Monday, August 20, 2012

Button and Bow Tie Garland

The Diaper Trike was not the only thing I attempted to make for our cousin Katie's Baby Shower. The overall theme for the shower was "Buttons and Bow ties" - inspired in part from this pin:

From The Hostess with the Mostess Blog. The shower they threw was adorable, and I loved the bow tie garland they made with diapers. Since I had the diapers taken care of with the trike, I tried to replicate with onsies.

It was pretty simple, I just folded over the sleeves to make one long strip, then folded the ends in and secured with a rubber band and covered the rubber band with ribbon:






I thought they came out cute, but thought they needed a "little more". I was brainstorming ways to add buttons to the garland without looking cheesy. My first attempt was using a simple salt dough and cookie cutters to make a couple. I was inspired by this pin for sugar cookies:

And this recipe for salt dough. I mixed all the ingredients and added some blue good coloring:


And kneaded and kneaded and kneaded. After 10 minutes, I rolled it out and used two different sized circular cookie cutters and a straw to make them look like buttons.



Of course, once again, I did not read the directions all the way through and only gave myself an hour to bake them at 200 degrees before I was falling asleep on the couch. "No biggie", I thought to myself. It says you can also let them dry out for 48 hours. I figured I could throw them back in the oven the next day for a couple hours and they would be as good as gold. Unfortunately, even after drying out all night, and being in the oven the next day for 4 hours, and then drying for a week, they never hardened up. In fact, by the end of the week, they were even more "pliable" then they were when I started. I don't know why - maybe I added too much water, maybe it was just too humid out (we don't have central a/c so it can get sticky because we turn the window units off when we aren't around) - who knows. I am super disappointed though because I would like to use salt dough for Christmas ornaments in the future.

So, the Friday night before the shower, I whipped up some faux buttons using some scrap book paper, foam board, and my Creative Memory circle cutters circa 2002. Not my best work, but they did the job.

Here is the garland on the candy bar:



Some tips if I were to attempt this garland again:
  • I would get some fatter ribbon for the bow ties. What I had looked a little thin.
  • Seek some alternative for the button - painted wooden circles? painted paper plates?
  • Find a better way to secure them. We didn't hang it on the wall because the weight of the onsies sort of twisted the ribbon string down and you saw the ugly side. Perhaps this is why the ladies from JL Designs used diapers instead (much lighter).

The mom-to-be seemed to have a great time and was very blessed with all the gifts her friends and family brought - check out this haul!


Baby Salvatore is due October 5th, but we all know he can come whenever he decides - so we are patiently waiting for him!

Hope everyone has a great week!





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