Firstly the babies!
This is my great niece, Caelyn Meredith born on March 26, 2010 to my niece Selena and her husband Paul. Caelyn has a sister, Ainsley and a brother, Brayden.
This is my great nephew, Zack Malay, born on April 4, 2010 to my husband's nephew, Kenan and his wife Stephanie.
Congratulations and love to all of my wonderful family!
The baby shower to celebrate Zack was a lot of fun to plan and have. I tried to just base everything on the colors used in Zack's room. A pale bluish-purple, chocolate brown, cream and a light green. It was the first time I was ever the hostess for a baby shower, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves, including Stephanie, my wonderful niece-in-law. I was able to Skype in her mother-in-law, Avril from Barrington, Nova Scotia and her sister-in-law, Glynis from Detroit, Michigan. Technology is wonderful!
I was inspired by so many creative people on some wonderful sites.
This was the cake that I ended up making for the shower.
I used a great White Layer cake recipe I found at BusyCooksAbout.Com. I was inspired to decorate it by a cake that I saw on the Wicked Cakes website. I made sure to frost the cake with Buttercream first. I have my own really simple recipe for Buttercream Frosting. I have been using it on cakes for many years and just add 1/3 cup of good quality cocoa to make a chocolate version. My recipe is as follows:
2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp. Epicure Pure Vanilla Extract
2 - 4 tbsp. cream
Mix with hand mixer until a smooth spreadable consistency. This will be enough to cover a double layer 8" round cake.
The fondant recipe turned out to be very easy and quite tasty, made with marshmallows. I found it at Peggy's Baking Corner. It was a lot easier to work with than I thought it was going to be. The light purple color of the cake was used to match the of the walls in Zack's room. I used gold cardstock and just ran the letters off with my Big Shot and an embosslit alphabet die. I found the whole cake to be a very enjoyable challenge and it tasted great!
The diaper cake was a cinch and took about 20 minutes and about 84 diapers. I rolled the ones in the middle and secured them elastics and then just layered the outside diapers evenly all the way around. Tie with chocolate brown ribbon, stick in a stuffie and done!
These were the baby shower favors. They are simply glassine bags with perennial sweet peas, the flower for the month of April. I printed Zack's name and birthday, the meaning behind and simple instructions on kraft paper. I was inspired by one of my favorite creative persons, Amy Sheffer on her blog Pickled Paper Designs. Check her blog out when you get a minute or two, she has wonderful layering techniques and insides of her cards are almost as beautiful as the outside!
The banner was inspired by Connie Tumm at Splitcoaststampers. This was so quick and easy to make. All supplies used were from Stampin' Up, with the exception of the letters. I just printed them off the computer. Hung up over the mirror was probably not the best place to have put it to take a picture though.
I truly loved being able to share in Stephanie's happiness in the birth of Zack with her mother, Linda, friends and family. It was a great day.
Well, it's late now on Saturday night. I am hoping to get downstairs and be a little creative and will check back in tomorrow and share a fabulous find from my trip to Orlando!
