Oh Baby!

Well it's baby fever around here. Two of my cousins and one of my childhood friends all are pregnant and having babies within weeks of each other. You saw the lovely shower my childhood friend Robyn had thrown for her a few weeks back. Her lovely son was born in the beginning of July, I wish you could see the darling owl themed nursery she set up for baby Orion! 


Baby number two was born to my cousin Krystal yesterday, Joseph Daniel, a big 9 lb 12oz 20 inch long baby boy! He is a cutie with a full mohawks worth of hair already! My sister and I threw the shower for Krystal back in June and I have been so excited to share the pictures with you! Perhaps you'll recall the pom poms we were making and the wonderful country fair inspired invitation Sandy's husband designed for us? 

I ADORE the invitation Rex designed. So charming!

Just as a reminder, here is our inspiration board

We did a Country Fair theme complete with a chili cook off, baked-goods competition, quilt judging and a bean bag toss. Held in the lovely backyard of a family friend on a day of perfect weather we couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. Many many thanks to all the "contestants" it was a wonderful turn out to celebrate Krystal's new addition. 

 Setting up the shower

We set up a bean bag toss game with the tire swing and some bean bags

Sandy's yummy cake with cute little pennant decorations

 Fun little mad-libs (Sandy's brilliant husband designed them!) for Krystal and the baby all the guests filled out

 Pin wheels in wheat grass center pieces, wonderful paper straws from Cupcake Social

 We made the water bottle "goldfish" prizes with a free downloadable from BumpSmitten

Next week I'll share photos of the oh so girly, Glam Baby shower Sandy and I threw for our glam girl Lydia! See you soon!

Pom poms and patience

Well, baby shower planning continues. My sister Sandy and I got together to make tissue paper pom poms which I found the tutorial for over at Martha Stewart's website. The tutorial makes it look so simple, just accordion fold eight pieces of tissue paper together, tie the center off and fan them out. Simple, right?


Not simple. 


Tissue paper is as delicate as, well, tissue paper. It tore, it got mangled, I personally had to throw one pom pom away due to its complete failure to do more then tear apart in my hands. The more it tore, the more impatient we became. Frustration and a serious headache took over and Sandy and I had to call the project quits for the night after making only seven pom poms. 


The next morning, I felt less violent towards the pom poms and was ready for another attempt. Here is what I learned. Pulling the fanned out tissue paper out one sheet at a time is a sure fire way to end up with torn paper, BUT pulling four sheets to the center at a time and then fanning them apart makes everything much much simpler because the four sheets of tissue paper are so much stronger then one! Suddenly I was on a roll and completed the remainder of the pom poms that morning THEN, on some sort of success high, went out and bought orange tissue paper and willingly made MORE! 


The results are so beautiful!