Cookies of Catan

Sorry I've been MIA! It's been a crazy last few months and since I haven't been inspired to do many cool things, I've felt like my blogging wouldn't be inspired either. But I'm gonna try to be better. Pinky swear.

So...Settlers of Catan is kinda huge in our lives. We love games -- collect board games -- and a few years ago we listened to our friends and family who said he HAD to play Catan. And we haven't looked back.

I've wanted to do some sort of Catan themed dessert for a while now. Matt and I just traveled to Idaho for a mini family reunion and since the cousins there are also huge Catan fans, we seized this opportunity to made this dessert a reality. At first I wanted to make a cake. Then I thought cupcakes.

It evolved to cookies.

Sugar cookies, using the game pieces as a template -- candy and cookies and frosting to recreate the whole game board.

I used Matt's aunt's sugar cookie recipe. You can find it here! (These may look really cool, but they tasted EVEN better.) Matt's cousin Kathryn helped out a ton with these -- she deserves a lot of kudos for coming up with some of the details (like the river that runs through the Ore cards) and she let me take over kitchen while she was trying to prepare a meal for eight people. So, special superhero status for that.

Here is a photo spread of the evolution of our Settlers of Catan cookies.

I had a poor showing at the actual Settlers tournament. But we don't have to talk about that...

Thank you IKEA

When Matt and I put together the nursery for Elliott we bought some sports themed wall hangings that were on clearance at Babies 'R Us for less than five dollars. Elliott was already several months old at that point and we thought, "Well, something should go on the walls." I never particularly liked them. But whatever.

When we found out about Isaac, I knew I wanted to actually have a nursery with a theme. And in the process of upgrading Elliott to a big-boy room, I wanted to have some fun in his room too.

So, today I put up wall art that I LOVE. And all for the cost of $9.

First thing I did was buy these frames at IKEA. (I like anything at IKEA that will take me less than five minutes to assemble -- which limits me to their decorative items and kitchen supplies.)

Then Elliott and I had an art session:

After he drew me some pictures, I cut them out to match the frame and we hung them on the wall in his new room -- right above his art easel too. Every artist needs inspiration in their own little art corner!

A close-up picture of Elliott's talent:

He's kinda in a "random scribbling" phase right now. Pretty soon we'll upgrade to a "Mommy is supposed to recognize this, but I have no idea what it is" phase.

I love the idea of framing the art your child draws for you and using it for decor. It beats any mass-produced paintings that are overpriced anyway.

For Isaac's room, since he's too little to draw me anything -- I tried to put the crayon in his hand, but at 6 weeks old, he's severely lacking in dexterity; I'm working on it though. I have him enrolled in newborn Picasso class -- we just went the boring route of framing things we already had around the house. I bought these for Elliott's first birthday. They are now scattered throughout the house and so I framed three that fit our theme and perfection: We've got art!

I hung the little wooden animals today too -- I don't know if I like them there...but I was trying to avoid placing them within grabbing distance of the crib...because knowing my kids, one day after nap I will walk in and someone will have licked all the glitter off.

A Sesame Birthday

In our house it's been a Sesame Street vs. The Muppets battle. Elmo vs. Animal. Cookie Monster vs. The Swedish Chef.

Ernie and Bert vs. Kermit and Piggy.

Matt and I are big advocates of limited screentime for kiddos -- I mean, we're not fanatical about it by any means -- and when we first had Elliott we thought, "No TV for this kid!" But soon that became, "Well, only the Muppets." Introducing Elliott to old episodes of The Muppet Show and purchasing the entire collection of Muppet movies was for purely nostalgic purposes.

(Puppets, in general, were a huge part of my childhood since my parents met as performers in a traveling puppet troupe. And for early and formative years of my life, I was carted around to their puppet shows. I wasn't allowed to watch many cartoons...but we lived for The Muppet Show.)

So, buying The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and Muppets Take Manhattan filled me with giddiness. And much to our joy and amusement, Elliott fell in love with these movies too. On our road trip down to Southern California last summer, we had an endless rotation of DVDs to pacify our poor 18 month-old child stuck in his car seat for nine hours a day; we added in some Sesame Street DVDs and the boy was sold.

When I asked him about his birthday theme, the boy chose Sesame Street. I was a little sad because I wanted to plan a Muppet party...but I wasn't going to argue: The boy wanted Sesame Street and he was going to get Sesame Street.

We started with invitations. This time I decided to make handmade cards (skipping the easier computer designed cards that we did last year). And while I love these invites...my hands hurt sooooo much from punching out all those circles. Not to mention the gluing. So. Much. Gluing.

For the back, my brother found a cool Sesame Street font that you can download here. (Some fun ideas: I am thinking of using the font to make flashcards for Elliott -- or a memory game! But there are endless options.)

The birthday banner was fun to make; and in true Shelbi fashion, I made some of it at school. I printed of the letters at home and brought them to school to cut out -- after cutting out two letters, I thought, "I never have anything for my TA to do. She's sitting over there on Facebook. I'm delegating these scissor duties!" So, for the banner I recycled a Sesame Street book that Elliott demolished. He had effectively torn out almost all of the pages. So, I cut the book up and turned it into this banner!

Here is a closer look at one of the letters:

For food, I made Sesame Street cupcakes. After looking online for designs I liked, I just combined all the best features from several different people's ideas. The eyes were white candy melts and chocolate chips (held on with a bit of frosting); Elmo's nose was an orange peanut M&M; mouths were Oreo Cookies. Everything else was frosting -- although I wish the brown frosting I bought for Oscar's eyebrows turned out better. 

And we also had these AMAZING cookies. My cousin Christy -- who I hope goes into the cookie business very soon -- makes cookies for all sorts of events. Her talent is unparalleled; she handmade each of these Sesame Street themed cookies for Elliott. I wish I could have kept them forever, but I must admit that we ate all of them.

Here is our whole table set up. (Goldfish crackers for a "Dorothy-centric" snack? Awesome. But I did buy a fishbowl specifically for this purpose and now I have a fishbowl taking up space in my garage. So, if anyone has any other fun crafts for fishbowls...let me know.)

Want a fun way to create cups that match your theme? Stickers on cheap plastic cups works great. I thought they would look tacky, but they turned out super cute. 

So, besides the invites, banner, and the cupcakes, I didn't do quite as many crafty things this time around. But my favorite thing to make...not for any other reason other than the joy it brought to my child's face...was Elliott's party shirt.

I printed off an image of Cookie Monster, cut it out, and used it as a template on pieces of black and blue felt. While I originally wanted to topstich the felt on to the onesie, I was making this the night before the party and opted for the good old hot-glue gun instead. Add those googly eyes and it's a pretty darn cute Cookie Monster.  

And here is the birthday boy in his shirt, enjoying some cheese and crackers, and looking pretty adorable. 

A Hungry Caterpillar Birthday

Planning parties is a huge love of mine. As a matter of fact, it was a childhood dream to run my very own event planning company. As an eight or nine year-old, I set up a home office (some paper and a defunct rotary phone stashed in my roll-top desk) and had a client list (cut out men and women, complete with created biographies, from my mom's JCPenney catalogue). I would pick a client at random, hold a complete imaginary dialogue with him/her about their party needs, and then spend hours in my room creating that party on paper. I even had my mom buy me invoices at an office supply store so I could bill my pretend clients.

Because I'm better at planning parties than naming companies, my thriving business was called Parties Incorporated. And, if I remember correctly, every party seemed to feature an unnecessary number of balloon bouquets -- but this was the 80s after all, what self-respecting high school reunion or wedding reception didn't have balloons?

We all know now that my party planning future remained relegated to JCPenney models glued to notebook paper and fake conversations with myself demanding cheaper prices with my "caterer" for shrimp cocktail. I went in a different occupational direction. (If given the opportunity to ever resurrect Parties Incorporated, I think I would.) But even if I'm not diagramming a ballroom for someone's 30th birthday bash -- with balloons, of course -- I do get to exercise some creativity when it comes to Elliott's parties.

The Internet was a great source for me while I was planning Elliott's first birthday party. I stole a lot of great ideas from others, so I figured I should put my own party out there for people to steal from too. (Of course, the Internet was not available to Parties Incorporated.) Once I decided on a theme, the rest was great fun. Our theme: Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." At the time, I couldn't find any commercial products to support this party theme. NOW Target sells an entire party-line with Carle designs. And you can buy them here too. I'd like to believe that means I was staying one step ahead of the trend. But I realize this is just wishful thinking.

All great parties start with an invitation. I made mine using the InDesign program at school. Yeah, I'll admit it: While my newspaper students worked late one night on an issue of the paper, I was diligently crafting an invite to my son's birthday party. I emailed myself the PDF and then printed it on heavy cardstock.

The best touch? I bought a tiny hole-punch and punched a hole in the food. Just like in the book. Too much fun. Address labels I made myself and then I had envelope seals too -- I tried to make stickers myself, unsuccessfully. So, I broke down and outsourced this job to the Party Mommas over at eBay.

My favorite craft for the whole party was Elliott's birthday banner:

I did have feet made for the bottom banner, but I forgot to glue them on before the party. Not only did I love the visual progression of Elliott's growth that first year, but the banner was bright and fun. (The letters for the top banner are these awesome stickers that I got at JoAnn's Fabrics - they are thick and sturdy.)

The table was also a lot of fun. I made the table cloth by sewing different parts of the available Hungry Caterpillar fabric to a cheap twin flat sheet. You can buy the fabric here; but I found mine at the local Mill End Store. We put the book on display and had all of our guests sign it before they left -- a great gift for Elliott for years to come! We served food that appears in the book (I was in the stages of putting the food out when the picture was taken) and the centerpiece was made by my mother-in-law with the two plush toys featuring the caterpillar and the butterfly and fruits featured in the book.

Some of my other crafts for this party:

- Elliott's bib -- I used Hungry Caterpillar fabric that I purchased from The Mill End Store and used Homemade by Jill's baby bib tutorial that you can find here: Homemade by Jill Bib Tutorial. I used scrap red fabric to spell "ONE" on to the front. 

- High Chair cover -- Also using a different Hungry Caterpillar fabric, I covered Elliott's non-themed fabric cover with a new one. The tutorial can be found over at Make it and Love it: Recovered High Chair Tutorial. Mine was designed to slip over the original fabric since I didn't want to make his high chair permanently covered and it didn't fit too well. But it served its purpose. 

- Thank you gift bags. I used the same fabric as the high chair cover and made little bags -- easiest thing in the world. Printed off "Thank you for coming!" tags and filled them with party favors: Bubbles, candy, and miniature games that I found for a total steal at RideAid. 

- Craft table for the kids -- I stole the crayon bouquet idea from Real Simple. The art teacher at school painted it red for me during his prep one day. Pretty awesome of him to do that. Then I printed off pages from a Hungry Caterpillar coloring book and we made a caterpillar maze to solve too. It was pretty amazing how quickly the older kids made a bee-line to the crayons. 

Of course, the cake was also pretty amazing. My mom's friend Debbie made the cake; she even helped make a few of my childhood birthday cakes, so it was a special treat to have her make Elliott's cake. I emailed her a picture of a cake I found on someone else's blog and she replicated it perfectly. It was almost too wonderful to eat...but that didn't stop anybody.

Tomorrow: Sesame Street second birthday!