My Sister is Having a Baby (Part 2) The Shower...Coral, Mint, Gold and Handcrafted With Love

The plan was to keep it simple... but when it comes to things that can be handcrafted, I never have enough time to make all of the things that I want to or am inspired to make. I knew right off the bat that I wanted to make a diaper cake, because I had so much fun making a towel cake for her bridal shower (6 years ago!):

After many hours searching pinterest for inspiration, a plan came together in my head, and this is the diaper cake that I came up with:

I made paper flowers with scrapbook paper, book paper, tissue paper, my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, my Mother's Day Bouquet Cricut cartridge, and a My Favorite Things Rolled Rose die:

I used the handmade flowers for the centerpieces, along the center of the table runner,  on the mini chalkboards to decorate them...

I made paper pinwheels and glittered rubber duckies, and I sewed the covers to the mason jars that I used to hold the centerpieces. Speaking of sewing, I sewed circle garlands which you can see a glimpse of here:

And here:

I used it over top of the tissue paper tassel garland that I made for my mantle:

I also stitched raindrops together that I had cut out with my Cricut (yes, my same trusty old friend that I have had for over 7 years!), and I hung them from the white balloon "clouds" to shower over the gifts table:

I did not make the cake, I had my mom pick one up from a nearby bakery (trust me, I am much better with paper decor!):

It was key lime flavored with cream cheese frosting, and so yummy! There were some pretty vanilla cupcakes for those who didn't like the key lime.

We played a game of late night diapers-and, yes, I made a coral tutu for the basket, and cut the sign shape from black cardstock, my Cricut, and my Storybook cartridge

I had a station set up for the guests to create headbands (the kids had a blast with this!!):

I had a handful of branches that I spray painted gold for them to hang the finished headbands on.
Instead of a guestbook, I had everyone sign in on cardstock onesies that I diecut with the Cricut Sampler cartridge, and clip them up on bakers' twine with mini clothespins:

We had lots of yummy food:

 chicken salad crossiants, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, pinwheel sandwiches:

 fruit in chocolate dipped waffle cones with marshmallow cream cheese dip:

The guests brought books in lieu of cards, perfect for my school teacher sister:

I made a corsage for the mama to be:

A wreath out of diapers for the front door:

And some tissue paper poms for the corner of the dining room:

and, believe it or not, I actually got in one of the pictures, too:

So, this is why I haven't been posting much. My summer has been consumed with work and shower craftiness, but I should be back to "regularly scheduled" scrapbook craftiness soon. I am still recuperating!

I am linking up at the Idea Room link party:

And Home Stories A to Z:

Harry Potter Birthday Party

My son turned 10 this year, and the last Harry Potter movie came out, so what better way to celebrate than with a Harry Potter birthday party? I got tons of ideas from Pinterest, then I decided what I could make work in my house.

The first thing that I made was the sign for "Platform 9 3/4", which I placed by the door (I picked up the file that I printed here-she has TONS of other great printables for a Harry Potter party). The frame was a simple oak frame that I repurposed with black chalkboard spray paint and hi-gloss spray (or you could just use a gloss finish spray paint) but I used what I already had.

My Sign:

The next thing on my list...wands for the Wizards! I found an AWESOME and easy tutorial for making them from cardstock, hot glue, and spray paint-and I love how they turned out!

Ollivander's Wand Shop:

As you can see, I also made "Hogwarts Completion Certificates, but I will show those later ( I gave them out at the end of the party).

As any Harry Potter fan knows, the wizards doesn't choose the wand, the wand chooses the wizard. So, we blindfolded the kids and the let the wands do the rest of the work ;-).

(birthday boy had to put a spell on his sis!)

Now there are lots of ideas for Harry Potter party activities if you google it, but the kids opted to ride four wheelers and play Harry Potter video games.

We had a Sorting Hat Pita Bread with Felix Felicis Spinach dip:

We had a Honeyduke's Sweet Shop:

 A closer look at the spooky sweets:

We had lots of yummy treats: Acid Pops (sour pop rocks), Drooble's Best Blowing Gum (eyeball bubble gum from the Halloween section-also a nod to Moody Mad Eye), Chocolate Frogs, Slytherin Snakes (sour gummy snakes), Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (I couldn't find these, so I just used gourmet jelly beans), Cockroach Clusters (chow mein noodles covered in chocolate), Golden Snitch Cake Pops, and Edible Wands (chocolate licorice), and Nimbus 2000 Broomstick treats.

I made the sign with some googled clip art and cardstock:

There were lots of fun treats there, like Nimbus 2000 Broomstick Treats:

Instructions to make these HERE.

Golden Snitch Cake pops (I got the idea for these here):

I used vanilla almond bark, and mixed golden yellow and lemon yellow food coloring in for the candy coating.I made the wings from a shimmer cardstock, and cut them out with my Cricut.
For the cake, we had a "Hagrid Cake," like the one that Hagrid brought Harry in the first movie, messy pink and green frosting, misspellings, and all.

Here is the cake from the movie:

And, Evan's cake:

(this was the easiest and most fun birthday cake I have ever made-it was so freeing to make it messy on purpose!)

There were Chocolate Frogs:

Which I made with a candy mold from Hobby Lobby, and printed out the labels for.

I also made a banner:

I printed out the Gryffindor house crest for the ends, along with some Harry Potter artwork that I altered in PSE, I cut the letters in red and gold (Gryffindor colors) for the banner from the Parry Hotter font using my Cricut and SCAL, then tied it all together with pieces of black tulle.

Here's another look at the banner and table:

There were "Magical Color Changing Drinks" for "Potions":

(these were easy-I put food coloring in the cups, then the ice cubes, so that when we poured the sprite in, it changed colors)
And, of course you can't have a Harry Potter party without Butterbeer!:

I used this recipe for Magically Easy Butterbeer-  I did have an "oops" moment here-I overbeat the whipped topping and turned it into butter-luckily, I had bought a back up of Cool Whip, so a crisis was averted! It was really good (kind of like a cream soda float)-I'm sure that it would have been even better with the topping it was supposed to have ;-)

Of course, there was singing and candle blowing:

Cards :

(What 10 year old boy doesn't love a whoopie cushion?)

and Presents:

He got lots of Nerf stuff, a video camera, a Super Soaker, money, books...

When it was all over, all of the kids got "Hogwarts Completion Certificates":

This is what they looked like:

I printed them out on vellum, one at a time, and immediately sprinkled them with UTEE and heat embossed-then I rolled them all up like diplomas and tied them with golden yellow grosgrain ribbon.

It was a fun party, and hopefully it made my little man feel special! Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves!

I am linking up to: