Amber's vintage travel and airplane baby shower

It has finally come and gone. I have been working on Amber's baby shower for months now...Literally months. I think the minute I found out she was having a baby boy I started researching what I wanted to do. I came across this vintage travel idea on the Hostess with the Mostess blog and couldn't get the idea out of my mind. I had to recreate it. I just had to!! Obsessed much? Maybe just a little. 

I started frequenting ebay...often. I really got hooked on ebay bidding. I found vintage airplanes, vintage stamps, vintage luggage.... Yeah I found a lot. Good thing I love all things vintage because now I have a house full of this awesome stuff. 

I started with the invitations and can say that several of my night shifts at work were spent creating them. People at work have been asking me forever if I have finally had the shower yet because that is where a lot of my crafting happened. I think my favorite part was the vintage stamps. Seriously the envelopes were art because of all the cool stamps.

After the invitation problem was solved I moved on to menu and activites. I HATE baby shower games so I opted for having the guests decorate onesies and write "postcards" to baby Miles and 

Amber. It was a blast!

(I would like to thank Jeff and his brother Scott for making that adorable onsie display rack for me. SO CUTE! They are the best!)

For the menu I wanted everyone to have options. So, I made 3 types of cupcakes, 3 types of Smørbrød (norwegian open face sandwiches) and then some side dishes. I can honestly say that I didn't eat but everyone else seemed to be enjoying it. :-)

And of course I decorated with vintage travel books and airplanes. 

The shower turned out great and we had a wonderful turnout. 

I am not sure why but after setting up and hosting all day I passed out on the couch. When I woke up I felt so stiff and sore...kind of like I had been digging trenches. I guess that just goes to show me that hosting is hard work...but oh so fun!

I have been bugging Jeff for over a year about how I "NEED" a sewing machine. 
It usually comes up after I have been on Pinterest. 
I can't help it! I just always seem to see so many wonderful projects that I NEED to do. 

Well, when my SIL found out she was having a boy and decided that the theme of her nursery would be pirates we started searching for cute crib bedding. Unfortunately, the only pirate stuff we found was either ugly or custom....And custom=expensive. 

So, I started researching how hard it would be to make our own. :-)

I found some adorable fabric from the Blake Riley collection and convinced Amber that we could make some of it ourselves...like the bumper. 

I went ahead and bought the fabric deciding that I could use my moms old sewing machine. Unfortunately when we pulled it out it was all jammed up. We took it in to the repair shop to see if we could fix it and in the end it was a lost cause. 

SO.........
I HAD to get a sewing machine...for reals!!

Wooohoooo!!! 

My MIL and SIL Trisha suggested I go to Floyd and Lizzies and look at their Pfaff sewing machines. They were so helpful! Daniel (Floyd and Lizzies sales guy...actually he said is sister was the Lizzie in the name...) sat with me and showed me everything I wanted to see then went ahead and gave me a KILLER deal on this beaut. 
I haven't done much sewing in my life...ok so I did one quilt for YW way back when and my mom did most of it. But I can honestly say that I LOVE sewing now and this machine is so fun. 

**AMBER DAHL SPOILER ALERT**
(There will be some pictures of things made for baby Miles that will be given to you at a later date...like the shower...Proceed at your own risk!!!)

 I went ahead and made the crib bumper for Amber using this tutorial. It was very easy to follow, even by a novice like me, and it turned out great. She knows I was making this but hasn't seen it yet. Here is a sneak peak of how it turned out.

Then, once I finished that, I couldn't stop! 
I was hooked. 
I ended up following this minky blanket tutorial and made 2 blankets then followed this tutorial and made a stack of burp cloths with all the left over fabric. 

I can safely say I broke in my new machine. :-)

Up-cycling Addict

Over the summer I took on the task of refinishing some furniture for my SIL.

 It all started when my mom bought a tall, solid wood dresser from a yard sale for ten bucks. It was in pretty rough shape but I saw the potential and offered to refinish it.

I wish I had a before picture. 

I always get so carried away with the projects that I forget. 

Any way, it had been spray painted black, it was beat up (all the dings filled in with putty), only two of the drawers had holes drilled in for handles, and the sides ended up being particle board. Good times!

I started by striping the whole thing then sanding it down.

I convinced my niece and nephew to help... Mwahhahaha!

After stripping the dresser I dug out all the putty from the dents. 

Putty doesn't stain and I wanted to stain this piece. 

After digging out all the putty, I beat the crap out of the dresser with a big chain, a sock full of bolts and a crow bar. 

So much fun! 

I then, with the help of Rylie, stained it with a beautiful dark walnut that I have had sitting around the house. 

 Now, as I said before, the sides were particle board and I couldn't just stain them, so I covered them in fabric. My mom actually gave me the idea by saying we should put wallpaper on them. Well, it turns out that pirate wallpaper is expensive and hard to find and since the theme of the nursery was pirates I really wanted to either stick with that or maps. 

I just wasn't having much luck in the wallpaper department so I turned to fabric. I found just what I wanted and pulled out  my dear old friend mod podge. Hurrah for mod podge!

It turned out amazing! I think it is one of my favorite pieces I've done so far.

Now, after that dresser turned out so well, I couldn't just leave the old white changing table from my infancy alone. I had to match it. So I striped that and sanded it as well. It had some heavy paint layers in some pretty awesome colors... Like guacamole green. 

Unfortunately for me, the dresser was barely wood. The sides and top were made out of some strange material that took forever to strip and didn't want to stain. I ended up spray painting them an espresso brown then glazing over them with the dark walnut to match the front and the drawers. 

It gave me a bit of a challenge but it turned out fine in the end.

As usual I forgot to get a before picture BUT like I said this changing table was used for both myself and my brother. So......I did one better. I found an original picture of the changing table...in my brothers baby book!! :-D

This was the front, flowers and all. Look at those chunky legs on my brother. BAH!

Here, if you can look past the awesome wallpaper and fabulous glasses my mom is wearing, you can see the top of the table. I'm sorry that I don't have a full picture of it but you get the idea. 

AFTER: