Yellow/Pink Chevron Bridal Shower

My sister's bridal Shower was this past weekend and I of course had to make some water bottle labels for my lil sister's shower.  I'm so excited with how they turned out.  I used Picmonkey to create the image and wording.  It's simple yet classic and that's what I wanted.

I used my Cricut to cut the circle shapes

Originally, when I offered to do the shower I had a vision in my mind of all these beautiful floral centerpieces.  Of course after we had our daughter and put a new engine in our truck I could no longer justify spending a bunch of money on flowers that would inevitably be thrown away or packed in a box.  My solution was to figure a way to make my own flowers.

Enter: Coffee filter flowers.  Here's how my first one turned out before I painted it.

Isn't it pretty.  I was so excited.  I used the templates from Martha Stewart but didn't actually read her instructions.  Being impatient as I am I just started cutting and taping and they turned out great.  So with my coffee filters that cost all of $1.79 for over 100 of them at Walmart.  Here's a word to the wise, make sure you paint the petals before you go to the work of curling, taping, and positioning every petal.  If you do like I did and paint them after you have them all put together and looking similar to perfection, the paint will ruin all your hard work and you will spend another 10 extra minutes reshaping every single petal.

I used paint I had in my stash.  Cheap acrylic that I squirted some into a small bowl of water, mixed it together and started painting.  I wish I would have gotten a great picture of the centerpieces before the event but I can't remember anything these days.  I didn't think about a pic until I was standing taking pictures of my sister opening her gifts, so this picture is not fantastic and of course the centerpieces fell over in the car on the way to the site which bent some of the petals (frown).  I used Frappuccino bottles wrapped in twine and a yellow polka dot ribbon tied around it.  Each one had 3 pink coffee filter roses.

Here are the thank you tags I created in Picmonkey.  I used the background of a pink heart in all the tags I used.  All the food labels, signs for the Recipe card tree, card basket, and cookie buffet.  I created it without really thinking and really really like it.  It's so simple yet it worked!

These tags were stuck on clear treat bags I bought from Hobby Lobby.  I used glue dots to attach them.  Everyone took a bag and filled it with cookies of their choice as their favor and dessert.

The cookie buffet:

Can't for the life of me remember what the sign said but It's something I found by googling "cookie buffet signs".

Once again I forgot to take pictures until the whole shebang was pretty much done.  I had 5 kinds of cookies for people to pick from, butter cookies, white chip chocolate, red velvet hearts, chocolate chip, and peanut butter.

One of my favorite decorations was the recipe card tree.  I sent the recipe cards with the invitations with directions to fill it out and bring it to the shower.  I took clothespins I had in my craft stash and used decorative pink striped tape I found at the dollar tree to cover one side of them.  The sticks were found in my mom's yard and placed in a half gallon mason jar.  I thought this was so cute and she got some really great recipes I plan on stealing haha.

This banner was not made by me but my sister's future mother-in-law had it from another shower she had done and asked if I wanted to use it.  It was burlap and so cute I had to get a picture.

I also had tissue paper poms in dark/light pink and yellow.  I made circle garland that didn't end up getting hung up because of time restraints and guests arriving early.

For food I chose chicken salad and ham salad sandwiches, pasta salad, deviled eggs, watermelon, strawberries, and cantaloupe.  For drinks we had bottled water, homemade strawberry lemonade, and sweet tea. 

My family is not big on games, in fact with every shower I've done (and there have been a few now) they complain at the mere mention of a game.  That being said, I had to have something else for everyone to do other than eat and watch Kayli open gifts.  So I chose the candy game where you match bridal phrases with a candy.  The prize was boxed Sugar Daddy's, Sweetarts, Nerds, Twix mini candy bars, and a PayDay candy bar stacked and tied with pink ribbon.

Everything turned out so great and even though I didn't get to decorate fully like I usually do everyone enjoyed themselves and Kayli got lots of goodies to start her married life.

About to Pop Water Bottle Labels

I feel like I've been MIA from my little blog FOREVER, even though its only been a little while.  Some great things and some not so great things have been going on.  I don't like to bring negativity into my blog space because this is supposed to be my Happy Place, so instead I chose to take a time out and come back when with a new attitude.

So enough about that, on to better things.

After making numerous popcorn boxes I took a break from all things baby shower related.  I just lost some steam and was stuck on how to do the invites and therefore everything was put on hold. 

I blame this brain fart on those darn popcorn boxes.  While I think they are so cute there are time consuming and a bit of a pain in my rear.  Next time I think I'll just use paper bags or buy some already made. 

Anyways

I finally finished the water bottle labels and love love love how they turned out.  I have a little love affair with water bottle labels.  They are at every shower/birthday part I do, just because I think it's a sweet and inexpensive touch.  Normally I personalize them with the baby's name for a baby shower or the birthday/name of the birthday person on the labels but for these I decided I wanted to just stick with the theme,  and that darn brain fart was creeping in again and I couldn't figure out how to use the baby's name on them.  Either way I love them and I think the mom to be will appreciate them too.

I made them basically the same as I always do, using my cricut, some glue dots and clear contact paper.  You can see a tutorial here for the ones I made for the Grant's 1st birthday.  For these I used multiple colors of polka dot paper for the wrap then another color cardstock for the center.

After finishing these I'm full speed ahead on getting more baby shower projects marked off my to-do list.  I bought the supplies for a new cupcake stand, more on that later, and the invites are in the process of being finished.  More on that later too. 

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Water Bottle Labels

Last year for Grant's birthday I created these water bottle labels.  While I thought they turned out really cute, they were alot of cutting and glueing and I decided this year I didn't want to put up with all that.  So I'm keeping it a little more simple and classic.

I made each label with a different character because it's easy to get lost and only feature Mickey Mouse.  The more characters you showcase the more colors you will tie in.  I found all the character images using google searches and copying and pasting them into a word document.

Our party this year will consist of a family dinner, nothing too big, under 20 people but even still I have all the elements I want.  I love water bottle labels and they have become a staple at every party I've had since my wedding.  They are a cute, simple and inexpensive way to add a personal touch to any party.  Not to mention I don't like providing a bunch of 2 liters of sodas because the cost can add up quickly and we don't let Grant have soda yet.  I figure if it's his birthday why should we have a drink he can't even have.  So instead I plan on having homemade lemonade, sweet tea, and anyone who doesn't like either of those can have the water (but I don't know how anyone could not like my homemade lemonade).

Water Bottle Label How-To

I have started a small obsession with water bottle labels and feel the need for them to be apart of every celebration.  My first dabble with them was for my wedding.  I stupidly made 24 labels, with the intention of using them in goody bags for Derrick's family who drove from Tennessee to Ohio, ended up not doing the goody bags and put them on the table at the wedding.  Needless to say everyone wanted one and they were gone before you could blink.  I made those in Microsoft publisher which I no longer have on my computer, enter my Cricut.  I used my Cricut to make the labels for my sister's graduation party and my cousin's baby shower and now my son's birthday. 

Each time I do the labels I end up finding another way to make them.  So here is how I made Grant's birthday labels:

1st I typed the wording I wanted in a word document and spaced the Happy Birthday and the Grant is 1! as far apart as I could and still have them on the same line, then copied and pasted a few more on the page with enough room in between to cut.  I printed them on white cardstock I bought at Walmart for $5.96 for 150 sheets

Then I took a label off the water bottle I intended to use keeping as much of it intact as possible to use as a template.  I positioned the label wear I wanted it over top of the wording and made small marks to indicate where the top and bottom of the label would need to be cut (if you look close you can see these dashes on the right hand side of the cardstock page).

Now use your paper cutter, any paper cutter will do, and cut straight across where you made the dashes.

You will end up with a bunch of these:

Are you getting excited! I love this part of crafting, when the first part of your project is done and you get a little sneak of what its going to end up looking like.  Haha I think only fellow crafters would understand that comment.

Anyways...

I found a picture online of Buzz and Woody I liked, copied it into my pictures file, then copied it into a word document, sized it to 1 inch and put multiple on one page, leaving enough room between them to cut them into circles.

Here is where my beloved Cricut comes in, can I say how much I love my Cricut, I love it I love it I love it.

Ok back to water bottle labels.

I used the Accent Essentials cartridge and cut the shape on the left, which I used as a background for the Buzz and Woody picture.  I cut this shape at 2 inches out of regular scrapbook paper.  I used the centerpoint feature on the Cricut and cut 1 3/4 inch circles around each of the pictures, then glued the circle onto the background shape using clear glue I bought at Walmart.

Now just glue the Buzz and Woody shape in between the wording on your label and TADAAA! Your almost finished, but look how cute they are!

Now, technically you could stop right here and just tape or glue these fabulously homemade and personalized labels to your water bottles, or if your like me and have a need to keep little momentos of birthdays (holidays, baby showers, bridal showers, etc etc etc), you can use contact paper to cover them and keep them from ruining or ripping.  I read somewhere if you cover them in packing tape they will be waterproof, and all I can say about that is...

Lies! All Lies!

I tried this on my sister's graduation labels because the party was at a park and the bottles were going to be in a cooler of ice, needless to say my beautiful labels that I slaved over for hours ended up completely ruined with bleeding cardstock colors.  O well live and learn.



Dr Seuss Water Bottle Labels

I love water bottle labels, I think they are such a cute and inexpensive way to add a personal touch to any party or shower.  So I knew when I volunteered to do my cousin's shower I would have to make some labels, and here they are:

I knew I wanted to incorporate the boys' names, as well as Thing1 and 2 images.  I played  around with a couple different ideas and this is the one I thought would work the best.  I had a font called Grinched downloaded just for this shower so I used it to type the boys' names into a word document with enough space in between to fit the Thing1&2 image (this was just a guess and it just so happened I got it right on the first try). Then printed it on white cardstock and cut it into thin strips. I copied and pasted 2 different Thing images into a word document and shrunk them to 1 inch.

To get the size of the label correct I took a label off one of the water bottles I'm going to use and made a template out of plain white cardstock.  I bought my red/white polka dot paper at Michaels (it was so hard to find this paper, Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's didn't have anything,ugh).  I was able to get about 4-5 labels from one sheet of 12x12 paper.

I used my Cricut (my favorite toy!) to cut the Thing images into a circle and the flower shape I layered behind it in blue.  Using some clear glue I glued the image to the blue flower, then glued the name strip to the red dot scrapbook paper wrap, then glued the Thing/flower image to the wrap. 

In the picture above the labels are not covered with anything to make them waterproof, and to be honest I don't know if there is a way to make them completely waterproof.  I used packaging tape for my sister's graduation bottle labels and they were still bleeding through by the end of the party. This time I'm gonna try contact paper and see how it turns out.

I'm so thrilled with how cute these came together, and so relieved they are finally finished.

Graduation Water Bottle Labels

I finished the water bottle labels for my sister's graduation and I was so happy to be able to mark them off my to-do list.  They took way more time than I thought they would.  The good part is I had my trusty lil Cricut to help me with all the cutting, too bad it doesn't glue too.  Each letter and number was shadowed with the opposite color cardstock.  I bought graduation stickers at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago when they were 50% off so I got 8 pages of stickers for around $3.  I used those to go in the middle of the flower thing (have no clue what else to call them) separating the 2011 and Kayli

After everything was cut and glued I used clear packing tape to cover them, I read somewhere this would make them water proof.  It worked on most but when the party was over I noticed about 6 of the labels had leaked.  We wrapped them around the bottles and used more packing tape to secure them.

And the finished product:

I didn't get a picture of them actually on the bottles since these were the last thing we finished before leaving to set everything up.  I did think these gave the party a personal touch.  I wanted her party to be special and have alot of little touches she wouldn't see at other parties.  With these labels, the centerpieces, cupcake toppers, and cake, I think I accomplished that.