erika's bridal shower: the favors

this part of the bridal shower crafting i am so excited about.  hence why i saved it for last!  when erika asked me to be her MOH and plan her bridal shower, i knew instantly (thanks to pinterest) what i wanted to do for the favors.  for years now, quite possibly as long as i can remember, we have had a box of baby food jars out in the garage waiting to be used.  well, considering that the youngest person in our house is now sixteen, and i don't think she was still eating baby food last week, you can tell that it has been a long long time :)


inside of the jars, the plan was to have bath fizzies.  well, i made the bath fizzes as you can see, but ended up hated them.  they were a lot of work and turned up looking like crap.  if i hadn't decided to get fancy and beach themed with those and just left them in squares, i'm sure they would have been fine.  so that's when i resorted to the soaps.  they went together easily, looked great, and i could incorporate both the pink and the orange colors of the bridal shower.  i ended up smashing up the bath fizzies in to the bottom of the jar (conveniently looking like pink sand) and then the sea shell themed soaps were able to sit on top of them. the jar lids started out plain.  yep...  gerber all over them.  i sprayed them with some pink spray paint to get a base coat to cover the letters, and then once that dried, sprayed them with this super awesome glitter spray paint i bought at michaels.  i wish i had the name of the stuff... but it was just straight up awesome.  covered those lids like no other.  once the jars were full, and the lids were good to go, i tied a little orange bow around the outside of the jar  simple, easy, and love love loved how they turned out... though, i had to advise everyone in my house as well as at the bridal shower that they were NOT fruit snacks or jello... and eating them would probably turn out for the opposite of what they were expecting.  but they look so pretty! what you need to make your own:
baby food jars (or any size jars, depending on how big or full you want to make them)
bath salts (i found the "recipe" from pinterest, which let me here to martha stewart)
ribbon
spray paint
DIY soap whatnots (i bought it in the big block from michaels)
essential oils (i used pomegranate & vanilla... yes, it came in that mixture)
food coloring
coupons... it will help make that soap & glitter paint more reasonably priced
patience.  something i don't have when waiting for things to harden or cool.  fridges do wonders in helping the soaps set faster.

erika's bridal shower: the games

introducing hunger games: erika's bridal shower edition.  okay, TOTALLY KIDDING (i just finished reading that book) but for reals that this is the post all about the games we played.  i wish i had more action shots of some of the games, but unfortunately i didn't think to multitask at that point.  there were a total of five games (technically four, but we split one in to two categories) that were played throughout the shower.  i will go ahead and post about each game in the order that they were played :)
the memory match candy bar game
this game came as a mention from lisa, who played this game at a baby shower.  with a few google searches, i was able to find a good amount of words & candies to make the game take action.  how i made it was 2 pieces of foam core, 40 blank cards sent through my printer, my cricut machine for the numbers, glue & velcro.  20 different words were printed on to the cards, and then spread out across the two boards.  the numbers were made using the "all mixed up" cricut cartridge and then run through my sticker maker.  rubber cement and super glue were used to hold the cards to the board, so that the velcro wouldn't pull the card off when opened.
this game seemed to go over really well once everyone started to warm up to the party games and get in to them.  there were some good laughs over figuring out what word would get what kind of candy bar, and big oohs and whispers when someone knew they had seen the word before.  definitely will be bringing this game back when erika has a need for a baby shower :)
toilet paper dresses

let me just tell you... once erika and i split these ladies up in to teams and handed off the rolls of toilet paper, they were planning and designing in an instant!  since we also had pink & orange streamers that didn't have a place to be put up for decorations, we allowed them to get creative and add some color accents to their toilet paper dresses. 

judging was no easy task, that's for sure!  and i'm super glad i didn't have to do it.  our fabulous three models (props to jessica, katie & angelica!) did a wonderful job showing off their gorgeous dresses, which will TOTALLY be runway ready for spring 2013
jessica's team won the prize for their one shoulder flowing creation.  what won erika over was the detail put in with the accessories.  she had bracelets, necklaces, and a HUGE tp ring on her hand.  if only it was real gems!
how well do the bride & groom know each other? trivia game
so i totally don't have any photos from this, but the results from this turned out HILARIOUS.  screams of joy when erika matched up answers with matt, and sighs when he said something totally bogus of what she didn't match up with.  what everyone else had to do is once the question was read, wait for erika's answer, and then guess yes or no to whether they thought erika & matt would match answers.  the first set of questions were about erika (where she was born, favorite food, first date) and the second half were almost all of the same questions, but about matt.  well, i guess i should let you in on some of the fun, so here are a few of my favorite questions with matt's answers :)
bridal shower bingo
pretty much a bridal shower staple game.  you can't have a bridal shower without playing this game it seems.  well, i may have not done it when i threw lisa's bridal shower, but at that point i was unaware of the world of bridal showers and all that jazz.  anyways, i made the cards in photoshop, and then had my dad print them off in color at his office.  i'm really happy with how they turned out, so that's that!
advice for the bride
the only other thing that wasn't exactly a "game" was the advice for the bride.  everyone was given a slip of paper to write wedding or marriage advice for erika.  i printed off one of their engagement photos, slipped it in to the cover of a photo album and then the individual cards could be put inside.  i glittered the edges of the cards in order to have them be a little more fun and a little less "blah" (as well as match her invites).  unfortunately, i don't have any photos of the book or the cards.  oh well :/
so there you have all the games!
tomorrow is the last bridal shower post, and that's the favors :)  maybe i'll post the photo of the gift i gave her a little bit larger (i didn't get crafty with the shower gift) so that you can see what it is :)

wordless wednesday

erika's bridal shower: the sweets

i apologize now. all of the pictures from the bridal shower are snapshots with my point and shoot camera, so they may or may not be 100% in focus. but that's why we love snapshots, right? anyways, on to the sweets! when i took on the task of erika's bridal shower, one thing she made sure that i needed to know was that she wanted a barbie cake. red velvet, cream cheese frosting. once it got closer, she also mentioned wanting chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. well, we made it all happen! last sunday we did our baking trial run, and probably spent about 6-8 hours baking. it was insane! we made regular sized cupcakes that day, and afterwards decided that mini cupcakes were the way to go.  the following thursday night, i made round 2 of both frostings, plus the red velvet cupcakes.  friday when i got off work, we began the final versions of everything.  problem was, between sunday when we did the trial run, and friday when it was time to do the real deal, california decided to basically double in temperature.  that might be a lie, but it sure felt like it!  we made the best of our situation, and knocked these treats out and decorated them friday night, left them in her fridge over night, and then they were good to go on saturday afternoon :) the cupcakes were super cute, and the smaller versions made them so much easier to eat.  we had a LOT left over still, so i took a bunch home, erika took some home, and pretty much anyone that was still there at the end of the shower was given a small plate of them too.  the cake part was all box mix, but the frosting was our homemade part.  i had never made red velvet frosting before, so i had no clue what it was supposed to taste like when it was done right.  with the help of pinterest & a martha stewart recipe, i was told by erika that it was PERFECT.  the peanut butter recipe was off of memory, but turned out really good as well. for you lovelies, here are the recipies
cream cheese frosting

ala martha stewart
4 blocks cream cheese (32 oz)
2 sticks soft butter
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla (or 1tsp if you use double strength like we have)
peanut butter frosting
as decided by erika
1 cup peanut butter

3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 for double strength)
1/4 cup soft butter (i used 1/2 cup, because the stick was too soft to cut when i did round 2)
1/3 cup milk

the barbie cake went... alright... as far as the second round goes.  practice round, we had really thick frosting, and had to try and get it to soften up a little bit to do the detailing.  reality time, it was gooey and way too soft to do the stars like we had practiced.  she didn't turn out bad at all though!  i know friday night when we were frosting her, there was some excessive grumbling (mind you, it was also 10:30 at night) about the frosting.  but all in all, she looked pretty good!  the cake part was cooked in a pampered chef mixing bowl. and then set to cool while we were doing the cupcakes.  after round 1, we decided she needed a little "fancying" up so she looked like a bride instead of just a girl in a white dress.  i made the veil with a piece of netting i had leftover from the birdcage veil i made, as well as some of the orange ribbon left from her garters & the favors.  i threw together her "top" on friday morning using more of the netting as well as a piece of muslin.  not too shabby!  so many cupcakes were left over, we didn't even get to the cake... i think it went home with erika's future sister in law.  but overall, the directions were super easy to follow... the hardest part was the waiting to cool 3 hours before doing anything with it... with 2 very impatient girls in a toasty apartment.
click here pampered chef barbie cake directions!

over the weekend

the day of the bridal shower finally came, and it was over sooner than we knew it! with the help of erika's step mom delayne and her family, we were able to have some great food and a location that worked perfectly for her first bridal shower. everyone was pretty in to the games, and the trivia game went over fantastically!  the bride to be seemed to have a great time, got some fun gifts to start off her married life with.  i'll break down the detail stuff that were made for the shower over the next few days so that not everything will be all in one :)  so stay tuned for some pink, some orange, and some bridal shower crafty!

movie ticket shadow box

i stumbled across this idea awhile ago on pinterest, and thought it was AMAZING... so i had to make one all for myself. a quick trip to joann's, and i got the frame and paper all in one trip. now, it totally doesn't match the color my room is painted right now, but that's quite alright with me. it's sparkly, teal and pretty :) the paper was originally 12x12, as all pretty paper tends to be, so i cut it down to 10x10 to fit my frame. the original shadow box appeared to be larger. or maybe just more rectangular. either way, i preferred the square frame format, since most movie ticket stubs end up being that shape these days anyways. (that picture totally makes my teal strip look crooked, but it's not... i used a ruler!) the teal stripe was also cut from a 12x12 piece (i think it's 3x10) and stuck down to the background piece. i used my cricut to cut the ticket shapes as well as the lettering. ran those letters through my sticker maker, and they were good to go!
i got my brother to dremel a slot in the top for me so that for any future movie going experiences, i can easily just drop the ticket stubs in through the top to add to my collection. sure is useful to have brothers around that are handy with dremels too. dropped my tickets in, ranging from 2008ish up to a few weeks ago. my wallet was relieved to have the stack cleared out. but that just means more movies need to be seen! and there you have it! it was super simple on my part (since i didn't have to do the dremel-ing) and turned out fantastic! now i have a super cool piece of wall art to show off my growing movie ticket stub collection :)
original pinterest post: kirsten johnson
cricut cartridges used: mickey mouse font (for ticket shapes) alphalicious (for lettering)

homemade fabric curlers

growing up, i always always always wanted a my size barbie. well, thanks to being exceptionally taller than anyone else when i was little, my size barbie wasn't even my size. well, it's taken nearly 16 years to get to this point, but i finally have my own personal "my size barbie"... and i'm sure my sister is going to love seeing me call her that. anyways, thanks to another pinterest find for me to try out, and a saturday full of nothingness, i decided to give these curlers and shot, and see how well they would turn out... and what i might potentially need to change for round 2.
i pulled the fabric from my scrapbox, and these were all on top since i had searched through there for baby shower inspiration that was changed abruptly. in a whole afternoon, i cut, sewed, turned, stuffed, and sewed 15 curlers together. the buttons had to be hand sewn on the ends, which went super easily. i've had my sewing machine for 2 1/2 years now, and my mom has had her janome longer than that, but we both STILL can't figure out the button holer. so i had to pull out ye ol' kenmore and sew the button holes in the end that way. until it started to fight me. seriously. i was planning to leisurely sew button holes while watching footloose, not start a world war with a machine. mom was able to get them to go though. thank goodness. wrapped her hair up in semi large chunks (as it appeared from the original blog post i saw these curlers from) and sprayed it down with hairspray. they all went in fairly well, and i think the tight squeeze of the buttons in to the button holes helped held them tight. then, she was off to bed to sleep the night away... i never found out how comfortable they were to sleep on though...took the curlers out...and it was beautiful. i should have left it like this. haha. just kidding. i'm sure she would have washed it out in two seconds if i did. i combed it out a bit, twisted the front back, and it led to...this. not too shabby. there are a few things i would do differently for next time though. i would do a little bit smaller chunks of hair, which would hopefully allow for better "curls". the other thing i would change would be the type of hair spray used. this stuff was some mega hold spray or something, so the curls were pretty crunchy coming out of the curlers. hopefully that would help them lay nicer or something. i'm no curler expert, since the only way my hair really keeps curl is doing rag curls, so having someone else's hair to try it on is always a bonus. plus it's much easier than trying it on my own hair.
the original curler tutorial is listed here: life with monkey