New Steam A Seam Projects

I had a really long list of shirts to be tackled by my Mom a few weeks ago when I was out of town. I love buying a new bag of t-shirts and going through my scrap fabric to make Abby and our new friend, Baby Ella Dane, cute clothes. I will be devastated when Abby no longer wants applique shirts. Fingers crossed I have a few more years!

These sweet little onesies went inside the cupcakes for her shower!

As you would expect, the Minnie Mouse dress is her favorite!

Steam-a-Seam is super easy to use! You literally cut out your fabric in the shape you want. Stick it to the steam-a-seam and then cut if out. Iron it onto your shirt and you are done! To help it last longer and give it a little more detail, my Mom runs around the edge in a zig-zag seam for me!

These make a great gift and go perfectly inside the onesie cupcakes!

Handmade Cupcake Toppers

There are so many cute cupcake toppers on Etsy and while I love them all, I can't imagine paying more than $1 to add a small decoration to a cupcake that people will throw away.

For the Sugar and Spice shower, I made cupcake toppers over breakfast. It was fast, easy and cost me next to nothing. I printed "Ella Dane" (her name) on white basic copy paper sized at about 1" wide and 1" tall. I also printed "sweet thing" on a sheet of paper. You can get about 18 to a sheet. I then punched them out with a 1 3/8" punch from Stampin Up. I then attached those circles to scalloped punched printed paper.

Using a very small piece of shipping tape, I taped a toothpick to the back of a topper. This kept the toothpick securely in place. Scotch transparent tape might be strong enough as well.

Then, add dimensional tape (found in the scrapbook aisle) to the same back side of the topper.

Attach a second scalloped punched topper to give you a 2-sided topper with a toothpick in the middle.

Make as many as you need- different prints, different sayings, be creative!

I transported mine in a baggie and poked them into the Cookies and Cream cupcakes onsite.

Don't spend money on cupcake toppers anymore- these are easy and very inexpensive!

Sugar and Spice- Party Food and Beverages

There are so many recipes online, especially with my Pinterest obsession, that I had a hard time narrowing down the food for this baby shower. You can go so many directions with a shower of sweets!

It was 110 degrees in Austin on the day of the shower, so we made sure to have plenty of cool refreshing drinks. Everyone loved the white wine sangria! We served the drinks in mason jars with cute striped straws.

In total we had 8 different desserts and yummy candies for the guests. Here are photos of the food and links to the recipes for the items I brought:

Chocolate Cake Pops and Cake Batter Rice Krispy Treats

Strawberry Cupcakes and Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes

Brownie Bites (after a kitchen disaster the morning of!) and Chocolate Hazelnut Dipped Strawberries

Sugar Cookies with Homemade Icing and Strawberry Lemonade Bars

I highly recommend a sweets shower for a very easy to create theme and a great way to showcase family favorite desserts that everyone has!

Cupcakes for Babies

I saved this tutorial months ago and finally had the right occasion to make my some baby cucpcakes, the Sugar and Spice baby shower we threw last weekend.

The white puff in the middle is a bunched up onesie. You could do white, colored, or white with applique designs like I did. The pink portion is a receiving blanket rolled up around the onesie.

A rubberband is placed around the rolled up blanket to keep everything in place and then it is sat inside a coffee filter which looks like a cupcake liner.

I made them a few weeks before the shower and my 2.5 year old daughter would walk by them everyday and say, "yum yum yum". Glad to know they look like a real cupcake!

Sugar and Spice- Party Decor

This past weekend I co-hosted a sugar and spice shower for a former co-worker, Laura. She is having a little girl and that sweet baby has given her a sweet tooth! The co-hostesses and I wanted to honor that with a lot of yummy little desserts and simple sweet decorations.

The bicycle above was the centerpiece of the table- I got great advice for you all about what to put inside the baskets- we ended up filling it with the Dum Dum ball and the guests giveaway- small travel toothbrushes and toothpaste!

The food was the main attaction! The table had a simple white cloth and then runners made from burlap and a pink polka dotted fabric. We added extra pennant triangles to the table and fun paper goods from Sweet Lulu.

In the living room, we placed a few decorations since that is where the group would congregate to open gifts. I made a set of my favorite blocks with the sweet baby's name on them- don't you just love Ella Dane. It is sassy, Southern, and perfect!

Using the same paper as the blocks, I made a simple pennant attaching triangles cut from scrapbook paper to ribbon.

Here is the amazing Dum Dum tree another co-hostess made. She bought a white plastic bucket to go inside the bike and then added a foam circle just a little bigger than the opening of the bucket. She then just poked the Dum Dums sticks into the foam circle. This one was huge, but you could do most any size and make these for lots of party themes. We found this idea on Pinterest.

On the coffee table, we had a diaper cake and these cupcakes. It was fun to have gifts that looked like food on the table.

I'll tell you all about the cupcakes and the sweets we served soon. It was all delicious and these easy cupcakes were fun for the Mom-to-be!

Sugar and Spice Baby Shower: Invite

I am co-hosting a baby shower this weekend for a girlfriend expecting her first child. How cute is the name Ella Dane! I just love it and am excited to eat sweets all afternoon with our friends.

The invite was made with 2 digital kits (my first time to mix on my own!) from Sweet Shoppe Designs. They are called Sugar and Spice & Bake A Cake if you want to play around, too!

I've created all kinds of inspiration on Pinterest for a sweets shower. See the board here! I'll be back next week with photos from the shower.

Help Me: How would you use this?

Does this look familiar to any Hobby Lobby junkies out there? It was part of the Spring 2010 collection and was hot pink, turquoise, and lime green? They had the tricycle along with other metal pieces like a bakers rack in the garden section. I fell in love with this when it came out and saw one on super clearance at my local store a few weeks ago. I bought it not sure how I would use it.

Over the past few nights I have painted it a very pale pink with white baskets and wheels and the aged it with a brown stain and then covered it in silver glitter! I wish you could see the details- it looks old and fabulous!

I made it pink and white for an upcoming baby shower thinking it would make a great shabby chic centerpiece. Here is where I need your help... what should go inside the baskets? Should we put a pot and plant? Vase and fresh flowers? Ice Bucket? Paper goods?

Can you think of a good food to serve from it? I love it and want to use it, but I am struggling with the best way to make use of it. Please share your thoughts!