Shower Flowers

The baby shower is, at last, a fait accompli! I'm exhausted after all of the prep work, hostessing, and clean-up. The outcome, however, made it all worth it.
~The mommy-to-be was elated.
~The Grandma-to-be was thrilled.
~Most of the guests showed up.
~The gifts were abundant.
~The weather was beautiful.
~The food was yummy...and I won't have to cook for a week...or until my kids start complaining about eating left-overs.
I didn't have time to take pictures during the shower, but I did snap a few shots of the remaining flower arrangements. There were originally six, but the others were given as prizes for the games we played. Normally, and I have written about this before, cut flowers make me a little sad. For some reason, though, these seem to brighten the whole house and are lifting my tired, but content spirits!
Time to curl up, in front of the fire, with my book.

Baby Shower Gift

In my earlier post, I mentioned that I am throwing a baby shower next weekend. The shower is for the daughter of one of my closest girlfriends. The mommy-to-be is like a daughter to me & used to babysit my children, so I wanted to come up with something special as a shower gift...without breaking the bank. My kids love looking at the scrapbooks I've made for/ of them, over the years, while the thousands of photographs I have in boxes are ignored. There's just something special about leafing through a whole book that's been lovingly made for you. I happened to have a pretty Flavia scrapbook on hand, so I decorated the enclosed pages, adding some for particular holidays/ seasons. All that needs to be added are the pictures of the new baby. I hope this is something Mommy will love (and not something she's likely to do herself) and will, hopefully, bring many years of joy to both she and her baby boy! These are pictures of a few of the pages:-)

Photo Frustration

I took advantage of my "free" weekend and spent quite a bit of time working on finishing up several projects (in between updating my resume, applying for jobs, getting ready for an interview tomorrow morning & cleaning for a baby shower I am hostessing next weekend). I proudly took pictures of all of the completed masterpieces, in anticipation of sharing them with all of you, and my camera/ Picassa just are not cooperating. I'm afraid I have switched the setting on my camera so many times that it doesn't know whether to snap a picture or scrub my bathroom floor! Although the pictures, clearly, did not come out as I'd hope (as evidenced through the viewer), I thought, surely, I could make them more presentable with Picassa. Not so much, I'm afraid! As I type this posting, I'm holding out hope that the pictures will magically transform between now and the time I hit "publish post".
:::crossing fingers:::
The basket was an ugly red and brown, heart that I glued silk rose petals to. I added my favorite, double ruffle ribbon to the top and made a pretty light blue/ green fabric lining. A bit of sparkle was added to the rose petals with some silver mica. An adorable cherub pin sits angelically on the front of the basket.
The collages are prizes I made for baby shower games. I think they turned out rather well, considering I was assembling them at 1:30 this morning!