Fall Baby Shower for Baby Avaleigh

Hello friends. Today I am going to share with you some of the details from the baby shower my mom and I hosted for Bethany, John, and baby Avaleigh!  The baby is due in mid-January so we decided to host a baby shower before everyone becomes entangled in their holiday madness.  With that in mind, and the advent of beautiful warm, clear fall weather, we decided on a fall themed outdoor baby shower!

As much as I hoped to by-pass the craziness of everyone's Thanksgiving till New Year's schedules, I still selected a bad weekend for the baby shower.  So many people were out of town for one reason or another.  But our friends being the AMAZING women that they are, they dropped off or mailed gifts to arrive for the shower!  How wonderful is that?

We decorated with fall colors and served a variety of fall themed foods.  In addition to ham salad and egg salad finger sandwiches, we also had corn casserole muffins, a savory pumpkin shaped cheese ball with crackers, a sweet pumpkin cheese ball (which tasted like pumpkin cheesecake) severed with gingersnaps and graham crackers, a veggie tray and dip, chips and dip, and a create our own caramel apple station.  I put put honeycrisp apple wedges on skewers and had a small pot of war caramel with several toppings in which the caramel apple wedges could be dipped.

For beverages we severed an apple cider sangria as well as sodas and assorted bottled waters.

I must tell you, baby Avaleigh is going to be one well dressed baby when she arrives. Bethany and John received so many adorable outfits, baby gadgets, tools, diapers, and nursery decor, they were thrilled and overwhelmed!

John stayed for the entire shower, assisting as needed and opening several of the gifts.  He is so looking forward to their baby girl!

We passed around most of the gifts so that everyone could get an up-close look at all of of the darling baby girl clothes and gear. and oooh & ahhhh appropriately! Below MFK, my friend Kathy, admires one of the sweet outfits Avaleigh received.

After the shower we took a few minutes to snap a few family photos. Below are Bethany and I.

Avaleigh should be feeling the love in the photo below.

And of course, John and Bethany are thrilled about becoming parents!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I still have projects to share with you this week, so check back soon!

Beautiful Bride Dress Form Layout

 (click the photos to enlarge)

 Hello friends!  I know I have been missing for two weeks(!!) and though I do have an excuse/reason, I will not bore you with the details and just say that I AM BACK!!  I have missed crafting so much - especially scrapbooking. While Doug stayed with my mom, I spent several hours in my scraproom this weekend working on this layout.

My darling Design Team member, Maureen, is hosting this week's Bitten by the Bug 2 Cricut challenge.  Maureen challenged us to use either a Cricut cut DRESS FORM or a Cricut cut DRESS.  I chose to use the dress form cut from the French Manor cartridge - the first Cricut Circle cartridge.

I cut the dress form in two colors - medium brown and champagne.  I wanted the stand to be darker than the form itself. 

Using my Cricut Explore for the Cricut cuts on this layout, I also used Cricut Design space and a font on my computer to cut the page title, Beautiful Bride.  I love that like other bands of cutting machines, the Cricut Explore also cuts fonts and SVG files!  Yay!  I used the font "Lavenderia Study" for the title.

I used several thin dies for cuts on these pages - the corners, a couple of the mats, and the flowers and leaves.   I cut the flowers in vintage white cardstock, stamped the blossoms with  Blush Pink pink ink, then I sponged 3D Stempel Farbe (Stamp Paint - in Rose Metallic) onto the petals.  I used a stylus and rubber mat to shape the flower petal layers.  I glued the layers together then applied a hint of cocoa brown ink to the edges of the petals to age them.

The base paper - I purchased this vintage looking card stock at the Creating Keepsakes Convention specifically to scrap Bethany's vintage wedding.

In the photo above Bethany's maid of honor, Bailey, was finishing up Bethany's make up and hair, placing the vintage hair piece I purchased for her.

In the photos below Bethany is allowing her bridesmaids and I to dress her in her bridal gown.  We were very careful not to smudge her make up or muss her hair!  I had the honor of lacing her in her dress.  Sigh.....

Not having been in my scraproom for some time, I have to say that I LOVED making this layout.  I love all of the lacy cuts and vintage flowers.  I cannot wait to scrap more of the wedding photos.  And I thought that Maureen's challenge - the Dress Form, was perfect for this layout!!

We hope that you decide to join us this week at Bitten by the Bug 2.  Create a project using a Cricut cut Dress or Dress Form, tell us which cartridge you used, then link to the original post at BBTB2.  

Thank you for stopping by today!!!   

One More Wedding Post

Hey there!  I am back with what I hope may be one final wedding blog post!  This last weekend we received the professional photographs of Bethany and John's wedding day.  It was such a beautiful day, beautiful, wedding, and beautiful bride, and I am so happy that the professional photographs capture the beauty and love of the day.

I am starting with a couple of family photographs.  The top photo is, of course, Doug and I with our daughter.  She is towering over us in her heels and looking so stunning.

The second photo is our family - new members too!  And below is our family, complete with my mom, or as the kids refer to her, Granny!

I thought I would give you a quick peek at some of our decor.  This is the table top arrangement we used.  Bethany found the fun wood votives and the trinket boxes.  I found the little lanterns and the mercury glass votives.  I had succulents growing in my kitchen for five months to use on the table and to enhance the arrangements.  Finally, I made the table runners using 12 inch wide burlap and 5 inch wide lace sewn over top of the burlap.

One of the really sweet and unique decoration we made was the photo filled antique window.  We enlarged Bethany and John's engagement photos and placed them in the window panes.  We used two of these large windows and an antique door with glass panes, all containing photos, to decorate various areas.

As you can see above and below, our caterer really embraced our vintage/rustic theme.  Their sets up were fabulous, as was the food they provided.

No, they did not serve dip from the container!!  The photographer wanted to photograph the buffet areas before the caterer was quite ready.

And now for the final wedding craft:  I created a banner for the front of the cake table. Originally we planned to use an antique buffet from which to serve the cake.  However the base of the cake was too large for the buffet so we ended up with a regular table (boo).  However, the extra touches we had, decorated cupcakes displayed on my pink depression glass sandwich server, flowers, and the banner I made for the cake area all helped to cover for our inability to use the buffet.

The banner was made using my Cricut and Pretty Pennants cartridge.  It looked lovely on the front of the table.

The cake looks great - and it tasted great! It is missing the topper in the top photo.  They used a small bird nest with two little love birds, carrying through the rustic and love birds theme.

If you peek around Bethany and John feeding one another cake, you can catch a glimpse of the banner.

The cake was not our only dessert.  As a surprise, we also had ice cream cones, which many people loved!  It was a fun idea for a warm evening and many of the guests enjoyed ice cream and cake!

I am straight up going to confess that I spent so much time working on a wedding book at blurb.com that I did not make this week's BBTB2 project.  Our sweet DT sister Maureen challenged the team and all of you to use a Cricut cut Owl on a project this week.  I hope you will take time to go by Bitten by the Bug 2 and share some love AND consider joining the challenge this week.

I will be back with some actual paper crafting later this week!!

Wedding Crafts - Still Awaiting Professional Photos

Hello everyone!  There are still wedding crafts and details to share, though I have decided I am not going to await the professional photographs to show you how some of the crafts were used.

As many of you know, Bethany and John are both public school teachers.  We did not want the wedding to be overwhelmed with all things school related, but we did want a couple of cute teacher inspired touches.  I designed their wedding favors (above) to reflect their profession.

I found natural wood pencils on-line that could be orderd personalized.  I order a ton of personalized pencils, but as I understand it, Bethany and John will be using the leftover pencils in their classrooms this fall.

I found two print and cut images in the Silhouette America store:  the report card and the Always & Forever image.  I combined the two, placing the Always & Forever image onto the report card.  I then used the add text feature and personalized the report cards with "Bethany & John", "7/5/14", and "Thank You".  I printed the altered report cards onto cream colored 8.5 x 11 inch card stock, four per page.  I used my paper trimmer to cut the report cards apart.

I purchased mini-composition books (3 for $1 at Dollar Tree) to use as our base booklet.  With the help of my scrappy girlfriends, Bethany, and her matron of honor, we covered all of the book with brown card stock.

My friends then glued the report cards to the brown covered booklets.  I had planned to used pink and white twist twine to tie the pencils to the booklets, but I will be honest - that became too labor intensive during the last two weeks before the wedding!  So, I placed the pencils in a round clear cylinder vase and placed that in a large rectangular Longaberger basket full of the notebooks.

The favors were not my only print and cut project of this wedding - I also made personalized print and cut tags for the hospitality bags.  Keeping with the pink and brown colors, I printed the tags on to pink card stock and affixed the tags to the tan and brown love bird hospitality bags.

The bags were filled with local information, maps with points of interest, restaurants, etc.  There were "About Aiken" booklets.  I made a personalized map that included all of the venues with an attached page of written directions to all of the venues:  Rehearsal, Bridal Breakfast, Groom's Luncheon, Wedding and Reception.  There were personalized bottles of waters that matched the printed tags and there was homemade baked honey chex mix.   I had also purchased tea from a South Carolina tea plantation - the oldest in the country, but I forgot to add it to the bags!!

I also made bags and tags for the children who planned to attend the wedding.  We had eight children coming, six family members and the children of special friends (one of their daughters had been in John's classroom last year so it was especially fun for her to attend the wedding).   Anyway, I found wedding themed  activity coloring books (with crayons) for the kids bags.  I purchased a huge box of play-dough and split the containers among the bags.  I added candy necklaces and toys.  For the girls there were Playmobile Bride and Groom characters and for the boys there were Playmobile soldiers and pirates.  I added Legos to the older boy's bag.  And as you can see, I carried the love bird theme through on to the print and cut tags.

The bags for the children were placed in an antique tool box for me to hand out at the reception - they looked wonderful!  I think this was a fun surprise for not just the children, but for their parents as well.

I am still hoping that we will receive the professional photos soon.  I promise to share more of the fabulous shots when they arrive.

Bridal Breakfast Prima Doll Menus

Hello friends.  In Wednesday's blog post I shared the wedding invitation to Bethany and John's wedding.  One of the inserts was an invitation to the bridesmaids and women of the families.  This post will share a bit more detail on the Bridal Breakfast.

The bridal breakfast was held at the historic Willcox Inn in the historic district of Aiken.  Aiken has a rich equestrian heritage that dates to the late 1800s.  The Willcox is one of our treasured buildings from that era.  Today the Willcox is a lavish spa, hotel, and restaurant.  It was recently featured in Southern Living's wedding section.  I scheduled the breakfast at the Willcox for two reasons - the history and beauty of the building, and the elegant relaxed atmosphere.  Not to mention that the food is wonderful.

We had 35 women gather at 9:00 am the morning of Bethany's wedding to enjoy girl-only time and to start the day in a fun and relaxing way, ensuring that everyone had breakfast!  In the photo above, my college roommate, Mary - right (who came from Michigan to SC for the wedding!), chats one of John's aunts.

We were seated at four different table, but all in the same library room setting.  In the photo above, the groom's aunts, stepmother, and nephew (our only male companion) enjoy coffee and juice while awaiting our food.

Our favorite local florist delivered lovely hydrangea centerpieces to the Willcox for the breakfast.  After the breakfast, while the bride and bridesmaids went for manicures, I dropped off the centerpieces at the reception venue to be used on the buffet tables.

My daughter has "a thing" for elephants, in particular, lucky elephants.  She tells me that when the trunk is raised the elephant is lucky.  I found these tiny raised trunk elephant place card holders and just KNEW we had to use these at the breakfast.  My mom wrote all of the attendees names on the place cards.

The Willcox offered to print simple place menus for our guests, but I wanted something less formal, more fun, and unique.  I decided to use the Prima Doll Stamps, Prima tags, and flowers & gems from my stash to create fun, individual place menus.

I used ledger card stock to create the doll bodies and assorted small print card stock to create the dolls' dresses.  I used Copic markers to add color to the bodies and to change the details on the dresses. I added  brick stencils and color highlights to the cards.   Most of the ladies took their menus as a keepsake.  I was happy that they liked them so much.

We had a limited menu with a choice of two entrees:  French Toast with Cinnamon Apple compote and Bacon Eggs Benedict.  I chose the Bacon Eggs Benedict, but I noticed that the choices were fairly evenly split.  In addition to unlimited coffee and juices, the guest also had the choice of a side dish:  Bacon, Fruit, or (as a reminder that we ARE in SC) Cheese Grits.  Most of the ladies were from areas other than the southeast so it was fun sharing some of the local fare with them.

In addition to thanking everyone for helping us to start the day in such a happy, upbeat way, we also used this as an opportunity to assist Bethany with her "something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue".   When Grandma Edwards passed away in late March, Beth inherited a lovely Cameo broach.  Bethany pinned the broach to her bridal bouquet and it served as her something old.  Her something new was the pearl and elephant wrap bracelet in the photo above.  It looked wedding-ish, yet fun too.  I had this bracelet made for her as her something new and she loved it.  Her something borrowed was a mint penny from her birth year loaned to her by her Matron of Honor.  And her something blue was/is her fabulous engagement ring.

A photo of me with our bride on her wedding day!

One last peek at one of the menu cards, above.  And a photo of the Edwards ladies and my mom, below.  Left to right are Doug's niece Kyndall, his sister Joan, his sister-in-law Toyetta (Kyndall's mom), our great niece Ellie, Bethany, Me, my mom, my son Aaron's fiance Crissie, our sister-in-law Lisa, and our niece Julie - Ellie's mom.

I am hoping for more photos from the photograph over the weekend end.  You will know next week if they arrive as I will be able to share a couple of more wedding crafts.

Thanks for stopping my today!

A Very Slow Start To Wedding Crafts

Hello everyone.  While we are still awaiting the photos from the professional photographer, I thought I could share two wedding craft projects I made for Bethany's wedding, one huge project and one mini project.  The first is the HUGE project:  The wedding invitations.

The invitations were a bit of a hybrid project.  The tools I used were my computer, printer, purchased dies, my Vagabond (which was a lifesaver in this project), and my on-line digital account.

I purchased the chocolate brown folios from My Gatsby, a wonderful source for DIY invitations and stationary.  I also purchased white metallic finish heavy card stock on which to print the invitation wording. I was able to use MS Word and set up my file so that I printed 3 invitations on each 8.5 x 11 inch sheet. A word of advice, the metallic finish card stock will need to be printed on a laser printer or copied on a heat set copier as the ink will smear if you attempt to use an ink jet printer.

I used two dies (from the same set) to create the focal point of the invitation, one for the lace embossed back layer, and the insert for the words section, which is also cut and embossed.  I used Champagne card stock for the lace layer, cutting four from each 12 x 12 inch sheet. The two cuts were glued together and glued to the center of the folio.

For the folio pock fillers, I had a simple RSVP card and printed self addressed, stamped envelop.  I also had four inserts. I used 4 x 8 inch photo card size templates to create the inserts.  Knowing that my folio was 7 inches tall, I made the shortest insert 4 inches tall and added 1 inch in length to each card.

A word about the cards:  The shortest card, Accommodations, included the hotel information for the two hotels where I reserved blocks of rooms for the guest, including name, address, rates, and any special information like "breakfast included".  I was able to print two of these per card which was nice as this was the card used the most, second only the regular RSVP.

The second from the bottom card, Rehearsal Activities, is an invitation from the Groom's family to all family and all out of town guests to join them on July 4th for a full day of food, games, swimming, low country boil, and fire works.  The grooms family put so much work into the rehearsal day and it was a huge success!  I created this card so that the bottom three inches were cut off, making it 4 x 5 inches.

The top two cards may seem a bit odd to some of you.  The Bridal Breakfast (or brunch) is, I believe, a South Carolina tradition.  I first heard of a bridal brunch 12 years ago at my niece's wedding when her aunts from SC planned the brunch.  Since then, living in SC, I have come to realize that this is a normal wedding activity.

The Bridal Breakfast invitations was sent to all bridesmaids and ladies of both families.  We had 35 guests and it was a wonderful start to the wedding day.  I used the same 4 x 8 card, but made it so that the bottom two inches were cut off.

The Groom's Luncheon was something that Doug and I made up!  He found that not enough men were interested in a golf outing to justify planning that, so we decided to go with a casual lunch for the Groom, groomsmen, and men of both families.  Doug hosted a build a burger bar with pub fries and beverages at the Aiken Brewing Company.  I do not want to discuss the ultimate bar bill!

Each of the top three inserts had a clip off response section with instructions to include the clip off section in envelop with your RSVP.  This system worked very well and we were able to track our numbers very accurately.

Above is the monogrammed J & B decorative emblem for the front of the invitation folios.

We sent out a little over 100 invitation to 207 people.  I was so thankful for my Vagabond that I was not cranking the dies through my manual machine.  Yay for electric die cut/embossing machines!

I told you that I would also share a mini-project with you today.  This is the little banner I made for the front of the cards bird cage.   As you can see below, the cage looked quite nice on the gifts table, even if someone did block it with a large box. I happened by the table and unburied the cards cage!

I am truly hoping that I will have more professional photos soon that might show more of the items I crafted for the wedding and bridal breakfast.

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out these two wedding projects.