I Used to Take Art Lessons

Me and my girlfriends did something super awesome this weekend, and no, we didn't get a tattoo. Although, speaking of tattoo, I did decide if I ever get one, that I now know what it would be. (-:

One of my college roomies is getting married, and my BFF Leah and I threw her a bachelorette party/personal shower. Leah came up with the idea to go to a place called "Pinot's Palette" where you learn to paint a picture, and you can also do some wine tasting while you are there. They provide all the supplies and the canvas, and a teacher to teach a class full of people how to paint the same painting.

So, we loaded up and heading to Pinot's. We arrived and they had all of our names already near our assigned canvases - it was so fun!! Here's my place:

You are allowed to bring your own snacks, so we brought fruit, cheese and crackers, and chocolate peanut butter covered almonds. We basically won the award for most awesome snacks. Once we had our snacks settled, it was time to get our smocks on and get ready to paint! Here I am with the other hostess, Leah, with a little moscato from Castello de Poggio - it's my favorite - they serve it at Olive Garden. 

We didn't have any control over what we were painting - we just knew what day we had to do the party on, so we weren't super crazy about the painting they offered that day, but we were good sports about it. (-: Here I am getting my paint on.

A little something you may of may not know about me is that I can be, um, overly kind of competitive and somewhat of a perfectionist. (-: So I set to work on my painting and channeled everything I could remember from art lessons when I was a kid. hehe. I quickly remembered why I "gave up" art - it was because I could never get it to look exactly how I wanted it and always ended up frustrated with whatever project I was working on. Kids - this is not a good reason to give up something you love and are good at, so learn from me. Don't quit! (Side note: I also had a complete meltdown in kindergarten one day because I couldn't draw a diamond - hey that's a complex shape! They pinned a note to my shirt so my mom would know what kind of emotionally unstable kid she had.) Anyway, I guess my art lessons paid off, because random people in the class were coming up to me and asking if I was an artist. I was kind of a celebrity. I told them I used to take art lessons. HA. I'll just let my painting speak for itself. 

I know, call me Monet. And here is Leah, with her finished masterpiece. We are going to quit our day jobs and sell our paintings. (-;

I think Emily (the bride-to-be) had a lot of fun, as is evidenced in this candid shot:

And here she is with another one of our college friends:

The atmosphere was super fun and laid back, and we definitely want to go back. Oh, here's a great shot of me checking Leah's teeth. (-: What are friends for?

Here's a group picture of us with our paintings:

 My coworkers are soon getting the privilege of being able admire my artwork on a daily basis, because that bad boy is totally going up on the wall at my office. Because heck to the no am I putting that up in my house. haha. (-:

So that's my story from Pinot's Palette! (-:

Have a wonderful week everyone!
~Kathryn

A Baby Shower

Well, the baby shower came and went, and I would say that overall, it was successful. I am still recuperating from my lack of sleep, but I think if I get a good night's sleep tonight I will be all caught up! (-:

My friend, Katie, is doing a lamb theme in her nursery. She is not sure yet if she is going to have a boy or a girl, so that left me with green, yellow, and lambs. I started researching and getting ideas around the first of year, and I think the finished product turned out really beautifully. I bought plastic off white table cloths, and then purchased some yellow fabric to lay over them.

Here is a picture of the three tables, all together:

Here they are individually:

This was the first table, with the cake on it. My mom made the cake - it's a wonderful cake with a berry filling and white chocolate frosting. There is also a little tray of tomato/basil/mozzarella snacks with olive oil and balsamic vinegar on them. Here are a couple close-ups:

I decided to through in flowers and butterflies to go with the lamb theme. For the flowers I picked out hydrangeas. They are really beautiful and went with the colors. And you'll see little stuffed animal lambs on the tables.

And here's the beautiful cake my mom worked very hard on. It was so delicious. Pretty much everyone wants the recipe. (-:

Next we have the middle table. The middle food item is a chicken salad loaf that my mom made, and iced with cream cheese. It was soo yummy! (-:

I know that's kind of hard to see, so I will do some close ups. First, in the middle you see the diaper cake I made. It really wasn't hard - I watched an online tutorial on how to do it. A little time consuming, but definitely something I will do again. (-:

Isn't is precious? I put some organic baby soaps on there for decoration and a little lamb on top. So cute!

On that same table, we had cucumber sandwiches, and little butterfly cookie cutters for everyone to take as a party favor. Also, I got a little butterfly puzzle that is chemical free and so cute. Under each layer of the butterlfly is another puzzle - one coming out of the cocoon and one in the cocoon. 

Next we have on that same table an area where people could write prayers, encouraging notes, or advice for the new mommy. 

This box was so sweet I had to get a close up:

It's Humpty Dumpty! Yay!

And the third table. I got some wooden letters and painted them yellow and green. 

Here they are, and also I framed a copy of her baby shower invitation. And I got those pink and blue butterfly holders as name card holders for all the food items:

These sugar cookies I worked really hard on, and then people thought they were store bought and didn't eat them. They are butterflies and lambs. I'm glad I went to all that trouble - ha. It's okay, though, our Sunday lunch guests ate all of them. (-:

I found this frame and figured I had to use it:

So. That's basically everything. For punch I made this yummy slushy punch with bananas, pineapple juice, 7-up, and some other things. We also had strawberry lemonade, coffee and water. 

Now, as far as the games are concerned. Thank you guys so much for all the suggestions. Mark and I both laughed out loud at a lot of them. I ended up not having a ton of time to get a game together with all the other shower stuff I was working on, so I went with the standard use toilet paper to guess how round the mommy's tummy is game. Here are a couple photos from that:

And the winner, who happened to be here sister:

That was a fun game.

Here I am with the mommy-to-be:

And here's the group with her gifts:

And finally, here we are with the diaper cake:

So, overall the shower went really well. I thought everything turned out beautifully and all the guests "ooohed" and "aaahhed" over everything. I really hope Katie liked it. 

Whew! That is a lot of pictures! I hope you enjoyed it!

~Kathryn