Little Red Riding Hood Shower

I don't have a big beautiful house or a very big backyard but we do the best with what we have.  Saturday was my daughter's baby shower.  The two sisters and many former college roommates pitched in to do this happy day for Ashley, David and their new baby.

 

The theme was Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH)/Woodland in red and aqua.  The Santa Ana winds started on Friday night at 50 mph.  The shower was at 2:00 p.m. Saturday and I swear at 1:50 p.m. the winds subsided.  We hadn't hung up the pom-poms or little banners so we scrambled to get them up as guests arrived.  It was a little iffy there but we did it.

 

We used the EZ-up we use at the craft shows, three umbrellas and two canopies on the patio that are permanent fixtures.  I think we did pretty good provided shade in the 93 degree weather!

My daughter Kelley designed all the printouts.  We cut the pennants and ovals out with my Cricut and glued various LRRH designs inside.  I just love the color combination!

This is where we had Ashley sit to open her presents.  This is the glider rocker she got at Goodwill for $25.00 and I made the cushions for it.  The baby quilt is done and just needs a baby name so I can put the label on.  They want to wait to see the baby before deciding on a name.  Kelley drew the LRRH in the frame (Ikea frame painted Aqua) and leftover mushroom fabric from the quilt and bumper pads is in the background.

Ashley made the mushrooms out of Styrofoam.  We could not find any for decorations anywhere.  We cut the balls in half, Ashley painted them and put them together with skewers.  Kelley painted the dots on.

 

We had a few little candies like red vines, red hots and caramel apple suckers.  Ashley doesn't like cake so I made pumpkin pies and my co-MIL helped me make apple and peach hand pies.  

 

 

Kelley had some little brown paper bags from her craft shows so I used my zig zag rotary cutter to cut them down to a good size to hold the pies.  They were pretty tasty if I do say so myself.  :)



I found this little chalkboard at a floral supply warehouse.  Kelley wrote in the kind of pies we were serving.  She has the best penmanship for a Lefty!

 

You can see the adorable mushroom cake pops made by our friend Becca Gonzalez of Becca's Cupboard in Fullerton, CA.  She does such an amazing job.  Any cake pop she has tried, they are always spot on!  You can find her on facebook under Becca's Cupboard.  And if cute wasn't enough, they are Deeelicious!!  She made some for Ashley's wedding too!

 

It was so windy, we couldn't hang the quilt I wanted behind the table.  :(  I picked up two white chairs at the Long Beach Antique swap meet.  My son-in-law and soon-to-be daddy, Dave, painted them red for me.  All we need now is a little girl to warm them up with her bottom.  hehe  I found the ceramic mushrooms on ebay and we used the same jars from my hubby's going away party but tucked in some moss to make it 'woodland-ish'.  Now that the shower is over, I'm going to pop them in the garden.  

 

Before putting everything away, I took some pictures of the items Kelley printed up because I thought they were so cute.  Stephanie and Ashley glued the little wolf pictures to tongue depressors for fans for the heat, the other artwork was for describing the menu for the day.  The aqua frames came from the dollar store.



 

Because we expected a big group, the girls played simple games that wouldn't keep people waiting.  They played Bingo where you wrote in what you thought her gifts would be.  I love the little "free" space mushroom.  :) Stephanie wrapped the cards and added the little berries.  When I saw that, I thought these are the little touches that make things look so cute.

 

Here is my daughter Ashley in front of her gifties.  She's got one of those little basketball bellies.  She's 33 weeks now.  Yay!

 

 

This is daughter #2, Stephanie.  She hates having her picture on the internet so don't tell.  lol  I thought this was a cute picture of her (on L) and her school friend Cristalle.  Stephanie did all the mason jar favors, helped with the little details and helped me with shopping.  She also did a MOUNTAIN of dishes with the help of my friend Susan!!  

 

Other than the horrible winds and scorching heat, it was a great day.

Seeing Stars...

I didn't finish the quilt tops from the classes I took with my sister three weeks ago shared here but I decided to set them both aside for a little while. 

My daughter, Ashley, is in her 6th month of her pregnancy and I will be leaving for a trip to see my hubby in about three weeks.  Her shower will be a few weeks after I return home so I figured I better get to her baby bedding before the time has flown by in a blink!

I had to fussy-cut the center of the blocks and in order to get variety with both the centers and the star points, I had to do a little rearranging.  The design wall was great for this.  It's like playing on a flannel board, like back in Kindergarten!  :o)

 

Got the blocks all sewed together.  There were some repeats but it was bound to happen as there aren't that many designs on this fabric.  It's so darn cute, who cares?  hehe

 

My friend Irene knows I love cherries.  She asked me if I was going to use cherry fabric in the quilt?  I hadn't thought about it but when I came across this Riley Blake fabric when I was shopping for the Little Red fabric, I "had" to include it.  And I think the yellow helps break up the red and aqua.  I decided to just use this one print, instead of doing different yellows.  It was cute enough to be used several times!  And here's a close up of a few of the block centers.

 

 

 

Got the cornerstones worked out...

 

And the sashing on.

I started sewing on the borders and had a little (or a BIG) issue.  The borders were looking like they angled off at the edges.  I tried to be careful but not careful enough, I guess.  I could've lived with it or I could rip out the borders and redo them.  Guess what I decided to do???? 

 

And the last issue for this little quilt.  The free pattern I got for this quilt was from the Riley Blake website.  It is for nine blocks and finishes at 46x46".  I wanted it a bit bigger but didn't decide that until after I ordered the fabric.  I didn't buy enough of the border print, the one on the right.  I was trying to convince myself that the print on the left would be okay.  I called in the boss, my daughter Ashley.  She liked the one on the right too. 

 



 

The order will be delivered tomorrow.  :o)  I should be able to finish this by the weekend and get started on the quilting.  Until then, I'm in bumper pad and dust ruffle mode.

A little roof repair and a whole lotta cleaning!

 

Over a year ago, we had a leak in our roof and wouldn't you know, it leaked right over my sewing machine.  Thankfully, no damage to the machine because it leaked more on the extension table than the actual machine head.  I figured with the warm weather, it was a good time to have the roof repaired.  But lordy, that meant moving all of my bins, the sewing table, etc.

 

 

I had a friend of my oldest daughter to do the job.  He's in construction and his work has slowed down so it was a win-win for us both.  I didn't think to take a before picture but the damage to the ceiling was just discoloration.  The real damage was to the ledge of the soffit where the stucco was cracked and separated.  Here it is all fixed up and better.  The acoustic was still a little wet but it has dried now and blended in perfectly.

Then I had to deal with this!!  But I got it all put away and my room is pretty once again.

 

I didn't do one ounce of sewing this weekend though.  I spent both days in the game room.  All of my craft stuff had been moved to the closets in that room when my hubby left and I moved to the spare bedroom.  I "had" to get that sorted out before I leave in a month to go see Richard in Turkey again.  By the time I get back, it will be time to prepare for Ashley's baby shower and the baby shortly after that.  I figured giving up one weekend will be worth it.  The closets are organized but they are packed!!  This one is a hundred years worth of family photos...I swear I will put some in scrapbooks someday!  Then there are all the other craft items you might need one day. 

 



 

Ashley and I moved this desk to the game room to make room outside of the master bedroom for a dresser for the baby.  I swear I feel like we're just moving stuff around all over the house!  lol  We did fill some bins for either donating or if Kelley, our oldest, has another yard sale, she can try to make a few bucks from it.

 

 Here is the other closet.  I had to share this picture.  The crates will go to the garage but we had already closed the doors for the night so I'll put them out there tomorrow.  Check out those clear bins.  Those are all clothes given to Ashley for the baby from her friend.  She has two little girls and had a boy so she doesn't need all those "pink" things!  lol  While I cleaned up the game room, Ashley sorted through all of the boxes and got them put in age/size.  We're getting this place organized....even if it kills me and it probably will!  :o)