Carley's Colorful Book Themed Baby Shower

This last weekend we celebrated my sister-in-law and baby Raelynn with this colorful book themed baby shower. Carley loves to read, and this is their first baby so a book theme seemed perfect. The colors that Carley chose for the nursery are very fun and colorful, so we were able to incorporate those with the shower as well. You can find more details about the shower below.

Diaper cake tutorial HERE.
Free chalkboard reading quote print HERE.

Free Jane Austen reading print HERE.

Felt balls were purchased on Etsy from Hand Made Only.

I then strung the 2cm sized balls onto twine using a large needle.

Fresh gerber daisy flowers were placed in jars on each table. We found gently used children's books at thrift stores to use as centerpieces. 

We used baby links as napkin rings, that were then gifted to the Mommy-to-be. 

B. Hug Links

The napkins and table runners were made with very fun fabrics. Simply cut to squares and large strips and the edges sewn with a serger. 3 yards made 3 table runners and 2 yards made about 24 napkins with some extra scraps leftover.

Fabric from Fabric Bubb. 

Make your own tissue poms to add some color to the shower!

Tutorial HERE.

Yogurt Parfaits served with fresh fruit and granola.

If you look closely there is a tiny baby frozen in that ice cube. Fun baby shower game... Freeze tiny babies (found at craft store) in ice cubes. Give each guest one as they arrive. The first guest that gets their baby out of the ice cube must yell "My water broke!" and wins the game. 

As prizes for the winners of each game we gave them each one of the Mommy-to-be's favorite books.

Each book was also wrapped with a colorful headband made of jersey knit fabric. Tutorial for headband HERE.

We served Chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate covered bacon as dessert for a morning brunch style shower.

We used striped paper straws, twine, and washi tape to make the pendant banner with baby Raelynn's name on it. 

We also used fun colored washi tape to create quick and easy straw flags that were labeled with each guest's name.

We put Rochelle to work doing all the writing! She has beautiful penmanship and we had her address all the invitations,  write on drink flags, food labels, and anything else that required pretty writing!

As guests arrived we took their picture with the Mommy-to-be to place in a photo album for her to remember the special day. 

Served orange juice, mimosas, and cucumber mint water.

Fabric garland using a variety of colors and prints looks so cute! Carley will also be using it as a decoration in baby Raelynn's nursery.  

Served several kinds of quiche and breakfasts braids.

Presented Carley with a letter written to her and baby Raelynn from Matt (Daddy-to-be). 

As party favors for each guest as they left we made bookmarks with a reading quote by Jane Austen, along with a tea bag.

Download the free bookmark files in different colors HERE and HERE.

It was a very special morning with lots of love for Carley and Baby Raelynn!

  

Diaper Cake Tutorial

Today we celebrated My Sister-in-law and baby Raelynn! I can't wait to meet that sweet baby girl and so excited that Piper and her will grow up close in age. I had a lot of fun making this diaper cake for the shower. Can't wait to share more pictures of the shower. It was a book themed shower with lots of fun bright colors. We modeled the colors of the shower after Raelynn's Nursery. You can find a tutorial below on how to make the diaper cake.

You will need:

-Size 1 diapers (i used 78 for the 3 tiered cake)
-twine or ribbon
-cake pans or pots in 3 sizes

To Decorate:
-3 Burp bloths
-Baby headband
-Felt balls (about 50)
-Twine
-Wooden letter
-Yarn

Step 1: Create a line of diapers all going the same direction and evenly spaced.

Step 2: Curl the diapers into the first cake pan, adding more if needed so the pan is full.

Step 3: Tie the diapers tight with twine.

Step 4: Carefully remove the diapers from the pan. Slide twine to center of diapers. If using Pampers it will run right along the yellow line on the diapers. Now you will need to slide the diapers to fill in any larger spaces.

Step 5: Once all of the diapers are evenly space you may have a hole in the center. (shown above)

Step 6: Roll up 1-2 diapers and place inside the hole.

Step 7: Your first layer is done! Repeat Steps 1-6 for the next two layers.

Once your layers are done you can stack them, making sure each layer of diapers is going in the same direction.

To Decorate:
Create a topper by rolling three burp cloths and wrapping a headband around all three. I made the burp cloths using cloth diapers and fabric from Fabric Bubb. You can buy felt balls online in all different colors. I ordered mine on Etsy from Handmadeonly and strung them on twine using a larger needle. For the Letter I wrapped grey yarn around a wooden letter that you can find at a craft store. I used a hot glue gun to hold down the yard in certain spots.

Blueberry Plum Crumble

This is such an easy and yummy summer dessert. You also can use different fruit to change it up a bit each time. I altered a recipe from Barefoot Contessa that originally had peaches instead of plums. I've made it with peaches before too, and it is really good. This time I made it with plums because we had lots of plums to use up from our tree. 

Ingredients:
10-12 firm, ripe plums
1 cup fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour

Ingredients for Crumble:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, diced

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Remove the skin from the plums, cut into thick wedges, and place them in a large bowl. Add the lemon juice, sugar, flour, and blueberries. Gently toss. Let the mixture to sit for 5 minutes. Next divide the mixture into ramekins or you could place into a baking dish. (I was able to fill 6 of the ramekins shown above)

For the crumble topping, combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Use a pastry knife or butter knife to blend the butter into the dry ingredients. You can also use your hands to mix the ingredients until they form into crumbs. Then sprinkle the crumb over the fruit. Place the ramekins or baking dish on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the tops are browned and crisp and the juices are bubbly. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream on top!

*Recipe altered from Barefoot Contessa's Peach Blueberry Crumble

Play Dough Volcano

Hudson made a play dough volcano with baking soda and vinegar at school last week. He wanted to make another one right when he got home! He is really into science experiments like this, and I've had to restock my baking soda and vinegar supply quite a bit lately!

You will need:

-Vinegar

-Red food coloring

-Baking soda

-Funnel

-Small water bottle

-Play dough, recipe here.

-Baking sheet

-aluminum foil

First line your baking sheet with foil.

Then use a funnel to place 3-4 spoonfuls of baking soda in the water bottle. 

 Next cover your water bottle with play dough. 

Then mix red food coloring into about 1 cup of vinegar to make the "Red Lava" 

 Hudson place some small toys around his volcano.

Then pour the vinegar into the volcano.

 Watch the volcano erupt!

You should be able to pour the vinegar into the volcano a few times to make it erupt.

Then we added more baking soda to ours to do it a few more times. 

Home Remodel: Before and After Exterior Paint

We weren't originally planning to paint the exterior of the house before moving in, so when we made the last minute decision to have it painted we had 1 day to choose the colors! I quickly began searching colors online and asking friends for any input or suggestions that they could offer. I knew that I wanted to paint the exterior grey, but there are about a billion shades! I found a picture on pinterest, here, that I really loved. I have also always loved pictures of colorful front doors, so we decided to go with a bright and cheery yellow front door! You can't really tell in the before picture above, but the roof was green, so we also painted that as a temporary solution until it is replaced in a few years. We also have future plans to one day get rid of all the rock in the front yard and replace it with grass.

Here you can see that the house originally had a beige block with green accents. We also replaced the front light with a vintage barn pendant from restoration hardware. 

 BEFORE PAINT

AFTER PAINT

BEFORE PAINT

 AFTER PAINT

BEFORE PAINT

AFTER PAINT

 We painted the exterior block and walls with Dovetail Gray by Sherwin Williams

We painted the trim White Dove by Benjamin Moore

The front door was painted with the color Daisy by Sherwin Williams,

however he added some white to match the color Lemon Twist (shown above).

Mixing it that way allowed us to get the paint in an exterior quality paint.

The roof was painted black using Behr Masonry and Stucco Paint.

Fireplace Makeover

Here it is...the fireplace before in its awful messy condition and finally looking finished! The before picture is the condition it was in when we bought the home. Just want to make it clear, that is not my mess. :) We debated different options for remodeling the fireplace, like stucco, eliminating the bench, drywall, and others. However, we decided we wanted to keep it inexpensive so we stuck with mostly paint to update it. We (and by "we" I mean my wonderful brother-in-law) drywalled over the brick above mantel. We also drywalled over the brick to the right of the fireplace. The beams were removed from the ceiling in the family room to help the room feel open and the ceiling higher. That left us with holes in the brick above the mantel (shown below). This is what led us to the decision of drywalling over the top portion. We still need to place an outlet cover on and do some final paint touch ups, but for the most part it is done! My friend Alexis, with Design by Lexi,  did a great job staging it for me.

 Here is the fireplace in the in between stages, and my little helper.

We painted the fireplace brick in Benjamin Moore's Anchor Gray.

We painted the mantel and the tile on the bench in Benjamin Moore's White Dove.

Our wall color is Benjamin Moore Gray Owl.

Seven Great Juicing Recipes

These are some of my favorite juicing recipes that I continue to make over and over. I love to drink my juice cold, served over ice. Makes it taste better to me. It seems like once I start juicing my body begins to crave it everyday. It is a great way to get lots of fruits and veggies in at the start of the day. Especially for the kids! My kids love helping me juice and they also love to drink it. So when my boys are being picky eaters, and only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches... I make them a glass of juice and feel much better about what they're consuming for the day!

Hope you enjoy these recipes as much as we do! Some of them I have created on my own and other recipes I have found online and slightly adjusted. For all of the recipes below you will run the ingredient through a juicer, according to the manufacturer's directions. 

Recipe: Serves 1
1 bundle of kale leaves, stems removed
-2 apples, cored and halved
-1/2 pineapple, cored and sliced
-1" ginger, peeled
-1/2 lemon

Recipe: Serves 1-2
-2 oranges, peeled and halved
-2 apples, cored and halved
-2 celery stalks
-2 carrots
-1/2 lemon

 Recipe: Serves 1-2
-1 large golden beet
-2 oranges, peeled and halved
-2 apples, cored and halved
-2 celery stalks
-2 carrots
-1/2" ginger, peeled

Recipe: Serves 1-2

-1 large beet, quartered

-2 carrots
-1 orange, peeled and halved
-1 apple, cored and halved
-2 celery stalks
-1/2" ginger, peeled

Recipe: Serves 1

-1 grapefruit, peeled and quartered

-3 carrots

-1" ginger, peeled

Recipe: Serves 1-2

-2 apples, cored and halved

-2 carrots

-2 celery stalks

-1/2 lemon

-1" ginger, peeled

-5 oz spinach

(Rise and Shine Juice recipe via Giada De Laurentiis)

Recipe: Serves 1-2

 -1 sweet potato, quartered

-4 stalks of celery

-5 carrots

-1 apple, cored and halved

-1/2 lemon