Baby Shower DIY

I wanted to write something, but don't have any topics in mind and decided I'd just post about baby shower stuff, Nothing major. Just a quick little thing. Or maybe I will babble on for ages. We'll see.

So, my cousin Sarah is pregnant with a baby boy. YAY! Her baby shower was back on the 14th of this month and I'd say it went pretty well. The family all came together to make the party a party. Everyone seemed to have their own little addition. Decorations, food, cake, games... you know, the works.

I was part of the decorating team. The only problem? One, I didn't even know I was part of the "team" and two, I didn't know the party even had a theme. Both of these things I found out about two days before the party. Let's actually say one and a half. I had known that other family members from the " decorating team" had gone shopping and gotten a lot of cute decorations. It just happened that nothing was related to the theme. This is where googling for ideas and a shopping day come in.

Nothing at Party City helped. Shame on you, Party City. Target was fun, though! Obviously you get to shop for itty bitty cute baby things. Honestly, that is the best part of baby showers. Anyway! In the crafty rows of Target, I found the item that led to my brain exploding. (In a good way. I promise.) A paper punch of a mustache and a bow tie.

Oh yeah. The theme, by the way, was Buttons and Bow Ties. EEEEP! Cuteness overload! Perfect for the Little Man to be!

I ended up going to 5 different stores that Friday, Party City (shame on you), Target, Dollar Tree, Safeway and JoAnn's. Why Safeway? I needed to get the fixin's to make my pasta salad that my prego cousin really likes. I substituted the pasta I typically buy for BOW TIE pasta. Yep. I went there. Dollar Tree is where I got a couple packages of napkins (blue and green), 3 smallish mason type jars with handles and a 300 foot spool of green curling ribbon. Who needs that much ribbon?! At JoAnn's, I got a wooden dowel and a couple sheets of 12x12" scrapbook paper. Oh, I don't think I mentioned the two large sheets of poster board I got as well.

Let's recap my purchases a little bit, shall we? I bought:
-2 sheets of poster board (blue and white)
-a bow tie/mustache paper punch
-2 colors of napkins (blue and green)
-3 glass jars
-curling ribbon
-4 sheets of 12x12 paper (2 blue and 2 green)
-a wooden dowel
-food stuffs to make pasta salad
I wasn't entirely positive on what was going to happen with everything I bought, but I wanted to be prepared. You just never know.

That paper punch started serving it's purpose nearly as soon as I got home. The placement of the bow tie in the punch meant I had no choice but to also punch out the mustache. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the punched out mustaches, but that's a topic for later. For buttons, I just used my trusty 3/4" circle punch. Making the little dots for the button holes with a sharpie.

After some brain storming, I decided to paint the wooden dowel white. I was going to make a hangy-thingy. A mobile? Only flat. Wall hanging? Something-er-other. I was going to use the curling ribbon, but it was suggested that I use this clear non-wire-weird-stuff that was actually kinda difficult to work with so after I tied a couple strands of it to the dowel and had to use glue to keep the DOUBLE KNOTS from un-knotting, I gave up and cut them off. UGH that crap frustrated me to no end. And my cat kept trying to "help" which was no help at all. *large sigh* I ended up going to bed early and saving the rest for Saturday.

I tied 9 strands of curling ribbon to the dowel so they dangled down like an epic cat toy. (Seriously cat, you are NOT helping.) I started to glue my bows and buttons to the strands of ribbon, Double sided so the strands could turn and still be cute. After one strand, I decided it was taking too long and I just didn't know if I wanted to do it anymore. I think at this point I should mention that I was having a bad few days of severe back pain and could hardly move. So I was also a bit loopy from pain pills. And I was whiny.

When I decided I didn't want to finish my project, my mom found her Glue Dots... the kind that is actually one continuous line. From there, she took over the project for me and I was able to work on cutting my scrapbook paper into strips. I cut up two sheets of paper into one inch strips. Those 24 strips were then cut into 4 small strips each. That's a lot of small strips of paper. (96 if you aren't sure.) What was I going to be doing with these small paper strips? Wrap them around napkins to make little bow tie napkins. I only bought 2 packages of napkins, totaling 60 napkins. Also, one of my aunts had apparently already gotten some baby shower napkins. Do I need to remind anybody that I was on pain pills?

After wrapping 13 napkins, my mom decided that'd probably be enough. Does anybody need napkins? Or a bunch of small strips of paper? I did end up using some of the already cut strips to punch out more buttons and bow ties to match the napkins. I used some to make a small garland to go across the cake table and used the rest as confetti for the tables. After the napkins were done, I added some ribbon and bow ties to my little jars. I didn't remember to snap a picture of the jars, but they were filled with chocolate wafer stick goodness! (One can kind of be seen in the above picture of the cake table.) Then I made my pasta salad with the bow tie pasta.

And then I passed the heck out. Sleep is nice.

The baby shower was fun and all the little baby gifts were sweet and adorable. Most of my pasta salad was eaten, but I still got some to eat for a snack later. Don't judge me. My hangy-thingy ended up being hung from the ceiling over the food counter and it looked pretty cute actually. The little buttons and bow ties confetti tied the tables together and everyone seemed to think the napkins were adorable. I'm glad I was able to make my cousin smile and I can't wait until her little guy comes into the world! Congratulations Sarah and family! Love you bunches!

A Fresh Start

I'm just a nearly 30 year old female trying to live my life the only way I know how. I've got a lovely case of anxiety mixed with a healthy dose of depression and a big splash of introvert. Getting through life, or even just one day at a time, is pretty damn difficult. I try, but things in life just don't seem to go my way too often. I like to deal with life using sarcasm and trying to laugh as much as possible. I am who I am. I have dreams of the perfect life, but let's face it, dreams don't always come true. All I can do is be me and see what comes out of it.

This isn't my first blog. I decided on a fresh start, as the old one had too many bad memories and bad vibes attached to it. I'd also like to be BETTER about blogging this time around. I didn't use the old one as much as I would have liked to. Wish me luck or something.

I don't expect everyone to like me, and I'm not going to sit around biting my nails worrying over the people that don't. That would be a waste of time that I could be enjoying the important people around me. Being an introvert with anxiety troubles, well, enjoying people around me doesn't happen often. I can't waste those good moments worrying over things like people not being my biggest fan.

I don't always make sense, I'm not always very funny and I am often annoying. I can be very blunt at times, but I refuse to be dishonest about how I feel. Sarcasm helps keep me sane when people say dumb things. I also don't think I should have to apologize for how I feel and the things I say. Okay, maybe sometimes I will apologize for what I have to say. You don't have to agree with me, but I should hope you have enough respect for how I feel to not attack me for it. Don't attack me for my feelings and I wont attack you for yours. That's just the way it should be.

Like I said, I am who I am. I'm just me and that's all I can be.