There is something in the water....

So... you may have notice the marked decrease in posts over the last few months.  Well.... here is my excuse.

Yup, we are expecting another little boy in November.  I'm due a few days before Thanksgiving and am hoping to spend the holiday at home (and not in the hospital) with a new baby.  So fun! 

This has actually been my easiest pregnancy so far.  With the exception of a few bad days, I have felt pretty good, just tired.  The only time I tend to feel icky is when I sit at my computer.  Go figure!  So even though I have a long list of things to sit down and blog about, I have been struggling to get the posts written.  Please bare with me, I will get caught up.  Promise!

And is it just me and my little corner of the world, or are there a lot of babies expected this fall?

Forget Me Not

Has everyone heard of The Wood Connection?  Its a super fun blog full a great wood craft inspiration AND for those who are lucky enough to live nearby, its also a fantastic shop where you can buy all kinds of unfinished wood kits.  Well, last week we had our monthly neighborhood craft night and I was asked to pick the theme.  Of course I picked wood crafts!  And since I had heard so many great things about The Wood Connection's Shop, I decided I better check it out.

Oh my word... Died and gone to heaven!!!

They have the cutest stuff and it is so nice to be able to just buy the kits all ready to go and just put your own spin on them.  And I was pleasantly surprised with their prices.   It was a really good day!

I ended up buying the "Forget me not" kit.  It's this sweet pot of little blue "forget-me-not" flowers to help us remember the beautiful talk by President Uchtdorf.  I particularly love this talk and wanted the oh-so-cute reminder in my home. 

Here is how it turned out.

I completely adore it!

I found a perfect blue paper with some texture to modge podge on the flowers, and then added the button in the center for that extra fun touch.

And I'm loving the double ribbon I found.  The ribbon was the perfect way of adding that bit of aqua to the other truer blue, which helps it relate with the colors of my house.

But I think the barn wood paper on the pot is the best part of all! 

The vinyl was already cut and I purchased it from The Wood Connection also.  What a time saver!

So... what do you think?!  Turned out pretty fun huh!

Well... I wasn't able to get out of there with only one kit so I'll be back in as few days with the other thing I made.  Stay tuned!

Glittered Watermelon

Just in case you missed it, here is my glittered watermelon post from WYLTC last week.  It was a ton of fun to make... Enjoy!

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Hello everyone!  Krystal from Sassy Sanctuary here again today!  I'm so excited about this months theme.  Melinda's bedazzled "summer" is beyond wonderful don't ya think!?  I'm definitely going to have to break out some sequins on some future project!

When I was told our theme for this month was "summer bling" the first thing I though of was a watermelon.  Don't watermelons just scream summer?!  I know I'm not the first person to ever make a wooden watermelon, but it was still fun putting my sparkly spin on it!

So are you ready to see?

It was a ton of fun to make and looks so cute mixed into my little summer display!

I wish pictures did the sparkle justice.  It really does just glimmer in the light.  It's wonderful!

Its hard to say what my favorite part is... it was so much fun adding the glitter to the scrapbook paper patterns, but the black rhinestone "seeds" I found are pretty fun too!

Anyway, if you want to make your own, here is the method to my madness.  :)

A-  I made my cuts using my scroll saw.  You want to use a piece of wood that is thick enough that it can stand up by itself.  I just used scraps I had laying around and actually have two pieces glued together to get it thick enough.  I just free handed a pattern on some paper before transferring it to the wood.  I used a thinner piece of wood to make the slightly smaller "fruit" piece.

B- The fabulous black rhinestones I found in the scrapbook section at Micheal's.  They actually were part of a scrapbook boarder embellishment, and I just picked the black ones off. 

C-  Once you have you supplies, you can paint.  Since I was adding scrapbook paper to the fronts, I only painted the edges.

D- But I did paint the back of the big piece just so it would look okay from the backside.

E-  Then you add your paper!  I found a fun red polka-dot for the center, and a great green strip for the outside.  I used modge-podge to adhere it to the wood.

F-  Once its completely dry, then you can add the glitter!!!  I used the backside of a paint brush to make dots with modge-podge and added the glitter.  Work in small sections so that your glue doesn't dry.  I also painted on the stripes with a fine paintbrush.  My kids were fascinated with the glittering process!

A tip for glittering, once its dry give your glittered piece a light coat of finish spray.  It really helps seal the glitter in.  Just be sure to use really light coats so the glitter doesn't get dull.

Once everything is dry, then you can hot glue your pieces together and hot glue on the seeds.

Now just stand back and enjoy the glimmer!

Can't wait to see what everyone else has come up with!

Thanks for reading!

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events:

WYLTC

It's Wood You Like to Craft week again!  I'm over there today sharing my version of this month's theme... which is "summer bling!"  Here is a sneak peek...

 This week is sure to be wonderful so you won't want to miss it!  Head on over! 

  Click HERE

Lots of Felt Flowers

The ladies in my neighborhood get together once a month to craft together.  It's fun.  This last time our theme was "hair pretties" and everyone just did their own thing.  I'm not much for making hair stuff so I just picked up some felt and buttons, searched pinterest for some inspiration, and figured I'd wing it once I got there.

Turns out making felt flowers is really fun... and addictive!  I couldn't stop!

Here is what I've made.... so far... I doubt I'm done.

Some are for my little monster and some our for my little niece that we are expecting to make her debut any day.

These first kind are really easy and fun.  They are basically made like the third flower in THIS tutorial, except I used all round circles and put a button in the center.

These ones are done the same way but with fabric scraps instead of felt, and doing two flowers and stacking them.

This one is my very favorite!

These ones I followed THIS tutorial.  They are really similar to the ones above with a slight variation.  Love them!

These ones are super easy and fun too!  You can find a tutorial on them HERE.  (I didn't sew, just hot glued)

And these ones are just layers flower shaped.  I really like the added embroidery. 

Most the flowers have alligator clips attached to the back.  I was making some newborn size headband for my niece when I had a brilliant idea.

I just made a blank headband and made a felt pocket on it.  The two ends are attached at the pocket, and then its folded over and hand stitched.

Now I can slide any clip and make it an instant headband!

I plan on making a couple more blank headbands in a few more colors... and I'm sure I'll be making more flowers while I'm at it.  They are too much fun!

So... what is your favorite flower tutorial?  Now that I'm addicted I'd love to try some more styles!

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events:

Ba'bee' Shower Week- A Wishing Tree

I have one last thing to share with you guys from my sister's shower.  Her gift!  While I did go in with another sister and bought a swing, I wanted to make something special for Baby Kendal's nursery.  I was inspired by an idea from Pinterest, you can check out the original source HERE.

So my thought was I would create a piece of art that also served as a guest book. 

I started with an 11x14 piece of canvas.  I cut strips of scrapbook paper (that I knew would go with the look of the nursery) and modge podged them to the canvas.  Then I took some wood grain paper and made a basic tree silhouette.  Finally I added a "wishes for Kendal" banner.  (the banner is just attached with foam tape.)

Pop it in a frame and you have this...

Then I cut a bunch of leaves out of green card stock.  At the shower I set up a table right as you walked in and asked all the guests to write a wish for baby Kendal on a leaf.

As they wrote them, I attached the leaves with more foam tape.

It was really neat to see what everyone wrote.

Once it was done, I popped the glass in the frame and gave it to my sister.  She now has a really special piece of art for her baby and a great keep sake from her shower... all in one. 

I hope Kendal loves it as much as I do!

So that's it guys.  I hope you enjoyed seeing all the fun things we did for the shower and have some ideas for any showers you may host in the future.

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events:

Ba'bee' Shower Week- the games! (free printables)

Now... the best part of a baby showers is the games right? ;)

We had a lot of fun planning the games and prizes for this shower.  We played 3 games.  The first one was baby shower Pictionary.  We had a dry erase board and split into two teams.  We played so that everyone had a chance to draw once and then counted up the score.  The winning team each got a "Burt's Bees" chap-stick.

It was a fun game with words like "breast pump" and "epidural." hehe

You can download the complete wordlist HERE.

Next we played "The Price is Right"

We had a basket of baby items and gave each guest a card with a list of everything in the basket.  They got to guess how much each item cost.  Whoever got closest, without going over, won a gift basket with more "Burt's Bees" products.

Here is the cards we used for this game.  (I have one with the list of what was in our basket, and a blank one if you want to add your own items.)

 And the final game we played was bingo. This version of bingo is actually something to keep the guests involved while the mommy-to-be is opening all her gifts.  I made blank cards and let everyone fill their own card out with items they thought the mommy was going to get.  Then as my sister opened her gifts they got to mark them off.  We played "black out" to make it more challenging and ended up having to just go with whoever got the most crossed off at the end.  Another variation would be to play double lines, or have the guests pass their cards around after filling them out.  The winner also got a "Burt's Bees" gift basket.

Anyway, here are the bingo cards.

 To use the game cards just click on the image to view it larger, then right click and save to your computer.  Enjoy!!

(Please be a public follower of Sassy Sanctuary before using)

And that was it!  We really had a lot of fun!

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events:

Ba'bee' Shower Week- How to make a diaper cake.

You can't really have a baby shower without a diaper cake can you? Turns out they are actually really easy to make!  I'm sure there are lots of ways to make a diaper cake but this is how I did mine.

 You will need:
Diapers (I used a pack of size 1 and a pack of size 2)
Cake Pans (I used a 10", 8" and 6" pan)
Rubber Bands
and Embellishments (Ribbon, flowers, wooden decorations)

You start with a cake pan and start layering the diapers in the  pan.  You want to try and space the diapers evenly along the outside edge.  It takes some fiddling to get it even.

One you have the form nice and tight with diapers, put a rubber bands around the whole thing to secure.  (I just got really large rubber bands and then tied a knot in them to make them smaller for the smaller form.)

Do all three cakes.  If you have extra space you can slip some extra diapers in the center of the cake.

My cakes just sat on top of each-other.  This made it easy to transport.

Once you have your cakes done you can decorate!  Start by putting ribbon over the rubber bands.  I used hot glue to put the ribbon on.  Just be careful not to get any glue on the diapers.  Overlap the ends of the ribbon and only glue onto the ribbon.

I put a wide black ribbon, and then a narrower yellow ribbon on top.

 
Then I hot glued the wooden bees (which I found all ready to go at Micheal's) over the seam.  Then simply tuck the flowers in-between the folds of the diapers till you have the look you are after.

And that's it!

Like I said it was really easy to make and I got a lot of compliments on it.  I even had one guest ask when we were going to cut the cake.... but then again, we had men at this shower.... haha!

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events:

Ba'bee' Shower Week!- the decor and banner printable

Hey everyone!  I'm so excited! It is baby shower week!  As most of you know I helped throw a baby shower for my little sister a few weeks ago.  We went with a "mommy to bee" theme and it was a blast to decorate and plan around.  I'm going to spend the week sharing what I did and I have a bunch of free printable for you.  :)  (you can see how I did the invitations for the party HERE)

First up... the decor! 

We didn't go too over the top decorating, but we did a couple vignettes.  The first was the buffet table.

We found most of our party supplies at Zurchers.  We went with a yellow table cloth, black and white polka napkins, and black utensils.

The plates were pink. (this party was for a baby girl.  you could use a blue accent with the yellow and black and it would be just as cute.) The cups yellow, and we also had bee napkins.

The centerpiece was the diaper cake (tutorial to come) and a balloon bouquet.

We had a local bakery make cupcakes with bees on it for us.  They didn't turn out exactly as I had imagined, but they were cute.... and really yummy!

Then on the other side of the room I had the gift table.

 I hung the "mommy to bee" banner across the mantle and flanked it with two more balloon bouquets.

The banner was made using this digital kit by  Faith True Originals.  A big thanks to her for making such cute digital kits!

I printed the banner at office max on card stock.  I had the images printed at 5x7 and then cute each one down to 5x5.  They have such good printers the quality was way better then I could have gotten at home.
I then punched holes in each corner and strung the whole thing up with yellow yarn.

It was a really easy project but totally set the theme for the shower.

And I just loved the balloons!

So that was about it.  I have a whole bunch more to show you from the shower but I'll leave you with a free printable for the banner.  :)

You need 3-m, 2-o, 1-y, 1-t, 1-b, 2-e, and 4 of the bees to spell "mommy to bee". I have a pink and a blue version for you. Enjoy!

(please be a public follower of sassy sanctuary before downloading.  thanks!)

Download PINK Banner
Download BLUE Banner

Let me know if there are any problems with the download.

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events: