Happy Wednesday friends!
I wanted to tell you a little more about the baby shower that took place at my house over the weekend. I was inspired by images I found on Pinterest and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to pull elements from my own home that would fit into the 'vintage' theme.
Here's the deets:
I knew I wanted to incorporate chalkboards, so I used one on the gift table and wrote "Alaina's Swag" on it (clever, huh) and put two more in the foyer where guests would be entering my home. (I made these the same way I made the large one for my kitchen.)
The large chalkboard is actually my kiddos and usually holds a large roll of paper for them to go wild on. Who knew there was a chalkboard on the back?
I'd totally forgotten that...
Not only do chalkboards give off that 'vintage vibe' but they're also perfect for writing sweet little messages to a sweet lil' babe.
The food table was so much fun to put together. Again, I pulled from things I already had and added a couple of items that I made, or simply bought at the thrift store and spray painted.
Instead of a table cloth, I went with 2 knitted baby blankets that were my kiddos and a piece of quilting fabric that had vintage McCalls pattern pictures on it. It was given to me by my friend Judy, and could not have been more perfect, am I right? All I had to do was turn the edges in twice and stitch down all four sides, and since we didn't get any food on it (totally could throw it in the wash if it had gotten dirty) my girls can now use it as a blanket for themselves or their baby dolls. I just love me some multi-purpose goods.
I alredy owned all of the serving dishes that we used and I made that diaper cake several months ago and have changed out the topper & ribbon to use for other showers. If I'm not mistaken, this was its 4th shower appearance. That makes it semi-famous I think. I didn't take pics when I was making it (I don't think) but I used a tall plastic tub that was once filled with some sort of food from Sam's as the base, wrapped a baby blanket around the bottom and secured with fishing line, and then attached two rows of diapers- also tied around the middle with fishing line. That way, the diapers don't move and I can change out the ribbon as I need to. The yellow topper is also removable.
The silhouette is from the cricut cartridge 'A Child's Year', and the pink tissue flower is from a Martha Stewart kit, but is crazy easy to make. All you need is tissue paper and some sort of wire or fishing line to tie it in the middle. There are thousands of tutorials out there on the internets for how to make these, but Holly's is the funniest.
Mr. Bear usually lives on the dresser in our nursery and the cute little white wagon he's sitting in came from the thrift store and used to be wooden color with red wheels. Is that what you'd call it? Wooden color? Or just 'wood'? I have no idea...but you know what I mean, right? Anyway- that was nothing that a little white spray paint couldn't handle. I also cut off the old red rope pull and put a sweet yellow & white striped ribbon in its place.
The chocolate covered pretzels you see were made by my son and me, and goodgolly were they yummy. I'm planning to write a post on how we did it, so look for that soon.
The chandy above the table also got a makeover thanks to a package of white paper lanterns (also from Martha) and a few more pink tissue poms that I whipped up. I tied all of it to the chandy using fishing line, and it just dawned on me that I probably use more of that stuff than actual people who fish.
Oh look...I have a blown bulb.
The other huge-honkin piece of furniture in this room (besides the table) is this cabinet thingy. Totally don't know what to call this- a buffet with a hutch? China cabinet? Thing where I show off my pretties?
I figured it was the perfect spot to hang those vintage alphabet cards I've been dying to use. I taped up a bit of twine and then used wooden clothes pins that I already had on hand. Is it weird that I already had most of this stuff? Please tell me that you always have a huge supply of fishing line and twine and wooden clothespins too...
Inside the cabinet, I displayed the invite to the shower along with some other vintage flashcards and a few made-to-look-vintage-but-are-really-new Little Golden Books.
I finished out the alphabet over the windows on the adjacent wall.
The mantel in the living room was also a perfect spot to fill with vintage goodness-
I used the Barbie silhouette and frame from Eliza's Barbie party, a wooden duck from my son's nursery, vintage child's storybook and a spray painted frame (thrift store), vintage glass milk jar, a sock-monkey-look-alike that's really new, a pink guitar I found for the girls at the thrift store (only 5 buckaroos!), a teddy bear I pulled from one of our toy bins, a framed 'G is for Girl' flashcard I found on Pinterest, and some white flowers in a glass vase.
The onesies on the clothesline were cut using the cricut cartridge "New Arrival" (I used them for Courtney's shower HERE) and the vintage fashcards are from THIS etsy shop. There were 12 cards in all, sent as a printable PDF file, and I also used them above the gift table in the dining room-
For our drinks, I picked up 2 dozen pint jars at wal-mart for 11 bucks (love that I can use these again and again and again...) and had pink/white and gray/white paper straws left from the Barbie party.
I didn't take many pics during the shower, but here's a few that made it-
I also finished a little project above my desk and piano (thanks to my Dad) that I'll tell you more about soon. I've actually already tweaked it a bit so it doesn't even look like that anymore...
We're out of school for the rest of the week, so I'm looking forward to lots of playtime with my kiddos and lots of yummy food cooked by other people. I'm hoping to be back soon (perhaps even today) with posts that are ready to go, but if that doesn't happen, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
p.s.- also planning to repeat my "Week of Christmas Crafts" , perhaps starting on Monday. Have you started decorating for Christmas? Any Christmas crafting going on? Maybe your house has been ready for Christmas for weeks? (coughMelaniecough)
p.s. - I've linked this post to:
Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts,
