October 09, 2011

Baby's coming!

This is the time of the year that I can't catch my breath with all of the activities I have in my schedule. Not complaining... it's what keeps me motivated to get up every day. This year has been particularly busy and my new baby granddaughter's arrival is at the top of the list of "loves". She will make her grand entrance late this year or early next January. Maybe a birthday gift to me? Or a Christmas gift to her big brothers. We'll see. So far she has made her presence known to her mama in the form of gymnastics in the womb. I get to put my hand on her belly when I see mama and feel my little princess moving about.  I treasured every little kick and poke of my own babies. Isn't that just the grandest of all gifts... to feel your baby moving and shuffling positions. I miss that.

There will be a baby shower next weekend and I volunteered to help with some decorations. I chose the yellow/black/white nursery colors to use as my inspiration. I found this picture on Pinterest, of an invitation and loved the pattern...
I decided that this would make an adorable centerpiece so I went about recreating the image to a large format.





<-------  (PINTEREST IMAGE)












I started with a 12x12 piece of background paper, cut it to 9x12 then folded it in half. I have always found it easier to make a symmetrical pattern by folding the paper in half, then when you open it, it is perfect. (Remember making valentines that way?)





To make it even easier, I used things in my craft room that were circular (spools of ribbon) to make the rounded shapes for the leg and neck holes. One of the bonuses of that plan was that the little open hole in the middle of the spool became my guide to the perfect placement. When I could see the corner of the paper in the middle, I knew I was dead center.








I used a larger spool of ribbon for the neck hole.














This is the finished pattern. I traced that onto my chosen background papers. I was making 2 centerpieces, so I needed 2 patterns for each one (front & back)











Like the design on the invitation, I added bows and buttons with a gel glue, and made some paper "eyelet lace" for embellishment around the neck, legs, and arms. I glued the two patterns to a piece of scrap foam board for stability. The most tedious part of the project was hand cutting around the pattern with an exacto knife. I only "scored" the space between the tops of the onesies, so that it would fold, and make a tent shape. You'll see that later. I also added some brads in the crotch area to look like snaps.






This is what it looked like after cutting it out. I left small tabs at the bottom to use for a stand.














So cute!!!! I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I found these awesome letter stickers at Walmart (ekSuccess) for a $1. There are 52 in each pkg... one upper and one lowercase of each letter.  Really cute font, and the perfect size. I added a simple phrase to each side.










Pretty and silvery.








Love it!
Love Pinterest.

Thank you, to the original artist who came up with the idea. I hope you like my take on it.