preppy puppy {baby shower}

My friend, Katie, just had her first baby, an absolutely beautiful little girl!!

Almost as soon as I found out Katie was preggo I had an idea for her shower. Katie has a great big heart when it come to dogs. I don't think she's ever met a pup she didn't like. I love how passionate she is about dogs, I think it's an outward expression of how much love she has to give!

This is the inspiration picture from pinterest that led the direction of the shower "theme".

Our main decoration was sewing many paper garlands inspired by this pin and refined a little by this pin. Neither pin really had directions so I simply cut pieces that fit well together size/shape wise. I used a dog bone cookie cutter I had on hand to trace the dog bone paper strand - that was by far the most time consuming strand, but luckily I was watching lots of the Olympics at the same time so Yay for multi-tasking!

We made a variety of puppy chow to munch on and they were all fantastic!

We had some berries and dog shaped cookies too!

  

These cute little "chip bags" held our puppy chow so we could walk around and visit while still munching at the same time! I found the instructions to make the "bags" here.

 For our drinks we had bottles of coke, water & coffee

 We did more decorating downstairs where Katie opened her gifts.

The jars on the left have milk bones and rawhide bones (both bought at Wal-Mart). The puppy print and invitation on the right (along with the food & drink lables and the to-go bag tags) were done by my very talented friend, Samantha. Please contact me if you want to contact her for her fantastic design skills!

 We made enough puppy chow so that guests could take a "doggie bag" home!

I got the paper bags at Hobby Lobby and then ended up painting stripes on them using removable Scotch tape & craft paint. I tried printing the stripes, but the bags were too thick and it wasn't working for me so I switched to Plan B.

 One of the activities we did was to have guests color ABC pages that we had printed as 4x6 cards from here. Then we put all the pages into an album and created Baby's first ABC book! I love how fun/easy this was for guests and all kids love to read so I think it'll get lots of use!

And here's the party planning committee with Katie!

I say, "Great success", Ladies!

P.S. Thanks Annie, for taking all the pictures!

paint samples, more like stress samples

I recently discovered the concept of "test pots" of paint.

 

They are a mistake.

 

Last week my basement wall looked like this:

 

 

 

I was going crazy. I couldn't make a decision to save my life.

(Partly/Possible due to many other things {stresses} going on in my life, currently)

 

Anyway, I picked a paint color and it was none of the above.

I picked my color without testing it first because I was so fed up with not loving the colors I was "testing". Maybe I'm not as good a visualizer as I've always thought I was? 

 

I love the color I finally picked {test free}! So I probably would have loved any/all of these too if I'd just put them up on the wall and quite trying to "sample" them! We still need to do a second coat and this is just a phone pic, but I think you'll get an idea...

 

 

 

 

The color is "Wood Smoke" by Glidden, but I got it at Sherwin Williams because I'm a fan of their paint quality.

 

Our basement has come a loooong way... I owe some serious before and after pictures!



spring mantel with cute bunny butts

I had so much fun decorating my mantle for spring/Easter this year!

 

I usually don't decorate for Easter because of tax season, but I picked up the prettiest pack of double-sided scrapbook paper... I don't even know why I was looking at scrapbook paper. Then I was inspired by some pinterest "bunny butts" and the rest of the mantle just basically fell into place!

 

 

 

 

This cute Easter art was my original inspiration and then I searched and found this bunny banner template which I resized to my liking and traced onto scrapbook paper. I made the yarn pom poms and hand sewed them onto the bunnies. Finally, I used my sewing machine and a light colored thread to string them up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The frames I already had on hand and I printed the bunny silhouettes free from here!



 

 

Hyacinths are one of my favorite flowers because they herald spring with the most amazing smell! I went into the grocery store to get milk and these fragrant little beauties wouldn't let me walk past without bringing some home!

 

 

The trees I had from a project last spring. They are just Styrofoam cones wrapped with yarn/twin and hot glued. Easy Peasy.

 

 



 

 

I think my picture taking skills have diminished due to lack of use... the mantle is even more adorable in person! I really love it!!

 

Now if somebody could just convince spring to actually show up... kids will probably be hunting Easter eggs in the snow this year :)

 

 

 



december photo challenge: day 22

Gifts:

 

Quick pic of my new earrings in my new make-up mirror!

 



december photo challenge: day 21

Family:

 

Yes, this is a retro shot of Kevin drinking his first beer at the ripe old age of 2. 

Apparently when you're in the wild west {Colorado} there is no drinking age while you're with family! No wonder we visit so many of Kevin's relatives out there ;)

 

 



december photo challenge: day 20

Stockings:

{Kevin's side of the family}

 

 

 



december photo challenge: day 19

Words: