Sprout's Baby Shower

So, it looks like I never actually posted this (oops!).  Here it is, finally!
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Well, my baby sister is due in June (May... depending on who you ask!) and we had her baby shower this past weekend [April, it was in APRIL. Again, sorry for the delay]. Of course, I forgot the camera, so the pictures are all after she arrived. Which means my grand scheme of perfectly documenting all of the decorations failed to a large degree. But, between my dad, my cousin, and my (slightly drunken) photography, with a word file or 2, we should be able to recreate the grand event here :)

My mom and I co-hosted at her house. Since Dana and Mark don't know the sex of the baby, they've been calling the baby Sprout. When Mark asked to be at the shower, my mom and I were thinking of a good theme and one of us said "It's all about Sprout". It rhymed too perfectly and we immediately went with a Dr. Seuss theme. It started with the invitations. They're the Dr. Seuss New Fish line available here, and pretty much all over the internet. I wrote the poem inside (see below, it even rhymes!), and just glued it in with a glue stick.

The Katroo New Baby Asso-see-eye-ation

Would like to invite you to a

New Baby Celebration

Join Dana and Mark for a day all about

Welcoming a new little baby nicknamed “Sprout”

Boy or a Girl? Do we buy Blue or Pink?

We don’t know, they won’t say. Doesn’t matter,

I think.

Come to the Shower on April 14^th at 1

For snacks, lots of baby things

and of course, some fun!

Directions to the party are included,

so you don’t have to fuss

And the couple is registered at Babies R Us

Please RSVP by April Fools Day

To let us know if you can come to play!

The food was all "renamed" as well. Of course, that meant name tags. That was easy enough, just print them out, laminate and put in a mini-binder clip. We had Yots in Pots (Greek Meatballs) with Oobleck (Tzaziki), Quick Trick Chick Stack (Baked Chicken Cutlets, yep they were stacked), Grickle Grass (fresh veggies) with McElligot's Pool (Ranch dressing... check out the octopus living in the pool!), Green Eggs and S'ham (broccoli and mushroom quiche). For dessert, we had Truffula Fruits (fruit salad), Hop On Pop-Corn (Popcorn), Sneetch Stars (cookies) and Green Eggs and Ham candies. The candies were the biggest hit! Of course, we had the multi-color goldfish and Swedish fish scattered around too.  My favorite was Yink's Pink Ink Drink aka my mom's rum punch!  

McElligot's Pool with Pepper Octopus, and Grickle Grass Veggies in the background

Green Eggs and Ham Candies and the Truffula Bouquet 

The entrees: Quick Trick Chick Stack, Grinich Spinach Squares and Green Eggs and S'ham

The Mom and Dad to be were willing to play along! Thank goodness, since me, my parents and my boys were all sporting our Things 1-5 shirts [The only photo of me is on Facebook.  Once I figure out how to get it here, I will]. I made a Star Belly Sneetch Shirt for Dana and Mark had his Cat in the Hat hat.

Thing 3 and 4, ready for the party!

We had paper hats for the guests. And even Dad was Thing 5.

Mom and Dad, or a Truffula topped Sneetch and The Cat in the Hat

The one thing that wasn't Dr. Seuss-y was the cake, they just didn't have it. Pretend there's a cake photo here, I need to get it off Facebook.  It was really cute, it was a baby in a garden.

Of course, it wasn't complete without gifts! Dr. Seuss gifts too:

 Yep, that's a new fish onsie! 

I didn't get a picture of it, but we all signed the back of the shirt using fabric pens, and Dana wore it a few times since the shower.  It's a great keepsake and I'm hoping it'll go in the baby box at some point. 

And I want credit for getting the blog updated BEFORE my niece-phew is born :)

Personalized Crayon Art

More inspiration from pinterest! There have been tons of crayon art floating around, but most of them are just "melted rainbows". They're cute, but the same. I saw one where it was all blue crayons that looked like rain and a couple under an umbrella. That was so sweet (and expensive! $75!). So, I went to Walmart and got 3 small canvases for $3 and two 64 packs of "Cra-Z-Art" crayons for $2 each. And borrowed my hubbies heat gun.

I decided to do the boys names in the melted crayon. Since Pete's home sick, we did his name first. I let him pick out he colors, with the explicit instructions "No black, no brown, it'll look like poop". Since he has the stomach bug, he got that, and we didn't have any issues :)

I printed out his name, and taped it to painters tape, that I had layered on tin foil. I cut out the letters to make the "negative stencils"



I then attempted to peel the foil off the back. I think next time, I'm going to use wax paper, since that wasn't as easy as I hoped. Then, just place the tape on the canvas, hot glue down the crayons (Pete wanted them on the canvas with all of the color names showing).



Then, I fired up the heat gun on low and let her rip! We went back and forth a few times. Depending on how high on the crayon you apply the heat, it cools at different rates, so you see the "dyed canvas" right at the tip, and the chunkier wax near the bottom. After it cooled a bit, I took a sharp edge and traced the letters to separate the wax. I did lose some (like the insides of the "e"), but, all in all, it worked really well. Pete asked me to outline the letters to make them easier to read, so I grabbed and sharpie, and we ended up with this:



Pete said it's awesome! And it gave us something fun to do on a sick day. I just need to make on for my little kiddo, but I'll let him pick out the colors...

Suuuper Caaapes!

Please tell me you read that in the Superman voice-over voice, because that's how it was written!

Anyhoo, about a month ago, I discover Pinterest. It is the most dangerous website on the planet, as it gives you all of this false motivation that you're actually capable of doing crafts, making adorable cupcakes, cooking gourmet meals and dressing impeccably. I've gotten sucked into the cooking, baking and crafting section. I saw a how-to on taking old t-shirts and turning them into capes, and another how-to on stenciling using freezer paper. Since I haven't the foggiest idea what freezer paper is, and I have Glad Press'n Seal (which I HATE for using on food, love for using on non-food things), I figured I'd give this a shot.

I bought 2 cheapy t-shirts at Walmart, since the boys wanted particular colors, removed the sleeves and the front, leaving just the neck hole attached to the back. Instant cape! For safety's sake, I'm going to cut the neck, glue in some velcro, so it's quick release (that's the engineer in me coming out).

To make the stencils, I went on line and found black and white versions of the logos the boys requests. Then, I just covered the logo with the Press'n Seal (from here on out PNS, cause I'm tired of typing Press'n Seal already).



Then, just cut out the logo, keeping the parts that you want to leave UNPAINTED. I know, stencils are backwards. There's a 50% chance you're going to get the negative image of what you were going for. Lie, say it was on purpose!

Now, here's the hard part. Peel the PNSoff the paper. Easy, right? HA! I ended up using the universal solvent: Mom Spit. Just wet the paper a bit, and it'll peel right off the PNS.

Attach the PNS to the shirt, adjusting as needed. With the Superman logo, I reassembled the whole logo on the cape, then attached one PNS at a time in the empty hole. Everything was pretty darn close to even.



Walmart only had spray on fabric paint, so I sprayed then used a foam brush to even it out.



Due to the dark color of the capes, I used about 4 coats (spray, brush, repeat). I let the paint dry just long enough to wash the brush, and then removed the PNS. Yippee!! It worked!



The details aren't terribly crisp around the edges, but, it came out pretty darn well.



Ok, the bat's ears are barely there, but MY batman is 4. From his point of view, I just made him something that can deflect bullets.