Apron and Chef Hat Baking Birthday Gift - Jayrica's Party

    

Mady was invited to one of her friend's birthday parties on the weekend. As always I was trying to figure out a gift. I like to give gifts with at least a little thought behind it, no batteries required, and something that I wouldn't squirm if the roles were reversed and my kid was receiving it.

My sister suggested a little baking set. And of course, I tend to take things to an extreme. There is so much out there to make cute baking sets! I had to make myself stop where I did.

I went online and found a super cute apron pattern here. And a chef hat pattern here. Mady helped me pick out fabric. That sounds like a simple project, but seriously, she likes EVERY pattern out there "Mom! This one has butterflies!" "Oh look, Fairies!" " Oooo that's so PRETTY!" An hour later we finally left. Poor Katie Mae got dragged along and is not so thrilled with fabric stores.

I spent about an evening and an afternoon putting them together while watching mindless TV. And seriously, this apron is my favourite project ever. I think I need to make one for each of my girls. It's just so dang Ca-ute!

 

Then I found a mixing bowl that coordinated with the fabric, and a whisk (it was even yellow, thank you Michaels!), added a rolling pin, some measuring cups and spoons and some cookie cutters (my neurotic every-thing-must-match self had to let go of the perfect set that matched in theme and colours and instead let Mady pick out the cookie cutters since the gift was technically from her...Deep breath in... and out... and know that 4 year olds do not notice little details like that).



I designed the card on my silhouette software and then used the elements from it to design some recipe cards. We filled in 3 of the recipe cards with some kid friendly (read microwave and no-bake!) recipes and then included extras for Jayrica to create her own recipe collection.

It was a hit! I heard another little girl proclaim "I want to be a chef!" when she saw it. Aw! That melts my heart.

(Sorry it's blurry! No excuse except that I'm not a photographer)

The party was a bouncy house party. I love how much kids of this age love to jump. Guaranteed good sleeps later!

(I think it's impossible to not a get a flashy, non blurry photo in a bounce house!)

Happy Birthday Jayrica! Thanks for inviting us to your party. Mady loved it!

 

Linking up here:

Interactive Car Shirt Baby Shower Gift

 Oh my goodness! I deleted this post by accident! This is the re-creation as best as I can remember (ha! and it's probably less wordy...)

This past weekend I was invited to a baby shower for my first college room mate. Baby isn't here yet, but he will be soon!

Of course I was trying to think of a gift and of course, I have rules for such things. I think baby shower gifts should be practical, fun, useful and even better if it's all of the above! And since she was a good friend, I wanted it to be somewhat personal as well.

When I had Mady I received gifts in all sizes from Premie up to 3T! It was fantastic to have a stash of those bigger clothes because by the time your kid reaches those ages, very few people are buying them clothes. And every parent knows it can get quite expensive to fund your child's entire wardrobe every time there is a size change. So, I always try to give baby shower clothes gifts in sizes bigger than 18 months.

I have had this idea for a gift on my gift idea list for quite a long time and I knew that this would be the perfect time to pull it out. An interactive race car shirt!

I got the idea from here (thanks Mandy!). I altered it a little because I wanted the road to be accessible to little hands the whole time so I kept the road in the front. I also didn't sew on pockets since my shirt came with one.

I made the Vroom word on my silhouette and cut it out by hand (I was afraid the felt would dull the blade).  And then added a race car to the pocket.

Then I threw in a pair of Jeans, a sippy cup and a sippy cup leash (honestly the best thing I've ever made for my girls, I'll share with you how I did it in tomorrow's post. It's seriously SO easy).

I wrapped everything up in a bit of a race car theme and made a matching card on my silhouette.

I love you, Christa and can't wait for baby L to get here. You're going to be such a great Mommy!

Linking up here:

Birthday Card for my Brother

So the end of November my baby brother had a birthday (he's not a baby. He's 22. But he'll always be my baby brother). He's the last birthday of the calendar year, which means in sending him a card, I finished my goal to make birthday cards for each member of my immediate family. Yeah for finished goals! Another one to cross off my list.

I liked the design of his card in my head, but I think, maybe due to colour choices that it came out more feminine than I imagined. Sorry, Ian.

Birthday Card for some Nephews

I had two nephew birthday parties this past weekend. One I told you about here, the other was a first birthday for my cousin-nephew (technically he's my 1st cousin-in-law once removed, but that's confusing and he feels more like a nephew, so that's what I refer to him as).

I made them the same card, just changed the age (yeah for multi-age style cards). This was a design idea that I found on the Silhouette Flickr stream. I highly recommend checking it out for ideas.

Dad's Crossword Birthday Card

My Dad is one of those people who does the crossword puzzle every day.
And rarely has to look up the answer.
And can do it in pen.
Yes, I tell you, one of those.

I am not.

The most I do when it comes to word puzzles is search-a-words. Oh I've tried to do crossword puzzles. I even got one of those crossword puzzle dictionaries. Which never have the answers to the puzzles I'm doing. They just don't work for me. My brain doesn't think in crossword puzzle clues. I'm more of a number or logic kind of gal.


Last week my Dad celebrated a birthday. Of course I made him a card. What is more fitting than a crossword puzzle?

I used a shape from my silhouette studio and just added the words and printed it. This is another one that doesn't require the cutter in order to make it. Just in case you aren't yet convinced to at least go and get the free software...

Happy Birthday Banner

 

A friend of mine from college contacted me on Facebook to ask for some birthday party ideas for her daughter's second birthday, a cupcake theme. (She's obviously picked up that I like these sort of things! Ha!)

We threw around some ideas and during the conversation she asked me to make the Cupcake Happy Birthday Banner.

(sorry you don't get to see the whole thing. I had "helpers" awake and it would not have been safe to spread it out over the whole table! Melinda, send me some pictures of it hanging up from the party, okay?)

Isn't it cute?

Pretty much, I need to do a cupcake party just so I can make one for me!

If you want help with a banner, let me know! One of these days I'll get my official party business going and you can be my first (uh, second) customer. :)


Happy Birthday Alexis! Hope you enjoy your cupcakes.