New Blooms

Yesterday my sister, my ma and I threw a baby shower for littlest sister.  It was beautiful, low-key day, and everything, even the unexpected rain shower, felt just perfect.

Co-organising was lovely.  I didn't have to think about the food once, which was so great!  And the food itself was also great!  The decorating we kept simple and vintage, with a floral theme.  We used these very pretty floral straws from Pop Roc parties, and were sent these ridiculously beautiful Stormy Boutique paper cups too (this is a geek admission, but I thought they were too pretty to waste - yep, these babies are getting recycled).

I also used these blue mason jars for decor - along with a recycled pom-poms, vintage sheets and some of Ma's garden blooms.  Like I said, relaxed - which meant we got to focus our energy on looking after the FOUR pregnant guests in attendance.  

Rosa ummed and ahhhed about games, and eventually decided they would be fun.  So I did a quick google search and found a couple that sounded okay.  They all turned out to be super fun!  Our icebreaker game was simple.  Upon arrival, I handed out safety pins to every guest.  From that moment on, no one was allowed to say the word 'baby', which turned out to be way harder than anticipated.  Any slip-up resulted in losing your pin to whoever overheard - and the prize was claimed by the guest who'd collected the most pins.  Easy, silly, fun.

For the next game, I gave guests about 10 seconds to memorise around 13-14 baby & mama items, before they jotted down as many as they remembered.  The nicest thing about this game was that we ended up with a hamper of goodies to gift to the baby mama.  Some items less exciting than others :-P

I adapted our final game a little.  Initially we were supposed to play a match celeb babes with their parents type game, but it turned out simpler just to give each guest a cutout of a celeb/celeb couple, arrange all the babies face up in the centre of the circle of guests, and then have everyone find their baby.  It was actually really fun!  I had a secret fear that it would flop, but it was pretty hilarious in the end.    

Towards the end we set these four mamas up in comfy chairs and offered foot baths, massages, face masks and manicures.  This was SUCH a nice part of the day, and will be repeated at every future baby shower for sure.  

We finished the afternoon with an ice-cream bar, cups of tea and present opening.  So after allllll that, it's probably not surprising that the last guest rocked home five hours after start time.  Tha best.

Christmas Linky Party

Anyone else as excited about Christmas as I am?  I'm pre.tty excited.  I think this year feels extra special because a) it's the first time Eleanor will be really aware of what's going on, and b) we are not moving house this year - therefore we get to do all the decorating/build-up that we haven't been able to in previous years (we have moved house around Christmastime three years in a row).  Both of those reasons mean that this is kind of our first family Christmas.  This year we get to start building the traditions that will be carried through the years.  We will be creating those special Christmassy memories that our kids will look back on for the rest of their lives.  Yep, in my books, this is a pretty special year, Christmas-wise.

On top of that, we are actually hosting Christmas this year.  A smaller version, with only one of my siblings here (sniff sniff, will be missing the rest of them dreadfully).  But we will have the parentals and two aunties (Zan's sister, as well as one of mine), so it will definitely feel pretty festive.  And this year we have a son in our midst too!  Wow!

More on this, soon...

So anyway, I've been chatting to the very lovely Cat of Catalina's Cottage, and we thought that it would be fun to have a linky party through December (and the rest of November), sharing posts about our Christmas traditions.  Both she and I are adopting elves this year, a very sweet tradition that you can read all about here, so you will probably be seeing those cheeky imps quite a bit through December.  If you have an elf, or if you have written posts about anything lovely and Christmassy, pop back here each Friday and leave your link.

Our newest resident - we scored ours from The Book Depository.  Free shipping y'all!

We are starting early (as in before Dec - also, yes, it's Saturday today), because I'm an impatient girl and can't wait that many days. You can leave as many links as you like from posts you've written throughout the week, and don't forget to check out the other links too, there's bound to be lots of lovely inspiration to be found. I've even created a button, which was quite a challenge for me (but such is my dedication to Christmas) which you are welcome to grab and put on your blog.   It's official y'all.

<div class="The-Golden-Adventures-of-button" style="width: 150px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="http://www.verydarkhorse.blogspot.com"> <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dNIUyGnOmJ0/UJwyhlamyyI/AAAAAAAAKW4/LORacqZ26Jo/s1600/xmas+linky+150.png" alt="The Golden Adventures of" width="150" height="150" /> </a> </div> <!--end button code box-->

p.s. this is my first time using a linky and a grab button, so please let me know if there are any issues with either and I will *try* to resolve them ;-)

Happy Easter

And finally: Tiny Ted(s)

I had the most fun with these guys.  It was the quilts.  The quilts made me swoon.

I don't even know when or how I made the decision to create them.  Just found myself cutting wee strips of fabric and sewing them together...

Making is fun, and these were especially fun to make.  It was hard to stop at five, and to be honest, it won't be long before I make a whole bunch more.  For what purpose?  Who knows.  For fun.

Goodbye little bears!  All heading off to new homes... I'm glad we're keeping one...

Mini DIY Teepees

Having the party in a teepee made this particular favour seem quite obvious.  A mini teepee for their Tiny Teds' to camp in.  I googled teepee instructions, and used their template to make my own, with a few added extras.  Each packet has a set of instructions too.  In retrospect I should have hunted down some heavier weight brown card... *shrug*.  Next time.

I hope the kiddies decorate them, I'd love to see how each looks made up...  Maybe I'll hassle their mamas' for pics.

Dunno about you, but this sort of thing would've been right up my alley when I was a kiddo.  DIY, mini, packaged.  All things that were lovely to me back then (and erm, still are actually!).

MIni Bunting

Pretty self-explanatory.  I already had all the triangles cut out from a previous project, so it was easy to whip these up.  And packaging was quite fun...  I plan to make a bunch more of these at some point, perfect for Christmas stockings and little thank you notes.