Birthday Banners for Kid's Parties

Please forgive the HORRIBLE lighting in my basement studio.  My cousin (in-law, but who's counting) Jen has two adorable kids who are both having a birthday this fall!  James will be turning 4 in November and Olivia turns 2 today!  Happy Birthday Olivia!  Happy Birthday James! 

Jen and my cousin Ryan (her hubby) are two of my favorite people and given that they have lovely red-headed children, their family makes 4 of my favorite people!  Ryan and I lived together for a while before either of us were married, so I love the guy like a brother.  Then, he went and married Jen, who is just the sweetest!  Really, none of us could've picked a more perfect wife for him.  But, then they had kids with red hair!  I loved it on James, but only really appreciated it when my own little guy's hair started to get more red!  I don't get to see James or Olivia very much, as they live in a different state, but Jen always shares pictures with me, so I feel like I know them better.  When Jen asked me for ideas about non-commercial Toy Story type decorations, I was so excited.  (She'll totally back me up as I sent her about a million pages off Etsy!!)  I really wanted to make them something, so I was super excited when she asked me to make them each a banner!

They're having a Buzz Lightyear - Jesse themed party!  The James banner is made from paper, ribbon and tissue paper.  I got this awesome scrapbook paper that looks like sheet metal (my girlfriend Brigett's Cricut didn't love that paper, but it did a pretty great job of cutting everything out!) for the letters.  Then, on the rocket flames, I used several layers of tissue paper so it'll kind of flutter and look a bit more flame-y.  The Olivia banner is made from denim pockets, fabric, paper and bias tape.  I cut the cow print fabric in long strips, made them into bows and sewed them on the tape.  The pockets are just stitched together (and to the bias tape).  I glued the letters on.  The bandanas are stiched into the pockets.  I had some little cowgirl cutouts, but I couldn't figure out where to put them, so I left them off. 

I love taking commercial kid's party themes and making them a bit more homemade!  The colors and the textures are a good place to pull ideas from and it's just so much more fun to me than a bunch of pre-printed merchandise from China.  No offense China.  ;)

Hope you like them.  Jen liked the pictures (though she's so sweet, she'd never say she didn't like them) and I hope she loves them when she gets them in the mail!  Do you have a party you've thrown that mixed commercial and handmade?  I'd love to see them.  Throw me a link in the comments and I'll come visit you ;)  I know I'll love all your creativity!!

PS - To Ryan and Jen's baby on the way, I will still love you just as much with another hair color, I promise!

A Girly Diaper Cake and a Baseball Banner for a Baby Shower

I had a baby shower for my cousin Lindsay this past Saturday.  Through a series of unfortunate events, I missed the shower.  But, here's the diaper cake I made as a gift.  I don't think Lindsay reads my blog, so I doubt she'll see this.  If she does, I hope this makes her a bit more excited about diapers ;)  (If you're Danielle, don't read any further!)

In other baby shower news, the he baseball baby shower is in less than 2 weeks, so that's about the only thing I can focus on now.  The invitations are out and the RSVP's are coming in.  I'm tweaking all of my printables for different things and finalizing centerpiece ideas and gift ideas.  My friend Brigett cut out a bunch of shapes and letters for me with her Cricut and I made this banner.

I really like how it turned out!  I might end up making another banner for the kitchen island that says "Concessions!"  Anyway, so far we're going to have a nacho bar, hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts, lemonade, iced tea, root beer floats, and cupcakes.  Anything that's totally baseball that I'm forgetting?  I think I'm going to make personal apple pies for the favors...I mean, what's more American than baseball and apple pie, right? ;)

PS-So far the baseball ticket invitations have been a hit!

Custom Bunting for a Cowboy, Cowgirl, or Farm Theme

Heather just finished this cute cow print banner and I took some photos of it for the Etsy shop and I wanted to share with ya'll also!

We're going to stage out a Cowboy party one of these days when the grass gets a little greener and we find someone with a barn and haystacks we can borrow. For now we have just been brainstorming some ideas. If you have any please leave us a comment. You craft bloggers have the best ideas around!

I hope the weather has been as good for you as it has been in Michigan for the last few days...

also we've chosen our Lucky Linky winner and will be posting later tonight!

Little Cowgirl Ruffle Flowers

If you haven't noticed, I'm on a serious recycled denim kick. I used to own a denim couch and I worked for the Gap for 5 years where my favorite thing was a freshly folded denim wall. I once folded denim for 10 hours straight when I helped open a store in downtown Chicago. I had to give up my store when Bryce was born, but it ended up closing a year later anyway. I loved that store! (It was in downtown East Lansing, MI. )

I have a lot of outdated jeans that are in such good condition. (does anyone remember long and leans?)

Heather has inspired me to try using jeans to craft. This is a banner that I recently made for a customer.

I added some ruffle flowers to the ends of the banner. They clip on so you could use them for something else if you want.

I was trying to achieve a cowgirl theme with the banner. Twine and star buttons seemed like a good choice!

Thanks for reading!