Sooooo, I was talking to my little sister today and she's throwing a baby shower for a friend of hers. I LOVE baby showers!! I have thrown a few myself and because of my convo with Mina today, I thought I'd post some of my favorite baby shower inspirational sites, ideas and a few pics from my own experience in baby showering!! Enjoy!

This is from http://www.eatdrinkchic.com/ a super cute site with TONS of great ideas, but this inspired me to come up with a "waffle bar" (instead of a make-your-own-sundae bar) for my girlfriend's baby shower. Here are my pics from that baby shower:

Then I did a double baby shower "open house" (sans games) with my friend, Leslie. One of the ladies was having a boy and one was having a girl - it was a second baby for each of them, so we did a blue and pink theme to celebrate both babies/mommies. It turned out cute, take a look:

The last one I have done recently was an under-the-sea theme because that was the nursery theme. We invited a lot of people and I didn't have enough decor to decorate each centerpiece the same ... so I just didn't, but kept it all within the same theme and it worked (i think). I made the stuffed octopus and whale for a few of the centerpieces and gave them to the mom-to-be as a gift from me afterwards.

Just some fun ideas ... and here are my favorite sites to pull ideas from:

For invitations:

http://www.paperculture.com/

http://www.tinyprints.com/

http://www.blonde-designs.com/default.asp and their blog: http://blonde-designs.squarespace.com/

For dessert tables .... my hands-down favorite:

http://amyatlas.com/ and her blog: http://amyatlas.blogspot.com/

Reading Squares

Well, I have a little boy who is VERY active. I like to have "quiet time" at least once a day and needed a way to get him to stay in one place. I wanted to get a few carpet squares from my local Home Depot, but it turns out they make you pay for carpet squares and I was not about to pay for that ... so ... I took the only thing I already own tons of: fabric and made my own "reading squares".

I just took the fabrics that I had LOTS of and cut out rectangles, put right side together and sewed them almost all the way together, then turned them right sides out and sewed around the edges to finish. And tada! Reading squares! Here they are:

The "Essentials Bag"

I got this idea from a friend of mine from college, Jennie. One afternoon I was hanging out at Jennie's house and we were getting ready to go somewhere and she pulled out this little, zipper top bag and I asked her what it was. She said she kept all of her essentials (i.e. wallet, chapstick, hair things, etc.) in it and just transferred her essentials bag into whatever cute bag she decided to carry that day - genius! I am always fumbling through 3 different purses trying to find my keys or wallet that I left there and forgot about until I'm ten minutes late and trying to run out the door. I loved the idea and didn't think about it again for another 2 years, when I started Teresamia with my sister. I knew we HAD to have a line of essentials bags because they are .... essential!

So, last week I was putting some stuff in my basement and moving things around and found a box of essentials bags I had made and forgotten about last season and was struck with the cuteness and usefulness of them once again and put them up on the site. Check 'em out here!

Baby Activity Book

I am going on a long plane ride to visit my family for Thanksgiving and decided I needed some seriously entertaining toys for my two boys. My youngest is 6 months old and wants to grab everything! So, I decided to make something to keep him grabbing at it the entire trip on the plane!!!! It's an activity book or what my sisters and I call a "quiet book" (meaning, we hope it keeps them quiet). Anyway, I already made one for my oldest son, but now I have one for both! Check it out:

This page has ladybugs with bells inside them that tinkle when he grabs at them.

This page has a "rain cloud" on the left that crinkles (I put plastic wrappers from a package of fruit snacks inside) which is kinda like a thundering rain cloud :) And the butterflys are simply squishable and are only sewn down in the middle so the wings can be flapped.

This page is a "scene" with flaps hiding a sun behind a cloud, frogs behind the pond, a car behind the grass and a bird in a birdhouse behind the tree.

This page has hats stuffed in a pocket and connected to the page (so you don't lose the hats) on the left. On the right are the boy and girl that wear the hats. There are velcro on the back of the hats and above the heads to attach them together.

This is just 3 colorful squares that can be moved around on a line ... kind of like you can count each one and move it to one side or the other.

This is totally a doable project (if you like to sew). I did it in one day ... with lots of interruptions from the peanut gallery (my boys :))

We're in a Magazine!

This is our first feature in a magazine and we wanted to share! The magazine is called Stressfree Living and is distributed mainly in the Twin Cities area. They liked our "mia" bag and decided to feature it in their October issue under the Beauty and Style section. If you want to see the story behind the inspiration of the mia bag, we wrote about it a few months ago, check it out here. And by the way here's the page Stressfree Living did on our bag:

Denial & Ode to Summer

I think we must seriously be in denial about Fall and Winter coming. We have been putting together the Fall Line for Teresamia and everything just keeps coming out so summery ... we can't stop! Recently, Christina sent me a bunch of drawings for some new bags. One was the inspiration for the "sunshine" bag.

Summer is just too fun: swinging on swings in the park, trips to the zoo, sprinklers, homemade juice popsicles, picnics in the backyard, BBQ-ing, garage sales, family camping trips, lemonade, flip flops and pedicures, beach trips, bonfires, fresh fruit and plaid shorts. Ah! Summer is melting into Fall ...

Nie Recovery

One of our favorite online companies, Shabby Apple, is hosting an online auction to help the family of plane crash victim, Stephanie Nielson. If you would like to be a part of this check out Shabby Apple's Blog and auction:

http://www.shabbyapple.blogspot.com/

Or directly donate whatever you'd like to the Nie Recovery PayPal account:

I LOVE Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday besides Christmas. Halloween is very close to my birthday so, growing up I had dress up parties. Now I am an adult and still want to dress up, but it looks weird to dress up on Halloween and go grocery shopping or show up trick-o-treating with my 2 year old as a tiger ... people just look at you strangely and it takes all the fun out of wearing a headband with tiger ears on it and a tail ...

Everyone has Christmas parties and December is such a crazy busy month anyway, so that's out. Thanksgiving is not a month to hold parties, cuz everyone travels to be with family and it's more of a family holiday and everyone thinks Halloween is a kid holiday! Nobody thinks of holding a dress up party for adults! I LOVE IT! I always write on my invitations: "costumes are required".

Anyway, so my husband and I decided to start hosting an annual adult Halloween Party. I got the idea from my older sister. I spend months trying to figure out how to transform my home into an evil lair or a haunted old mansion. And picking out the food is as important to me as the decor - it's not fun to go to a party unless there's some awesome treats!!! So I thought I'd pass on a few links to my favorite Halloween ideas and websites ... you should start a tradition too!

Halloween Food
Spooky Tree Centerpiece
Tombstone Brownies
Glitter Tombstones

Of course, Martha Stewart is a bounty of knowledge and ideas ... here are some favs:
Orange Jack-o'-Lanterns with Sorbet
Pumpkin-Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches
Papier-Mache Pumpkins

The year I was pregnant with my first little boy, I had to come up with a Halloween costume and I was almost 8 months pregnant and huge!!! This is what we came up with: 3 Peas in a Pod

frank bag

So ... I called Christina the other day and said, "I need to come up with a few more Halloween bags, what should I do?" We threw around a few ideas and she asked what cool amterial I had lying around. I pulled out some purple velvet, shimmering silver polyester, lime green, shimmering black, and a bunch of fleece. I don't know how it inspired her, but Christina blurted out "How about Frankenstein?"

I asked how the heck I'd pull that off and she started describing shapes to me, "The hair is like upside down grass, you know, all spikey and the face is like a rounded rectangle ...". I kept her on the phone until I had it all cut out, then hung up and went to work. And we came up with the "frank" bag. I love Halloween!!!

littlemiddlesister

My friend, Suzanne, has the cutest line of clothing for little girls that she sells on etsy.com, so I thought I'd share it! Suzanne and I are friends from college. She and I sang the lead role for Carmen (the opera) together, except I was her understudy - she is amazing - as a person and as a singer!

She and her husband are in the process of adopting and in an effort to off-set the cost of adopting, she started this etsy shop. It's a worthy cause, supports a wonderful woman and they are the cutest little girl clothes!!! It's really a shame I only have little boys! Maybe someday ... check her out!