Friends are good for the soul...

 

In December, I was lucky enough to be able to reconnect with Lillian. We met on Twitter about 4 or 5 years ago. She moved down here, and we were able to get together to scrapbook and get our boys together for play dates. I miss her and was so excited when she told me her and her husband would be in town to visit. We had a lunch date and it was so much fun. Can't wait to see her again sometime! 

This was the first digital scrapbook layout I've done in years (literally!). It felt good to play around with kits again, and made me want to buy some new ones soon.

Products used: "Geocaching" digital template by 2pawsdesigns. "Storyteller" kit by Paislee Press and One Little Bird. Word art from "Thank You Friend" by Ali Edwards for Designers Digitals.

Monkey Themed Baby Shower

In an effort to get back into the blogging game, I thought I'd share how I put together a monkey themed baby shower for my very good friend and co-worker. She loves little monkeys and wanted something different for her baby girl's shower. I told her I would throw her a shower, and we literally started finding things months in advance. It was so much fun to watch it all come together.

I made the diaper cake at home using this tutorial, and I assembled these cute little boxes from Oriental Trading as favors. They had our Mom-To-Be's favorite candy - Sweet Tarts - in them.

We had the shower at the Mom-To-Be's favorite local Mexican restaurant. I found the baby shower games we played at Party City (looks like the exact ones I bought are gone now), and made my own cute little labels for the tops of them with graphics from Very Sweet Clipart on Etsy. Here is what all the tables looked like:

 This is the gift table. Since I knew everyone would go by the gift table, I put a pink letter "A" I had painted over there for everyone who attended to sign (inspired by Pinterest). I also put the little advice cards I made over there, and after a guest filled one out they could put it in the matching "book" (photo album). I made the advice cards and the cover for the book.

 Finally, we had the cake table. It had the diaper cake, real cake, and eventually cupcakes on it too. I found a printable that said "I love you to the moon and back." on it because that was the theme of my friend's nursery. I really wanted to have personal items that she could take home and use in the nursery or to remember her special day by. I found little butterfly photo holders at Hobby Lobby that held ultrasound photos of her baby girl, and made a baby girl monkey banner with the clipart I purchased that said her daughter's name.

And I just have to show you a close-up of that monkey cake because both my friend and I were completely obsessed with how it turned out!

I was so happy with how everything turned out, and my friend was too. Monkeys can be for girls too! :)