now on to the good stuff! last week i helped with a shower for nicole at the home of a friend of her’s. not only was the hostess (joanna) unbelievable sweet (and a bit sassy!), but beautiful. and her home! ah! don’t worry, i snuck all over and took lots of pics i’ll show you soon. but i’ll just start by describing it as a.ma.zing.

i made thee little flags after seeing last month’s edition of better homes and gardens. they featured a home with this idea as decor. i used fabric that coordinated with nicole’s baby bedding. i got a 1/4 yard of each fabric and was able to get 5 or 6 flags out of each piece. i just cut rectangles then notched triangular cuts on the ends (sounds more difficult than it was). then i bought dowels and cut them in half (ok, my dad did) then hot glued the fabric to the dowel. easy peasy. i stuck them in these blue mason jars on the table and in joanna’s old sap buckets along the bar by the drinks.

joanna found these great lemonade glasses at world market for $1 a piece!

i wanted to make some sort of pennat banner for the mantle but ran out of fabric. all i had left were the little triangles i had cut out of the flags. so i got creative and used those tiny scraps, cut them in strips, and tied them to limey green grosgrain ribbon, then swooped it across the mantle. it wasn’t quite the statement i was looking for, but it still added a little punch.

joanna took care of the house and all the food and drinks, and i just did a few decorations. the food was super yummy and beautiful, and jo made sangria and hand squeezed basil lemonade (ohmygoodnessitwassostinkingood!) and finished us all off with a trifle.

the best part of the shower was the hours we all spent talking. nicole has been blessed to have such a wonderful group of women to call her friends. i know they will miss her a ton when she moves down here in a couple weeks, but they, too will be missed by nicole.

-lindsey

ahoy there, mateys!

these invites are for a baby shower i’m helping to throw for my best friend. the fabric/colors were inspired by the baby’s bedding.

i started with the back paper, the brown scalloped piece. it was from a pack of invites i got at a huge discount at target a couple years back (i used a similar invite here). i topped it with a piece of white cardstock (walmart) and printed the invite detail directly onto it (font name: CAC Pinafore). i drew a template of the sail boat – half circle for boat, 2 triangle for sails – onto thin cardboard. i used the cardboard templates to set on the fabric and trace around with a water soluble fabric pen. i cut them out perfectly with meticulous care (ahem), and used a little double stick tape to stick the pieces to the paper. then i used brown thread in my sewing machine and did a zigzag stitch as the mast, and then used a blue thread in a straight stitch as a border around the perimeter of the card.

and did you notice my favorite detail of the card? you have to look very closely!

-lindsey