How to Use Engineering Prints to Decorate at a Party

One of my favorite decorating touches at our daughter's first birthday party was the photo collage I made with engineering prints and poster board. Just as I did with my son, I took photos of her every month of her first year wearing numbered onesie stickers. 

At my son's first birthday party, I hung a banner with his photos from each month. 

I knew that I wanted to do something similar for her party. Instead of a banner, I made a collage of the 12 photos with PicMonkey and then had a large engineering print of the collage made.

Here is the engineering print of the photo collage on black poster board and on the wall. I used felt roses for some extra pops of red and to disguise the tacks that I hung the board with.

I loved the way it turned out so much, the was process so simple, and the cost so low, that I decided to choose several of my favorite photos of her from birth to a year and make prints of them to use at the party as well.

A lot of people have asked me how and where I made the prints for the photo wall so I'm going to show you how I did it.

I used Staples and was really happy with the quality and how fast they were done but you can do it at other copy/print/mail centers as well. Follow these instructions if you want to do it using the Staples website.

When you get to the Staples Copy & Print online store, click on 'Oversized Prints'

I selected 'Engineering Prints in B/W'

You'll need to click on Media (Blueprints...) to select the size you want. I chose the 18X24 size. Check the box at the bottom that says 'Fit content to Paper'

Click on 'Add Files' in the upper left corner and select a photo from your computer or disk that you want to print. This is the photo that I used to make a poster for the mantel.

After previewing your photo, just add to your cart and order! All of mine were ready for me to pick them up within an hour. 

For the wall collage I used a combination of washi tape, heart clothespins, and clear tacks to affix my prints to poster boards. Because the paper for the prints is so thin, you might not want to use any kind of adhesive that could bleed through the paper and stain the photo. I hung the prints with a LOVE sign that I made out of leftover paneling and vinyl lettering and it made for such a sweet Valentine's Day first birthday photo wall.

The engineering prints are perfect for a party decoration or something like a word art print but are not meant for high resolution photo printing. Photo canvases are still my favorite way to display my pictures.

That said, I'm going to order one of these engineering prints before purchasing photo canvases in the future. Because it's difficult to visualize how a photo will look when it's really large, this is a perfect way to determine what will look good before paying big bucks for the canvas that can't be returned.

Preppy Bunny Silhouette for Spring

Even though my oldest stopped napping, an enforced 'quiet time' while the baby takes her afternoon nap leaves me a small window of time to get things done. That something varies from cleaning to crafting but whichever it is, it has to be fast. 

This rabbit silhouette for spring and Easter decorating was a super easy and fast project that I made mostly with materials I had on hand. I bought the fluffy yarn for the cottontail and the furniture nails.

First I used a staple gun to cover a small canvas I had with a piece of an extra drop cloth we had. I hammered bronze colored furniture nails all around the border of the canvas.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the rabbit silhouettes out of cardstock and then used spray adhesive to apply them.  I already had the cut file for my Silhouette saved from a project I'm working on in my son's room but there are a ton of free printables that could be used if you don't have one. Just print one out and trace it onto the fabric or paper that you want and then cut it with scissors. 

For the preppy look I made the bunnies in navy and green and gave one a little pink ribbon around her neck.

For the cottontail I thought I would cover a small styrofoam ball with the yarn but it was too big. Instead, I just wound the yarn around my finger until it was the right size and hot glued the ball onto the rabbit. 

The canvas is going to bring a sweet and preppy spring touch to the mantel (when I take down the Valentine's Day decor) and will be a perfect Easter decoration. Not bad for a project that took less than an hour from start to finish!

For now it looks so cute sitting on the front room table.

A Sweet February

I'm not sure how it happened. Not only did the last month pass in the blink of an eye but I don't see how we celebrated our baby's first birthday already. 

A girls (and baby girls) getaway weekend to the mountains, two parties, and three snow days capped off with a stomach flu made our cold month fly by.

When my daughter was born a year ago I knew starting another 'baby phase' meant potentially two more years of a nursing baby dependent on me and the schedule that entails. I'm so grateful to have friends that not only wanted me to come away for the weekend with them but also didn't blink an eye at letting me bring a baby on a moms' getaway trip! 

We stayed at a beautiful house in Cashiers, NC. Although I'm sure it would've been more relaxing to go alone, I'm just not at a point in my life that leaving my baby home would feel like a vacation. She enjoyed all of the attention that she got and the chance to be spoiled. The house had a sandy beach and dock and I enjoyed the chance to take some photos in the sunshine.

February was just filled with sweet smiles, sweet friends, and so many sweet desserts! I made three cakes this month, 4 dozen cupcakes, rice krispie pops, cookies, and polished off a box of chocolates. 

A few of our friends and their littles helped us celebrate a 'Bee Mine' first birthday on Valentine's Day. I made this beehive cake with little sugar bees and a heart door and topper.

I also made a little strawberry smash cake for the ever adorable 'first taste of cake' photos.

I made cupcakes with marshmallow frosting and fondant bee toppers.

I had way more fun with the 'Bee Mine' theme than I thought I would and was left wondering how I waited this long to have a Valentine's Day party. 

I covered our living room wall with giant photos from the baby's first year including a collage of 12 months of photos. I'll share the details on how I did it for less than 10$ and other details from her party soon!

The month of sweet moments ended yesterday with a beach themed baby shower and I made this 'baby footprints on the beach' cake for it.

I'm looking forward to March with plans to do a ton of spring cleaning, organizing and projects, helping out at my son's school, warm weather (I hope) and taking a short break from parties.

I'll share more photos and details from the 'Bee Mine' party this week and also some new projects I've been working on soon!

DIY Valentine's Day Craft : Hearts Tree

Taking down all of the Christmas red is always a little sad and can make the house seem as cold as the air outside. While I was shopping the after Christmas sales this year, I kept finding red decorations that would be just as cute for Valentine's Day. Because I'm planning a Valentine's Day first birthday party, I've started to get the house ready and I'm loving having bright red all over the house again. So if the house is feeling a little blah after taking down the Christmas glitz, just do what I'm doing and throw some hearts all over it!

I used red felt hearts to trim the same white spray painted branch I use all of the time and instantly brightened and warmed up the foyer. Love it. I'm still deciding whether to keep it in the entry or use somewhere else at the party so more pictures to follow!

One of the best bargains I found after Christmas was a stack of wild looking sparkly floral accents. They were 90% off because they were a holiday item so each stem was about 30 cents. Even if they end up being a tad sparkly at Christmas, for a Valentine's Day party centerpiece or mantel, I love them.

I'm having so much fun planning a Valentine's Day party as crazy and a little sad as it is to me how fast this first birthday has arrived. There are a lot of hearts flying around here and I'm loving it.

Heart of Gold Ornament

Even though I doubt there's a gift teachers like to receive more than a gift card, I wanted to make something to include with it for our son's teachers.

I used a sparkly sequined paper to cover an mdf heart and created a shiny ornament with a message on the back that we appreciate their heart of gold.

To keep the paper from tearing and to keep the tiny little bits of sequins from falling off, I coated the heart with sealer before threading the rope back through.

I wrote a message on the back with a gold marker.

I might use the ornament as a gift tag on the gift card box. I think it would also be really cute to make a gold star for a teacher gift!

Make Guests Feel at Home during the Holidays

Each year since we lived in San Diego we have served Thanksgiving at our house. Our tables were set in an apartment in California for just the two of us and my sister, for a table full of Marines in our house in Yemen, and for a table crowded with family with high chairs and messy faced babies in New York.

I spent some time today looking back at all of the photos from those Novembers, all the way back to 2002. My taste (both in food and decorating) has changed but what remains is a love for this holiday and the way it brings people special to us to our table.

Here is the cheese log we made in Yemen with cheese I ordered online for the occasion. For some reason this seems so funny to me looking back at it.

Here was our cheese and appetizer setting a few years ago when we served nuts as an accompaniment to the cheese instead of rolling it in them!

As the years passed, the Thanksgiving table and cheese became less of the focus and my photos started to show the faces of the people who joined us saying cheese. My parents have traveled to Switzerland, North Carolina, and now Georgia to spend Thanksgiving with us and I'm so thankful they're able. No holiday decorating, no side dishes or desserts, no place setting matters to me as much as the feeling of having my family spend that time together.

Because we travel to visit family so often, I know how it feels to be a guest in someone's home. Clean and comfortable rooms are great but what always stands out are the little gestures that make them feel relaxed and welcome. Instead of trying to make my home into a hotel, my favorite way to welcome guests is to help them feel like my home is home.

We all know how it feels to need something in the kitchen at someone else's home. If the host is preparing a meal, it can be uneasy to ask them for something. To prevent that in my house, I used these little chalkboard stickers and labeled the most important cabinets in the kitchen!

Labeling doors like the coat closet or the kitchen cabinets to save someone from opening them all in search of one thing is easy, quick, and a nice touch.

Labeling your doors is a way of not just saying 'please help yourself' but actually helping the guests to do so.

No one wants to be the first one awake and not know where to find the coffee!

G is for Grateful

It was hard not to give in to the temptation to decorate for Christmas this week when I put away all of the Halloween gear but a fall chill in the air and the leaves finally turning put me in the mood for Thanksgiving style around the house.

I had this fall leaves wreath above the door.

Just inside the front door a green and brown vase is filled with fall colors. Even though I don't love fake flowers, this time of year the faux seems to work. 

The foyer table has a horn of plenty pine cones and the same spray painted white branch I've been using around the house since a New York Easter it spent as an egg tree.

I like to stuff the horn of plenty with dinner rolls on the Thanksgiving table but pine cones and gourds work in the meantime. (and I just like saying horn of plenty)

For the mantel, I took away the orange but left the white pumpkins from Halloween. I added the 'Grateful' leaves canvas I made with my son and some sparkly flowers that I've used in the past to decorate a grapevine wreath.

Nearby some paper leaves and a 'Count Your Blessings' pumpkin warm up a corner of the living room bookcase.

There are only a few simple fall items here and there throughout the downstairs, leaving it room to breathe for the next few weeks until I cover every inch of it in Christmas cheer.  But right now the only thing I want decorating the kitchen is the pumpkin bread.