Monkey Baby Shower Take 2!

February 5th we hosted a baby shower for my good friend Rachel who is due on March 22nd! She registered for a lot of monkey things, like towels and blankets, so we opted to throw together a monkey themed baby shower! Sound familiar?? Kinda like this one?  

The main difference between the two is that for this one, we had to prepare all of the food rather than get it catered. Mama to be can only eat gluten free, so me and my ladies put together everything gluten free!

We reused a decent amount of what I already had from Laura's shower! Figured I would share some more photos!

Above is the first gift bag I've decorated using my Cricut Expression! I used the Create A Critter cartridge!

The setup!

Centerpiece! Flowerpot and monkey came from the Dollar Tree, Coconut bowls and ostrich feathers were left overs from  Laura's shower!

Coconut bowls filled with nuts, chocolate covered raisins, banana chips, banana runts, and banana Laffy Taffy!

For the favors we poured soy candles into Earth's Best baby food jars, and adorned with ribbons! They came out fantastical, and they smell terrific!

We hung paper lanterns for decorations and made "palm trees" out of crepe paper. The baby shower plates are from Target

These are the appetizers I chose to make! I know penguins don't really fit the jungle/monkey theme, but they were way too cute to pass up! Cream Cheese Penguins recipes and instructions found here

 Mary putting the finishing touches on her amazing deviled eggs!

and Ashley's fantastical gluten free cupcakes!

We ate, then mama to be opened her gifts:

All in all it was a great day! She loved all the little details we put into the shower, and it made her even more excited for baby Ethan to arrive!

Linking up to:

Twilight Saga Eclipse DVD Release Party - 12.04.2010

I decided that I wanted a night of girlish fun, and opted to host a small Twilight Eclipse DVD Release party with some of my good friends on December 4th, the day the DVD came out. Those who know me know that I LOVE planning events, small or large, so I had a field day preparing for this! Last minute 4 people got sick, or their kids got sick, or the snow kept them from being able to make it out, so the party became quite small, which was fine! We still had a fabulous time!

First came the invitations:

Pardon the sad job of blurring out addresses and phone numbers! I designed these invitations in Photoshop. The actual Twilight cast photos were found mainly on http://www.collider.com as high resolution files. The embellishments such as the chess piece and the heart were purchased from http://www.mygrafico.com as a set called "Nightfall". Once they were all set, I ordered them through http://www.vistaprint.com and they were beautifully printed, and for a great price!

For the favor bags I opted to make Twilight bookmarks for each guest, complete with pictures and quotes from the movie and books, and those same graphics from http://www.mygrafico.com. I ordered the vinyl bookmark sleeves, and the bookmark tassels from http://www.capaper.com, and proceeded to print them out on my photo printer at home.

I also made keychains to clip onto the bags for a little extra flair! The crystal heart charms and beads as well as all the jump rings and clips and chains were purchased from Hobby Lobby, and the silver wolf charms were ordered off of Ebay.

The finished Swag Bags! Red bags were purchased at the Dollar Tree (2 for $1) I printed out the image on photo paper and used glue dots to secure it to the front of the bag, and then clipped the keychain on. What were these bags filled with you ask?

Each bag contained:

1 package of Team Edward stickers & 1 package of Team Jacob stickers, the bookmarks from earlier, a package of Eclipse Gum, a few Vampire lip chocolates, a tin of Eclipse Band Aids, a couple of mini buttons, some Eclipse pens, and two Antibacterial Hand Sanitizers from Bath & Body Works in Twilight Woods and a seasonal scent called Vampire Blood.

The table centerpiece was by far one of the things I had the most fun slapping together. The vase and red and black vase filler both came from the Dollar Tree, The big chess pieces and ostrich feathers came from Hobby Lobby. I love ostrich feathers, and find that I use them every time I throw any sort of party or get together.

I printed out images to glue dot over the wine labels for a little something extra.

Eclipse, Red, & Black!

Some casual snacks and baked mostaccioli were served. Unfortunately the pasta wasn't very interesting, so I forgot to take a picture of it. Aside from that we had red and black chips and salsa, veggie tray, deviled eggs and cookies.

The apple shaped sugar cookies were a hit!

And what would a Twilight party be without some special guests?

I got all 4 cardboard cutouts from one ebay auction, and for insanely cheap prices compared to what they sell for individually.

All in all it was a great night! And I had a lot of fun putting it all together :)

Progress

Baby shower #1 has been rapidly progressing! Today I went and booked a room through my city's village hall. It's actually in the basement of the village hall building, and it's a nice big open classroom. Has a wall of mirrors, and glass doors on one side of the room to let the sun shine in. It's beautiful, and with all the decorations we are going to pack in there, it's going to look amazing.

I designed the banner, the welcome sign, and the invites, and ordered them through Vistaprint.com, since I couldn't find any decorations I found suitable to match the invitations in the store.

                                                                  Invitation one side

Invite opposite side

Door Sign

Vinyl Banner

Monkey & Balloon graphics all courtesy of a purchased graphic collection from http://www.mygrafico.com

                                                                              

Overall I am very happy with how things are coming along. The next two steps? Food + cake. Then centerpieces and the remainder of the decorations.

I am also trying to come up with a cd of good songs suitable for a baby shower. Any and all suggestions are welcome!! I would love your help!

XOXO

-V

Baby Fever!

I just recently found out that I will be hosting 2 baby showers, one for each of my best friends (both were my matrons of honor at my wedding as well). I'm very excited to be an auntie x 2.

The first one will be for Laura, and is scheduled for March 28th. She is doing the Lambs & Ivy Cocoa Safari theme as the babys bedroom, and wanted a monkey themed baby shower. She also did not want much of anything blue. I know this makes her sound really picky, but she's not. Just didn't want the generic blue everywhere baby shower for baby Luca.

First off let me tell you. A monkey baby shower, not the easiest thing to find! All the monkey balloons and decor I could find were either for Luau parties, or birthday specific.

Then, in a google search, it happened.

I did a search for "monkey mylar balloons" in google, and lo and behold. Here it is. Granted, it has some blue in it. But it's more of an aqua. And it has the yellow and brown she wanted (she wanted green too).

Then for more searching.

I came across this blog.

www.hostessblog.com

And she had 2 posts for the "Mod Monkey" baby shower. One post had her decorations and setup, and the other one had a lot of downloadable pdf files for others to use (only for personal use, not for reselling)

So I downloaded the pdf files to see if I could make them use the colors she liked as well, since it was a lot of aqua and yellow.

Here is the finished product : a door sign to put on the outside of the door.

 

A HUGE thank you to Jenn at www.hostessblog.com for making a monkey themed baby shower possible for me :)

I personally love the way it came out. I think the colors all work really well together, and give me a lot of room to play with the rest of the decorations. I think she was envisioning paler colors, so I hope she will like this! Though I am still debating on taking the yellow circles out of the monkey and painting them brown to make it more uniform. I'm not sure. What do you guys think? 

I also loved her idea of using banana runts candies in the decorating, so I will probably do the same there.

Along with that monkey balloon, I also found this balloon:

So I will order a few of those for some whimsy as well. My work has helium tanks, so all I have to do is have them blown up there for $0.50 a pop. I'm also probably going to pick up some yellow flower balloons from the Dollar Tree, and then just some plain colored ones for more fun.

Dependant on the venue I want to host it at (still waiting on a call back from my village hall to see their rules and application process) I also wanted to make these in brown, aqua, yellow, and light green to hang from the ceiling.

Above picture courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings

The part that I am stuck on is decorations more specific to a baby shower. Maybe an It's A Boy banner or a baby shower banner. I'm worried about this theme looking more like a birthday party than a baby shower.

Does anyone have any cool ideas for handmade banners? Or know of any websites that sell them? All I've been able to find is blue ones, and the occasional full on pastel one, but I want something a bit brighter.

Cut to a few hours later. I came across an AMAZING site with AMAZING graphics for purchase, and found an adorable monkey more suitable for a baby shower! If you are looking for fabulous graphics at fabulous prices check out http://www.mygrafico.com

Here is the door sign in the new design...

 

 now to choose which I like better!

Thanks!

Hope everyone is doing fantastical

XOXO

-V

Recipe Success

So yesterday a small group of my friends came over (One of them brought us the entire video of our wedding!) just to hang out. I decided to cook dinner, and it came out fantastic. I have now passed the recipe onto them, so I figured I would share it here. I'm not sure where I got it from, but it's a very good recipe! (If it is yours, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due!)

Broccoli Cheddar Quiche

Ingredients:

1 deep dish frozen pie shell (not pre-bake kind)

3 eggs

1 cup plus one handful extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

1 cup milk

2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Half bag of frozen broccoli or 1 large head of broccoli

1 half red onion, diced

2 tablespoons self-rising flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 375. Cook broccoli and onion in a pot of boiling water until tender. Drain, dice and set aside. In the pie shell, layer cheese on bottom. Add a layer of broccoli and onion and alternate layers of cheese and broccoli and onion mixture until the shell is full.

In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, butter, milk, salt, pepper, handful of cheese and flour. Pour over top of quiche.

Bake for 35-45 minutes until center is cooked and the top is golden brown.