Baby Shower Planning, Part 1

We have come to the end of February and soon it’ll be Spring and Spring often times (in Nature mostly) means babies. In some upcoming posts, we will be planning a baby shower! We are actually throwing a baby shower at the end of March so we thought that we would do a couple of posts along the way of how to plan it, decorations and any crafting needed, and food.

This week we’ll look at the early stages of planning a baby shower. Take it as a guide for throwing one if you have never done so before. If you are planning one with others, kind of divide the duties as best you can. We have three people planning this shower; one is doing food, one is doing games and décor, and the other is hosting it at their house so they’re doing a lot of the decorating and also working on the decorations.

First of all, timing is everything. You have to decide if you want to do shower before the baby arrives or one after (Sip and Sees are becoming ever so popular). Take the mom-to-be into consideration. Is she having a rough pregnancy? Does she know the gender? Do her and her family have any hesitations or superstitions about having a shower before the baby arrives? When the mom isn’t feeling so great it might be better to have the shower after. It may not matter to some, but if you are waiting on finding out the gender it may be nice to wait for a shower so that you can buy gifts and decorate accordingly (that may not matter to the mom at all). Also, some moms-to-be might just want to wait until the baby arrives so that she can introduce him or her to all of her friends and family. On the other hand, having a baby shower before the baby arrives is very common. It’s a nice way to wish the mom well before the baby arrives and to also play some fun baby prediction/belly games!

We decided on a shower after the baby arrived so that everyone can meet the baby and mom can get some gifts that are more suited to her brand-new little one. We chose a date almost a couple months after baby was due. That gives mom time to adjust to things and to recover. That’s always something very important to remember as well if you’re picking a date afterwards. If you’re planning to do a shower before, check in with the mom to see how she is feeling and if she’s up for having a baby shower in general.

Once we picked the date, then we started planning the food, decorations, and the games. We’ll focus on all of these things in more depth in later posts because we are still in the process of creating and preparing for this shower, but here’s an overview…

Decorations/Crafting – We opted for a digital invitation. Handmade things are our specialty, but we thought that it would be more efficient and save money on all that postage if we just sent out an email. Ask the mom for a list of important people that she would like to have at the shower and ask her about people if you think she may have forgotten about some. You can find many online templates to create a fun and original digital invitation. We sent out these invites before mom gave birth so a fun thing that we did was get everyone to send back their RSVP with a prediction of gender, weight, and date. The person closest will get a prize on the day of the shower. Make sure you give people enough time to send in their predictions but also a fair deadline because they will lose out if mom delivers before they send in their prediction!

Other crafty and decorative items that we have on our list to make are garlands, favour bags, table décor, flower arrangements, and a name banner.

Games – Games are always a fun part of any type of shower! We went through a long list of ideas and narrowed it down to three. Baby food guessing, match the mom with the baby, and baby Bingo. We’re doing an afternoon shower from 2-5pm so you want time to mingle, hold baby, and have food so as much as we wanted to have lots of games, we just had to pick three.

Food – This is my specialty and responsibility! On our invitation we mentioned that if people want to bring food, then they can but they not obligated to do so. We are going to provide the basics like drinks (punch, tea, coffee, juice), a fruit platter with dip, a veggie platter with dip, and a meat and cheese platter. We are also going to do some deep-fried won tons and some special baked treats. Make sure you check if anyone coming to the shower has any food sensitivities or intolerances. Since I have bad food allergies, I always want to make sure and try and not exclude anyone from enjoying in on the food. You can also do some alcoholic beverages and more finger type foods like, sandwiches, chips and dips, skewers, and chicken wings. Or you can do a sweets only afternoon too. It’s up to you and what you think is most practical.

So now you have a plan in place to throw a fun baby shower. Stay tuned for more posts and to see how it all turned out!

Mother's Day Gift Certificate

Now that Easter is done, the next holiday on the way is Mother’s Day. To get prepared for that we have a few posts of some neat crafts and a yummy meal that you can make.

This week is a fun little craft that you can make for mom especially if you want to give her an “experience” as opposed to an actual physical gift.

We are going to show you a couple of versions of a gift certificate that you can make for your mom. Certificates are a little different from the coupon book of things that mom can ask you to do when she chooses to redeem them. We’ve made a couponbook for Father’s Day in the past and that is a cool idea if you want have a bunch of things that you want to give your mom. If you have a special idea of something that you want to do for your mom or with your mom, then this is a great idea.

You don’t need many supplies to make these certificates. All you need is some cardstock, punches and stamps if you choose to use those, glue, ribbon (again if you choose to use some), scissors, and a cutting machine if you have one.

We have a couple of versions for you that you can make.

The first one utilizes a cutting machine that will cut out things or write/draw things onto your certificate. It’s fairly simple to do. You just need to choose cardstock and lay it out in the software.  Just cut a certificate to fit inside of a card and then have your machine write the words you want and have it draw a couple of pictures to match your gift which you can clour afterwards.

The second one is more kid friendly but it’s also done without a cutting machine because not everyone has one to use. Pick some colours for your certificate first. Choose what gift you want to give your mom and then on a piece of cardstock (you can layer a lighter more neutral piece on top of a coloured piece), print the words you’d like on the certificate and then cut down to the size that will fit inside your card or envelope. Then you can decorate with punches and stamps and cut outs or even print pictures on the same layer as the words and colour them. We've done two for you to see...

DIY Spa Day for Mom

Today we’re starting a two week break from our Pantone Spring colours to celebrate mom. We’ve planned two blog posts with mom in mind and then we promise to get back to our Spring colours.

It’s always fun going to the spa and being pampered, but we thought it might be a fun idea to put together a girls night in with mom and create the spa in the comfort of your own home. We have found some fun spa DIY’s that you can do at home with your mom this Mother’s Day. It’s always fun to get manis and pedis as well as facials and a nice sugar scrub so check out what we have for you below and you’ll be set to have your very own Mother’s Day spa day.

First of all, before we even get started on the things that you can do, make sure that you and your mom are super comfy. Maybe get her a nice new terry cloth robe and some slippers. You want to be comfy while you are doing your treatments. 

Set the mood and light some fragrant candles that your mom would like. Coming up with some healthy spa treat would be a nice idea as well. Try out this recipe for cucumber water...

Cucumber and Lemon Water:

Put ½ of a lemon and ¼ of a cucumber thinly sliced in a pitcher. Fill it with cold water and ice. Let it sit in the fridge for 10 minutes. Serve cold. As the water goes down just add more along with more ice. Add some fresh mint for an added bit of flavour.  

Have some fresh fruit and veggies (maybe a salad) would be sure to make your mom happy. I think making her a nice sweet treat to the end the spa day would be a perfect way to finish off the day. Take a look at next week’s blog post for an inspiration for a sweet treat. 

If you’ve got puffy or sore eyes use some cold cucumber slices or green tea bags. You can sit back with these one your eyes while you get your nails painted or while you do one of the other treatments.

Here are some other facial treatments that you can try.

To exfoliate and remove dry skin try out some of these homemade scrub recipes...

https://www.brit.co/diy-face-scrubs/

http://thecrunchymoose.com/natural-exfoliants-facial-scrub-recipes/

http://homemadeforelle.com/10-simple-exfoliating-face-scrubs/

For a nice mask treat your faces to some of these...

https://www.realsimple.com/beauty-fashion/skincare/homemade-facial-masks 

http://mamabee.com/52-homemade-face-mask-recipes/

http://www.livingthenourishedlife.com/4-honey-face-masks/

Before your mani and pedi you can soak your feet in warm water and Epsom salts in a big bucket or if you have a foot bath, then soak your feet in there. Afterwards massage your feet with some nice lotion or olive oil.

DIY Manicures and Pedicures:

Step 1. Prep your nails, so remove all old polish and clip your nails.

Step 2. Shape your nails. Some people like to have them squared off and some prefer rounded nails. 

Step 3. Smooth the nail surface with a buffer. You can get one of these at the drugstore. 

Step 4. Give your cuticles some love by pushing them back and then massage them with some oil or lotion.

Step 5. Make sure you are sitting at a desk or table and have your hands flat on the table. If you are doing a pedicure alone then you want to make sure your foot is in a position that you can easily reach. 

Step 6. Put on a clear base coat. Before this step if you have some, you’ll want to put on your toe separators.

Step 7. Now it’s time to start painting. Pick out which colour you want to use. I have a drawer full of colours (I collect nail polish), but if you have a limited collection then you can buy some colours before your spa day or get everyone to bring some so that there are lots to pick from. Paint each other’s nails for that spa feeling or if you’d rather, you can paint your own. 

Step 8. Apply two coats making sure that the coats dry in between layers. This usually takes 2-3 minutes.

Step 9. Apply the top coat.

Step 10. Let them dry. You probably want to do the nail painting after your other spa treatments, so save this for last and pop in a movie to watch while you dry.

And if you’re really adventurous...you can make your own sugaring recipe and give it a go.

Here is the recipe for the sugar paste http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Body-Sugaring-Paste

And this is how you do it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVKrLumCEpA