Pirate Birthday Cake

My baby turns 2 on Saturday! I can't believe how big he is already. We had a little party at our house to celebrate with our family. My kids are really into pirate things mostly because I love them. So, I was brave and made a pirate cake using homemade fondant. I am not a professional cake decorator by any means so this was rather challenging.





Here is the cake. Not too shabby for a first timer. I used the pirate template found here at a Disney website. Gotta love Disney!
For the frosting I used cream cheese for the red part and fondant for the pirate. I looked all over for a good recipe for the fondant because I hate the taste of it. I found one that tastes more like buttercream frosting rather than fondant. Fondant recipe can be found here.





My SIL Bri's favorite part was this guy's earring!

Diaper Cake Tutorial

Yesterday was a baby shower for SIL Julie. She is having a girl and is doing her baby room in zebra with lavender.

So, we decided to stick with that theme for the shower and do zebra and purple. I decided to make her a diaper cake and this is what I came up with.



Pretty cute, right? The bottom tier has a baby blanket wrapped around it and the two tiers above that have burp rags. She was pretty excited.


So, here is how you can make one yourself.

Supplies Needed:
box of diapers
rubber bands
plastic grass or shredded paper (optional)
ribbon

1. Get a big box of dipaers. I used the 120 package of Pampers swaddlers. (Not the one pictured)





2. Take a diaper and flip it over. Then roll it up from the bottom. I like to roll mine pretty tight.



This is what it should look like all rolled up.



3. Put a rubber band around the diaper.



4. Now the diaper can stand up on its own. Just decide how big you want your bottom tier and work your way up from there. Tie each tier with a ribbon or wrap it with a blanket/burpie then the ribbon.



And it's that easy!



In between each tier I added purple Easter grass to make it cute.











View from the back.


Enjoy!

New Book Shelves

So, my bookcase in my kids playroom has been driving me INSANE! I was using just a regular old bookcase where you see the spine of the book and not the cover. My kids would never do anything with their books but pull them out and toss them around in a big mess.

I was going crazy wanting to do something different. I came across Mama Notes tutorial for Rain Gutter Bookshelves and decided to give it a try.

Off I went with my hubby to Home Depot to buy the supplies. I think our total cost was around $17. Not too shabby! We headed home and hung them up in about 20 min. Yup, it was that easy.

Go here for the tutorial.


And the best part is now my kids will pull books out to look at and then put them right back. Genius!

Such a Slacker

So, I have been a total slacker lately. Between finding out I had an ectopic pregnancy and then having my tonsils removed, I just can't get into the groove of things. I had such crafty aspirations for this last baby and my focus was all the wonderful things I was going to create that I am at a loss for things to do.

One of the things I wanted to sew was a blessing dress (if it was a girl) with the help of my professional level sewing Grams.

I saw this tutorial of at Make It and Love It



All I can say is WOW!!!! She is super talented!
Go here to read how she made this wonderful dress without even using a pattern!