Gift Taggs

Executive Homemaker has recently had a series of amazing games to play during your baby shower. In fact the amount of games here you may have to end up with a week long shower to find time to play them all!

I have researched several free, fun games for you to play at your shower.

Celebrity Baby Who Am I?

We all know celebrity’s are know for coming up with some unusual baby names, and this game plays on that idea. It is also a great ice-breaker game, as it encourages your guests to talk to each other.
Before the Shower:Write down the names of some celebrity babies on post-it notes or cards (you will need one of each of your guests).
During the Shower: Keeping the names hidden attach the card to the back of your guest. They then have to ask questions to other guests to find out who they are, the catch is they can only ask questions where the answers are yes or no! e.g. Am I a Female?, Is my mother a singer? Does  my father have brown hair?
A few examples of baby names are Apple Blythe Alison Martin, Brooklyn Beckham, or Suri Cruise.

Guess the Baby

Before the Shower: Ask each of your guests to supply a baby photo of themselves (you can ask when you send out the invitations). Attach each photo to a board or hang from some string with a number on each photo.
During the Shower: Give each guest a pen and paper to guest which baby is which guest – set a timer and give your guests 10 minutes.

Baby Pictionary

Before the Shower: Come up with a list of 20 or so things relating to babies. Write each one on a separate card.
During the Shower: Split your guests into two groups, and it is just like the normal game of pictionary only use your home made cards. A few examples of things to draw include. Stretch Marks, Changing Mat, Breast Pumps, Dirty Nappy, Sleepless Nights or Baby Powder.

Baby Shower Hosts have an activity pack with ready made games (that can be adapted to any theme of shower) including ”my water’s broke” game and guess the size of  mummy’s tummy. Alternatively, Shower My Baby has their own activity pack, with three of their most popular games including pin the dummy on the baby and a prediction game (guess the weight, eye colour sex of the baby).

Tags: baby showers, games, party ideas

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A few years ago a dear friend of our got married in New York, which meant we got to enjoy this amazing city with several of our friends, before we left we did some research on restaurant  and places to eat, each night we enjoyed an amazing meal, good food, good wine and great company.

Upon returning home, whenever we saw these same friend we would end up in either the local curry house, pizza place or occasionally a local tapas restaurant. Although there is nothing wrong with any of these places it seems extremely limited when we live in such a cosmopolitan city!

Enter the “Dinner Club!” Now once every few months we organise a night out in a new restuarent. We have 5 couples in our club – but rarely manage to get all 10 people together at once. Each couple takes it in turn to organise a date, pick the resturant and is incharge of the booking. Planning a few weeks in advance means we all have time to organise our schedules and give those with children and chance to arrange babysitters.

After the meal, we discuss our likes and dislikes about the meal (we were never organised enough to have created survey cards), and make notes of our favourite courses! So now we get to enjoy all the fabulous places to eat right on our doorstep.

Looking for more help on setting up your own dinner club, check out Executive Homemaker’s guide.

Tags: dinner club, organisation, party ideas

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Last week I mentioned the lace bookmark I had made as a gift, in case you were interested in making bookmarks to accompany a book you are gifting, here are some of my favourite patterns or tutorials, the great this is no matter what your favourite craft is, there is a tutorial for you!  

Crochet Bookmarks by cantstopknitting

The Beaded Book Thong by Crochet Me, is really simple to make and even easier to personalise due to the variety of beads or charms on the market, you could spell out the recipient name or initials with letter beads or add their favourite animal  

Harry Potter Book Scarf by CaiaG

Don’t crochet, try this knitted Harry Potter Book Scarf, perfect for a budding wizard or for your muggle friends knit a plain coloured scarf. Alternatively you could knit one in school colours or the team colours.   

Scrap Material Bookmark by 7 Layers

I love 7 Layers, idea behind making these Scrap Material Bookmarks, like most crafters I can’t seem to throw out, to me this just prove that even the smallest scrap of material can be turned into something fabulous! 

Corner Bookmarks by Stamping Moments

Instead of making a traditional rectangle bookmarks, why not try on of these,  Corner Bookmarks, the tutorial uses stamps, but you can use any scraps of paper or wrapping paper.

Tags: bookmarks, gift wrapping, paper crafting, tutorials

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… AKA my love of Ravelry.

Without a doubt my largest hobby is knitting, it takes up the most of my time and it is what I spend the majority of my disposable income on. So obviously, I have a large stash of yarn, hundreds of needles and numerous books. Sometimes it is hard to keep track of it all, where did I stored that lovely ball of pink sock yarn is or remember what book has the pattern for the pretty cardigan.

BR (Before Ravelry), I didn’t really have a system. My yarn was in all in several boxes, my books  neatly stored on a shelf and my needles in all placed in a bag – if I needed a certain sized needle it was a hunting expedition – which normally ended with my discovering the needles where being used in another project.

The biggest problem I had was not knowing what to make with all the yarn I had, I tended to buy the odd ball of yarn here or there – one skein of sock yarn, one of lace weight, some chunky yarn for a scarf – never knowing what I intended to use it for and quite often not having enough for a complete project.

PR (Post Ravelry), all my yarn is displayed on my stash page, with photos, a location of where it is stored  and where I brought it from (I’m too scared to add the price). Most of the yarn is assigned to a project, and those projects are in my queue. 

My Stash on Ravelry

It wasn’t an easy job getting here – it took my a long time to photograph all my yarn, add each entry and locate all the yarn - but now I am in the habit of photographing it once I receive it. Once all the yarn was on Ravelry, I linked it to any future projects, found ideas of new projects or even decided if I wanted to get rid of the yarn.

Now, when I add a new sock yarn, I either assign it to a pattern in my queue or uses the pattern suggestion tab on Ravelry, to look for inspiration, and move that pattern to the top of my queue, insuring that I knit that pattern first and not be tempted to buy more yarn.

Tags: knitting, organisation, ravelry

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Not only is today Valentine’s Day it is also the Chinese New Year, since I shop brought my husband’s card and present and we are going out for dinner tonight – I feel I am failing in creativity this holiday.

But not to leave the day unmarked, here is the lovely bouquet my husband brought me – complete with a lucky bamboo to celebrate the new year!

Valentine's Flowers with Lucky Bamboo

Tags: celebrations, chinese new year, valentines day

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Whenever I send a gift I like to add an original touch, either by using creative wrapping or adding a little personal touch. I think books are one of the best ways to show your originality, the box nature of their shape means you can get really creative with the wrapping. Or for a really personal touch why not make a bookmark.

Lace Bookmark

I have to admit, I am one of those people who uses receipts or airline ticket stubs to mark my page in a book. Last year before going on holiday, I made myself this lace bookmark (pattern by crochetroo), my crochet skills are very minimal, and it did take me an evening to complete. But I just adore the finished project, and soon started making more for my family members.

Finally, it is a little pet hate of mine that the price is there on books for all to see. With any other gift you carefully remove the price tag, but you can’t really do this with a book. So when giving a book as a gift, I like to put a little sticker over the price tag. You can buy mini stickers in several high street stores like Accessorize or Paperchase (I prefer the non-padded ones).

Tags: bookmarks, gift wrapping

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One of the blogs I admire the most is Bakerella. She has the most terrific posts, full of beautiful photos, detailed instructions and links to buy the products (although they are all American). What I find most amazing is her ability to be completely topical. She tends to update on Sunday, and the post will be relevant to that week, whether it is for a major celebration (see her Easter or Halloween posts), or something else like Sesame Street’s 40^th Birthday she is always completely up to date.

Sesame Street Cakepops by Bakerella

Another thing I love about her blog is they way she finds inspiration all over the place, turning simple things like burger and fries into cake form. My favourite of her posts has to be the Coca-Cola Polar Bears (I think it is because I adore the “Holiday’s are Coming” adverts). She used mini Coke bottles to become snow globes, and Cola flavoured cupcakes for the base.

Coke Cakepops by Bakerella

In case you too have been inspired by Bakerella, but are wondering where to buy all the ingredients in the UK- fear not. CCCShop, has most the things you will need, mini cookie cutters, coloured chocolate melts, edible ink pens and even the sugars sprinkle shaped (used to make the mouths in the Sesame Street Cakepops).

Still need a little inspiration – how about making this Box of Chocolate Cake for Valentine’s Day.

Box of Cakes by Bakerella

Tags: bakerella, cakepops, cooking, cupcakes, spotlight

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With the final season being aired on Friday nights in the UK this year, I figured people might be tempted to hold a Lost viewing party, rather than going out. (Of course you could hold a catch up party over the weekend if you do plan on going out).

Invitations

Oceanic Boarding Passes from celebrations.com

This is easy, send out boarding cards! I have found two places online where you can download invites. Celebrations.com and Jon Griffin (who has the option of Oceanic or Ajira Airlines passes).

Decorations

Turn your lounge into the beach, All4Party has a large selection of Hawaiian party supplies, why not use inflatable or cut out palm trees as the back drop. Use the raffia table skirt instead of a table cloth, with the palm leaf serving dishes. For the extra Lost touch scatter suitcases and cloths on the floor, or print a giant Dharma logo and hang it on the door.

Cutest Little Things had an airplane themed party for her son, I love some of the ideas she used here. The check-in area when guests arrive, a baggage claim arrive where guests can get their favours before leaving.

Games and Entertainment

As the majority of the entertainment will be watching the programme, you don’t need to worry too much about games. However you could have a few Lost trivia questions for the advert breaks (There are several places online that have quizzes). Also, have a mini “lottery” print a ticket for each guest to give them when they check in. One lucky winner with have the “numbers” and they win a prize.

Favours

You could have miniature bottles of drink, with bag of peanuts in an airplane sick bag. Or chocolate Dharma rabbits complete with the number 8 (Idea from Mucho Mojo). For the winners of the games, give away a stuff polar bear teddy or adopt a polar bear pack from the WWF.

Food and Drinks

This is where you can have a lot of fun!  If you want to order in take away, try a Hawaiian pizza or a KFC bucket  (just call it Mr Clucky’s Chicken Shack bucket). If you fancy cooking you can make, fried chicken (again for Mr Clucky’s), sushi (remember when Jin used to catch fish on the beach), or pulled pork, all with dinner rolls (in honour of when Juliet burned her hand cooking).

Dharma Fish Biscuits from Kung Foodie

For dessert, why not make Fish biscuits, Kung Foodie  has an amazing template and recipe. You could also make peanut butter cookies (because of Claire’s cravings), or a tropical fruit salad.

Drinks couldn’t be easier, Max Pictures has numerous Dharma Initiative printable logos. just add the wine, beer and cola labels to your bottle and cans. Or buy miniature bottles.

Tags: decorations, favours, food and drink ideas, games, invitations, lost, tv shows

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Last month I wrote about the Gift Card Holders, I send out as Christmas presents. In the next few weeks I have a couple of awkward gifts to buy, one for a child but the present needs to be posted and the second is a house warming present where I have no idea what the couple need. So I looked online to find some more interesting ideas. These are some of my favourite tutorials I found. 

Present Gift Card by Custom Crops

This present ideas from Custom Crops is extremely versatile although it is from Christmas, it can be easily altered using scraps of paper and other embellishments. I am thinking of using pink card, some of the Disney Princess scrap-booking paper and stickers from Over the Rainbow, and of course a gift card for the Disney Store.

Box Gift Card by Angel Stamper 2

To add an extra dimension why not try this box holder by Angel Stamper 2. Although this one is very girly, I think it would be amazing for a wedding present, using white or cream paper, with hearts or flowers, and maybe use a romantic lyric for the quote inside.

Gift Voucher Card by Erica's Artistic Attic

The simplicity of this card by Erica’s Artistic Attic makes it perfect for adapting, how about using a football on the belly band and making the whole card in the recipients favourite team colours. Or a steering wheel, with racing stripes or checkerboard paper.

Gift Card House by Paper Monkey

Again, this house card by Paper Monkey is from Christmas, I think it is perfect for a house warming present. Using a flower punch for the “hinge”, changing the trees to flowers, and the greeting on the window to good luck.

Tags: gift cards, gift wrapping, paper crafting, tutorials

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