Gender Reveal Party

I meant to post photos from our Gender Reveal party months and months ago, and I just remembered! 

 We had planned to do the party at a really pretty park in town, but the weather just didn't cooperate with us, so we set it up downstairs in our church dining room. 

 So here are all the lovely pictures from our party that day! ... Beware- LOTS of photos! : )

First, here are the invitations that I created on Picmonkey.com. I found my inspiration while browsing through Pinterest. I was able to find clip art on Google to save and insert to Picmonkey.

 {obviously we weren't able to do the party at the park.. bummer}

I planned and prepared pretty much everything for the party myself. Of course I got many of my ideas from Pinterest! Like the banner over the food table. That idea came from this banner, which is originally found on Etsy. I didn't have any burlap material, but I had some tan-ish fabric. I hand painted each of the letters and hearts, then hot glued the triangles to a ling of twine. I LOVE how it turned out!

I really enjoy when I'm able to put together a special party and I have SO. MUCH. FUN with all the little details! I'm totally a "detail" person when it comes to planning these kinds of things!

For the drinks I just bought a big container of powered lemonade and added Koolaid packets to make the colors blue and pink. Blue raspberry Koolaid and Cherry Koolaid. The blue needed a little help, so we added some blue food coloring. I made labels for the drink dispensers with kraft paper and twine.

To raise the drink dispensers, I brought my two largest pots from home and turned them upside down to make little stands and covered them with fabric. I had the pink and blue fabric already in my fabric stash, so that worked out perfect!

The little heart banner is made from kraft paper and my super cool paper heart punch!

I kept the food and treats pretty simple so I wouldn't be overwhelming myself with all the prepping.

Pink Bow and Blue Mustache sugar cookies! 

I bought the mustache cookie cutter from Etsy and the bow cookie cutter came from Ebay. 

I made the sugar cookies a couple weeks before the party and just froze them until the day before the party so I could frost them. Normally I use royal icing, but I decided to try a butter cream frosting this time and I am SO glad I did! It was SO much better than royal icing could EVER be! I will never make sugar cookies with royal icing again, they were soooo delicious! I just colored the butter cream frosting with food coloring.

Aren't they just ADORABLE?! 

Rice Krispie treats dipped in pink and blue colored chocolate

Mini pretzels dipped in blue and pink chocolate 

CUPCAKES!!! 

Okay, these were not anything special. I wanted to use cupcakes as our way to reveal the gender. I didn't make them, but I supplied everything to this local teenage girl I found through our online classifieds in town. I paid her to make our cupcakes and insert the color (pink or blue) into the middle of the cupcakes and then frost them. I have this little cupcake corer thing I got from Ebay that worked perfect. When I went to pick the cupcakes up from her she had turned my white top frosting green and yellow!!! AAHH! So being the picky person I am, I went home and as carefully as I could, I scraped off the yellow and green and refrosted most of the cupcakes. I just did enough to look good on the table, and brought the rest of the yellow and green ones in case we ran out. 

I made my own cupcakes toppers using my heart punch, craft paint, and toothpicks. 

I got the idea to dye the edges of the cupcake liners from this post. 

Pretty blue and pink striped paper straws from Etsy.

I love Mason jars, so of course I decorated some with twine to hold the straws. 

Baby's ultrasound photo framed was a nice decoration for the table! And of course I love adding some cuteness with Scrabble tiles : ) 

 

Everybody got to wear a felt pin to show their vote. Pink bows and black mustaches. I got my inspiration to make them from here! 

The chalkboard is just some cardboard painted with chalkboard paint. And I found the little boy and girl clip art from searching Google. I fell in love with the framed little boy and girl clip art idea after seeing this gender reveal party.

We gave an "Old Wive's Tale" quiz before finding out the gender. You can find the printable quiz here.

After we gave the quiz and the answers, I went through the list and told which ones applied to me.. just for fun in case that changed anyone's vote!

We also took some team pictures with signs I made before finding out the gender.

I had been thinking "boy" for quite a while ..

Hubby had been thinking "girl" ..

But I was right!! : ) 

B. O. Y !

Such a fun party! Loved it!

Check out my "Gender Reveal Ideas" board on Pinterest for more fun ideas! 

Also, come check me out on my other blog, Bumping into Style, where I share my maternity outfit endeavors (or "attempts" .. ) and little tid bits of my pregnancy progress! I am currently in week 34! 

Make Your Home Smell Delicious!

Here's a super cool thing I figured out to get my home smelling super amazing! I just wanted to test it out and see if it would work. I know we've all seen ideas on Pinterest for simmering orange peels and cinnamon sticks to get your house smelling lovely and holiday-like. So I thought I'd try with some coffee beans! We aren't coffee drinkers, but I LOVE coffee flavored things and the aroma. Hubby bought this bag of beans for my birthday last year and made the candle/coffee beans idea thing for me that I had found on Pinterest. 

All you need is just a small handful of beans and little bit of water in a small pot. {I really need to get a cheap thrift store pot for things like this}. Keep the burner on low heat and soon your home will be smelling wonderful! I LOVE THIS TRICK! Just be sure you remember every once in awhile to check the water level!! ... Burned coffee smell does NOT smell as amazing! ; )

Coffee Cozy Giveaway

 Doing a quick and fun little giveaway over on my Facebook page today! 

Winner gets to customize their own cozy with the colors of their choice. 

come on over to my page and join the Fall anticipation fun!

Create an Etsy Shop Banner With Picmonkey

 Here's a super easy way to create an Etsy shop banner without having to download a certain program and learn how to use it from watching youtube videos! I used to have to download GIMP, an editing program whenever I wanted to create my Etsy banners. And I always forget how to use it because it seems a little complicated. Today I was feeling like making a change to my shop banner but I couldn't find the GIMP program on my computer and was not about to download it again! So I went to Picmonkey and figured out an easier way! Let me show you!

Head over to the Picmonkey website and click "create a collage."

Click the little mountains icon and a box will pop up allowing you to pick the image you want to use for your background. You'll want to choose a photo that does not have large images on it because they will most likely be cropped off due to the size you will need to make this banner. Some ideas of what you can do for your background image could be taking a photo of a patterned piece of fabric like small floral print or polka dots, or maybe even doodling on paper. You could also find free background images online too!

Now open the "FB Cover" layouts selection and click one of the options.

I chose the first option and then hit the "x" in the corners of the extra boxes to make it one big blank rectangle, for one photo. But if you are wanting multiple photos on your banner, then choose what you like.

Next, click the little paint palette and move the spacing all the way to the left. This just makes it to where there is no white border around the image.

Make the image box narrower by clicking onto a side of the box and moving it.

Go back to the little mountains icon and click and drag your image into the box.

Now click "Edit" which will open up all the photo editing options.

The rest of these instructions are how I did mine, but I'm including them anyway just to show you and give you the idea.

Open up the "Overlays" section which is located under the "P" icon (the heart, star, and word bubble icon), and choose any of the label options if you want to insert any of the images offered. I chose the rectangle from the "Geometric" section.

I changed the size, color, and faded-ness (is that a word?!) of the rectangle. Adding this rectangle is mainly for helping my shop name stand out against the background.

Position the image where you would want it to go.

Now you can add your shop name to the banner. Open up the "P" and you'll find all the fonts available. Click add text and fill in the box that pops up on the screen. Edit it how you like and position where you want it.
{You can add another text box if you are wanting another section of words but in a different font}

Ah, looking nice!
Now click "save" which is right above your image.

Before saving to your computer, you want to change the image size to 760. That's the only number slot that I changed and then saved it to my computer.

Ta-da!! A new fresh look!

I hope this works for you! I'm not too techy with all the measuring, sizes, editing and such of photos when it comes to things like this, but I just know it worked for what I wanted. So hopefully it can work out for yours as well. I'd love to know if you use this idea and how it turned out for you! Leave a comment and link to your shop if you'd like!

Thaaaaanks and happy editing!

Blueberry Pie

Fall is just around the corner.. I feel it! .. Actually I feel really hot and muggy, but I also feel Fall coming! Last year I said I was going to make pies. It really was on my Fall "to-do" list. But it never happened. So I'm getting a head start this season! I made my first pie today! .. Well, okay, I've made cooked chocolate pudding pies for Thanksgivings, but this is my first "other kind" of pies. And I have to confess, it's not completely homemade. The crust is homemade, the blueberry is canned pie filling. hehe! Baby steps, people!

I found Your Homebased Mom's pie crust recipe on Pinterest.

I read on other websites to use COLD shortening and COLD butter. So I scooped out what I need of shortening, and stuck it in the freezer for a few minutes. It's usually in my pantry and the humidity here keeps it super soft. I cut my butter up in little chunks. Then just followed the recipe. My dough didn't turn out very flexible and .. non-tearable. Lots of recipes say not to handle the dough too much, but I don't really know what that means.. cause I try to get it all together and mixed well. I guess pie crusts is an area I will need some practice in! It still looks okay! I just had a hard time getting the top crust over the pie and fixing it pretty without it breaking a little in places. 

I made sure to poke holes in the bottom crust several times with a fork to prevent it from bubbling and poofing out during baking. While I rolled out the top crust, I kept the bottom crust in the freezer to keep firm. I used a little paring knife to cut out the heart on the top. A little fondant cutter would work perfect too! I'll have to get some just for things like this. In went the canned pie filling, on went the top crust.. which was the part I struggled with most, because the dough was starting to tear. I snipped away all the excess dough hanging from the sides, pinched the edges, then brushed water on top of the crust and sprinkled a little bit of sugar. I watched Martha do it in this video. 

The instructions on the can of pie filling said to bake it at 425* for 30 minutes. I put it on the bottom rack and baked it for 15 minutes, then took it out and covered the edges with tin foil pieces so they wouldn't burn. I put it back in the oven, on the top rack, for about 10-15 more minutes. 

And here's my pretty blueberry pie! It's just so cuuuute!

Y.U.M !!

For this "Perfect Pie Crust" Recipe, visit Your Homebased Mom