Baby Shower "Bunting"

A here, back from a much needed vacation to see the family. While I was out of town I had the opportunity to help my mother decorate for a family baby shower, a piece of which she's allowed me to share with all of you! I know I've said before that my mother is one of our biggest supporters and also where I learned my crafty ways. It's no surprise, then, when she comes up with a simple and elegant shower decoration worthy of a DIY blogpost.

 In planning the shower she had seen projects that used clothes pins stamped with rubber stamps and wanted to use the idea for the party. From there, she decided it would be cute to have a "clothesline" similar to how many others are creating buntings as decoration. But what to pin to such a line?

This is where my mom gets clever. She's a teacher and likes things to be interactive. So, she set to work creating decorative tags for each shower attendee to write wishes on. On the front of each tag was a vintage image of a baby girl and on the back was the phrase "Wishes for Lily."

To create the cards, she started where many of us have, with a Google image search. After finding her preferred baby girl, she opened a Publisher file set up as a blank business card template. This saved her time with dimensions. She added the baby image to the front, and a border image to the back to frame the text. After trimming on a rotary cutter...Voila! She had her "laundry" for the "clothesline."

 

For the clothespins she used pigment ink and a long skinny stamp to print a pretty design, then added the words "hugs" and "kisses" across the tops with another stamp. The final product was a cute way to decorate the mantel and a great take home for the mommy-to-be!

As with many of our projects, this one could be altered or converted for many occasions. Wishes for a happy couple, housekeeping suggestions at a housewarming, secrets about the bride at a bachelorette. It's such a simple and inexpensive idea, I'd love to see what others do with it! I might even use it myself someday and have to share my results.