Just wanted to share some pics from my weekend. Friday night Mr. Gaunt and paid bills and organized our finances, then we went down to the Castle ROck outlet mall to hunt for some long sleeve shirts. We made a little stop at Banana Republic Outlet where I tried on some of their clearance summer dresses. It was kind of exciting because I kind of wear a smaller size now (please note slight tummy bulge that would prevent me from actually buying any of these dresses) Im really excited for the next 20lbs to come off!

Yesterday Pro and I went to a friends baby shower (yes we are at that age where EVERYONE is getting married and having babies) which was fun, I made a little rain mobile and we got to color and baby onesies and eat yummy Pumpkin spice cake that Pro made! A good time had by all!

Today Mr. Gaunt and I are gonna do some cleaning and then look through some cook books and then go grocery shopping. Im excited because were gonna hit up Sprouts which is kind of a discount organic food store that suppose to be amazing! Ill let you know how it goes. Oh and I leave you with pics of my baby mobile:

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HEALTHY HOLIDAY RECIPE:

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As soon as one of my best friends told me she might be pregnant, I knew what I wanted to make for her baby A ribbon mobile for her nursery (I also envisioned one for my potential nursery). After looking through mobile pictures, I found a beautiful double layered one that mixed the classic mobile look and the ribbon mobile look on this blog.

Phillies Ribbon Mobile for Baby Boy
My friend knew she was having a boy and was probably going to have a sports theme in the nursery. Her husband is a baseball fan, Phillies especially. I kept the double ring idea in my head as I looked to search for Phillies ribbons, but it’s impossible to find (I don’t think they make it). So I settled on using Phillies colors for the ribbons and on the charms. I went out to hunt for the dangling charms, but soon realized my hunt was fruitless. I had to make two of each of these (I glues the ribbon in the middle of the two pieces. I dangled baseball gloves from the outer ring and the Phillie Phanatic from the inner rings. The ring are not joined together, so she can either hang them together and separately. The Phillie Phanatic I had to make completely from scratch, I had to hunt around often to find all of the supplies. I glue small round mirrors at the ends of several ribbons, to reflect the light and add a touch of whimsy.

Ribbon Mobile

Phillie Phanatic

I hung the mobile on a hanger and brought it with a wicker basket gift pack I put together. The wicker basket included a set of the bottles she wanted, 32 cloth diapers/burp cloths, sound spa, small crochetted blanket (I had made for her little one), Phillies bib and a Scotland bib.  I covered the wicker basket with shrink wrap and attached her card.

We moved to our new house when I was seven months pregnant. It was the middle of the winter, a cold and windy one, so I spent most of my time indoors. Restless. I occupied myself watching HGTV, reading, daydreaming, and making crafts. For me, crafts are pretty much a hit-or-miss affair. Still, I managed to make a lot of things for Bresho’s nursery which he will probably outdo by the time he turns 3.

The Chinese lantern mobile was one of the projects that came out fine. Ku and I made it one afternoon. We struggled a bit with the balance, but after a few adjustments it stopped slanting to one side. We walked to China town one day, bought the lanterns for like $3, some nylon thread, and some bamboo knitting needles because we couldn’t find wooden sticks.

We made an x with the needles and secured them with ribbon. Then we cut two nylon threads of the same length for the blue lanterns, two shorter ones for the red lanterns, one short one for the green lantern and a long one for the orange. We secured the matching blue lanterns opposite to each other at the end of the needles and did the same with the red ones. It was a bit difficult making sure the whole thing didn’t slant one way, but by moving them around a bit we made it work. We hung the green lantern in the middle and attached the orange to it. Then we cut four nylon threads of the same length and attached them to the outer corners of the needles. We tied all of these threads together to hang the mobile from the ceiling.

We are really happy with this little project of ours. A friend even asked us where we had bought it which means it does not look too homemade (or maybe she asked to avoid the store where they sell precarious items that look like they were made by a three year old).  It is a little bit fragile (Bresho cannot get his hands on it or its the end) and it does not have music, but its colorful and it moves when the breeze comes through Bresho’s window.

No, we didn’t make the ‘m’. We are not that advanced yet. We’ll never be. It is a plywood letter from urban outfitters and the whole alphabet is on the sale section for $1.99 a piece.

Very excited, a friend who is due in November has asked me to make her little one a mobile! I am happy to design this! I have looked at a number of blogs and I have decided on some birds with drift wood and wire for a modern twist! I will be sure to post photos.

Still working to determine fabrics looking thru the items I have, but I may have to purchase some. I have been looking at driftwood but may just use painted wood. We shall see!

I love this mobile…

Now I Know My ABCs - Decorative Hanging Mobile - Stuffed Felt Alphabet Letters -MiChiMa- ETSY

My sister in law has a link on her blog to etsy.com, a site where homemade crafts/clothes/etc. are sold online. I found this cool mobile that really anyone could make and it could be used for stuff other than a baby mobile. You could totally string several of those together for an art piece for any room. Cool huh?

Yay ~ the baby shower was a success!  The baby mama had a great time, and that’s all I was hoping for.

Now on to the pics…

I made different shades of pink and green tissue pom-poms.  Tutorial can be found here on Martha Stewart’s site.  They even sell MS pom-pom kits at Wal-Mart and other selective stores, but they usually only come in certain colors.

Emily Sign – made out of cardstock and plain white computer paper.  I used Century Schoolbook font in like a 600 font size!  The pinwheel looking things are called paper rosettes, and you can find the tutorial here on the Paper Source website. 

Diaper cake -

Flower Centerpiece -  I absolutely love peonies!  I was so happy to see that Trader Joe’s sold them!  I mixed peonies with a bunch of white/green flowers.  I wish I took a picture of them before they bloomed because they looked like ugly white balls, and after two days, they opened up to these beautiful butterfly looking flowers!

Baby Mobile – made this out of patterned cardstock, clear wire, glue, circle cutter, and the wooden circle that is holding everything together is an embroidery hoop.  This was very inexpensive to make; it just took some time.  The wire cost me $.99 at Wal-Mart, and the embroidery hoop was $1.79.  I wanted to incorporate the elephants from the invitation, so I drew a bigger version of the elephant and used that as my template.  If you don’t have a circle cutter, just draw one by free hand and use that as your template to cut others.  The possibilities are endless!

Food – assorted mini sandwiches, smoked salmon on crackers, green salad, fruit salad, pita chips/hummus, veggie dip,  cheese and crackers, mini cupcakes, and Izze drinks.  My girlfriend made cute pink and green signs for the food and stuck them on bamboo skewers.  I don’t have a picture of the favors, but we made chocolate dipped strawberries and wrapped them up in cellophane.

Fruit salad in a baby carriage – I cut out the watermelon the morning of because of the lack of fridge space, but I heard you could do this the night before.  The how-to can be found here.  This was a hit!  Great conversation piece

One of the games we played was the “Match as many pairs of baby socks”, and it was SO MUCH FUN!  If you need a good ice-breaker game, I highly recommend this one!  We could not stop laughing watching each person fumble with these tiny socks.  The mommy to be actually won this game with the grand total of 15 matched socks at 40 seconds.

All you need is 25 pairs of baby socks (or less and just shorten the amount of time), a stopwatch, a basket to mix the socks, and a pair of adult socks.  Ask the mommy to be to fold the pair of adult socks as she would with her own laundry because I realized after seeing my roommates in college that there are many variations of folding socks!  Each person has 40 seconds (adjust the time according to the number of socks you have) to fold as many pairs of socks as possible according to the way the mommy to be folds her socks.  Let the fun begin!

Of course, I had to make the mommy a lilsprinkles doll.

Yikes…I gotta get to crafting now!  The Renegade is less than a month away.  June is really kicking my butt right now!!

More baby shower ideas can be found here. and here.

-lil sis

Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top, when the wind blows, the craddle will rock …
zzz …
zzz …
zzz.

Oh … sorry guys, I must have dozed off listening to my baby mobile that I’ve hung over my computer. I can’t seem to put my finger on it, but something about this ad has caused me to pull out my memory box, put on my one-piece sleeper and snuggle up with teddy.

Anywho, how can you not love this …
zzz …
zzz.

There I go again, sorry. Alright, I’ll make this quick, Spongebob is on in 5. Ad — Glorious! This little piggy gets a special finger-painted platinum nomination done by me.

This month saw the happy arrival of my second little niece Emilia Zara – ahhhhhhhhh!!

Her mum had specifically asked me if I could make her a small mobile that she could attach to Emilia’s carry cot for when she is in the car. Here’s the result:

I was pleased with how it turned out in the end – the three magpies signify “three for a girl”. The black and white should be more stimulating for little Emilia’s eyes whilst she’s still only a squiddler

The whole thing is made from normal craft felt with some velcro, ribbon and glass beads for the detail. Click below to see some more pics!:

Having little nieces and nephews is practically the best thing ever…

Here’s a mobile I made for my niece, Alice just after she was born:

Materials: embroidery thread, felt, bamboo hoop, ribbons, acrylic stuffing and glass beads for the eyes.

Pattern for fish can be found here.

More pics below…