stamp set

5. Lacquer spray

6. Felt circles

To start stamp your image onto the tile. You will have to play around with this as they are incredibly easy to smear. If you don't like what you created, wipe off and try again. I started over a number of times. I also stamped all of one color first and then allowed each step to dry a couple of minutes before going back over with a different color. I really like the 2 tone look of the flowers.

After you stamp your image, smudge the edges with gold ink. It is amazing how much better the tiles look with a little gold on them!

Next, put your tiles on foil lined baking sheets and cook for 20 or so minutes at 325-350 degrees. This sets the color.

Allow to dry and then either give yourself time to allow the tiles to cool and cure or do like I did and rush them along with 2 coats of lacquer once the tiles are dry.

Once everything is dry, place self adhesive felt circles on the bottom of the tiles.

And wallah a very nice gift!