Summer Fun

My boys are already wanting to constantly be entertained now that summer is here.  Without activities to break up the day, they very quickly get bored (despite the hundreds of toys, games, and books in our house!).

I saw this idea for a summer activity board and a few others on various blogs that were quite similiar. It sounded like the solution I needed to keep my little men happy and to save my sanity over the summer. I am currently in the process of making my own version. I just finished making the cards on my laptop after brainstorming a list of activities with the boys and my hubby. Now to decorate the huge pickle jar we just polished off and start using it!

Marshmallow Guns seem like a great way to entertain my rambunctious little men. I think daddy will be making a trip to the Lowe's soon for the supplies!

A Sweet & Sexy Shower

 My sister-in-law Kim recently asked me to help her with her best friend, Amanda's personal shower. She did a great job with all the planning and just needed a bit of help with the tags and such. I was thrilled to get to help with Amanda's special day!  We played the game where each guest brings a pair of panties that describes their personality. Upon arriving each person put the panties they brought in the vase and then we strung them up like a banner and had Amanda guess who they were from. 

Below are just some of the shots of the things we made. It was a success and lots of people commented on how cute everything was. Kim did a great job and I was happy to be able to help her.

 Water bottle wraps

Tags for the wine to go with the theme:

white was sweet, red was sexy and the blush was blush 

(it is a lingerie shower after all!) 

Tags for the glasses with each of the ladies names printed on them 

Special glass for the guest of honor! 

The yummy sweets table

(I once again forgot to take a picture once we had ALL the food set out) 

Sweet and Sexy banner

Sweets Themed Baby Shower

My sweet sister-in-law, Kim is expecting her first baby mid-March. She LOVES candy and so when deciding on a theme for her baby shower, a candy theme immediately caught her eye!  It was so much fun planning the invites, candy bar, centerpieces, and wall decorations! 

 Candy Bar - all Kim's favorite kinds of candies in various glass containers.

Guests took home bags of their own candy mix!  It was a hit!

 Centerpieces - Diaper cake, paper plate lollipops, and washcloth lollipops

 Favors - a little lollipop with tags we made

 LOVE the Dum Dum topiary! 

It was super simple to make and looked adorable!

Basket for books for Josiah

Nice jar for raffle tickets for those that brought diapers and wipes

Mother's Day Gift with Tutorial!

For my mom and mother-in-law I decided to create these adorable linked hanging frames that I saw on HowDoesShe? I LOVE this blog! The ideas are so cute and I am storing a bunch of them for future use! So here is what I did to make this project my own :)

While we were in San Diego on our anniversary trip, my hubby took me to IKEA! He sure knows the way to his woman's heart. Anyway... I saw these frames and knew they would be perfect for some kind of craft project, so we grabbed 3 packs (that is 9 frames). At the time I just wasn't sure what. Fast forward a few weeks and now it is time for Mother's Day crafting. These frames turned out to be just the perfect project. I had exactly the amount I needed since my mom has 4 grandbabies and my mother-in-law has 5.

I began by having my sweet hubby drill small holes in each of the corners. This is where the eye screws would be placed to link the frames. His drill was already out since he was hanging all my shelves and rods in the SCOR.

I painted the frames with a cream colored paint to go with the papers I had selected for use.
I traced the frames onto the back of my paper (I had taken the plastic from the center where the picture would sit).
My paper choices. My boys have "colors" that I have assigned to them so I used those. The purple was for my niece and the yellow was for my nephew (because that is his favorite color!).
Here are the cut out frames for my mother-in-law's gift.
Using Mod Podge (which I LOVE) I glued the paper to the frame. I also cut out each grandchild's name on white paper using my Cricut. Those were then applied to the corresponding frame. This one was for my newest nephew!
Next, I screwed the eye screws into the predrilled holes. I did that on all four corners.

Using cream colored ribbon, I tied the eye hooks together to link the frames. Lowe's didn't have any eye hooks or I would have used those (although the ribbon junkie in me LOVES how the ribbon looks).
To hang the frames, I just tied another long ribbon. Wish I had a nice metal handle like the one on HowDoesShe? but no biggie!
There you have it! You can totally add to these as well (although 5 was pretty heavy so I might would just start another one!). Since only 2 of the 6 kiddos on my hubby's side have had kids, I am sure I will be making another one of these somewhere down the road!