Monday, October 31, 2011

An Autumnal First Birthday for our Little One


We celebrated our Daughter's first birthday this past Saturday at my folks house! It was a lovely day and the perfect excuse to get my big family together to honor/ overwhelm our little one year old. With this birthday we started some fun handmade birthday traditions, and I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures along with a few DIY projects I worked on for her party. 

Above: I bought a bunch of small white pumpkins for the party, including two larger ones. I figured they would be great for the big day as well as for thanksgiving! I painted a profile silhouette of our daughter on one of the bigger ones and then the word "one" with her birthdate "10-27" beneath- on the smaller one.


The setting: Flowers from the husbo given to us on her actual birthday, the white velvet cake with raspberry butter cream that my husband made the day before the party, and my cousin and I cut and hung streamers to act as a back drop for the handmade felt Happy Birthday banner I bought on etsy.


Since the cake was filled with layers of Raspberry buttercream, we decided to decorate it with a Raspberry number 1, and then above it we placed a single white candle.


My parent's dining room. I hung the felt garland, that came with the happy birthday garland, from the chandelier and then put a small vase of the flowers on the table with a few of the white pumpkins. My mom has this bright and festive purple table cloth with birds and foliage - it was perfect for the party.



This might be one of my favorite pictures- I love how she is looking a bit overwhelmed as people are a blur around her, pretty much sums up being a toddler.



(NOTE: a baby will try and reach for the candle!)

Her Crown: I wanted something that she could wear every year. I think it will be cute to see her in it year after year- as a little marker of her growing up! The crown is made out of cardboard and covered with some felt we had lying around. The flowers are these great felt "stickers" from Michaels (where I also got the glittery ric rac ribbon). I was pretty pumped about finding these stickers, because it was one less thing I would have to make! I hand embroidered "Happy Birthday" in silver yarn on a little felted banner and then glued it to the front of the hat.  The crown has a band of elastic on the back allowing it to grow along with her!


Here she is helping herself to her raspberries, too funny.


The raspberry buttercream layers of the cake. 

A little word about the cake, I emailed a friend from college who loves baking and asked her if she had a good white cake recipe that we could mix some raspberry layers into it and she sent me this White Velvet Cake recipe. The husbo and I decided to "test" out the recipe the weekend before the party. We always talk about trying out recipes before serving them to others, and this time we actually followed through with this hosting strategy! It was delicious and we were glad we did, we learned we should use seedless raspberry jam, and to cook it for less time. It's a great cake, very sweet and tasty- thanks Meghan!


After Cake- the little miss opened her lovely gifts. 


Here she is banging away on her new piano!

It was a fun day spent with family and marveling at where this year went! (more motherhood thoughts on that later!) One final note about the party, it might look like the prep was time intensive, but the silhouette pumpkin I painted the weekend before and it only took me 20 mins to cut and trace the picture and then fill it in. The crown I worked on through out the week- with 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there, gluing little pieces on when I could. Then the streamers we cut the night before.

The handmade birthday traditions we will continue are- the handmade crown and using the felt garlands every year! And who knows maybe there will be a silhouette pumpkin every year as well!?


A Love Letter to Fall: Happy HALLOWEEEEEN!



Hey guys, we had a super fun and busy weekend with our daughter's 1st birthday party and a kid's halloween concert on Sunday! Since the little miss likes to roar like a lion I knit her a lion hat for halloween- pictures to come of that and her party later today and tomorrow!  Do you have any fun plans for tonight? Are you dressing up this year? do tell!  and have a great Halloween, don't eat too much candy!
















Friday, October 28, 2011

Party Time: A 1st birthday sneak peek!




Tomorrow we celebrate with my family our Daughter's 1st Birthday!!!  I've been slowly working away at a few things for the big day and I wanted to give you a sneak peek into some of my inspiration. Stay tuned to the blog next week to see pictures from our big event! Have a great weekend!!!









Thursday, October 27, 2011

12 Months Old: my homemade birthday video


It's been one whole year that we have been a little family... our daughter is a year old today, born on October 27th 2010 at 4:21 am at home in Portland, Maine... A lot has changed since her arrival. If you had told me last year we would leave our beloved Maine in order for the husbo to go back to school- I would have been pretty sad and felt that perhaps in some way we failed living our dream (only for a temporary moment...) But it's true what they say- a baby changes everything. And she has. On a personal note, I've never been so tired, so emotional, so mentally exhausted, so happy and so weepy all at once.

We now have a one year old. And in this last week she has blossomed once again. She is so jovial and outgoing, she "talks" to everyone at the grocery store, and she is interested in everything!!! She is soooo close to walking, we are waiting for the tipping point when she will all of a sudden take off on us. Sure it's cute NOW that she loves to be chased, after all she's not that fast on all fours, not to mention not as dangerous. I know once she starts walking we will be in for another surprise. Suddenly I won't have to carry her everywhere (score!) but I will have to walk ever so slowly and hunched over as I hold her hand and walk at her pace down the hall... and yes that is the constant undulating current of parenthood- you have to adapt along with their unexpected changes and developments. It's a constant mystery that can be fun and often the opposite!

But enough from me, a tired mom who has been working on this little video all week... A little note about the video- I don't make these very often (about once every 5 years) so excuse it's rough-ness... it was hard to be discerning and cut throat with all of the video and photos we have (you don't want to know how much!)  But it was a fun project, one that kept me misty eyed and up all night editing and tweaking...

anyway, enjoy the video and let me know what you think....?  I'll be taking a break from the blog today as we enjoy this special day with our little one year old. So there will not be a Links and Such this Thursday.  And I will forewarn you that the blog will be a little birthday party heavy after Saturday... I'll post some b-day party recaps, full of fun DIY ideas and party inspirations.


In closing- Happy Birthday to our little one.



Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Handmade Shout Out: Fabric buckets and much more!


I am deep in 1st birthday mode this week- with a baby who is now taking a 1 hour nap (on good days) while I take two night classes! Her big day is tomorrow (shitz is right!) and I am still working on a "virtual card" for the little miss I will post on my blog... not to mention all the prep for Saturday's birthday....but there is always time for a little handmade shout out and this one is a goodie!!!

This week's goes to Jenna Rose Handmade, she has some fabulous fabric goods that are beautiful and functional! I love the above tree house fabric bucket, great for housing knitting projects, of which I have many! Love her large one as well.







Check out her shop for more screen printed goodies!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I Love you VINTAGE



Thought it would be fun to share some recent Vintage Favs of mine from ETSY! which is your favorite?















Monday, October 24, 2011

What to Watch: (or listen to) Andrew Bird


This past Saturday the husbo and I went and saw Andrew Bird play at The Grand in Delaware. It was my first time seeing Bird in concert and it was a real treat, a lovely night out and it's always a pleasure to watch musicians do their thing.  If you aren't familiar with Bird's music- he dances a line between folk, a little rock, experimental- electronic tricks of looping his beats and chords over top to compose a song, all with bits of classic violin mixed in.

I found some videos on youtube from the concert on Saturday night, and although the quality is what you would expect from these things, I thought it would be fun to see what we saw! Above: effigy


And to see more of his experimental stylin's watch this jam Bird played with his friend and opener- Martin Dosh.

A Love Letter to Fall: Halloween Edition


Holy Smokes you guys- Halloween is one week from TODAY!!! Have no fear, you still have time to do it up and here are some costume and decorating ideas to help you in your spooky quest! Are you dressing up this year, have any fun plans, DO SHARE! I've been busy this weekend with party preparation for our Daughter's 1st birthday this Sat... so thinking of a halloween costume is not on my radar. BUT I am going to do something! Luckily I don't have to go all out this year with a one year old (do I?). Next Monday I'll do another Halloween themed Love Letter to Fall, so stay tuned for that!! (I apologize for some of the missing links, but most of the pictures have enough inspiration and information!)























(an extensive tutorial on a variety of costumes- many are straight from your closet!)

Have fun!



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