I have so, so many posts piling up over here but between the “week of Emma” and the fact that our entire house is in construction chaos, I just can’t seem to get a minute to put it all up here. But my goal by the end of the week is to post all our Spring Break fun (yep, it was a good 2 1/2 weeks ago!) and hopefully a FULL update on the living room project as I furiously try to pick out some paint colors over.

So a quick little Crafty Tuesday here – Emma Grace Birthday Edition.

First the invites we sent to Em’s friends…

We handed out “reverse goody bags” – in other words, we handed out our treats the day before the party.

Which contained little tees for the girls to wear on Saturday when we hit the park.

How cute do they look in all their matchy match tees?

She had a great day…or rather, great week!

I still can’t believe she is 10.

I know I promised you a Baby CT today, and I had high hopes of finishing everything on our task list for the nursery, but I only finished the quilt. In all honesty, that was the “big” thing on the list anyhow, so I guess that is good. We still have a pillow, a changing pad cover and maybe a few basket liners to finish up and baby A’s room will be done. Here is the quilt before we handed it over…

I used this pattern from Bijou Lovely and the fabric is from our Michael Levine scouting trip and a lot of the quilt is from the Honey Honey by Kate Spain for Moda Fabrics line that I got off of FatQuartershop.com.

And here it is with the bedskirt and bunting all tucked into the nursery…

It’s looking kinda amazing in there. I think JB is going to want to just hang out in there day and night once baby gets here.

Of course I am not the only one super excited for baby A to get here. Addie has been incredibly impatient with me – she really wants to make a pillow for her cousin. So that is on the docket for this week, too.

More baby stuff on the way…and I have a few little things up my sleeve as in ONE WEEK, next Crafty Tuesday in fact, my baby will be turning 10. Double digits. So you can imagine our excitement and fury in getting a few things crafted up!

I know I promised you a Baby Crafty Tuesday today…but we aren’t quite ready for the big reveal yet. I’ll tease you with a crib skirt and a little belly shot of Aunt JB – she is coming along nicely (the nursery and the baby!).

We were all a little crafty while Daddy was away this past week. Em and her GATE class did a little gallery of the artwork and photography they created in class.

Addie got her clay on in art class. Why yes, it IS a bowl with a cat head on it.

Addie needed some EIGHT tees for two girls in her class who have birthdays this week. And she wanted to help make them, so I taught her to “weed” the vinyl out.

She was bound and determined to use the number 8 that she had weeded out for something. She started putting tape on the back of it to make a card, which led to the idea that maybe we could heat press the vinyl onto cardstock? And the answer to that is…YES! So we made some birthday cards, too. About eight seconds in the heat press and the vinyl sticks nicely to cardstock. Who knew?

And finally, Birdie 2’s sweet MC had a birthday last week. She is all soccer – all the time. So I made her some new stationery…

…and a sign that she can take for her room when she leaves for college next year. Gah…we are gonna miss her so very much!

The stationery and sign I made in Illustrator and just printed them out on cardstock from the inkjet printer.

So that is what we have around here this week. I guess it is back to the baby goodies. Next week…for sure!

Yes, indeed. Some of you caught a glimpse at what the two Birdies have been up to lately, if we are friends on Facebook. But for the rest of you, we’ll just do a little recap on how to decorate for a Educational Foundation’s annual fundraiser for 250+ people on a very tiny budget.

We were given the theme “Night Market” – and thankfully Birdie #2 had the vision, I was pretty much along for moral support and a little bit of muscle.

First up – to create an outdoor, “town square” to dance the night away under the stars. It  all began with a trip to the lumberyard…in Birdie #2’s minivan. Oh, yes we did! The lumberyard guys were pretty amused as they loaded us down with 11-4x4s and a whole bunch of PVC piping! Inside, outside…wherever it fit.

Thankfully we had some amazing Dads who took all of this lumber and the pilings that I made with flower pots and cement, (yep – by myself) to create the amazing structure.

Once the structure was built, we strung it with twinkle lights and posted handbills to make it appear as if it was outdoors.

And we planted the piling pots with flowers.

It looked much prettier and more “authentic” once the lights were dimmed.

Before the dancing, there was an auction…so we created Night Market “stalls” with buntings to differentiate the auction categories. (THIS is what we had been collecting 32+ umbrella stands for! A big thank you to those of you who helped with our cause!) We built the buntings with the stands, pvc pipes and for the bunting signs, we used international newsprint.

We created some centerpieces using even more paper – donated sheet music from our middle school. We rolled the music, arranged them in jars that we vinyl’d up with Big Momma and topped it all off with a tissue paper flower.

Let’s see what else? Oh, yeah…we tried our hand at 3-D paper lanterns (also cut with the Silhouette). They were a little challenging, but once we cut it and covered the cutouts with vellum, it was perfect with LED votives for a little extra touch on the bar tables.

And that was about it. Any wonder why the Two Birdies look like they are hanging onto the pole for dear life at the end of the night?

Sooo very happy that it is behind us. Stay tuned for all things B-A-B-Y next week!