Daddy's Hands....nursery portraits

As my daughter's August 15th due date approaches, our whole family is completely engrossed in keeping an eye on her "belly"...so it only stands to reason that we would of course have to capture that "belly" in photos.  Miranda is so tiny, it's just really been amazing to watch her belly grow...and grow....and still keep growing.....(this pic was taken in the evening after she had worked for 10 hours, doesn't she look tired, I think she is finally "over" enjoying her pregnancy and ready to get it over with)

We managed to talk her hubby into letting us photograph his hands on her belly in a heart shape....and her BFF Hannah suggested we frame them for the nursery.....(awesome idea Hannah!, there's just nothing quite as charming as the sight of a man's large, hard-working hands holding his pregnant wife's belly, except maybe when he holds his new little one for the first time).   We are definitely on count-down....and every phone call from one of them, has us answering with bated breath (is it time?).

And I couldn't stop there, I wanted a picture of my daughter holding her belly as well, she was not thrilled with my idea as she is retaining quite a bit of water and feels her hands look huge...."oh pah-leeze".....

 The nursery is really coming together, and I'm getting anxious to take pics and share them with you.....andddd, I really do think these pics will look adorable on the walls....

 I just LOVEEEEEEE that belly!

Harlequin Baby Boy Security Blankie--"My 1st Wubby"

I know, I know, I'm kinda absent on here lately.....summer is just so busy on a farm, even a mini-farm...

So I'm just going to quickly show you my most recent custom order for a Baby Boy's Security Blankie--"My 1st Wubby".

The client asked for a baby blue color and the almond color, then asked for suggestions for a third color.   And since I absolutely love baby blue paired with chocolate brown, that is of course what I was hoping she'd go for....and walaaaa...she did! (I realize my amazing photography skills make the chocolate color look black, but it really is a deep, dark chocolate....still working on improving those amazing photography skills)

I kinda had a picture in my mind of how I wanted the design to look, but it ended up so much better than what I had envisioned....I think the border has a bit of a "harlequin" look to it....what do you think?

I again chose to use the organic cotton yarn I've been using on all my baby security blankies, sooooo very soft and cuddly...I'm still lovin' it....

And on a different subject...

My daughter is getting awfully close to her August 15th due date (I told her she has "popped" and "dropped" this past week)....and we managed to talk her hubby into some pics of his hands on her belly, too too cute....I'll be sharing a couple this week.  Her BFF suggested framing them to hang on the walls of the nursery and I LOVE that idea.   "Grammie" may just have to do that :))

Baby Shower Gift and Favor Guide

This will be my last baby shower posting, if you missed the other baby shower postings and would like to see them...here they are...

Princess Baby Shower PreView
Baby Girl Shower Topiary DIY Tutorial
Baby Girl Shower Table Decor
Baby Girl Shower Invitations and Branch Centerpiece Tutorial
Baby Girl Shower Menu featuring Strawberry Truffles, Edible Butterflies and Pearls

I thought it appropriate to end the shower series with some shower gift and favor ideas.

For my daughter's shower, we had planned to make the favors, but my little sis found some online... cheaper than we could make them (as seen in the photo at the top of this post, the image below is from beau-coup.com, where you can check out ALL their favor ideas for ALL occasions).

Egg Soap Baby Shower Favors

My sister was very impressed with how fast the favors shipped (they were delivered much sooner than the site stated) and they are always offering deals, I think she purchased them for 20% off.

They were delivered already assembled, all we had to do was remove the cellophane wrap each one was encased in.

Now on to some gift ideas...

I just happened to find these adorable baby cowboy boots from one of etsy's bns treasuries and knew I had found our little princess her first pair of cowboy boots...

The boots are made by Megan of meganesass etsy shop, I would have included the link for these particular boots, but Megan is on vacation until the 18th....she makes them in different colors as well and I debated whether or not to get them in pink/brown, but thought the cream/brown looked more like cowboy boots.  They were truly a hit at the shower when they were opened.

While browsing Etsy, I found sooooo many shower and gift ideas, I couldn't possibly list them all here, but I have made a few treasuries with some of my favs....so if you are going to be planning a shower or in need of baby gift ideas, take a look at some of finds in the following treasuries.

I have 2 AWESOME giveaways coming up within the next two weeks, so stay tuned!!!

And past treasuries...

Baby Girl Shower Menu featuring Strawberry Truffles, Edible Butterflies and Pearls

If you haven't been following along this past week with my other baby shower posts, you might want to check them out as well...

Princess Baby Shower PreView

Baby Girl Shower DIY Topiary Tutorial

Baby Girl Shower Table Decor

Baby Girl Shower Invitations and Branch Centerpiece DIY Tutorial

While looking around etsy for shower ideas, I found a few more absolutely ah-maz-ing etsy artisans.

These Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Truffles were special ordered from amays3402 etsy shop, and were placed on a tall white metal filigree stand purchased from HL.

The cupcakes were ordered from our local bakery,  and I decided on pink icing.  Then I found etsy shop sweetdejavu who makes Edible Butterflies
and Edible White Sugar Pearls
pearls. (the butterflies come in different colors, styles and sizes...and the pearls come if different colors) The following 2 photos are from the item listings, not from the baby shower.

Here is how we used them....

And though we served cupcakes for everyone, I decided to have a very small cake made for the "mommy-to-be"....I added a few of the edible butterflies to the center of the top, and pearls were placed randomly all over (I'm really regretting that we did not get a close-up pic of it, it was gorgeous).  I also scattered a few of the butterfly cut-outs that my sister made with her Cri-cut and scrapbook paper, around the edges of the plate. 

We displayed it on "mommy-to-be's" table in a vintage etched-glass cake plate that was my grandmother's.

The Menu included:
Bite-size buns, also from the local bakery filled with Pimento Cheese Spread, Smooth Chicken Salad and Chunky Chicken Salad
Vegetable Pizza
Macaroni Salad
Fruit Salad

We served a Strawberry Punch and Raspberry Ice Crystal Lite.

We found small 1" plastic babies at HL and froze each one in an ice cube, added an ice cube to each guests punch glass and whoever's baby was "born" (melted out of the ice cube) first won a prize!

We also placed glass candy dishes on each table filled with assorted nuts and handmade ButterMint Baby Booties...

If you are looking for any kind of party planning ideas...go to Etsy's website and type any word you are searching in the search bar (ie. baby, boy, girl, wedding, anniversary) and you will find so many ideas from all the etsy artisans you'll have your event planned in no time at all!!!

Linking up to these blog parties....go check out all the great ideas in blogland...

Baby Girl Shower Invitations and Branch Centerpiece DIY Tutorial

front of invitation

I made the baby shower invitations using the online website Mixbook where you can upload your own photos and edit them, upload your own scrapbook papers and elements to design your own cards, photo books, and calendars.  You can also invite other family members to help out with the albums.   I have made photo albums to give as gifts and am currently working on getting all our family photos put into albums.

In keeping with the "Princess" theme, I titled the front of the invitation "Preparing for a Princess" and I added pics of Miranda, her belly, and an ultrasound.  The back of the invitation had all the details for the shower itself.

I have enjoyed scrapbooking in the past but have found that I prefer the unlimited artistic options by going digital.  Every single background, element and every text was put into place and edited by me.   If you've never tried it but would like to, let me warn you, it can become very addicting...

back of invitation

I've also recently found the online photo editing site Picnik and have just started playing around with it, and so far I'm in "LLLLOVVVVEEEE" with it.  I used it on the back of the invitation to "pixelate" Miranda's last name and the RSVP phone number, I'm not that great at it, but I'll only get better with practice :)

Now for the Branch Centerpiece DIY Tutorial:

The food table featuring the branch centerpiece (I wish we would have taken the pic after we cleaned off the bar in the background)

I started with dead, bare branches that had fallen in our yard out of the large maple tree that drops them every time a wind storm blows through.  I picked the ones that were the most appealing to me.  I then purchased from Michael's a couple of containers of small fabric flowers, Martha Stewart Glittering Glue & Lustre Glass MicroBeads in White Gold.

I proceeded to add the glittering glue to the center of some of the flowers, then sprinkled the microbeads onto it, shaking off the excess...

Some of the smaller flowers, I layered with hot glue.  I also found the tall pink tin can at Michael's and stuffed it with wadded up newspaper to provide support for the branches.  I arranged the branches into the newspaper then used my hot glue gun to attach the flowers randomly.

To finish it off, I added a white feather boa that was purchases at Hobby Lobby to the top of the tin pot.  We plan to place this in the nursery for decoration but I think I'm going to have to cut the size down quite a bit.   To get this to the shower, I had to remove the branches from the tin, and lay them flat in the back of my SUV (the branches were so big, I had to lay the back seats down for them to fit), then I just rearranged it back together at the shower.  It was honestly so easy to do.

I used very little of the glue and microbeads, so I'll have them for another project, so this really only cost me the price of the tin pot, the feather boa and the flowers, probably around $22.

Nate Berkus always says to use things from nature and I think this fits that bill nicely, if the branches get broken, they are very easy to replace, and cost nothing because you can reuse the flowers.

If you missed the other posts about the baby shower, go check them out...

http://mybluepeacock.blogspot.com/2011/06/baby-girl-shower-table-decor.html

http://mybluepeacock.blogspot.com/2011/06/baby-girl-shower-topiary-diy-tutorial.html

http://mybluepeacock.blogspot.com/2011/06/princess-baby-shower-preview.html

Keep watch this week for an awesome interview and giveaway from an amazing etsy artisan!!!  I'll also be sharing the menu, some purchases from other amazing etsy artisans, and a few handmade gifts.

Baby Girl Shower Table Decor

Today is all about the baby shower table decor and how I did it....if you missed Baby Girl Shower Topiary DIY Tutorial or Princess Baby Shower PreView, go check them out.  For the most part, I made everything that I could on the cheap, purchased glass serving dishes, candy dishes, and vases from goodwill and yard sales.  I did however have a couple of splurges.

The top photo is of the the centerpiece on my daughter's table, who was of course the guest of honor (and I just had to share a couple of pics of her and her baby bump)
The fresh-cut flowers were one of my splurges.

We made up place seating tags only for her, the soon to be grandmother's,  and the soon to be great-grandmother's.  We made the tags using chocolate brown cardstock, folded in half, then pretty scrapbook papers in our color scheme, cut using lacey-edged scrapbook scissors which we then "glue-dotted" to the brown cardstock.  I picked up a brown caligraphy pen and wrote the names on these.  Sorry I don't have a close-up pic of the tags.

She chose to have her absolutely ah-maz-ing aunts, me and her sister-in-law, sit at her table... then each soon-to-be great-grandmother and her mother-in-law each had her own table and sat with their friends and family.

Baby Girl Shower Topiary DIY Tutorial

I had planned to upload the baby shower invitation and share with you the online site where I made them, but alas, my puter woes continue....for some reason my wireless printer/scanner/fax is no longer communicating with my router....hubby will have to add this problem to his "honey-do" list.

So instead, today I'm sharing the topiary tutorial.  First I went to our local pottery shop, Zanesville Pottery and China in Zanesville, Ohio and purchased the 6x6 concrete pot.  The next stop was Hobby Lobby (love that store) and purchased more glue sticks, floral foam, a bag of moss,  a 6" foam ball and curly willow branches (I used 4).

I love how the pot as an aged, antique look to it, and I needed something that was heavy to support the height I wanted so this one worked really well. 

The flowers are white peonies, I used the full blooms, the buds and a few leaves.  I already had them from Michael's.

I removed the moss from it's bag and filled my sink with warm water, pushed all the moss down into the water until the bubbles quit coming to the surface and let it soak for about an hour (this really rehydrates the moss and plumps it back up to normal).  Then I drained the water and let the moss drain for another hour in the sink before laying it all out on dishtowels to dry overnight.

Hubby made a hole in the 6" foam ball and I hot glued the curly branches into it, then cut the floral foam to fit into the pot, making a hole in it as well for the bottom of the curly branches (this is the one thing I should have done better, it needed more stability).

I then pulled all the blooms, buds and leaves off their stems and proceeded to hot glue them to the 6" foam ball.  When that was finished and the moss completely dry, I pulled to moss sections apart to fit around the top of the floral foam at the base of the curly branches.

My plan was to place the topiary on the gift table, then my daughter could take it home with her to be part of the nursery decor.  When she saw it, she loved it but wanted a bit of pink added to it.  So I glued some pink geranium blooms in a few places, then we decided to add a couple of blooms to the moss to look as though they had "fallen" from the top. 

We were all very pleased with how it turned out, but getting it to the shower was a challenge, I did not have it stable enough in the base and we had to do some repair work at the shower.

The baby shower was held in the basement of our church and since there was no air-conditioning (and it was HOT), we had to use a couple of fans which really helped , but as you can see in the following photo, our poor topiary that had been through quite an ordeal getting to the shower, was starting to lean.

We also used a few large white ostrich feathers (also purchased at HL when they were 50% off as they were expensive) placed them in pretty glasses on different tables, and the fans of course made them lean as well. 

Princess Baby Shower PreView

Well, I'm finally back with a sneak peek of my daughter's baby shower (which is what has kept me so busy for the past two weeks)!!!

All the decorations were made, the guests invited and arrived, and gifts were opened with appropriate "ooh's" & "aah's" uttered...


And with my first blog post, blogger is already giving me grief....ugh. What the heck! I can't change the font to the one I like...oh well, here goes anyway... I plan to add a couple tutorials on decor items that I made in future posts. I'll also include some links for items that were purchased from some more amazing etsy artisans, so maybe you'll get some ideas if you are planning a baby shower in the future

I still don't have all the pics edited, and today is another busy day, so let me just give a quick shout-out to the absolutely fabulous women in my family that helped make everything come together exactly as I envisioned it...

My

Mom Jeanette

Mom-in-Law Joy

Sister Amy

Sis-in-law Kelly

Sis-in-law Kim

Miranda's Sis-in-Law Abby

(my sis-in-law Christine would have loved to help, but works full time, has a new baby of her own, so I'm thanking her anyway just cause I want to)

 

 

and I can't leave out

Miranda's BFF Hannah for taking the pics so that I could enjoy the shower

 

 

andddddd my son-in-laws family that took the time to stay afterward and help with the clean-up....ALL of you ROCK!!!!!!!

 

 

If anyone has any advice for me on how to deal with the probs I'm having with blogger, I'd love to hear it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I normally upload my pics, then add the text....could this be the problem???)

New Baby Coming Soon

I am sooo very happy to announce that our family will be welcoming a new addition around August 15, 2011!!! This will be our second Grandchild, our first, Jonah, lives in Washinton state with our oldest son and daughter-in-law. We are so sad as we rarely get to see him (thank heavens for the internet and facebook so we can at least see pics and video his parents post).

Our daughter Miranda (our youngest) and son-in-law Brian, announced at Christmas that they are expecting their first. I was not allowed to post about it until now as they wanted to be able to tell his mother in person, and yesterday was the first they were able to do so.

As of right now (Lord willing that we won't have to move), we live close to them, so I am of course hoping to be able to do lots and lots of babysitting!!!

The way they announced it, was at Christmas, we were all given what we thought was a Christmas card in an envelope, but inside was a poem, and here is what ours said...

I do not have a face to see,
Or put inside a frame.
I do not have soft cheeks to kiss,
I don't yet have a name. (It was at this point it hit me)
You can't yet hold my tiny hands, 'nor whisper in my ear.
It's still to soon to sing a song, or cuddle me so near.
But all will change come fall time,
That's when they say I'm due.
I'll be your second grandchild;I can't wait till I meet you.
All I ask between now and then is your patience while I grow.
I promise I'll be worth the wait, because of all the love we'll know.
So have a Merry Christmas
A wish to you from me.
I cannot wait to be a part
Of this great family!

Can you imagine the tears of joy!

My daughter has always been baby/kid crazy, she started babysitting after taking a class at the local hospital at the age of eleven. She and our new son have been married a little over a year now and I'm surprised she was able to wait as long as she has.

I have already been looking at nursery decor, baby knit and crochet patterns, and searching for the best "baby" websites on the net, so if you find any, please let me know.

Enough for now, I'm sure I'll be posting more about this in the future and I just may have to start a blog for the new addition, how fun would it be to keep track of everyone's thoughts and joy, pics, information and give to him/her in a book when he/she is old enough to appreciate it!

I was asked what I'd like to be called and as I said with Jonah, they can call me anything they want....How does Granny M sound?