Getting Creative for Brooke's Shower

HeyHey! I'm Haley.... Jamie's bff and we're doin a little blog swappin.

Jamie has SO graciously kept my pup Lucy while I've been living in East Asia for the last year- for which I am beyond grateful. She has been a good mama to my sweet girl. I used getting Lucy back to me as an excuse to see her the weekend after we returned and she so graciously made the drive and met me at my parent's in East TN. So during our time together, we knew we had to be crafty
and saw the perfect opportunity with Brooke's approaching baby shower.

Brooke went to UK with us, and was such a dear friend in college. She and her husband are so much fun, and love the Lord passionately. She has always been such an encouraging friend. We are super excited about her sweet boy Finn's arrival in just a couple of months now. Finn isn't Brooke & Brandon's first baby, but he will be the first little one that they bring home with them. They had to release their first little boy into the arms of Jesus last September when he was born. It's definitely worth your time to read some of their story over on her blog.
Its an incredible story of perseverance
and hope in the midst of a lot of pain and sorrow.

Brooke is also super creative and fun, so we wanted to show her love by putting some time and love into making some special gifts for her and Finn. Jamie had the fantastic idea of using ideas from some of Brooke's Pinterest boards. I tell ya, she's a smart one. 

After clicking around on Brooke's Pinterest pages, we picked a few things that we really liked:

A photographer assistant onesie {as Brooke is a new aspiring photographer}

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Dr. Seuss inspired art....

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.... and embroidery hoops- clearly not girly ones, but just the idea in general. 

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So we decided at the least we wanted to make these things and maybe a few others if we could.

Since we were visiting my parents, we didn't have many things on hand so off to Michael's we went. This was my first time setting foot in crafting heaven since I came back to America a week before, so I went a little crazy. Feel free to come visit my blog soon to see the loot. 

The "Oh The Places You'll Go" painting on her Pinterest page is so super cute. Ours didn't quite turn out how we intended, but our lack of patience got the best of us and we decided to just free-hand it. 

Little Finn's nursery is gray, so we decided to just paint it gray with the yellow and ended up with this:

a little wonky, but cute nonetheless. 

Then the embroidery hoop..... 

This trend started when I was in East Asia this year, and so I'd been dying to buy a bunch of them and insisted that we make at least one for her. We decided that we'd make an Africa one since Finn will eventually have a brother from Ethiopia {they're currently in the process of adopting as well}. We thought this would be just one more fun way to anticipate his brother's arrival. 

We chose this cute striped fabric Jamie had and then decided on thread colors. Then Jamie did a ballin job freehand sketching a picture of Africa on a piece of paper. Then she poked holes in the paper, and then made a little "connect-the-dot" pattern on the fabric. She did the embroidering and then topped it off with a heart in Ethiopia. 

I was impressed to say the least. 

I think this is my favorite of everything we made. It turned out so well! 

Then onto the onesies. We sent my helpful mama to Wal-Mart while we were working on the first 2 projects to buy the onesies for us, and she came back with a 3 pack, so we decided we needed to use all 3. Jamie brought some SUPER fun fabric to use with her.
She seriously finds such great stuff. 

First I really wanted to make one with his name. We used that interfusing stuff. We cut out the letters, ironed it all on and then hand stitched around the boarder of the letters. The only mistake that we made was using the "don't sew with this kind" of interfusing and went ahead and sewed with it anyway... and bent needles and created hand cramps in the process. Next time, we'll follow the instructions.

Then we decided to make a sail boat, as it is a hobby of their family's. Jamie did a fantastic job on it. 

And finally the "Assistant" onesie

I think it's so stinkin cute. Hopefully Brooke can shoot

 some fun things with her little assistant next spring!!

And finally for a little something extra, I made a paper frame. I have a slight obsession with making these and have a made a few for different people in the last year. They're super easy and fun. 

I just painted the edges of the frame, cut paper to fit,

 and mod-podged it on the front. 

Then, I painted this little monkey and gave him paper body parts, and filled in the features with a sharpie. 

And then I painted the letters and stuck them on there. 

Such a simple, but fun little craft that anyone can make. 

Here is everything we got done during our time together. It was so fun to get to craft together after quite the hiatus.... and for such a special friend. I was glad that I could do something for her as I wasn't able to go to the shower. 

I hope that you have enjoyed our little blog swap.
Please do come over to my blog to see Jamie's highlights from Brooke's shower! Let me know you came over from here to say "Hey!" It'll make my day! So head on over to check it out!!!