Whirlwind

Its been a busy weekend - lots to share, but I'm going to try and spread it out in a few different posts.

Today was Karen's baby shower, and I love how the decorations and food turned out! I made cupcakes, but wanted to dress up them a little. I added strawberry preserves to the batter (just layered it with the mix), and added strawberry extract to the frosting. They turned out great for the most part, though with a couple cupcakes I used a little too much preserves, so they didn't hold together very well. I also made Strawberry Sugar Bread - I've been bookmarking so many recipes lately that I'm determined to work my way through them.


I found this frame on sale at Michaels and painted it, then bought a paint pen specifically for wood, so all the guests could sign it. It took longer to paint than I expected because the base color (ivory) needed so many coats.


The nice thing about a shower just before Easter is that you can buy Easter M&Ms, and the colors look great for a baby shower. I found these little tins at the dollar store, and printed baby quotes on scrapbook paper for the tags.


I filled the base of this wire vase with diapers and topped it with a couple toys and bottles filled with more Easter M&Ms. I tied pacifiers to the side with colorful ribbon.


This photo is kind of hard to see, and I can't remember where I first saw this idea at a shower (maybe at Heather's), but I love it, because its cute, its easy, and its pretty inexpensive (I told Karen that I had used her gifts as decorations).


I've been seeing lots of homemade banners on craft and scrapbooking blogs, and though most are way too artistic and detailed for me, this was pretty easy to put together. I printed the letters on white vellum paper, then cut the letters and the background papers (I used a pack of scrapbook papers I bought a while ago, and never used). After that, it was just a matter of punching holes in the papers and threading the ribbon through them.