Grandpa Bill's Birthday

So my father-in-law came to me last Saturday and asked me to pull something out of my *ahem* hat for his father's 90th birthday celebration this Saturday. Ummm... one week's notice? No problem. I'd been farting around all week (read: filling orders, doing dishes, folding laundry, changing poopy diapers, attending playdates, etc.) before finally cracking down on Thursday to get a majority of the work done for this nonagenarian celebration.

I chose a pale blue and gold palette, not considering the repercussions this choice would have on a family full of die hard Trojan fans. (Oopsie. My bad.) Most of the decor was centered around the dessert table, where I finally had the opportunity to use these enormous three foot balloons I'd been coveting for awhile now (total show stoppers). Throw in a dozen or so balloons and a phenomenal photo table highlighting the last nine decades of the man of the hour's life and we called it a day. Check out a party planned on tight timeline:

Loving the pennant banner on this extra tall cake.

My new border from Etsy really dresses up my labels.

Cupcake wrappers and picks are my new go-tos.

Filled with chocolates and birthday wishes.

You know, it's really hard to find blue food.

Everyone was very pleased with the outcome and the birthday boy was very touched by all the efforts and attendees there to celebrate. Happy birthday Grandpa Bill!

Abby's Cowgirl-Palooza!

My sweet pea turned two in January and we threw her a rip roarin' hootenanny. Red bandanas, happy sunflowers and cowprint were the prevalent themes throughout.

To set the tone and get our guests excited for the country fun to come, we sent out fab invites made from actual denim pockets stuffed with a square of bandana fabric and the paper invitation details. The were a total show stopper and found for a steal through Etsy seller LuckyStarLane.

We set up a small table on the front porch with piles of cowboy hats and stick ponies tied with red bandanas for the little buckaroos to get in the mood as they entered the party. The ponies were an amazing find at the Dollar Tree, and, as I was still debating themes for Abby's second birthday when I happened upon these beauties, they sealed her cowgirl fate!

Inside the house, the western theme was continued in the kitchen where the chow and party favors were set up. I baked and decorated the birthday cake over three days, which as I'm typing this sounds ridiculous, but I find if I take things in little bites I'm less overwhelmed when the big day arrives. So there were about a gajillion royal icing cactus prickles, sunflower oreos (complete with ladybug red hots) and a giant white chocolate number 2 to make before the first cupcake even got iced. Having way more baking failures than successes under my belt, I was thrilled with how everything turned out.

Chocolate and peanut butter pony pops.

Elvis always has to make an appearance at Abby's birthday bash because she and the King share the same birthday. In fact, her first birthday party was an Elvis themed extravaganza - complete with bedazzled jumpsuit and gold lame' cape for the birthday girl.

Have a hunka-hunka birthday cake!

Favor bags filled with plastic six shooters, spurs and sheriff's badges.

Favor tags featuring the birthday girl's mug.

We decorated the back yard with more bandana banners, balloons and huge tissue paper sunflowers. I also made some banners out of yards of burlap and hand cut felt letters. One reading "Scurvy Varmints" to hang over the Wanted posters we put up on the garage. As the kids arrived, we took Polaroid shots of them and taped them to the posters to add to the western feel. We then handed them to the parents at the end of the party as a take home souvenir. The other banner read "Rudy Mining Co." and was hung over the gold mining station (a water table filled with sand and gold painted rocks).

Wanted posters.

Gold mining station.

The kids loved panning for gold.

Pioneer gift wagon.

Other activities for the kids were a craft table with red tin buckets full of crayons and cowboy themed coloring pages scored for free off the net. We also tried a game of pin the sheriff star on the cowgirl, with a picture of the birthday girl's face standing in for the sheriff. I soon found out that attempting to blindfold a gaggle of 2 year olds would turn out to be a bit of a joke. I finally gave up and just encouraged them to just shut their eyes and give it a go. Remarkably, each and every one of them hit the badge right on target every time. There is no honor in the two and under crowd! The other "activity" was the Okey Dokey Corral we set up with two plush rocking horses for the little ones to play on.

Pin the star on the sheriff!

Rockin horse corral.

The party was a huge success despite its culminating in a boot shaped pinata that was apparently made out of concrete and COULD NOT be destroyed. Lesson learned - no more freaking pinatas! Everyone had a great time and we got lots of fabulous feedback, which makes all the effort worthwhile.

Mmmmmm.... Cakey!

Double Your Pleasure

Business has been steady. Just steady. So I've been trying to expand my more popular line of onesies and tshirts for twins and come up with some new famous pairings (found at bambinamia.com).

The latest one is a new spin on an old classic: Mac and Cheese. It's been selling really well and is the most popular twin set yet.

Some other ideas I've been toying around with:

Rocker Chicks

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Chick Magnets

Rejected ideas:
*Gin and Tonic
*Liver and Onions
*Soddom and Ghammora

Oldies but goodies:

PB and J

Milk and Cookies

Bacon and Eggs

Salt and Pepper

Do I Need To Spell It Out For You?

This blog brought to you by the letter of the day. After one too many episodes of Sesame Street, I'm prompted to post this. (Abby is completely obsessed with that furry freak, Elmo!) So I've been surfing Etsy looking for cool alphabet inspired art and whatnot and discovered the following fabulous finds.

This bright and colorful miniature set of felt alphabet letters comes from fellow Etsian MiChiMa and is just perfect for tiny fingers to grasp. I love this vibrant and tactile way to introduce the A-B-C's, and it's a great way to illustrate the concept of colors, too! Snap up the entire set for just $18.00.

Okay - I think this is just too, too cool. Exlibrisdesigns will make a cloth book "featuring your child’s name appliquéd on the cover and spelled letter by letter throughout the book. Each letter beginning a different word and image on each page." And as you can see, she can do pretty much anything - so bring on the custom orders! All this work and creativity can be yours for just $60.00. Go get yours!

I'm strangely fascinated by bar codes. Don't know why, just am. So the ingenious use of them as zebra stripes in this collage by loranscruggs is doubly appealing. This one of a kind work is made up of a "variety of tin cans collaged and nailed to pine" and measures 11"x11"x 1/2. For $265.00 you can get this original piece of art or any letter you like and customize the image to boot. I'd love to see the enitre alaphabet she comes up with for this series! A is for Awesome.

My Love-Hate Relationship with Mr. T

Okay, so a little over a year ago I'd never heard of this thing called Etsy. It is now officially an obsession and this work-from-home-momma's only source of income!

When I was pregnant with sweet miss Abby I knew I wanted to stay home, but would need to bring in some additional income. I'd resigned myself to finding something brutally dull like data entry, but that would at least bring in a consistant paycheck. I never dreamed a year later I'd have a relatively successful career designing children's clothing that would allow me to be creative AND stay at home with my little one. And I owe it all to ETSY - and Mr. T. Allow me to explain.

It all began with a trip to the OC Swap Meet one fateful Sunday morning. My husband, the babe and I were just poking around when I found a booth selling some really cute onesies. I bought one, saw they were just flocked iron-on transfers, and thought - hey, I can do this. So I went on line, found some transfers and fired up the old iron. The downside to the transfers was having to be so limited to what was available in the market. I felt I had some rather novel ideas and whackadoo images I'd like to try, so I went ahead and made my own iron-ons from felt.

Now I had a bunch of stock - what to do with them? My sister recommended I try shilling them on this website featuring only hand-made items called Etsy.com. Etsy-dot-who? I checked it out and thought... I dunno. But the price was right and I figured for such a small investment - what the hell, it beats schlepping all my stock and opening a booth at craft fairs around town (see below).

Our humble beginnings - Naples Pancake Breakfast, May 2008

So March 6, 2008, I uploaded everything on Etsy (www.bambinamia.etsy.com) and boom! My first sale in less than 24 hours! I was thrilled! Then another and another! And the funny thing was only my original designs were selling - not the mass produced iron-ons I'd planned on making my fortunes from. So those were quickly ditched as more original designs were added.

My very first sale: Orange Pop

Before I knew it I had a steady stream of sales - each one eliciting an ecstatic phone call to mom and sis (which have subsequently stopped, they're thrilled to report). So where does Mr. T come into the picture? I'll tell you.

I had a client request a custom order onesie of Mr. T as Clubber Lang from the Rocky III movie. I thought, oh that is gooood! So I made her the Rocky Mr. T and I was so inspired I made another version for my store.

Custom Mr. T as Clubber Lang from Rocky III

The second version of Mr. T - I Pity the Drool

Well, it immediately took off and has been a runaway best seller since the first day I posted him, garnering a lot of attention and leading to some phenomenal wholesale and media opportunities, like a feature in Long Beach Magazine (March 2009). For these reasons, I LOOOVE Mr. T. And for the 10,000 fucking tiny Mr. T eyebrows I've had to cut out, I HAAAATE Mr. T.

Long Beach Magazine - March, 2009