Baby Shower- Owls & Pinwheels Decorations

So I am back to talk about the Owl & Pinwheel shower decorations. Everything that we made was super easy but some were a little more time consuming then I had anticipated. However it was all TOTALLY worth it in the end! I am about to spew a lot at you so go and grab a cup of coffee and get cozy… it’s ok I’ll wait…

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OK, are you ready? Let’s get started!

Pinwheels:

To make our pinwheels I used this tutorial but modified. I did not really care if the pinwheels spun around or not. So I just did the first part of the tutorial without adding the pin to make it spin. 

Here are a few things that I learned in this process that I wish I knew BEFORE I started making the pinwheels:

{one} Thicker is NOT better- When I bought the paper for the party I got really nice and thick cardstock, however when making pinwheels you want a lighter weight cardstock. The paper we used for the pinwheels was so thick I wanted to scream (ok… lets be honest I may have actually screamed a few times). Since the cardstock was so thick I had to use more hot glue then I would have liked, fortunately I had a bunch of super cute beads that I could put in the middle to hide this little problem.

{two} Hot Glue is…. HOT- Ok, so I realize that this is a “no duh” statement but when hot gluing a precise (read: small) area it is best to have a little dowel to hold the paper down as opposed to your finger. Pretty sure I completely burned my fingerprints straight off before I finally wised up and started using a dowel. Hey I never claimed to be smart, just crafty!

Canvas:

I have been seeing the idea of using a canvas as a guest book for a wedding floating around the internet for awhile now and I have just been itching to throw some sort of party that would warrant me doing one. Once the theme was set for the shower I knew that this was something that I had to do for the party! Making the canvas was super easy!

{one} I started by drawing a picture of a tree on a piece of paper, cutting it out and stenciling it on the canvas (I am sure I could have just drawn the tree directly on the canvas but I was not sure how well the pencil would erase from the canvas if I made a mistake and I am not that confident in my drawing ability)

{two} Paint the tree in desired color (I found it best to paint the outline first with a thin brush and then go back and fill in)

{three} Let dry!

{four} I had some of the material that Everett’s nursery is being done in so I got out my super sharp sewing scissors and very carefully cut out three little owls from the material. (I also tossed around the idea of making a simple owl out of paper and sticking it on, but I loved the fact that when the canvas was done it would exactly match his room)

{five} To adhere the owls I used some liquid fabric starch and water. I decided to do this versus mod podge for a few reasons: (1)If I did not like were the owl was placed I could simply peel it off wipe down the canvas and stick him on somewhere else. (2) If Patti decided that she did not want to hang it in his room but somewhere else, she could peel the owls off and add something else (or leave it plain) and no one would know!

{six} Lastly I used a fine tip permanent pen to write Everett’s name on the canvas, and viola!

I thought that this project was going to be the most difficult to pull off and it was the easiest and took hardly any time at all!

Bunting: 

I got the inspiration for the paper bag bunting from here. 

I did mine a bit different then the tutorial said. For one, I did not use material but paper that matched the pinwheels. I also did not cut any of the bag off. I used the extra amount of paper on the bag to fold over and sew across of to create a loop for the yarn to go through. I also kept mine a bit simpler than the tutorial is for. I knew Patti would end up using it in Everett’s nursery and I wanted to keep it sweet and simple so it would easily be incorporated into his room.

Also, sadly I do not have a silhoutte, so I printed out the letters I needed off my computer and had a friend (thanks Vanessa) cut the letters out, trace them onto the cardstock and then cut those out. This made a project that should have taken less then an hour take…. Ummmm… well lets just say it was a lot longer than an hour.

After making the bunting with Everett’s name, we also made ones that said food and gifts.

“Love Note” Tree:

I had an idea to keep with the tree theme of the canvas to make a “tree” for people to hang love notes on to Baby Everett. So easy and cute!

Literally all I did was send the hubs out to cut down some branches. Then I threw a bunch of decorative marbles into a big vase, wrapped the vase with the leftover yarn from the bunting and popped the branches into place. 

For the love notes, I took the scraps of cardstock I had left, cut them to 4X2½ inch pieces, and printed out on sticker paper something that said “love note to Everett” with a little owl on the bottom.

When people came to the shower they wrote a note and put it up on the tree with a clothespin.

There were tons of other things that were added to the party for little to no money, but those are the main things. {did I overload you?}

I will be back later this week to give you some free printables I used for the party!