Featuring: Manya Girls Accessories

When my daughter was born, my sweet sis-in-law, Marina, made a darling little bracelet for Lucy. It was so cute on her tiny, chubby wrist. Last Spring I made a dress for my niece and sent it to her and a week or so later we received another darling bracelet for Lucy as a thank you. So last year when 7 women in my ward were pregnant at the same time with their first babies, and they all happened to be girls, I asked Marina to stock me up with these dainty bracelets so I would have them for shower gifts. Of course, everyone loved them and couldn't wait to put them on their tiny girl's wrist.
Marina recently opened an online store called Manya girls accessories where she sells these little gems. She has 3 different lines, all reasonably priced. AND she offers free shipping!
I just placed another order today and thought I needed to share the love. Go check her out! And check out her darling model, my little niece!

Baby shower goodness

I love reading crafty blogs. I am amazed by the cute things people create. I have been known to create some cute stuff but I don't usually come up with stuff on my own. So, I love that people share all the fun stuff that they make so I can copy them! Now, it's my turn to share some of my cute stuff!

Saturday I hosted a baby shower for a friend of mine. I decided I wanted to try my hand at cupcakes. Now, I've made cupcakes before but always just slapped some frosting on the top. But I wanted these cupcakes to be really pretty. So I borrowed some cake decorating tips from my friend Megan and an instruction booklet and went to town. I made strawberry lemonade cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I made three different designs and two colors of frosting:pink and light orange. Decorating them was really fun, relatively easy and they turned out so yummy. I might even go as far as saying they were yummioso and they looked oh-so-cute! Unfortunately, most were eaten before I got a chance to take a photo of their cuteness. So, the one remaining cupcake that I hid is in the photo above.

Megan helped me make cream cheese mints for the little favors. We did pink strawberry kiwi mints and yellow lime flavored mints. (I guess they weren't really mints since we didn't use mint but that's what they are called.) Megan has a ton of cute molds so we did baby bottles, rocking horses, baby carriages and butterflies.
The favor boxes were these darling "sour cream containers". You know the kind, like when you go to Wendy's and order a baked potato and the sour cream is in that funky little tubey thing. I got the instructions here and really, they could not be any easier.

Then I made a cute little advice book to match and had everyone write down their best baby advice for the new parents. I haven't put the whole book together yet but the cover of it is shown in the photo.

The shower was a success. Yummy food, fun gifts, cute favors and showered mama-to-be.

My first ever Give Away!

I just came across this fun give-away game on 2 of my friends' blogs so I thought I'd share the love!
Here is the deal: The first five people to comment on this post will get something made by me.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It's my choice. It could be scrapbook related. Could be some kind of home decor. Who knows? I might go crazy and bake or sew or something.
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely creative.

The catch? You must re-post this on your own blog and offer the same deal to 5 of your own lucky blog readers. So, the first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they are in will win a homemade gift by me! When you get your gift, be sure to post a picture on your blog! Oh, if you don't have a blog, just do it on Facebook.

Let the games begin!

What I did last night

If the names Joshua, Katee, Twitch, Gev, Chelsie, Comfort, Thayne, Kherington, Will, Jessica, Mark, Courtney, Chelsea mean anything to you, there is no need for explaining why my ears are ringing, my throat is scratchy, my voice deep, and my hand is bruised.(seriously, there is really a bruise)
For those less cultured folks, I'll explain: I went to the So You Think You Can Dance concert last night.
And, yes, my inner teenage girl screamed her guts out.
Two words: For Real.


my favorite dance...this was from the TV show but they did perform it last night

Popcorn Bloomer and Blouse GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

Oh my goodness...can you just see my little plump Lucy wearing this...

Popcorn Bloomer and Blouse GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!