The Wonder of the Nativity

Our church hosted a wonderful event this last Friday and Saturday night for the community. We displayed about 200 nativity scenes throughout the building, had live musical performances and a sing-a-long, and ate really yummy gingerbread cake with carmel topping and Christmas cookies! I was asked to be in charge of the room where refreshments were served and some of the music was performed. Everything turned out well, I am feeling very relieved and satisfied that my work turned out the way I had envisioned. It took me at least a few hours every day this week, and everything needed to be cleaned up and put away on Saturday night so that the building would be ready for regular services today. Gratefully, I had lots of help with that part. I made it snow in the gym! I strung fishing line from wall to wall, and hung about 100 of these snowflakes from the dollar store (a buck for a pack of 6!) from the ceiling.

The color scheme was gold, silver and white. Tons of wrapped presents, ornaments, ribbon and fabrics.

These shiny silver centerpieces were from Hobby Lobby on sale. I dressed them up a bit with a tree topper and some ornaments and some pretty fabrics at the bottom.

These chair covers were such a pain. I found some that matched but were the wrong size, so I had to alter them to fit our folding chairs! They looked so pretty.

There was an unused wreath lying around, so I pulled stuff off of it, stuck stuff onto it, added lights and hung it from the basketball hoop.

This is a view of the stage. There is a lighted greenery garland in front and then a pile of wrapped presents. Thanks to my wonderful friend, Jolene, for tying bows on all those babies!

Wreath close up.

Full view of the stage where the music was performed. We also had a slide show of different Christmas scenes going.

Right when you come into the building, they set up a live nativity scene. It was amazing!

These are our personal items displayed. You can tell we are into kid mode, not big, precious, breakable mode.

My room with instrumentalists.

This is the serving table with some of the food out.

These are a couple of bad pictures of rooms in the rest of the building.

Another shot of performers, a children's choir.

The Clark Wedding Quilt

I am a true quilter in my heart of hearts. I love to take huge pieces of fabric, cut them into tiny pieces and sew them all back together again. I love the texture and dimension that quilting adds to a pieced top. I love the colors and patterns of the pretty fabrics. I love to see how it all comes together. I love that I can complete the blanket from start to finish all by myself. Quilting has given me creative confidence. I have made quilts for each of my siblings for their weddings, as well as quilts for each of my sweet nieces and nephews when they are born. It is a way that I show my love, support and enthusiasm for these wonderful people! This is my gorgeous, sweet sister Natalie and her equally sweet husband, Danny. Truly, he has a heart of gold and is the perfect companion to my sister. We are so lucky to have him. I felt like the 3rd wheel here, that's for sure.

The wavy edge is my favorite part of this quilt. My sister has it folded at the end of her bed to add a little bit more color to her beautiful cream and brown bedding.

Love you little sister!

A Yellow Rubber Ducky Shower

This party is for a very sweet, creative and stylish friend that I knew would love and appreciate every silly detail of this rubber ducky party!

The invitation. I used a stack of brown polka-dot thank you cards that were on clearance and made these little squares to put over the "thank you". I just printed off the party info onto cardstock in lime, brown and orange and glued it inside. Super quick, cheap and easy.

Favors! Each guest took home their own rubber ducky.

I used a white tablecloth and added this baby blanket I made for Jolene to use as a runner.

The cupcake pics say, "Jolene is having a baby boy!".

I made this onesie and bib using the fabric from the blanket and the invitation. I get teased for matching my gift to the party.

We also serve a huge green salad, pasta, homemade rolls, a veggie tray and a fruit plate that I didn't get a picture of. I was too busy eating!

There was light beaming through this window, so the photo is poor quality, but this coordinating banner added a festive touch to the decor.

And finally, water bottles. The night was a huge success. All the food was so good, the company delightful and Jolene has a few darling outfits and a pile of cash to go towards a new stroller. Hooray!

The White Slipcover!

Before:

Make it do... or do without.
I made this slipcover with white "duck" fabric. I am not sure that white was the best choice with 4 messy kids, but it is totally removable and washable. The ruffles on the bottom are my favorite! I am always pleasantly surprised when my projects turn out the way I planned.

A Birthday Shirt

My boy turned 8 yesterday. I painted an "8" on the back of a store bought shirt to celebrate the occasion. I used fabric paint, and made a template from an 8 enlarged and printed using my computers word processor. He thought it was cool enough to wear to school!

A Black Armchair

I wish I had a before photo for this thing. It was disgusting. The seat was a black and yellow plastic and the chair was a gross brown stain. I think that is why it was only $3 at the thrift store. I removed the seat, sanded the wood just a bit, sprayed it with black satin spray paint, disressed the edged just a touch and then put on a coat of poly. I just stapled a layer of new batting and then this cool fabric over the old seat and voila! A new chair! I did the whole project in less than 2 hours while my baby was at her first day of preschool. It was a celebration of the first time I had all my kids in school at the same time! Happy day!

Pink Cupcake Shower

This was quite the party! It was in honor of a dear, sweet friend who after 4 boys finally welcomed a girl into the family! We asked everyone to wear pink. We decorated 3 different kinds of cupcakes.

Don't you think she looks excited??? (PS By now she has lost all her baby weight, plus some, although that wasn't necessary and is an amazingly hot momma of 5 kids! She recently moved far away and I miss her.)

I made her a pink and red blanket with a cupcake print ruffle edge, a pink cupcake twirly skirt with 2 matching shirts. I need to remember to take more pictures!

We handed out "cupcake pops" (again, Bakerella) for favors, served meatloaf in cupcake tins with pink mashed potatoes on top (they looked very, very, kind of freakishly real) and she took home tons of cute things to help her prepare for a pink princess.