beanski

party planner

I set sort of unrealistic expectations for my kid's birthday parties when Renee had her first birthday. I think I forgot that someday she was going to turn two and then when she turned two I swore that I wasn't going to go crazy and I was going to keep it low-key. And then I went crazy. 

Then I had another baby and GOOD LORD that is an awful lot of birthday party planning.

But in a good way.

Because I LOVE doing it. I get all of these ideas floating around in my brain and I lay awake at night thinking about it. I scour etsy looking for inspiration, do random googling like "activities for first birthday party" and sit at the computer for hours coordinating the invitations with the thank-you cards with the decorations. I make banners and cakes and personalized stickers. Somedays I think should have been a party planner because it really is one of the few things that I really love.

I'm eye deep in birthday planning right now because my baby? He turns one next week. Sniff, sniff. Me hurting my back has set me back (no pun intended) but I made a vow today to follow through on my plans. My husband can try to talk me into ordering pizzas and buying a cake but I am just not made that way and I would be sad on his first birthday. I want to be happy on his first birthday. But I'm going to be sad because you know, WHERE DID MY BABY GO?

What do you do for birthday parties? Low-key? All out? Just family? Where do you find your inspiration?

Here's a peek of Cam's 1st birthday - the invitation, which I ordered from annoncingyou on etsy:
 

the beginning of a little boy's room

This is the first post in what I'm hoping will be many posts as I slowly but surely convert our house from old quilting lady (the former owner) to modern, hip, young person. That would be me, yo.

We so far have decorated about 100 square feet of many and I'm still waiting on my husband to put in the new faucet in the kid's bathroom before I go ahead and call it complete and post pictures of the cuteness. HINT, HINT HUSBAND. And I need to figure out some art for the walls because the kid's handprints on canvases didn't go so well. ART PROJECT FAIL. I did SEW a shower curtain, though, but do me a favor, if you ever shower in the kid's bathroom, don't look at the inside of that shower curtain. OK? Thanks. These are fabrics I used for the bathroom because Renee LOVES octopi (octopuses?).

In the meantime, Cameron's room is next. He's currently using the gender neutral newborn bedding I bought when Renee was born and while I like it I've been itching to give him something more boy. And blue is my FAVORITE color so I've been excited about that.

This was my initial inspiration. I LOVE it. I seriously DROOL every time Susan posts a quilt. I showed it to Ski and his exact words were: "That is way too sissy. It could be a girl's quilt."

So, I had to regroup. I poured over etsy looking at fabrics, showing Ski a few here and there to get his green light on the masculinity of his son's bedding. Nevermind that the boy wears a PINK bib at breakfast EVERY day because we're too cheap to buy him new ones.

I need help though. I can't decide if I should go with the bright greens and blues:

Or the more muted greens and blues with brown:
 
I'm leaning towards the brights but don't want it to be obnoxious.

What do you think?