showered by friends

A couple of weeks ago, I was blessed to have a second baby shower! This one was thrown by a close group of girlfriends from church.  The shower was so sweet {actually that was part of the theme} and incredibly thoughtful! It was held in a loft space in downtown Liberty and the girls set up the cutest decor... the table scape and place settings were perfect!

And how adorable is the sign that Melody made! Now it's hanging in the nursery! :)

Then there was the amazing food...how blessed I am to have friends that are incredible at cooking and baking as well! I have certainly not lacked on appetite lately! This particular group of girls knows some of my habits too... we met for a year, every other Friday morning, at Panera at 6 am while going through a bible study.  So they knew my breakfast of choice was a spinach and bacon soufle... hence their thoughtfulness to have a spinach and bacon quiche! Yum! Also some delicious sausage balls {so good} and probably some of the best brownies I've ever had in my life...

Plus pretzel bread {another one of my faves}, fruit, chicken salad, and some really yummy cupcakes! I really just can't say enough about how good the food was!

Not only was I showered with gifts for the baby, I was also showered with kind words by all the guests.  Everyone wrote a little note to baby boy Champ and I teared up big time when I came home and read them all.  I will definitely cherish those notes forever!  Can't say enough how much I appreciate these ladies and all the guests that attended!

family baby shower

This last weekend I was so blessed to have a family & family friends baby shower!  It was thrown by my sister, Leanne, my sister-in-law Kristi, and my two college friends Janae & Dawn.  They all did such an amazing job and it turned out so perfectly.  The shower had a "woodland" theme and the decor was really adorable with pine cones and little woodland creatures everywhere.  The cake even looked like a birch tree!

Two of my amazing hostess...

My sister-in-law Kristi who drove 4 hours each way from Tulsa, to come spend time with me and to help out with the shower!  Caleb also made an appearance at the shower... and helped loaded up all the great baby gear we received. :)

And of course the brains behind the operation... my creative sister, Leanne!

The week before the shower I had been pretty stressed out... there was a lot that made me feel unprepared for baby. I had several things I still needed for the baby's room, and it seemed like everything I had ordered was on back order! The shower was sort of the only thing I was looking forward to, but even it was being threatened by snow. Luckily my sister put up with a tearful phone conversation to help me feel better about the entire situation and put my mind at ease. Of course the snow turned out to be nothing  {literally a couple of flakes} and the geneourous gifts I recieved made me feel like "yeah, I could take care of a baby with this stuff." It also allowed me to start nesting. :) I also loved being able to see several people who attended that I hadn't seen in a long time! It was perfect! Thanks again to my wonderful hostesses and my momma for letting them use her house!

baby shower {traveler by sea}

This past weekend, my friends {Katie & Melody} and I were able to throw our friend Natalie a baby shower for her expectant baby boy! We had so much fun putting this all together for her {and the little guy}! Our theme for the shower took off from Natalie's plans for his nursery, which has a travel theme to it. When I was going through my graphics to make an invitation, I happened to have some really adorable nautical graphics that are perfect for a baby shower.  I went with a ship on the invite and that is what sparked our decision to make this a "traveler by sea." Here's the invite...

We went brunch style for this shower, which meant really good food. {I happen to LOVE breakfast food}. Melody is an amazing cook/baker so she made some amazing staple food items. We also came up with really cute names for all the food items to tie in with our theme! :)

We tied in lots of maps & globes into the decor.  Gathering everything for decorating was very easy and it's definitely a theme that could work for gender neutral showers too. Melody had an antique standing globe and she provided a lot of the serving dishes. Katie had lots of great items in her house that worked well, including a framed ship print, a globe, and a small suitcase. I downloaded free map prints and printed them on just regular paper.  I choose mainly maps with a vintage vibe because all of the colors were softer and had blues & aquas, which paired nicely with black & white stripes for our color scheme. I made the garland using the map prints, ribbon, & twine. I also purchased a 6 foot piece of pom-pom trim off Etsy for less than $1/yard.

We purchased a couple of things for decor use at the shower that would be part of a gift from all of us hostesses to Natalie.  The small ship print and the "P" {for the baby's name} that was mod-podged with one of the printed maps, were our group gifts to her to use in his room or wherever she sees fit!

Paper straws in mason jars & little flags were also a must... because they are adorable! Our beverage of choice for the brunch was OJ + ginger ale! Here's a full view of the food table...

Of course we played a few {non-cheesy} games... including "Name that Tune" with songs that had the word "baby" in the title or lyrics. :)

Afterwards we snapped a few pictures of the relatives & hostesses with the guest{s} of honor...

There's 3 sets of sisters in these pics... :)

Katie, Natalie {and baby}, Melody & I

We all had so much fun throwing this shower! Now we all can't wait to meet the little guy!

bridal shower for Dawn

It has almost been a month since I helped throw a bridal shower for my amazing friend Dawn - I had so much fun doing it!  I was in charge of the shower decorations so of course I spent lots of hours "researching" on Pinterest... it was hard work. :)  But first a little about Dawn....
I met Dawn at MidAmerica Nazarene University where we both attended college.  We were roommates for two years and she was THE best roommate ever!  We had a lot of fun living together and she's been a great friend to me over the years.  Most of my college memories include Dawn and almost all of them make me laugh, those were some good times! And I get the honor to be one of her bridesmaids in her wedding this July!  So this bride-to-be is very important to me and here are some pictures and decor details...
Dawn's wedding colors are yellow, gray, and aqua, so I tried to stick to those while decorating.  First of course are the invitations... I used Photoshop to design them and then had them printed at Kinko's.  I probably would not go back to Kinko's again, just because I think it was not as easy as I had hoped and their printers don't print very accurately to the colors you see on your computer screen.  Next time I make invites, I'll probably just use a quality home printer versus going to anywhere like Kinko's. This picture of the invite is just one I took with my phone and you can't see the whole thing so it's not the best pic, but you get the idea.

One of the main pieces of decor I made was a banner to hang across the fireplace mantel.  I used a combination of scrapbook paper, some "fine decorative paper" as they call it from a place called Paper Source (different from scrapbook paper just because it comes in large sheets and it a higher quality), and paint chips.  The paint chips that I used were Martha Stewart samples from Lowe's.  I think they work the best for something like this because they are fairly big in size and each paint chip is just one color.  I varied the size of the paper on the banner and folded it over some plain white baker's twine.  I used rubber cement to glue the paper/paint chips together although I would maybe try something different if I did this again. I did end up having to use tape too on the back side of some of them to get them to stick, especially the paint chips because the paper is thicker.  I did not follow a pattern as far as colors and types of paper goes, I just randomly added whichever piece of paper I thought would look good next as I went along.  Here is a close up I took while trying it out on my own mantel when I was done making it...

The next thing I did was used some of the "fine decorative paper" from Paper Source, and I wrapped some old antique books with them.  I love using books to decorate anyway, so I thought it would be a good way to add the pretty colors and patterns of the paper around the room.  Here's a close up of a few of the books that had a yellow and aqua floral pattern, the plain yellow books are yellow books I happen to have:

Set up on Janae's mantel

And here's all of the mantel decor set up on Janae's mantel right before the shower:

Paper banner (made by me), Antique books wrapped in paper from Paper Source (done by me), Antique owls that I spray painted a high gloss white, manzania branches (from saveoncrafts.com)

And some fresh yellow spider mums were place around the room!

Another part of the decor was made by the bride's sister, Angela.  She was not able to make it to the shower because she lives in Texas, but she was so kind to contribute this amazing yarn ball garland! The note hanging from the garland were some things that Josh (Dawn's soon to be husband) had to say about Dawn and their relationship.  They were displayed around the room for everyone to read and "oooh" and "awww" at!

Then of course there was the amazing food that the other bridesmaid's did all the work for and it was so, so delicious!

Lemon bars made by Linsey!

Some of the shower guests...

Dawn opening some gifts...

Dawn trying on her "Future Mrs. Hankey" sash!

Bride-to-be and Mother-of-the-bride...

Dawn and I...

Excuse my sunburn... Janae and I had a little sun expsoure pre-shower. :)

A big thanks to Janae for offering her home for the shower!  I had such a great time preparing and being a part of the shower and I couldn't think of any better to do it for!