Sweet Pea Has Arrived!

Baby Sweet Pea was born on Sunday March 6th weighing in at 5 pounds, 8 ounces.

No, he's not mine. See the details of his shower here.

Sweet Pea Mobile

Materials:

• card stock in your choice of colours ( 3 colours look best)
  
• fishing line or clear jewelry thread
• fishing weights or beads
  
• something circular for the top
  

The first project I started was a mobile. The inspiration came from Ohdeedoh. I saw this mobile on their site:

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/make-a-plexiglass-top-for-a-diy-mobilehow-to-138193

The article is really about the plexiglass top, but I loved the three tones and the circles. Because if you think about it, peas really are circles, aren't they? So, circles became the starting point. I repeated the circle theme in the other decorations, including the polka dot balloons.

I really recommend getting a circle cutter, if you want to try to make a mobile like this. It will save oodles of time and painstakingly cutting out circle after circle. I got one a Michael's, I had a 40% off coupon. Bonus! Circle cutters look something like this:

Martha Stewart Circle Cutter

I didn't get this exact one, but they all basically work the same. One tip I discovered, it is helpful to tape the edges of the paper down to the cutting matt, otherwise the paper may slip and you won't get a perfect circle. I picked up 3 colours of card stock: kelly green, teal green and sage green. Card stock was on sale 5 sheets for $2 so I had more than enough paper for this project. I did a few tests on a scrap piece of paper first, and I decided 1 1/4 inch circles was the perfect diameter. I cut out lots and lots of each colour, I don't know how many exactly but I do know I used 48 circles in total. There are 6 strands and each strand has eight circles. For the top, I used a needle working circle. It was 89 cents, and it already had perfectly spaced holes. It made the whole thing alot easier.

Using a sewing needle and fishing line, I poked holes in the top and bottom of each circle and strung eight onto each strand. Don't worry if it's not perfectly even, you can adjust the spacing after. Once I had all the strands I needed, I tied them to the plastic circle top and balanced the whole thing out. I had trouble getting the strands to hang straight so I added some fishing weights to the end of each, and that solved it. They look like beads, but they aren't.

Once you are happy with the way it hangs, adjust the spacing between the circles and trim any excess fishing line. That's it! This project is very inexpensive, but it is a time commitment. I estimate I spent about $4 on this project, but I spent 3-4 hours working on it. But, considering mobiles are super expensive to buy, it makes sense to make one. There are so many options, that it is easy to personalize this project to your taste and colour scheme.

Sweet Pea Baby Shower

Date: Saturday, February 12, 2011
Location: Mom to Be's House, Toronto, On
Guests: 20
Budget: low
Special considerations: vegetarian, vegan, nut free and as eco-friendly as possible.

Menu:

• veggies and hummus
• crackers and cheese platter
• guacamole and whole wheat tortilla chips
• vegetarian quiche
• endamame
• vanilla and raspberry cupcakes with vanilla butter cream icing (not vegan)

Games and Activities:

Guess the baby food flavour: To play this game, all you need are a few jars of baby food in different flavours that look the same, some spoons, pencils and paper. For example, we had sweet potato, corn, peach, and apple/strawberry. I took the labels off the jars, but taped them to the bottom so I could tell them apart and numbered the lids 1 through 4. All of them are orange, and it's really hard to tell which is which. Guests tasted each jar and tried to guess what flavour they were. People had a really hard time with the peach and the apple/strawberry. The winner missed the apple/strawberry but got the rest.


Guess the nursery rhyme: For this game, read out one line from a common nursery rhyme, such as "hickory dickory dock" and have the guests guest the title of the rhyme. It's harder than you think.

How well do we know mommy? For this game, guests had to select characteristics the baby would have, for example hair colour or eye colour, but the trick was to guess what Mom-to-be would answer herself. The guest who had the most answers that matched Mom-to-be's form won. I played this game, and I actually won! Kind of funny really.

What was one thing your mom did for you, that really helped you blossom? This is sort of an advice question-guests wrote down their answers for Mom-to-be to read later. Collect them all and paste into a memory or guestbook.

Finger print tree guestbook: for this activity I painted a tree with watercolour on paper. I painted the design free hand, but if you google you can find lots of tree images you can copy and print out. The image I designed is small, about 9 by 11 inches. For alot of people, I would recommend a much larger design with lots of branches.

I found some "washable" ink at the craft store. The package claims it washes off easily, but we found out the hard way it stained a bit. Have the guests dip a finger or thumb into the ink and stamp their fingerprint onto the branches of the tree so it appears to be leaves. Sign your name near your print. It looks really cool with alot of prints.

For some reason-not everyone did one. Either they forgot or didn't want a green finger all day. I suggested Mom-to-be keep the supplies and have her family member and visitors add their prints to add to the design. Then frame and hang in the baby's room as artwork.

Decorations:

When I started sourcing the decorations for this party, I had a really hard time finding baby shower things in green. Everything is pink, blue, or yellow. When I started planning, it was unknown if baby was male or female, but shortly after Mom-to-be told me baby was a boy. So I was able to add some blue in with the greens. Since I couldn't find what I wanted in stores, I made a mobile, a sweet pea banner, a garland and felt pea name tags. The details of each project will be posted separately shortly. I did buy a balloon bouquet from party packagers, and it just so happened Mom-to-be was invited to a baby shower the very next day, so she was able to re-use the balloons. I was lucky in that the location was already so lovely and well decorated that I didn't really have to add much. Lots of amazing artwork and a neural colour scheme. The greens really popped and looked great.

Details for the projects to come!