90 Minute Shirt

Here's the birthday shirt I made for Bennett's first birthday. I wanted to test out the 90 Minute Shirt tutorial from MADE and I thought his birthday would be the perfect opportunity. I purchased a men's t-shirt from goodwill and went to work on it. I wanted his birthday to have a theme, but since he is only 1 year old and we didn't want to have a big party with friends I ended up deciding to go with a simple theme of balloons. That's why I made the balloon wreath and hung balloons from the ceiling. I also thought it would be fun to add 3 balloons (hand stitched) to the front of his birthday shirt.

I thought the balloons turned out cute, but I am really not skilled with hand stitching. I think this was actually my first attempt, unless you count sewing on ribbons and elastic to pointe shoes (which is definitely not the same thing). The fabric ended up gathering a little but once it was on him you couldn't really tell. I think you can probably tell that the perfectionist in me has died. At least when it comes to anything handmade by me. I think I am still a huge perfectionist when it comes to dance.


This is the best picture I captured of him with his birthday shirt. The other good ones I have you can't see the front of his shirt. I was very proud of myself for making a shirt for him. I like the idea of making them for him in the future, but I probably will only do it for birthdays. Then it can be a special birthday tradition. So there you have it. My first handmade clothes item for my son. Now I mark that off as completed on my goal check list for the year.

The Big 1

In May my cute son turned 1 year old. It was so much fun to plan a little birthday celebration for him. We didn't have a party but my brother flew into town to help us celebrate and my parents came the weekend after to celebrate at the local zoo with us. Even though we didn't have a big party with friends I did go all out and make it special.

I made a big birthday wreath for our door (which we can now use for every birthday in our family). I LOVE how it turned out, except I think I will add even more balloons so that you can't see the straw on the sides of the wreath. These birthday balloons are everywhere in blogland. But I think the initial idea came from How Does She?. The tutorial for the birthday wreath can be found HERE. I bought my balloons at Walmart and loved the colors.

We also hung balloons from the ceiling in our kitchen, which our little guy loved. I did not come up with that idea on my own, but rather it was Dana's idea over at MADE. I also made Bennett's shirt using a tutorial from Dana's website. I post all about his shirt soon.

We spent the day at a local amusement park for little kids and while Bennett was napping we whipped up cupcakes for dessert.

The cupcakes were amazing. I think they tasted better than any white cupcake I have ever had. And the frosting was yummy too. I'll share the recipe on another post as well.


He enjoyed his cupcake a little bit, but was pretty tired by the end of the day. We definitely wore him out celebrating. He mostly just smothered himself in blue frosting and ended up looking a bit like a blue smurf. See what I mean...

He went straight to the bath afterwards.

Easter 2011

This year Easter was kind of a pathetic attempt at a celebration for me.

These three jars were all the Easter decorating I had time for. And I didn't even get a wreath on my door - totally lame.

But I was pleased that the Easter bunny still managed to find our poorly decorated apartment. And he still left treats and gifts for us all.

Bennett had a fun first Easter playing with the eggs!

And he looked so handsome in his new Easter outfit!

We did enjoy a magnificent Easter feast (just for the 3 of us) with THESE most amazing au gratin potatoes. They were the most delicious potatoes I have ever eaten. I didn't get pictures though so check out Mel's Kitchen Cafe for pictures good enough to eat.

We also enjoyed a slower than usual Sunday morning with dad home to eat breakfast with us. We had IHOP pancakes (recipe to come soon), scrambled eggs, and fresh strawberries. That is the biggest breakfast I have made on a Sunday in probably over a year now. It was fun to eat all together.

I also whipped up some special Easter cupcakes for dessert, although by the time we ate dinner and candy from the Easter Bunny we had no room for our cupcakes. They were fun nonetheless.


Eggs in the Grass Easter Cupcakes

Cupcakes
Frosting
Shredded, Sweetened Coconut
Green Food Coloring
Jelly Beans

Put coconut in a bowl and put 4 drops of green food coloring in. Mix with a fork until coconut is a nice, grassy green. Frost cupcakes, dip in green coconut, and put jelly beans on top so they look as though they are Easter eggs hiding in the grass.

I had this idea from Our Best Bites' chick cupcakes. Then I saw Dana's Easter eggs in the grass cookies at MADE and I sort of just combined the ideas to create my own version.

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

New Posts

Plenty of new posts coming your way soon! They are all in the works! Enjoy some pictures of our cute little guy for now!

Baby Bennett

All crafting has been put on hold for the time being. Why you ask? Because of this sweet boy who joined our family 1 week ago:

Isn't he adorable? We sure think so!