Ajax's Woodland Adventure gender neutral couples baby shower

We are expecting a little baby boy soon and while my mother might have hosted my baby shower, I was the one who designed the decorations.  I wanted the theme to match our baby's nursery, Woodland Adventure, which you can see pictures of at this blog post.

We decorated the tables with light aqua table clothes and baskets of stuffed animals with helium filled 'hot air' balloons.  Each place setting was set with cloud shaped vinyl place mat, baby shower bingo paper, and favors.

Woodland Adventure Cupcakes

We designed cupcakes to match the theme of Woodland Adventure's forest animals and hot air balloons.  The animal cupcakes were chocolate with green icing piped out like grass with sugar animal decorations.  The hot air balloon cupcakes were lemon cake with sky and cloud icing and hot air balloon sugar decorations.  We placed the animal cupcakes on a moss mat on the table and placed all of the hot air balloon cupcakes on a clear cupcake stand to look like they were floating in the sky.

Couples Shower Games & Favors

While I was 'allowed' to do the decorations, my mother was adamant that she was responsible for the games.  I've attended several baby showers and was concerned that the games would be too old-school for the modern couples shower I wanted.  However, she came up with some great couple friendly games that everyone enjoyed!

One-handed Dressing

In teams of two, couples had to just use one hand each to diaper and fully dress a stuffed animal.  Grandma won, but parents-to-be didn't fare too bad.  It was great fun to see the different couples, with kids or without kids, dress the animal.

Green Beans or Peas? Carrots or Yams?

Remove the labels off of jars of baby food, number the jars, and have each person try to guess what the food is.  Lots of fun with similar colored foods. Meats are especially hard.  Make sure you keep the labels so you can reattach them and give them to the parents-to-be for use later.

Baby Mad Libs

The most fun had at the couples shower was completing and reading pregnancy mad libs.  Lines like "She was dilated 54 centimeters and the baby figure skated out" brought tears to the couples.  You can write your own mad libs or find them online.

Favors

Along with our usual gifts of home made jams, we also provided customized pencils for people to use during games and to take home.  Simple wooden pencils covered with scrap booking paper or even just designs printed from your computer can look amazing! Cut your paper a little less then the length of your pencil and about half an inch wide. Add Mod Podge to the back of the paper, wrap it around the pencil and let dry for an hour or two.  Be careful when sharpening the pencil, I was able to hand sharpen them but my battery powered sharpener couldn't handle both the pencil, paper and Mod Podge.

Ajax's Woodland Adventure gender neutral nursery

Being a 'professional nursery decorator', I thought designing my own nursery might be daunting for the mere fact that I love so many themes and fabrics.  I started drawing designs and ideas from practically the moment I found out we were pregnant.  I spent a lot of time walking nursery areas of fabric and department stores, to see what was commercially available and what too-trendy themes I wanted to avoid.

With just one extra room in the house (sorry kids, but this momma isn't giving up her design studio!) I wanted to make sure I designed a space that a baby could grow up in and even share with a future sibling so I didn't want a specifically boy, girl or baby theme.  I also knew I wanted the room filled with vibrant modern colors and not so soft and pastel like so many nurseries are.  Instead of trying to find the perfect matching colors at fabric stores, I decided to design all of my own fabrics and have them printed from Spoonflower.com. I was able to design modern prints like chevrons and alphabet in the exact color scheme I wanted for the nursery and open up a new product line for Creative Tradition at the same time. In the process, one of my fabric designs turned out to be the 2 Millionth design on their site!

Forest Animals

While managing our Creative Tradition Etsy online shop, I fell in love with some prints from SeaUrchinStudio that had a great woodland critters theme.  I specifically loved how the forest animals were cute but still realistic. So many of the animal themes available for nurseries are overly cartoonish.  I also found a great wall decal of trees at SurfaceInspired's Etsy shop that I knew would look just great on our pale yellow walls.

I collected different styles of frames from antique malls, Ikea, Target and Pier 1 to use for the prints.  Instead of just framing the prints, I made mats out of my custom designed fabrics to add even more color to the walls.  I didn't use any glass in the frames as most of the antique frames didn't have it and the large frame my mom used to create a memory board. I'm just hoping that I didn't make a mistake hanging them above the changing table, what with us having a baby boy ;)

On the same wall we hung Ikea Ribba Picture Ledges to create open facing bookshelves.  The picture ledges come in two different sizes and different finishes and just cost $10-$15 each.  Wish we had more space to add more ledges, I just love how the book covers are all on display and bring so much color to the space.

The picture ledges are also deep enough at 3.5" to hold diapering essentials like power, lotions, and even the new Huggie's Natural Care Resealable wipes.  I removed the design from the stand up wipe tube and recovered it with my colorful chevron fabric.  Several coats of Mod Podge will help keep it clean from its daily use.

A Bit of Adventure

Even though we wanted a gender neutral nursery, once we found out we were having a boy I wanted to add a bit more 'daring' instead of 'darling' into the nursery design.  At a craft show I was inspired and sketched out a hot air balloon quilt with forest animals riding in the basket.  From there on out our theme was 'Woodland Adventure'.  My hubby likes to consider it like 'Wind in the Willows' -- sweet forest animals, with a bit of daring adventure thrown in for good measure.

I found a great mobile pattern on Etsy at CraftSchmaft to make fabric hot air balloons to decorate the nursery.  The pattern was easy to use and follow.  As I wanted multiple sizes of balloons, I enlarged the pattern slightly to create the medium sized balloons.  For the large balloons I didn't enlarge the pattern on a copier, but instead took the medium balloon pattern and added an extra half inch on all sides.  This created a slightly different curve to the balloon that I find interesting.  I also created all of my own cloud patterns to make them unique.

I hung all of the balloons using clear CommandStrip hooks and wire. The wire was more sturdy then string or fishing line and provided a way to position the balloon and baskets in certain positions so they didn't spin and the animals in the basket looked the right way.  The baskets were made from burlap ribbon scraps I had left over from our wedding floral arrangements and were the perfect size for the Only Hearts Pets mini stuffed animals to ride in.

I created the window valance using chair foam sculpted into clouds and covered in different textured white fabrics.  I took plenty of pictures while I made the valance and hope to provide a tutorial soon.  I love how the light shines through and makes the clouds glow.

A Boy Needs a Good Closet Too

The closet went through several different designs as the nursery progressed. Initially I wanted to turn the sliding doors into open facing bookcase to maximize the space.  However as we got further along the more likely we would have structural problems led us to paint them with custom tinted chalkboard paint.  While the color worked with the room, it just felt wrong, so we replaced the sliding doors with mirrored doors.  The finished products looks wonderful!  It opens the small room up, reflecting the tree wall decal and hot air balloons.

Nursery Odds & Ends

Finishing touches are what really makes a nursery come together.  With my custom designed fabric, I made some of Creative Tradition's best selling products: nursing pillow covers, crib skirt, rocker pillows, toy chest seat covers, and contoured changing pad covers.

One side of rocker pillows

Other side of rocker pillows

Simple white clock from Target with face Mod Podged with fabric

Brooklyn's Birds & Birdhouses Baby Girl Nursery

Its been a long time since we've posted on our blog, but we've had a good excuse -- actually 2.  Over the Christmas holidays we discovered that both my sister and I were pregnant!  Since then its been a whirlwind of morning sickness, exhaustion, craft shows, and lots of baby sewing.

I had designed my little boy's nursery pretty quickly, but it took some time for my sister to decide on a theme, as well as her baby girl's name.  Once she decided, well once her husband finally agreed to the name she wanted, we had a lot of work to accomplish in just a few short weeks before her baby shower.  In the end, everything turned out perfect and adorable for my favorite
(and only) niece.

Oh-Not-So-Pink Birds & Birdhouses

At a random trip to the fabric store, I found a new nursery fabric that had birds and birdhouses on it.  My sister wanted something less pink with blue so she could reuse a lot of her first child's, a baby boy, crib sheets and things.  The birdhouse fabric had blue, green, peach, grey and pink. The perfect color scheme for her.

At first she said she didn't want much, just a quilt, but within a day or two her list had grown to include an entire nursery! It was fun to work on another baby girl's nursery while working on my son's gender neutral nursery.  There is just something about cute ruffles and frills that are so fun to work with!

Pillow with a B for Brooklyn and a stuffed animal bird

Baby Brooklyn's quilt with appliqued birds and birdhouses

Handmade bird mobile with sweet colorful stuffed birds

Crib skirt embellished with ruffles and ribbon

Wooden birdhouses painted and mod-podged fabric

Target clearance bird wall hanging recovered with fabric

Wooden letters covered in fabric

View our Baby Brooke's Birdhouse Nursery Pinterest board for more ideas how to recreate this nursery on your own.

Design Studio Update: Photo Studio for Quilts

Over a year ago I converted my guest room into a design studio or craft room for my sewing, scrapbooking, painting and other creative pursuits.  I updated it again to have more storage and now I've updated it again to help me take photographs of my handmade quilts.

I've been using thumb tacks, push pins and even safety pins to hang my handmade baby quilts so I can photograph them for our Etsy store.  This has left hundreds of holes in my wall and has caused my post production color issues as my wall is slightly pink.

I had been doing research on backdrop systems photographers use for photo shoots, homemade pvc alternatives, quilt hanging wood blocks, really everything I could think of.  On a visit to my favorite furniture store, Ikea, I found the perfect thing -- a curtain rod with curtain rings with clips! Great news, its not expensive or hard to install either ;)

I can move my storage containers around, quickly and easily clip up a quilt and take pictures.  When I'm not photographing quilts then I can put my storage containers back.  While I mostly only use a small portion of the curtain rods and clips for the majority of our baby blankets, I got a curtain rod long enough to support a a king size quilt to show off my larger master pieces.
 
With the white clips and rod I can more easily find true white when correcting the color of the pictures.  I also added colorful, inspirational fabric in black frames to help provide more color to help the graphics program make better 'automatic' adjustments.

Ikea Shopping List:
Racka curtain rod
Betydlig wall/ceiling bracket (I got 4 for the length of my curtain rod)
Vasentlig finial set
Syrlig curtain ring with clip and hooks (comes in 2 sizes, I got 4 packs)

Thanksgiving 2012 Celebration

As always, Thanksgiving was a special family gathering for us this year. It was just our immediate family and grand parents.  We spent a lot of time talking, munching on olives, catching up on each other's lives -- new jobs, home projects, ideas about the world.  Jeanine, my mom and the 'traditional' partner of Creative Tradition, spent most of the morning in the kitchen prepping and cooking.

Thanksgiving is really her favorite holiday.  She shows her family love through cooking and on Thanksgiving she really gets to shower us with food and love.  She had the large bird in its bag, in its pan and in the oven before most of us arrived. The table was also dressed and ready with scraps of paper telling everyone what food went into what serving dish.

While waiting for the turkey to cook we had an opportunity to Skype with our far away family.  We got to watch my younger nephews playing, dancing, nearly walking, doing somersaults, having fun.  Its nice to be able to connect with family across the miles. It may not be the same as having them in the same room with you but seeing smiles and hearing voices is a wonderful thing.

As the time got closer to the meal everyone stepped up and helped in the kitchen stirring gravy, mashing potatoes, carving the turkey or really what ever mom asked of us. It made the kitchen a little tight to maneuver at times, especially with heavy, hot dishes but the feeling of family was palpable. My sister and I acted like the children we are in our hearts and stole little bits of food while mom chased after us with a wooden spoon. Despite the drama, hot plates, and MANY cooks in the kitchen the table got set, food was served and the family began the meal.

Table set with side dishes, waiting for the carved turkey.

A perfect Thanksgiving plate!

Crockpot Creamed Corn

One of the Bass Thanksgiving traditional foods is Jeanine's creamed corn. It's rich, creamy with bright bursts of sweetness when you bite into the corn.  This year my in-laws weren't able to join us for Thanksgiving and they requested this recipe to make and bring to their potluck Thanksgivings with their friends.  It's great for fall or winter potlucks as you can make it in a crock pot and keep it warm all night long.

Gulliver's Creamed Corn

INGREDIENTS

2 boxes (8 oz) frozen corn

1 c milk

1 c whipping cream

2 T butter

2 T flour

2 T sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

On the stove pot:
In a large pot, melt butter.
Stir in flour till well mixed with butter.
Add rest of ingredients.  Cook until thickened.

In a crock pot:
"I use the crock pot to give me more room on the stove and you don’t have to watch it as closely so it doesn’t burn. I put mine in in the morning on high and then once it’s thickened, I turn it to low until it’s time to serve." - Jeanine

At meal time, creamed corn is served in vintage colored, textured glass dishes my mother inherited from her Aunt Mary.  They are green, orange, brown and red... perfect for our Thanksgiving table.

Mom loves her cream corn unseasoned. She says its so everyone can season it to their taste but really I just think she prefers the sweet cream taste.  I usually season it with sea salt, ground pepper and would serve it with some chopped parsley to brighten the flavor.

Tart Cherry Pie

Cherries are one of my favorite fruits and cherry pie is one of my favorite Thanksgiving pies.  Growing up when mom would make extra pies to feed everyone it always seemed there was never enough cherry pie!

INGREDIENTS
2 cans red tart cherries in water
1 1/2 c sugar
5 tbsp corn starch
pie shell and top crust

Drain cherries, saving the juice.  Mix sugar and cornstarch together so there are no lumps.  Pour mixture into juice in a saucepan and cook, stirring constantly until the sauce is thick and clear.  Cool for about 5 minutes then add the cherries and stir.  Pour into a pie shell and top with the crust.  Put a whole in the center of the top crust to let the steam escape.  Bake at 425 for 40 minutes or until the crust is done.