Banners for Heartland Music Together

Here are the banners on which I have been working on since last couple of weeks. These are for the 6th Anniversary Party of Heartland Music Together. My son, Kabir, loves these music classes, so these banners were the least I could do for them, Miriam, at the center was very kind to leave it upto me to design the banners. So for the main party room, I made this banner. 

Another look at it..

For this 2nd banner below(my favourite), I made a bunting style, vintage banner for the first time. It says '6 years of music'. To create a distressed look, I burnt the edges of the banner with candle flame.   As it was for a music party, I choose a cardstock with musical notes on it. 

For decorating, on top of cardstock,  I added a piece of satin circle, which was also burnt around the edges to give it a finished look. I love the way satin curls up on heat. And behind the satin, I added crepe paper with its edges trimmed with lace edge cutter. For the corner pieces, I added some buttons to brighten things up.

Here's another look at this banner from a different angle. It was very difficult to take a good picture of this banner, as satin reflected a lot of light. 

A close up of the corner piece.

For various entrances, I made 3 'Welcome' signs. I used one of Heartland Music Together's brochures' for the background.  

Another 'Welcome' banner with extra decorations on the corner pieces.

A close up.

To tie all the pieces of Welcome banners, I used hemp string which can be found at any craft store.

Thanks to Heartland Music Together group for giving me an opportunity to make these banners.

Happy Crafting!

Welcoming Back Ryan

This new year started with good news. One of my colleagues, Ryan, who was on disability after a major accident, for over an year, is returning back to work. I wrote about him a while back on this blog here.

Today was his first day back to work and we wanted to do something special to welcome him. For my part, I made this banner. Everyone got something including balloons, donuts, cake, brownies and some amazing cake pops. I wish I had clicked a picture of the set-up.

Well, this is wishing Ryan and his family all the best.

Bedtime Stories Baby Shower

Nitika's Surprise Baby Shower

Its been a while since I posted, but thats because I was very very busy arranging a surprise Baby Shower for my dear friend Nitika. It was a combined effort by Anu, Deepti and me. As it was a total surprise, we booked a hotel meeting room in Duncan, for the shower. We stayed in the same hotel, the night before, and it gave us enough time to rest and start preparing and decorating the room. 

The theme, we 3 girls decided on was 'Bedtime Stories', and the color theme was Orange and Green. Here is the invitation and the favors designed by Anu.

We decided to use a canopy to create the bed effect and put matching sheets on the table which Deepti picked from Ikea. We also added a pillow on each table. Nitika can use this bed canopy around babys' crib later on as well. I made the matching banner going with the theme. Added the sleeping baby from the invitation to the banner. Deepti made the cute tissue pom poms below. 

The picture below is of the main cake and dessert table. It had cake, cookies, cake pops along with the decorations. For cake, we decided on chocolate cake, as its Nitika's favourite flavour. I decided to make the cake, and had fun making all the decoration on it.  I made a sleeping baby, and some books and a torch. Carrying the cake to Duncan was the most difficult part. Apart from some dents here and there, the cake made it ok on 2 flights to Oklahoma City and long drive to Duncan from there.

Red Velvet cake pops in orange and green were a big hit. I decorated the orange cake pops with green candy, and vice versa. It took so much longer than I anticipated, to decorate them, but it was worth it. Liked the overall effect. 

We really wanted to add toppers here and there to give a personal touch. But as there were no cupcakes, I just popped them along with the cake pops.  I made these toppers from printed card stock and die-cut butterflies I had from before. These were one of my favourite things.

I decided to make the cookies at the last minute. I had a baby feet cookie cutter in hand, and used that along with regular round one to make the cookies. I was planning to later pipe a button on the round cookie, but because of lack of time, I dropped the idea. 

We placed these colorful printouts in cute frames from Ikea all around the place. It really helped pop things up.

Food Table: We had some Indian snacks, salad and pasta along with regular chips and dip. Deepti got very cute matching paper plates and napkins for the party.

Just few hours before the flight, I made these orange circle decorations. I sewed together different sized circle cutouts in 2 shades of orange to make these.

As baby's gender is still unknown to most, especially to Dad (out of choice), I made the below door hangers(which ended up on the wall) saying 'Is it a Girl?', 'Is it a 'Boy'....

I made the food labels, and placed them with a toothpick on the fondant books that I'd made. I wish I had taken a better picture of it.

The Moment

Nitika was totally surprised. It was a nice emotional moment for all

Cutting of Cake

 Deepti, Nitika, Kabir and me. Anu couldn't make it to the party as she had a family emergency in India.

In the end, we played tons of games. Enjoyed each one of them. Pictures for few games are below..

Congratulations to Nitika & Sid, and Happy Parenting ahead.