Felt Farm Animal Puppets

Our sweet little firstborn grandchild just turned one.  Happy 1st Birthday Carson Davis!!

His Momma dreamed up a darling birthday party for him.  The theme was Old MacDonald's Farm.  So farm animals played a large part in the decor.

Being that I love crafting, my daughter asked if I'd come up with some kind of table centerpieces for the tables where the guests would enjoy eating a farm fresh lunch!  "Of course!" I replied.

I found some cute farm animal ideas online and settled on these darling felt puppets.  I found these at Just Another Day in Paradise and was so glad that Larissa provided the patterns for free as well.  Cute for the party, and reusable throughout the years as fun toys!

I tweaked them a bit for my time schedule, just doing machine stitching around the outsides of the puppets, leaving raw edges, and sewing wrong sides together.  I used fabric glue to attach the faces and other details.  I did sew Kitty's whiskers on, using embroidery thread.

And here is how we displayed them on the tables...we sat each one over a small plastic cup turned upside down so that it would stand up, and then tucked some raffia around the base, as if it was in the barn.

Puppy got to welcome the gifts on the gift table.  :)  Carson will be able to play with these puppets when he is a bit older.  Since he loves animals so much, I'm sure they will star in many puppet shows over the years!  One little hint would be to make the body of the puppet a bit wider (another inch?) if you want adult hands to be able to wear the puppet.

Carson had such a fun birthday party!  Especially since our 2nd born grandchild, Eloise Mae, got to come too!  Eloise and Carson are just 7 weeks apart, and are sure to have GREAT fun over the years as cousins.  :)

And that's me.  Mimi!  I'm the happiest Mimi there ever was, when my arms are full of my granddarlings and my heart is full from having time with them.  There is nothing better!

Thank you for stopping in!  You'll find the puppet patterns HERE!

Blessings,
Donna

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Your Home Based Mom

Woodland Theme Baby Meet and Greet

This happy little 10 week old boy is our first grandchild!
Introducing Carson Davis, born to our beautiful daughter Lindsey and her husband Rich.  Carson and his family live 6 hours north of us, so it was a BIG deal when he got to come to Mimi and Papa's house for the first time last weekend.  To celebrate, we hosted a Meet and Greet so that our friends could meet this little love bug and help us celebrate his life!

Mimi (that's me!) had SUCH a fun time planning and preparing for the Meet and Greet.  I made this bunting of his name to hang in the great room.

Pinterest taught me to make these adorable birds, which fit right in with the Forest Friends theme of this shower. This hung on the door to greet our guests.

I wanted to have a little party favor for each family to take home.  I planted these Snapdragon seeds 10 days in advance in little peat pods.  Happily they came up nicely and sat on a square of wax paper inside these cute cupcake liners.  

I had two plates of them on the entryway table, and made cute little scrapbook paper plant pokes to adorn each one.

Carson's nursery is an adorable Forest Friends theme, so I did the food and decor to go along with that.

Do you like the Cheese and Tomato Toadstools?  They are as tasty as they are cute!  Borrowed this idea from some of Lindsey's friends.

I found this idea online as well, altho I used a brownie mix instead of a chocolate cake mix.  And that way only the white part needed frosting, plus brownies are easier to eat by hand.

These Acorn Sweets were soooo cute!  And easy to make, altho a wee bit tedious.  You'll find the ingredients and instructions for them HERE.

I got brown vinyl tablecloths marked down at Walmart, and purchased .59 landscaping bricks to use as risers on the table.  Spanish moss added color and texture, and large slit marshmallows made great food label holders!

I wanted to have a mix of sweet, salty, healthy, and fun treats for the 1:30-3:30pm event.  Texas caviar was mildy spicy and quite healthy.  And boy was it a HIT!  I had requests for the recipe...do you want it too?  Come back in a few days and I'll post it.  I took a recipe from online and tweaked it a bit.

This Chocolate Chip Cheeseball/Spread was also very popular.  I served it with animal crackers and graham crackers.  You'll find the recipe for it HERE.

Grape tomato halves sitting atop an inch slice of mozzarella cheesestick.

The first guests to arrive were both sets of great grandparents, one of whom traveled 7 hours to be here!  This set happens to be my parents who live here in town.  They are enthralled with their first great grandchild!

It's me!  Everything is set up and I'm ready to begin!  See the orange cans holding miniature daffodils?  They are peach cans that I washed and put scrapbook paper around.  Free!  The two candy cans are also just washed cans decorated with paper.

And here come our sweet friends!  We've only lived here in Southern Indiana for 23 months, but God has given us delightful neighbors and friends.

We ended up with about 35 of us!

Lovely gifts!  Carson got diapers, blankets, toys, a high chair, and a whole summer wardrobe!

This little curly-blond-haired cherub belongs to my sweet friend, Kristen.  And her name is just as precious as she is...
Winnie June

Carson is soooo blessed!  He has loving parents who adore him. Two sets of grandparents who both call him their FIRST grandchild.  And two sets of great grandparents who enjoyed him to pieces.

Hope you enjoyed this visit to our party.  I loved showing it to you all!



Blessings,
Donna

Linked to:
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Making the World Cuter
Sunday Showcase

Celebrating Carson

This past weekend, we had our firstborn grandchild here.  His first visit to Papa and Mimi's house!  We had a wonderful time celebrating him and introducing him to our friends.

I had a WONDERFUL time planning a Meet and Greet for him...come back in a  day or two and see/hear all about it.

Blessings!
Donna
"Mimi"