Future Plans

Xiera: "Mommy, I already know what I want to be when I grow up."

Me: "Really, what is that?"

Xiera: "An Artist!"

It's Official!

I recently purchased brand new business cards through Vistaprint. I wasn't too thrilled with my older business cards because the font against the blue background was very hard to read and see. I just LOVE my new business cards now. The dark purple font against the white background just "POPS" and I adore that whimsical flower design with the little bird. And yes you are reading that correctly. I am officially in the diaper cake business as well. I just had so much fun making the diaper cake for my friend's baby shower that I want to make more! I do have my phone number and business address on these but I edited it so that they were hidden on the picture above to respect my privacy. ;) I had another request for a cupcake purse recently. They wanted a vanilla cupcake with white icing and rainbow sprinkles. Here it is!

So fun and cute!

Pink And Brown Teddy Bears

Yesterday I hosted my best friend, April's baby shower. We had it in a banquet room at the Ramada Inn hotel. The theme for the baby shower was pink and brown teddy bears. I found the adorable bear banner on Etsy. I purchased two of these banners from Calladoo on Etsy.
Calladoo also made the super cute door sign to match.
For the tables, we put little bears inside pink pails and scattered teddy bear confetti around them.
We then attached plain pink and pink baby feet balloons to the pails. I purchased the pink pails at galvanizedpail.com, and the adorable bears and balloons from oriental trading company. I found the super cute teddy bear confetti on etsy and it was created by vintagehillcreations. The gorgeous cake was made by the talented Vanessa Mitchell who had also made Xiera's fairy mushroom birthday cake.
Vanessa outdid herself yet again because this cake was absolutely adorable and almost too cute to eat! I am loving that little pink bow on the bear's ear!

I put little bowls on the cake table filled with gummy bears and teddy grahams.

As all of our guests came in, we had them fill out these sweet little baby well wishes cards as a keepsake for April. I had purchased these cards on Etsy and they were created by erinsartwork. If anyone brought in any diapers or wipes, we had them fill out a ticket to put into the larger pink pail for the special door prize drawing. Once all of our guests had arrived, and finished eating all of the delicious food we had, it was time for games!! For the first game, we had baby word scramble. Whoever could unscramble the most words in three minutes correctly wins.
Of course we had a 5-way tie and we had to have them guess a number between 1 and 50 to see who could guess the number April chose without going over. For the second game we played the toilet paper square game. Whoever could guess the correct amount of squares that go around the largest circumference of April's pregnant belly wins. The answer was 11. We had a 2-way tie for that one, so we had to have another tie breaker, guess-the-number game. For the third game we played Baby Shower Bingo. Everyone got a blank bingo card and had to fill in what they thought April would open. As April opened her gifts, they would mark off what they wrote on their card. Whoever got five in a row yelled out "Bingo" and won. April had so many beautiful gifts!
She had a lot of help opening those gifts from big-sis-to-be, Emma.
My gift to April and baby Keira was a pink bear baby blanket I crocheted. I think it turned out adorable and April LOVES it.
Here is a close up of the blanket and the bear on it.
I had also made a matching baby bear hat that I had given to her earlier as a game gift (because mommy-to-be had to get a gift for each game played. ;)) The diaper cake I made turned out beautiful and I am so proud of myself especially since it was the first diaper cake I had ever made! I have to thank Pinterest because I found the tutorial on there and of course I have to thank the blogger who posted the tutorial, Susie Stamp A Lot.

Hosting my very first baby shower was a lot of fun and I am so happy to have done so for such a great friend. April is the sweetest and most amazing person and I am so happy for her.
Congrats April and I cannot wait to meet little Miss Keira Lynn; my new Crochet D Lane model, I hope! ;)

Preparations.....

I am gathering last minute things and running last minute errands for my BFF's baby shower I am throwing tomorrow. I am so excited! Here is a little sneak of the gifts I have made for her and her little bundle.... I also created my very first diaper cake. It turned out adorable and I know she is going to love it!

Butterfly Kisses

Today my cousin, Gabrielle, had her baby shower. She wants her little Payton Elizabeth's nursery to be in lots of pinks with butterflies. I know she loves the Raspberry Tiddliwinks Bedding Collection at Target so I crocheted a baby blanket with matching hat and toy for her little princess Payton. I made the butterfly on the blanket in the same design as one of the butterflies on the Tiddliwinks set. I was a little weary about having little buttons sewn onto the baby blanket, but I know it will be more of a displayed heirloom keepsake. I kept with the same design for the tiny butterfly on the hat but could only fit one button on instead of two on the bottom pair of wings. For the little butterfly toy, I went ahead and made it without the buttons. I wanted it to be loved so I embroidered the eyes, mouth, and rosy cheeks and hand sewn the crochet wing spots on. Gabbi looks so radiant with her pregnant glow. She absolutely loves the butterfly set I made for her little princess too. :)

A Sweet Sneak Peak

This coming Saturday is my cousin's baby shower. The following Sunday I am hosting my best friend's baby shower. Both are expecting baby girls. My aunt told me that my cousin was wanting to do the baby's nursery in butterflies, so I got an idea and worked with it. Her set is all finished but I unfortunately cannot share it quite yet because I don't want to spoil the surprise. I do have friends and family that visit my blog, so I will instead share a tiny sneak peak. :)
Now I am working on my friend's baby shower gift. Her baby's nursery is going to be done in pink with brown teddy bears which is also the theme for her baby shower I am throwing for her. :) Summer officially starts in one week from today, but it already feels like summer here. The girls are out of school for their summer vacation and the weather is starting to heat up. The sweet smelling summer flowers are blooming and are beautiful.

Fairy in the Garden

The talented Karen of Layla and Stitch Children's Boutique created this beautiful fairy dress for Xiera to wear at her recent fairy birthday party. Xiera adores the Michael Miller Petal Fairies Border Fabric used to create it because of the Cecily Mary Barker fairy images it has.
We had a lot of fun modeling and photographing the dress at the beautiful Wegerzyn Gardens Metropark. She looked like a real flower fairy frolicking in the gardens. It really is a wonderful dress to twirl and spin in and Xiera loves how comfortable it is too. Comfort is a BIG DEAL for this little girl these days. ;)

A listing for the same dress in a custom 2-8 size is available in her Etsy store. You can find it HERE.

Sweet Sister Love

Yesterday I took the girls to the beautiful Wegerzyn Gardens Metropark to take some late spring photos of them. This park is absolutely gorgeous as it has so many pretty flowers to see and smell. I had purchased their matching sister dresses from mellonmonkeys on Etsy for them to wear this past Easter. Last year I was so disappointed in myself for not taking more pictures of the girls dressed in their Easter dresses, so I vowed this year to not make the same mistake twice.
These two have such a special bond with one another as most sisters do. Most days they play so well with one another and share their dolls and make up special games to play that only they understand. But then there are those certain days or even a particular time within a day that their moods will turn from sweet to sour in a blink of an eye.
It is a beautiful thing when they do forgive each other and move on to new fun and exciting sister adventures where they share secrets and play make believe.
Zella looks up to her big sister and wants to do everything Xiera does. If Xiera is playing games on the computer, well Zella wants to play too. If her big sister is coloring a picture, well of course she wants to color too. A few months ago, Zella had asked us if she could wear glasses just like Xiera. We told her that Xiera has to wear glasses to see better and that she didn't need to wear them because she can see just fine without them. This answer was not acceptable for Zella, so hubby had a wonderful idea. He took a pair of Xiera's old glasses and took out the lenses. Now Zella has her very own pair of glasses to wear; just like her big sister. Sisters are a true blessing!