First Bee-day: Bumblebee Brunch

I had the best time planning my son's First Birthday (or Bee-day as I prefer to call it) party!!!! My chandelier over my dining table launched the whole theme as it looks like a bee-hive, of course coupled with the irony that kids can have honey after they're one...who could resist that theme?! Some of these items could be super cute for just a springtime or Easter party! I have SOOOO many DIY projects at play here I think I about drove my husband, Mom and Grandma crazy with them all....as I did put them to work! I'll try to break down the projects:

Invitations: Just cardstock. I designed them in photoshop using images found online (such as the green honeycomb and black outline) I then added a Martha Stewart bee for a 3D touch!


Mimosa Charms: Same ol' cardstock and photoshop. Used different theme oriented images to distinguish each glass. Punched a hole at the top and tied a ribbon around....Voila, Mimosa charms!

Bees on Beehive Chandelier: These were a labor of love from my Mom, Grandma and me. (Thank you ladies) These cute little bees are made of black and yellow pom poms (3/4") hot glued together. Next, we wrapped floral wire around to be able to attach them to the chandelier. Last, we hot glued the wings which were just cut from wax paper. These turned out amazing! We had a couple flying away from the "hive" These were on spirals that were supposed to go on the cake to hold my fondant bees....but my fondant bees were too heavy...oh well!

Beehive Cake: This was some work! But, so worth it! The big beehive is a 5 layer cake. I set out to make it from scratch but later gave in to Betty Crocker. To make the big beehive and mini (smash cake) I used 3 yellow Betty Crocker Cake mixes and 1 Milk Chocolate Betty Crocker cake mix. The icing was also Betty Crocker Whipped Buttercream. Delicious! I baked 3, 9" yellow cake rounds and 2, 9" chocolate. I leveled the cakes stacked them yellow, chocolate, yellow, chocolate, yellow (to give a beehive stripe effect). I used just a little icing between layers. Next, using a bread knife, carved the towering cake in to the shape of a beehive and added a crumb coat of icing. I tinted the icing slightly with ivory icing color and whipped it to help double in size. I piped the rounds using the rope tip by Wilton...believe was #99. Did all this the same for the mini cake but used 2 rounds of 4" cake pans and only used yellow cake.

Fondant Bees: I wish I could lay claim to these cute little things, but alas, I cannot. I found a YouTube video on how to make these and they came out just like they look in the tutorial. I had no experience prior to working with fondant or any of the cake decorating tools. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOX79uoN_vo

King Bee High Chair Sign: Just cardstock cut in circles using a compass and the letters are leftover adhesive letters from my DIY Closet Divider project. I just weaved ribbon to join them all.

Pennant: I just used fabric scraps incorporated into the party, cut them into triangles, hemmed the edges and joined with a handmade bias tape.

Menu: Bee-nana Bread, Honey-Nut Cheerios, Honeycomb cereal, Chicken Biscuits, Sun-dried Tomato Baked Brie served with crackers & grapes, Sausage Cups, Flower Tea Sandwiches (PB&J, Egg Salad), Bee Wings (Baguette with goat cheese, pine nuts, green onion & drizzled in honey), Fruit Bees (Blackberry, Pineapple ball...using melon scooper, Blackberry on skewer) We also had a Nectar Station where ice water was served with sliced lemon and lime rounds and you could find Milk, OJ and Mimosas.

Honey Favors: I ordered these from http://www.ebeehoney.com/honeyfavors.html They were fantastic to work with! Received them really fast! They came undecorated. I just put fabric over the top and tied them off with some twine adding a cardstock note that read "Thanks for buzzing by"

Wheat Grass Center Pieces:  I grew the wheat grass myself in cheap terracotta pots I got from Home Depot. The wheat grass was from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E7QYNG/ref=oh_o04_s00_i00_details We started the growing process about 9 days before the party. This would really be a cute center piece for Easter with either eggs or bees in the grass. The bees in my center piece are the fondant bees stuck on a bamboo cooking skewer I got from my local grocery store.

Crochet Bumblebees: I originally wanted to make these in addition to a soft beehive the kids could put the bees in the beehive....but that was a sewing flop so we just had these in a basket for a 1-year-old friendly game of putting the bees in the basket. An older guest (4 yrs old) tossed them into the basket at different distances. I found this cute free pattern here:  http://www.crochetspot.com/crochet-pattern-baby-bumblebee/

Little Boy Bow Tie: I had my heart set on my son wearing a preppy yellow bow tie....I could not find one in ANY of the stores! The only place I found them in abundance was Etsy...but not the right fabric...and a bit overpriced. Lucky for me I found this great tutorial! http://papernstitchblog.com/2011/03/29/diy-craft-project-how-to-make-the-cutest-boys-bowtie-in-time-for-easter/

"You Are My Sunshine My Only Sunshine" DIY Crib Mobile & Big Sister Gift

A friend of mine asked me to help her design a room for her expecting baby and 4-year-old daughter to share. During design, they did not know the sex of the baby-on-the-way...what a challenge! But so much fun! She told me the story of how her father used to sing her the Sunshine song when she was a little girl...she now sings it to her daughter....who now sings it to the new baby in Mama's belly. (So Cute!) What a perfect theme! So through the process of design, I had the vision of a crib mobile for new baby....I requested to make it for my gift! I used 2 sizes of embroidery hoops, a piece of chevron fabric and ribbon to emulate the sun. As you can see it has a gray cloud with rain drops...for "when skies are gray" lyric and a heart for "you'll never know dear how much I love you." The blue bird is more abstract as I always think of blue birds associated with sunshine! Who doesn't?!  The objects are dangling from jewelry string, and the items are sewn and stuffed with poly-fil.  Pretty easy project!

For the new Big Sister, I made a throw pillow for her bed in line with the theme. It's in the shape of a heart and spells out "Big Sis" in buttons. You could do this concept in lots of different ways with different shapes, fabrics, and colored buttons. I think it's always important to include the older child as they have a hard time understanding "why the new baby gets everything." What better way than to give matching gifts! She immediately took it and placed it on her new bed! And the designer in me was happy to add small details to the decor!

DIY Baby Mushroom Halloween Costume

I decided that for our son's First Halloween I must make him a unique costume. He makes for an adorable mushroom! You might recognize the mushrooms in this shot, as I swiped them from his nursery. This costume was quite simple, only took a couple of hours and used common things you have in your kids closet and sewing room scraps.

I made the mushroom hat by using a cheap beanie I found on clearance ($2.99 at Gap). It saved me time because it already fit and stayed on, so it served as the perfect lining and shape for my mushroom cap. I stuffed it with socks to hold the shape while I added scrap batting from a previous project to give volume.

I next draped red fleece fabric over the shape and pinned white cut out spots to create the look I wanted. I took the red fleece with pinned spots to the sewing machine and sewed them on. I didn't bother finishing off any of the edges as I felt the fleece had a clean look even unfinished. (I used the Blizzard Fleece from Jo-Anns by-the-way), plus this only made the process faster.

Next, I just draped this over my batting-covered hat and began to "fan fold" the edges of the red fleece tucking them in so they'd be on the inside on the hat. I pinned this to hold it in place and trimmed excess fleece as I went along. Once pinned in the shape I wanted, I sewed it into place just roughly tacking the edges down by hand and did a fine trim of the extra fabric.

The stalk of the mushroom is just a white bodysuit by Carters. I found a pack of like 5 on clearance at JCPenny's for about $5. Yay for extra bodysuits! (Can never have too many!)

The pants were a challenge.... I used an existing pair of my son's pants to make a pattern and made a basic "sweat pant" using green fleece. I cut grass shaped leaves from a double layered piece of fleece (so I ended up with 2 identical strands) and sewed them together.This just gave the leaves a bit more structure....they still don't stand completely up while my little guy is sitting cause of his chubby belly, but oh well. I added several of these grass strands around the waistband of his pants. I think you could easily do an adaptation of this if you aren't big into sewing or just want something quicker. You could easily make a belt with grass strands and use it with an existing pair of green sweats. You could easily just use fabric glue to achieve the same look as sewing. The fleece is really easy to work with.

To top off my son's costume, I made a caterpillar out of scrap green geometric fabric and brown yarn for the legs. I took a strip of the fabric and added balled up scrap pieces of fleece to shape the round body of the caterpillar. Then I tied a piece of yarn to hold the shape and provide the colorful bands of the caterpillar as well as legs I shaped them later when I was done.

I continued making these round shapes till I had a total of 5 of them. I finished off the last one by folding the end fabric under and using the last band of yarn to hold it in place.

Lastly, I just knotted the yarn to make feet and trimmed the excess. I don't have the pins attached here, but later I just hot glued pins to be able to attach the caterpillar to his shirt, hat or wherever! So many fun adaptations you could to here...making different type bugs, etc I was so tempted to do a trail of ants up the leg and on to his belly (mushroom stalk) But with him not walking yet they would have just gotten lost in folds and rolls! But maybe you could do this idea!

Eclectic Mobile

I originally had the idea of creating a crib mobile by hanging antique skeleton keys from a ring of twigs. I loved the idea but later of course realized prob not the best idea to hang over a crib just in case one fell (terrible choking hazard), so I moved the idea over to above the changing table. I had trouble finding old keys online that weren't overpriced like crazy for some collector. So I ended up purchasing a collection of very small skeleton keys (1/4"- 3") and of different finishes for around $10 on ebay. I returned my large twig ring and got a sphere of twigs from Michael's deciding to hang the keys along with some collected buttons inside at different heights using clear jewelry string (could also use fishing wire, but I didn't have any on hand). This created the "buried treasure" for my Peter Pan inspired nursery. Twine was then braided and used to hang the sphere from a mere screw drilled into the ceiling. Hope this sparks some creativity to think outside the box for nursery mobiles. This whole idea actually steamed from a mobile I saw online created from lots and lots of hanging vintage scissors!

Fun Zodiac Wall Art

This piece was the missing puzzle to complete before the nursery was officially done! After I passed the last day of the prior Zodiac sign, I created this piece with the reasonably predictable Zodiac sign of my to-be-born son. I finished the project in an hour or two. I printed the Aries symbol off the internet onto card stock. I then cut out fun words associated with kids, a future little boy or names of those close to us from the local newspaper. Using a glue stick, I just wrapped those fun words/phrases around the cut out Aries symbol in a random order. I took a piece of leftover wallpaper from my closet project and used it as the background. I glued the entire Zodiac symbol to the wallpaper to hold it in place and threw it into a picture frame that housed one of our engagement photos from our wedding reception. Wah-la! The missing piece to my wall collage. My son must have known mommy completed his room as I went into labor the next night (2 weeks early!)

I think this could also be a really fun project to do with kids. They would have a blast finding words or even pictures that express them!....Favorite color, pet names, or sports they're in to!

Low-Ceiling Crib Canopy

My son's nursery had a few challenges. Like many older homes, we had to work around low angled ceilings and odd room cutouts. I was set on having some sort of canopy and came up with this DIY canopy alternative. First, I purchased a wall bracket from Anthropologie for I believe is was $22. These decorative wall brackets are traditionally used to create a wall shelf. I wanted one that had a bit of a "lip" on the top to help secure my fabric.

Next, I purchased 4 yards of chiffon fabric from Jo-Ann's and hemmed the unfinished edges by folding the fabric 1/4" in, pressing with a hot iron and then folding 1/2" in pressing then pinning in place and later sewing with coordinating thread. Here's the end result!

Size Dividers for Infant's Closet

I made these size dividers for my soon-to-arrive little boy. They are a very easy DIY project to keep your life organized. Like most moms-to-be, I have started to accumulate clothing from newborn all the way up to 18-24 months!. In order to be able to gauge how much clothing I actually have for a particular age group, I thought the use of dividers would be the best at-a-glance indicator.

To create these dividers, I just went to Michael's and purchased wooden door hangers. They are found in the wood projects section and are sold as plain door hangers intended as a project for your kids to make their own "Do NOT Disturb" signs for their bedroom doors. These hangers were only $0.79 each. I painted them with leftover paint from the dresser we refurbished. You could easily use leftover wall paint as well. In addition to the hangers, I purchased white 2" craft felt numbers and letters also from Michael's. They are in sticker form so no need to glue! Easy peasy! I used the standard sizes: NB, 0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-18, 18-24, 2T, 3T. I placed the felt size ranges on both sides of the wooden dividers as we tend to approach a rack of clothes from both ends (left to right and right to left). I have a teeny tiny "closet" as you've seen in my "No Closet Solution" post, so I couldn't fit all of the size ranges on the rod. I at least, though, have the dividers already made so that when he out-grows each size range, I will just rotate his closet out accordingly. No point in keeping out clothes that are too small.

I hope this little DIY project helps you get your life and your kid's closet more organized!!!