Bridal shower invitations...

I have been busy lately.  My best friend Heather is getting married in June and I have had a lot of projects lately. I made these invitations for a bridal shower my mom is having this month. We were going for something festive but not too girly, and I think these were perfect.

They had navy calligraphy ink and slid into the little pockets. We have been brainstorming polka-dot themed food and decorations for the last two weeks. It is going to be so cute!

More Baby Bee details...

Baby Bee's mom assured me that she didn't think I went overboard with bees, but I was worried for a while.  Here are a few more Baby Bee shower details...

The Baby Bee sign.  I have always wanted to make one of these, and I loved the way this one turned out.  The bee wings are glittered.

Bee logo name tags. It took me a while to come up with an idea for cute name tags. I printed out the bee logo and wrote names in calligraphy, then tied a tiny bow with the ribbon and stuck them together with a glue dot.  They pinned on with a corsage pin.  I made corsages with pink spray roses for Mom and Grandma-to-be.

A sheet with the bee logo for recording gifts that I mounted on white cardboard...

Calligraphy signs for the Baby B wishes jar and the "guess how many bees" game...

And of course lots of flowers.  I used yellow roses, orange gerbera daisies, pink spray roses, orange and pink snapdragons and tulips, and some yellow filler that was perfect for the arrangements.

Baby Bee food...

As I mentioned, in spite of the dog's cookie rampage the Baby Bee shower turned out perfect.  Here are more details on what we served...

The table-- we served tea sandwiches, mini quiches, deviled eggs fruit skewers, scones, strawberries filled with cream cheese, bee cookies and mini beehive cupcakes.

The beehive cupcakes were a big hit. I just piped buttercream onto the top of them with a wide tip. Then I took yellow M&Ms and piped frosting stripes onto them, stuck them into the frosting and added a couple of almond slivers for wings.

We also had a mini candy bar with yellow, pink, and orange candy.  I made little calligraphy signs with the bee logo.

And finally, more bee cookies.

Dog versus bee...

I am a big fan of edible favors. Mostly because you know someone will almost always eat them, whereas other favors tend to get thrown away. (Yes, sorry friends, I probably won't keep that wedding mug you hand out at your wedding. Nothing against you, I just like my mugs to match...). So my original plan for the Baby Bee favors was cut-out beehive and bee cookies. Actually, it was not just a plan-- I fully implemented it and I had 20 that looked just like this:

 I have large craft table in my garage and I have a habit of piling all of my projects on it, so when I finished packaging them, I put them neatly in a bag and set that bag on top of my table.

When I did that, however, I forgot that (1) we put the dog in the garage when we are gone and (2) the dog loves cookies. She is a really good dog and has never really chewed on anything but her dog toys, so it didn't even cross my mind that the bee cookies might drive her crazy. But they did... and she attacked:

And when I came home my garage looked like this:

The dog had eaten 15 beehives, who knows how many bees. She was on a major sugar high (kind of funny) but otherwise unharmed, and not sick in the least. She even licked up crumbs as I cleaned up, and she never licks crumbs.

After I cleaned up her mess, I had to think of a plan b for the favors. I had a lot of bees but not enough hives, so I repackaged them in smaller bags with smaller tags and just one bee cookie. Fortunately they still turned out cute:

But now you know what happens when Dog takes on Bee... if it is a cookie, the bee has no chance!

Turkey butter...

One of my favorite things from our thanksgiving last year:

Isn't it great?  I wish I could say it was my idea or that I made it, but it was really just from the dairy section of our local Safeway!  It was also the inaugural run for my china (Kate Spade Union Street) and I thought the turkey looked particularly cute on the new plates...