Made with Love

Lately I've been crafting up a storm. The catalyst for my crafting spree is the baby boom going on around me. Between co-workers, church/small group friends, and other good friends, there are a lot of babies being added to the various circles of people in my life.

It started back in January when I threw a baby shower at my office for 4 co-workers. For that shower I made my first diaper cake centerpiece.

Two of the co-workers honored at the shower, Alex and Tyler, are in my department, and I work very closely with them on a daily basis. So, I decided to make them something extra special. For each of their babies I made a set of wooden baby blocks. The blocks display different things on each side. One side of the blocks spells the babies initials (Tyler's baby's blocks have his nickname, Mac, on one side as well as his initials on another side), one side displays "abc," one side displays "123," and the other sides have symbols/shapes.

Baby Mac's blocks:

Baby Abigail's Blocks:

In March, myself and my other small group girls threw a baby shower honoring our friend Jamie and her soon-to-be born baby, Addyson. For that I did another diaper cake centerpiece. I wanted to make something special again, so I made Addyson a hand painted hair bow hanger.

Here's Addyson's diaper cake and hair bow hanger:

A week after Jamie's shower, I attended a shower for a sweet friend, Andrea, who is adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia. She and her husband are actually going to Ethiopia to pick up their sweet Abigail on April 13! For Abigail's gift I decided to make another type of bow holder. This one is made with ribbons on a canvas. I asked Andrea what color her nursery was and she told me red, muted lime green, black, white, and silver - which why I chose this color scheme. I love the way it turned out!

Bows I made for Abigail's bow holder:

Now I am onto another crafting project unrelated to babies. My recent muse stemmed from last Monday night when I was at a girl's night get together with girlfriend's from church. We meet once a month, usually on a Monday night. Sometimes we go out to dinner, once we all got pedicures after dinner, and some months we get together in someone's home. This month we met in a home and got crafty with scriptures to display in our homes. To make mine, I used a cheap dollar store picture frame and scrapbook paper.

The scripture I chose for my first project is a scripture I have been claiming for my life and trying to choose to daily follow its command:

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I totally plan on making more of these. This is such a great idea to keep scripture in front of you and help keep your mind on things above rather than earthly things (Colossians 3:2). And it's pretty inexpensive too!