My niece is getting married this summer. She wanted an Alice in Wonderland themed Bridal Shower and her mom (my SIL) ask me to help her with the party planning.
These are my crafty contributions for her Bridal Shower. I am sorry I can’t share the final party set up pictures for private reasons. These are my pictures that I took after completing each craft. My SIL did a great job with the decorations. I am sharing the cake picture because my SIL agreed to share this picture publicly on the cake baker's Facebook page.


Singing Flowers Bouquet
I found a template for Alice in Wonderland singing flowers on line, perfect bouquet to welcome guests to the bridal shower.


Photo Props (They were a huge success at the party, yay!  )
Alice in Wonderland Photo Props & Holder.


Flowers & Tea cups Headbands Photo Props. The pink headband with the teapot and teacup was for my SIL as the hostess of the bridal shower- Plastic colored headbands, tea set and flowers from the Dollar Store -


Bride to Be Top Hat – I can’t take credit for the hat. I bought a costume hat from eBay and embellished. The veil and bow tail was trimmed after the Bride to be tried on.


Bridal Teacup – A white satin flower and pearl string decorated teacup for the Bride to Be. I took a great picture of The Bride to Be wearing her top hat and “drinking” from her bridal teacup, very pretty and cute.


Painting the Roses Red Bouquet (for pass the bouquet game –aka- Off with Her Head) - I must confess that the original plan was to make a white roses bouquet  with brush on red paint, but I got lazy and just took the short cut approach, using red roses  and white ribbon from the Dollar Store.


Flower Ladies
Taking Alice in Wonderland’s Singing Flowers as inspiration, I made these Flowers Ladies (2 of each flower) for decorations.


Warm Wishes Cards instead of a guest book.
Bridal Shower Wishes Cards with a vintage key graphic and a small dot of gold glitter - To be deposited in a big Teapot.


DIY Tiered Serving Tray – From Colorful plates finding from my local Thrift Store


Food Picks Toppers – 32 Eat Me Toppers & 9 hearts, 9 diamonds, 9 spades, 9 clubs (36 clubs card suit toppers)


Tea Favors
 42 Green Tea Favors Pockets – Cardstock from Michael’s and colored satin ribbons from Wal-Mart.


Gift Box
I wanted a cute little box for one of my gifts to the Bride to Be (a Just Married, Don’t Disturb door hanging sign); this is what I come out with.


It was a very cute and fun bridal shower and we succeed in making the Bride to Be feel very happy.

I am not completely sure if this post goes correctly on this board. But I thought that this idea can be incorporated in a Beauty and the Beast party theme as decoration.  If not, I apologize and moderators could remove my post.
My 2 ½ years old twin granddaughters got Princess dresses on their first Disneyland trip in February. Ever since, I have been planning a home photo shoot with them wearing their Belle and Snow White dresses.  Of course, we need it some props!  Here comes the DIY Beauty and the Beast Enchanted Rose.



The Bell jar and candle holder were a great find from my local Thrift Store, the 3” x 5” bell jar glass was 99ȼ and the 4” candle holder was 29ȼ. Great bargain and perfect size for my little Belle.


I also did a little lace crown for Belle by stiffening a piece of yellow lace.


Props for my little Snow White were a DIY red bow headband and a basket of apples.
I am not a professional photographer and two years old models are so hard to work with! =) but the photo shoot was a success. The girls look so cute and pretty in their princess dresses and with the right photo props, the pictures come out really, really good! Well worth the effort and planning.

Hello,
I am in the planning stage of making two heritage quilts for my two years old twin granddaughters. They have cultural heritages from 4 different countries.
I already have fabrics to represent three of the countries, but I am having a hard time finding a fabric that will represent Germany. The only fabrics that I found related to Germany is a German shepherd dog fabric, a German beer stains fabric and a German beer bottles fabric print, those do not match the style and prints of the other fabrics; the fabrics I have are with prints of women/people and the countries are immediately recognized.
Does anyone can help me, please, with suggestions where to look for a German print fabric? I have done many, many, Google searches typing German fabric, German print fabric, German folk fabric; German cloth, German tablecloth, German linen, German Scarf, Bavarian fabric and I haven’t found any fabric that could represent Germany. I also have looked in Equilter, J & O fabrics, EBay, Etsy and Ruby Lane.
I can’t ask my granddaughters’ German family side because their great grandfather is deceased and my son in law doesn’t know that side of his family at all.
Thank you.
This is my Cuban fabric

My 2 years old twin granddaughters love to play tea party, probably because I taught them early on about Tea Parties =)
For their first birthday, as a gift, I made for them a Tea Party Gift Basket with:
a pink gingham table cloth and napkins set
a tea set
a two-tier cupcake stand with 8 pretend cupcakes
My Very First Tea Party & My Very First Book of Manners books.
I had been thinking of one day to make their afternoon snack time into a “real tea party”.

I started the Tea Party planning:
First, I made a two tiered serving tray out of two very pretty plastic plates and a plastic candlestick, from the 99c Store.
Then, I made the table cloth, napkins and napkins rings. The fabrics were from my fabric bin, it was very easy and fast to add the lace trim to the table cloth. The napkins rings were their baby headbands, that I just cut it and sew it back together to make napkin rings.

I decided that Friday was the perfect day for their Tea Party. While they were taking their nap, I baked sugar cookies, orange mini cupcakes, biscuits and made some little chicken salad sandwiches.  The biscuits were filled with Ropa Vieja de Pollo (Ropa Vieja - literally old clothes in Spanish- a traditional Cuban recipe of thinly shredded chicken simmered with tomatoes, red bell pepper, onion and green olives in a tomato wine sauce). I also made Pistachio Pudding, served in plastic cups with half of a Maraschino cherry topping.



The girls have a great time, they were so excited when they saw their little table all set up and I got lovely pictures of the two of them smiling and eating at the Tea Table.

Hello crafty ladies.
A year has passed since my granddaughters’ 1st birthday party post.
The girls just turned 2 years old!
We celebrated their 2nd birthday with a Gymnastics Party with a multicolor balloons theme.

These were my crafty projects for the party:
Matching party hat for their leotards.

Cardstock paper Placemats & Napkins rings & Party Favors.

Balloons Theme  Water Labels.

Sparkle Pops (Colored Sugar Crystal covered marshmallows) & Lollipops Bouquets.

Kids Table (with Party Favors) & Adult Table in the Gym's Party Room.

My twin granddaughters celebrated their first birthday last week. Their party theme was butterflies.


Thanks to the wonderful Dollar Tree store, the butterfly theme party supplies were very easy to obtain.

I just added a few crafty touches:
Homemade coloring books with a cute coloring page cover: twin babies blowing a birthday cupcake. I just added the girls’ names on the babies’ hats for personalization.

The coloring books for the girl guests were with butterflies coloring pages.
The boys coloring books were with Disney’s Cars coloring pages.

Goody bags tags - I scaned the birthday party invitation, erased the witting on my Jasc Paint Shop Pro and printed them in gift tag size.  I hand wrote the children’s names and closed the bags with a pink ribbon bow and a crochet butterfly.


Birthday girls’ hats - I embellished the birthday girls’ hats with pink ribbon, a pink butterfly and a cotton-embroidered eyelet trim. Surprisingly the girls kept their party hats on for all the cake cutting and piñata breaking pictures.


We had pull-strings piñatas (a Cuban tradition, no hitting stick ever. Each child holds a string and at the count of 1, 2, 3, they all pull together to break the piñata).


Fabric banner - I didn’t have a butterfly print fabric in my scrap fabric bin but this bee fabric was cute enough for the job. I sewed pink crochet butterflies to the binding trim to unite the fabric bee print with the butterfly theme.


I also made 26 butterfly cupcakes (basic vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and marshmallow fondant butterflies) for two cupcake tree stands that were accompanying the birthday cake.

The fondant butterflies were originally placed on the cupcakes with their wings looking like they were flying:


Unfortunately, in the warm temperature of the beautiful summer day made them get soft and layed down fat on the cupcakes.
It was a fun and pretty butterfly birthday party 

These are two crochet top dresses I made for my twin granddaughters.






It was close to impossible to get a front action shot of the two of them together. They are 9 months old and very squirmy and wiggly… They were trying to grab each other’s flowers =)


The dresses are aproximally a 12th month size, because they are 19 ½ and 20 lbs. I didn’t follow any pattern.

I really would like to make this shawl for my daughter in crochet (I don't know how to knit).
I know there must be a crochet pattern some where for this ruffled shawl, help!, anyone?
thanks.
http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/may2011/0/3/image-6-for-kate-middleton-grocery-shopping-a-week-after-royal-wedding-with-prince-william-gallery-861773525.jpg

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/may2011/1/1/image-2-for-kate-middleton-grocery-shopping-a-week-after-royal-wedding-with-prince-william-gallery-178915037.jpg

Boniato Frito (Cuban Sweet Potato Fries)


These are sweet potato fries made from a variety of sweet potato called Boniato. Also called Batata, White Sweet Potato, Cuban Sweet Potato or Camote.

The flesh of the boniato is cream-colored, unlike the more popular orange hue seen in other varieties. Boniatos are not as sweet and moist as other sweet potatoes, but they have a fluffier consistency and more delicate flavor.
Boniatos are very popular in the Cuban/Caribbean cuisine.



Boniato may be baked, boiled, roasted, fried, steamed, or sautéed. The skin may or may not be removed.
If the Boniato is peeled, immediately submerge in cold water before frying them to avoid discoloration.
When broiling, keep them covered with water to avoid gray spots.
When steaming them, leave the skin on.

Quimbombó (Kee-Bom-Bo) in Spanish.
In Cuba, Okra was introduced into local cuisine in the same way as in the American South; African slaves brought them along from Western Africa. There are two main Cuban Okra dishes, a meat and okra stew and a rice with okra and ham dish.

Rice with okra and ham is a traditional dish popular in the oriental part of the island. Yesterday, I didn’t have ham at home, so I substitute with Vienna sausages.
Being Cuba only 90 miles south from Key West, American products were very available in Cuba B.C (before castro). Cubans took the Vienna Sausages and combine them with rice and spices to make a savory yellow rice with sausages dish. That’s why my combination of Vienna Sausages and Okra is not that strange of a recipe, to me =)

Arroz con Quimbombó y Salchichas (Rice with Okra and Vienna Sausages) Recipe

2 cups of rice (long grain)
2 cans of Vienna sausages
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of tomatoes sauce
½ red bell pepper
1 onion
4 garlic cloves
1 ½ cup of vegetable or chicken broth
½ cup of white cooking wine

1 lb of okra
1 lime
2 cups of water

Add the limejuice to 2 cups of water, and then add the sliced okra. This step is to make the okra less slimy. This preparation is not necessary if the sliminess of okra doesn't bother you.
Heat a large pot over medium heat, add enough olive oil to coat the bottom, and then add the rice, sauté for a few minutes, always stirring.
Add onions, pepper and garlic.
Cook (always stirring) until the onions are soft and you can smell the garlic.
Add the sliced okra and Vienna sausages.
Cook it for 2 minutes to let the okra absorb some flavor.
Add the canned tomatoes, broth, tomato sauce and cooking wine.
Season with salt, cumin and pepper to taste.
Bring the mixture back to a boil, cover, turn to low and cook for 25-30 minutes.