Spooky Thomas Party - Picture Cut-Out

I'm starting to get working on ideas for Oliver & Jo's birthday party this year. I love doing a Halloween-theme each year, but I know that the kids will eventually have their own ideas. This year, Oliver requested a Thomas the Train birthday party. I thought about it and asked him if we could do a spooky Thomas party. He agreed! I'm excited!

A friend on Facebook posted a picture of her son's construction worker birthday party. Her mom had decorated these cardboard cut-outs for kids to take pictures in. I thought what a great idea it is to make your own. I didn't want to go through the work and expense of buying wood, cutting it, and painting it, so I decided to go the cheap route. I colored images on pieces of computer paper and used Mod Podge to glue them to a large cardboard box Andrew brought home.

Here was the drawing in progress. I wanted to incorporate a Thomas & Friends train with a Halloween background. I chose James, which Andrew thought was weird, but I told him Thomas is going to be in a lot of the party decor, so I want to change it up a bit.

Oliver loved watching me draw and color, so he started working on his own train pulling a load of pumpkins, too.

A little Mod Podge to glue it onto the side of the large cardboard box:

And here's the final product:

I'm going to see if I have the time (and another box) to make an Emily cutout, too, that way all the decor isn't all boys. The party is for Jo, too, after all!

Here are the kiddos playing in the box:

A Baby Shower to Remember

We did it! Even with all the snow, the roads stayed clear, and the baby shower was a go! All those weeks of planning were worth it, as Aminta and I pulled off a wonderful shower to celebrate Phuong & Cactus's baby.

Aminta was in charge of the decorations and totally made everything look cute.

Here is our table display:

I love how my storks looked on the table! You can find the stork tutorial here.

One of the most hilarious mishaps was the fruit salad I made, which people dubbed the "alien baby." I'd found it on Pinterest (you can find that pin here). But, here's the thing: I don't like most melons. I've never bought a honeydew melon before nor a cantaloupe. In my mind, they were the same thing: melons that don't taste good. Ha! So, I bought a honeydew thinking it was a cantaloupe. The morning of the shower, I went to peel back the melon skin only to discover it was green! Oops. So here is the now infamous alien baby fruit salad:

I think my baby bump cake ended up looking cute! I joked that I should have tucked a plastic baby into the tummy, kind of like people do for King Cakes at Mardi Gras. You can see how I made this cake by clicking here.

Deviled eggs are some of my favorite treats. I scoured the internet looking for ways to make them cute for a baby shower. I ended up finding a pin on how to make hot dog babies in the deviled eggs. I don't eat meat, and, frankly, I wasn't sure how good deviled eggs would be with hot dogs on them anyway. So, I just made a few into babies and left the rest plain.

Aren't those little duckies cute? I bought a package of them to decorate the punch I made! I got the rubber duckie idea from Pinterest, but I didn't want to use the punch recipe. I based my recipe off of one from Allrecipes.com. I used two frozen pink lemonade concentrate cans, one two-liter bottle of club soda, and four bottles of sparkling apple juice. To make it foam, I scooped a couple pints of berry sherbet on top. It tasted like sparkling strawberry lemonade! I was so amazed at how delicious and cute the punch ended up! I used another tip from Pinterest and froze slices of lemon in water in a cupcake tray.

Aminta made these cucumber sandwiches that were soooo good. Seriously, I think I ate half of them. She added some herbs and spices to cream cheese, spread it over rye bread, and topped it with fresh cucumbers. Not pictured are some miniature cherry danishes she brought in addition to a beautiful vegetable tray with dip and hummus.

We hung the diaper wreath near the entrance. It got a lot of compliments! Everyone made me feel so appreciated for everything. In case you missed the tutorial on this diaper wreath, you can find it here.

Aminta made these cute "lollipops" for Phuong out of washcloths and baby spoons. She poked them into a sand pail & shovel and filled it with Easter grass. It almost looks like flowers blooming! That idea also came from Pinterest, and there's a tutorial with that pin.

This is the start of the gift pile. Pictured are the "lollipops" by Aminta, the diaper tricycle that I made, the blanket I made, and the giraffe I made. 

Aiiiee! They are so cute! Seriously, Phuong and Cactus are two of the sweetest people in the world, and they are going to make the best parents. They loved the giraffe and tricycle diaper cake, making all of my hard work absolutely worth it.

Here's a close-up of the blanket. The pattern for this blanket is free, so if you like to crochet, you can find it through this pin.

More decorations from Aminta!

The balloons were loved and coveted by all the children.

Here are my best friends and me, ready to get the party started!

Phuong greeted all of her guests at the door. There were new friends and old friends and friends she hadn't seen a few years. We all had one thing in common... we all wanted to create a special day to shower our dear friend with gifts for her baby!

Oh.my.gosh! This is me with my friends from high school! It's been more than a decade, but we agreed that all of us looked exactly the same. 

We had favors for our guests, of course! I'd originally planned on making these fortune cookie favors (and did), but they weren't big enough to hold candy!

So, a couple days before the shower, I was really feeling the time crunch. My supportive husband helped me cut out a couple dozen paper shoes, which I then filled with the candy that was supposed to have filled the fortune cookies. You can find the paper shoe pattern on the Michael's website, or on the description of this Pinterest pin.

I found this poem online.

For games, we had people guess the width of Phuong's belly. We also had everyone fold a paper crane to string up on a mobile for the baby. Actually, folding paper cranes was a lot harder than I expected! I'm glad a couple people there knew what they were doing and were able to help everyone else out.

Here's Jennifer helping me with my crane:

I was able to string up all of the paper cranes while Phuong opened her gifts. The cranes have a gap in the bottom, and I couldn't figure out how to string them. The knotted thread wasn't thick enough to hold up the crane. Sayaka advised me to cut out circles. Using a needle, I thread the string first through a crane, then through a circle, and then I made a knot under the circles. It worked like a charm! You can get the how-to for this paper crane mobile from my Pinterest pin.

Here's our finished mobile:

Everything was perfect. The food, the company, the decorations, the happy couple... It was wonderful! I couldn't have done it without Aminta. Aminta kept everything moving smoothly. She made sure gifts were opened when they should be opened, she had people fill out their addresses on thank-you cards, she wrote down who gave what gift. She was so organized and on-top of everything! I might have had fun decorating the shower and preparing the food, but things would have been stagnant without Aminta's expertise. Thanks, Aminta!

And here are a few random shots from the shower:

Diaper Wreath & Knit Booties

I spotted a cute "diaper wreath" on Pinterest, but it was only available for ordering. Since I had leftover diapers from the diaper cake, I wanted to make one myself. Here's how I did it:

Step 1: Take a wire hanger and bent it into the shape of a wreath.

Step 2: I took an extra receiving cloth that I had (also leftover from the diaper cake), folded in half into a triangle, and then rolled it up around the hanger to give it padding. You could tightly roll diapers around the wreath for padding if you'd prefer.

Step 3: Open each diaper and insert the wreath into the opening. Secure the top of each diaper with a rubber band, like so:

Here's what mine looked like after tying on each diaper. I used nineteen size 1 diapers.

Step 4: Tie ribbon over each rubber band and curl it. I think the orange ribbon on the original pin was very cute, but I only had baby colors available.

Step 5: Using extra ribbon, tie on any extra goodies you want to include on your wreath. I included some outlet safety covers, two pairs of booties that I made, a teething toy, a pacifier, and some hair bows.

Here are close-ups of the booties I made (also a Pinterest find, which you can view here).