Megan's Blue Green & Yellow Gender Neutral Bird Themed Baby Shower

Whew. This is going to be a long post. Finally, a couple months after the event, a recap of Megan's baby shower. At the time, we didn't know what she was having and we went with a gender neutral theme of birds/owls and a blue/green/yellow/kraft color scheme.

Krystal, Christina, and I came up with the idea to cover the poles throughout the room with little trees made from posterboard and rolled brown paper (crinkled up) with a smattering of birds on the trees and an owl (leftover from the invitations here) nestled in the "hollow" of the tree.
Here's a shot of the most of the room. We made the "Welcome Baby Trimble" banner with the Cricut and scrapbooking paper, strung onto ribbon. The tablecloths were alternating colors with either a painted stick tree or an apothecary jar with a bird in a bird nest with a banner (see a few pictures down).
This is where the mommy-to-be and her mother (my MIL) sat...
The mommy-to-be badge we made for Meg to wear.
Here they are...
One of the games we played - matching baby pictures of friends and family to their adult pictures.
Maternity pictures and the thumbprint tree.
The prize table!!! Lot of AVON (donated by my mom - thanks Mama!), candy and a couple of $5 giftcards.
This was one of my very favorite ideas - the thumbprint tree. I cut out a Cricut tree shape, and had the guests put a green fingerprint "leaf" onto the branches with their name underneath. It started out like this...
And started to get really full of "leaves" - we took this to the family shower too, and then I framed it - pictures of that soon.
Oh dessert. We went a little craaazy. Haha...actually, the whole shower is crazzzy over-the-top. What can I say? I was so excited for my new little niece or nephew! :) We had two tables of dessert - one was a cake/cupcake table and the other was just jam-packed with all sorts of yummy goodies...
Here are the two tables side-by-side. The banner says "Have a sweet tweet" and the green poster is Meg's weekly pregnancy shots...
Close up of the dessert table...
I made about 75 cupcakes (three flavors - chocolate, vanilla, and lemon), some with a "nest" theme. I looooved making these - it might have been my favorite part. I made little toppers with an elephant punch and leftover punched circles from the scraps of the papers I used to make the banners...
Some had white chocolate shavings to form a nest, and on some I piped the icing to look like a nest, complete with chocolate egg candies to make the eggs.Christina's mom made the cake, and I made a little banner topper with with two birds in a nest with the "baby" egg...about to hatch! Oh, I know. The cheesy cuteness is ridiculous! :)There were other handmade sweet "tweets" - chocolate nests nestled in a wreath "nest" (how many times can you say nest!?!)
Chocolate covered pretzels and marshmallows...
Handmade chick cake pops by Sis. Jennifer - they were soooo cute!
Table centerpieces...
Jackie came over and helped us paint the "stick trees" - thanks for the help Jackie!! :)
Our second game was to have groups of two to three make onesies for the baby...I brought a bunch of supplies (fabric paint, pre-washed onesies, pom-poms, felt icons/sayings, buttons, fabric markers, etc.)
We let Taylor be the judge (a 4 year old) of which one she thought was "best" - this one was the winner...made by Stacy
And this was another one I loved...there were so many cute ones, but since I already have so many pictures...these are the two that made it to blogland...
There were many presents...
This one being my favorite (ha! because it was mine...hehe!) I had a verrrry crafty lady at the church make these little crocheted animals for me to match Meg's baby room...if you want to buy some, here is her blog (here's a link to her store as well! She makes custom orders and does great work! :) )
And one with my girly-girls...oh how I loooove these two sugar-muffins.
Krystal & I
We had so much fun doing this shower...it was so over-the-top, but it will probably be one of the last big showers I throw since most of my friends are married and have already had kids... It was a fun chance to get together with friends and work on it, when we'd otherwise have been too busy to just get together. And it turned out, so, so cute. And I am definitely a sucker for cute.

You were and are so loved, Meg. As is baby Bear!!!! It was all worth it! :)

In another post, I will post the baby book I made of the shower and framed fingerprint tree...until then!
Amber

At Uncle Adam and Auntie Amber's House...

A long time ago (though it feels rather like yesterday!), the girls came over to spend the night. There was lots of games & giggling with Uncle Adam and an hour of trying on Auntie Amber's different headbands and posing for pictures.

And there was glitter glue painting and watercolor painting...WITH UNCLE ADAM!
And tomatoes, with cheese, tortellini and parmesan chicken with Mountain Dew (!!!) for dinner!
And fun, imperfect t-shirt making and headband making along with rainbow necklaces and bracelets to match their Sunday dresses...
There was also yellow painted fingernails (& toenails) with glitter on top (which you can see slightly in the picture above), because Taylor & Tori know the best way to go - glitterfied!

I don't know if you can tell, but I love my little girlies! ;)

Have a happy Wednesday!!

Our Cape Canaveral/St. Augustine Vacation

Back at the beginning of June (where is time going?!), we took a little vacation to St. Augustine after a few days of work training at Cape Canaveral (for Adam). It was a fun five days! :)
It was my first time flying...
Which, in spite of being terrified of heights, I was not scared at all!
The clouds were so amazing!
Adam says I wasn't scared because it was (seriously) the smoothest ride (no turbulence, yay!) and best landing/takeoff he had ever been on. Plus, it was only a 45 minute flight!

Adam had some classes in Cape Canaveral so I shopped at some nearby downtowns and scrapped a little bit.
We drove around looking at some different places and then to St. Augustine on Friday.
We found this great little italian ice place in St. Augustine, it was so so good and had this mirror on the ceiling. Notice my cute Jo Totes purse?? My mom bought it for me last Christmas!
We visited the St. Augustine lighthouse, but um, I chickened out like one flight of stairs up. Haha! Oh my poor husband!!!
Visited the fort there too...and did some downtown shopping.
We also ate at some fun, yummy little places (mostly seafood) and this one great brick oven pizza place with garlic knots...mmmm!

It was a fun quick trip! :)

Have a good weekend! Amber

A Sweet New Nephew!

We found out Adam's sister & husband were having a baby in 2010, on the day we went to the Peanut Festival. Taylor was with us and was happily playing with Mitzi and completely oblivious to the happy news. They chose not to find out the gender of the baby until he/she was born...which was really fun. Krystal, Christina and I threw a really cute owl shower (gender neutral of course!)...of which, pictures should follow soon. And then, there was a baby...
And it was a boy!!
He's so beautiful and we love him so much already!! :)
XO Little Bear!
Uncle Adam & Auntie Amber!

Us...American Crafts Two-Page Layout

Although this didn't photograph very well (I was in too big of a hurry)...this 2 page layout is so, so pretty in real life. It's almost 100% American Crafts and the cardstock is a shimmery, beautiful white with pop-dotted paper cut-out flowers, and simple embellishments (brads & flair). The left-hand side is our engagement/wedding pictures and the right hand side is as a married couple. Simple isn't usually my style, but for this one, when I got to this point, I just stopped.

Sometimes simple is best! :) Have a great day! Amber

Polka-Dot, Stars, Bees & Strawberries Card

Up today is a mix-matched card using an American Crafts card base and thickers, along with some Martha Stewart paper flowers, Basic Grey chipboard stars, and K&Co. puffy stickers (bees, strawberry).

Have a good day!! :) Amber

Soft, Girly Cards

Just a couple quick and simple girly cards...these were both finished on the inside and had embellished envelopes to match...
Nothing fancy, but I like them so much because they're so pink and girl and flower-y. :) Hehe! No surprise there!

Youth Trip 2010

So, shortly after the completion of the 2011 youth trip, I will finally get up page one of the 2010 youth trip...ha! The other side has pictures of the young people that went on this trip with us, but for the sake of privacy reasons, I didn't include it.

I have a lot of special memories of this trip since our Pastor went with us...and it was Stephen's (my b-i-l) first time riding rollercoasters at Six Flags...ahhhh!

Bright, Happy Cards

Just a couple simple, bright, happy cards - using up some older stash for some always needed "thanks" and "congrats" cards! :)
Thanks for stopping by...Amber

Owl Baby Shower Cricut Invites

Just a quick glance at things to come...these owls were the invitations to my sister-in-law's baby shower...the words were on the back! Aren't they the cutest? The idea wasn't mine...my boss had an owl invitation that I "adopted" and made my own...

They were a lot of work but so much fun to make! :)

Taylor's 1st Peanut Festival!

I don't think this ever made it to the blog..has it? It is hard to remember...I made this last year for the Peanut Festival scrapbooking contest...lots of Echo Park and cute Taylor pictures!

And the journaling:
Hope you have a terrrrific weekend! :) Amber

Amy Butler & Felt Flowers

For today's post, I used a sheet of my very favorite Amy Butler paper pad. It was hard to do, I will admit it. But the new motto around here is use it or lose it. And I'd rather use it. So ta da! American Crafts thickers, flair, pen, and dimensional Sticker...Crate paper die-cuts, Martha Stewart fabric butterfly, all other (paper, ladybug, jewels) from K&Co.

OH...I am a big fan of color & girly-ness! Don't you think this layout is a good mix of the two?!

Happy Friday to YOU! :) Amber

Finally a College Graduate...

Well, I have had this layout done for almost a year but am just now getting around to blogging it?! Yes, that's right. It's just a simple page documenting a pretty happy moment - finishing up my Bachelor's degree in Accounting...I walked early before I was actually COMPLETELY done, but it was a fun day. I won a yellow potted plant which I pretty much immediately killed and all my family came and watched me. I need to add journaling somewhere, but it might take me another year to get around to that....
Have a good day! :) Amber

Forever Paper Floral Card

Hello...I can't seem to consecutively keep up with my blog anymore...life keeps happening, if you know what I mean! In the past week, Adam and I went on the youth trip, met our brand new baby nephew, Barrett, had our air conditioning go out (TWICE), installed a temporary window unit to avoid sweltering due to aforementioned air-conditioning issues, and saw the fireworks, among many other things. With all that, and a full-time job...blogging just isn't like it used to be! :) BUT! Here's a card for today...
It's on an American Crafts card base with a smattering of Martha Stewart paper flowers, and American Crafts/Making Memories brads. Super simple, but I think those paper flowers make it look so pretty.

Thanks for stopping by! Amber

Paper Flowers & Glitter Stickers

Pretty simple card...And a blurry view of the inside... Have a great day! Amber