Diaper Cake

I promised to share about making the diaper cake for the baby shower I co-hosted on Sunday.  I had seen diaper cakes at a couple of showers in the past and they seemed like they would be easy enough to make.  I googled around and found two different versions:  I call them rolled and not rolled.

I had always seen the rolled diaper cakes before, but I liked the way the not-rolled cake looked a little better.  (I have since seen them labeled Spiral Diaper Cakes)  Not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t have to roll 84 diapers for my cousin to subsequently have to unroll to use. To keep the diapers in a circle while forming each layer, I used the lid to my cake carrier:

I had enough diapers to make three layers.  I used rubberbands to keep the shape of each layer:

I found some really cute wide baby boy ribbon at JoAnn’s on clearance.  I used Tacky Glue to secure each strip around the cake:

I placed the base layer on some cardboard and cut out a platter for it to sit on.  I used the inspiration picture as my guide for decorating the platter with ribbon I had on hand.  (Just a coincidence that I had the same ribbon:)

To keep the layers of the cake from shifting, I put a few bamboo skewers down in between the diapers, through the layers:

All that was left was finding a cute topper for the cake.  I used a classic Eeyore because she is using a lot of Winnie the Pooh in his room.

*I try to always link the pictures in my posts to the original source.  If you would like to link to any source, simply click on the picture in my posts.  If you would like to pin a linked picture, please pin from the original source *

Baby Shower Gift

I never know what a new mom will want, so I usually buy a gift card, but I want them to have something to open, so I buy a little something and wrap it up.  I have a problem:)

I had asked my cousin if she was using a theme in the nursery and she said Winnie the Pooh.  Well, I didn’t want to go crazy with that because lord knows every little thing that could ever be made into Winnie the Pooh has been made.  But I did happen upon one of these little beauties at Goodwill: 

It is a polished pewter bank with gold bees and honey on it.  I loved it!  And I loved that it wasn’t branded Pooh, but would be a cute nod to the theme.  I did some research online using the stamp on the bottom of the piece: Salisbury Pewter.  What I found blew me away.  It is hand-crafted in Maryland.  It is made of hand-buffed pewter and the bees and honey around the coin slot are gold plated.  And it retails for over ten times more than what I paid for it!

I made a little notecard with all the details and cleaning recommendations since it was obviously missing the original packaging.  I hope she and the new little one enjoy it!

New Lighting

Bradley and I have stopped trying to go out for Valentine’s day each year.  It is so expensive and crazy.  But he is always good to bring me flowers and this year he put a lot of thought into a gift.  He found a tour of homes/gardens in Charleston that he knew I would love.  I am so excited by his thoughtfulness, but because we have a trip to Yosemite planned for the summer, I asked if we could hold off until next year.  Instead, I told him I would be thrilled to have him install some new lights for me.

Before:

I have recently found a brushed nickel chandelier and vanity fixture and a chrome vanity fixture at Goodwill.  I sprayed the chrome light with a brushed nickel paint.  It was an inexpensive way to change out some of the original fixtures that I have never liked in our house.  The dining room chandelier was a downward facing gold light that had been painted a hammered black.  The glass globes were etched with flowers.  The powder room light was a cheap chrome fixture with flower-etched glass shades as well.  The guest bathroom  still had a shiny chrome hollywood strip light:(

After:

The Powder Room is so hard to photograph!

The new fixtures may not be ideal, but they are 100% better than their predecessors.  I have purchased some shades at Goodwill for the new chandelier, but I need my mom’s help recovering them with some clearance fabric I snagged at JoAnn’s.

For Bradley, I decided to sign us up for Arrington Vineyard‘s Wine Club.  We  will receive two bottles of their wine each quarter for a year.

So Happy Valentine’s Day to my wonderful husband!  You are truly my better half!

Google Calendar

This week, I have been working on my annual stack-o-birthday cards.  A few years ago, my new year’s resolution was to send a birthday card to every close friend and family member, and since then the practice has stuck.  The reason:  I LOVE getting snail mail (cards especially), so I assume everyone else does too.  It also takes more thought and planning to send a card than to just write on someone’s facebook page.  I’m all about the thought and intentionality behind gifts.

I try to sit down at the beginning of the year and write notes in each card, address them and put them in order by date.  One of the most important tools I use to keep me on top of sending out all 90+ cards is Google Calendar.  Bradley and I both use it and love it.  It allows me to make multiple calendars (mine are things like ‘birthdays’, ‘Leslie’s personal’, ‘Small Group’, etc.) and I can share some or all of them with him.  And he can share some or all of his with me.  This is useful because for instance, we both want to be able to see where our small group is meeting for the week, but I don’t need to know who he is meeting with at work during the week.  Also, I can choose what color I want each calendar to be and any event in that calendar shows up in that color.  I should note that all of the calendars overlay onto the one calendar I see on the screen. (Here is a screen shot of a few days on the calendar I see.  It may be hard to tell on some, but birthdays are in orange, national holidays are in brown, my events are in green and our small group is in blue.)

Another great feature in Google Calendar is the reminders.  For each event, I can choose to have a reminder sent to me either by email or to my phone.  It can be minutes before or days, I choose.  This helps me remember to grab the next birthday card in the stack and pop it in the mail.

Lastly, I don’t have to remember to type each birthday into the calendar every year, because Google also has a repeat feature that I can set for daily/monthly/yearly, etc.  So next year, all of the birthdays are magically there again!

I am no techie, so I know I have only scratched the surface of what Google calendars can do.  It is a wonderful tool that I would highly recommend.  No more paper calendars, no more coordinating schedules.  It is all right there for me (as well as Bradley) to see.