Last weekend my family enjoyed two great milestones in our kids’ lives; my baby girl (who is exactly three months old today!) got baptized and my boy turned 2! It was a very special weekend shared with family and friends.

Unfortunately, my family back in Texas was not able to partake, but we definitely felt their love, thoughts and prayers. One of my sisters sent each of them cards – handmade cards too! They were just so cute, I had to share (I believe I mentioned on more than one occasion that I come from a quite crafty and talented family, right?!).

The handmade touch definitely made the sentiments even more meaningful. I will make sure to save these as keepsakes (I see lots of scrapbooks in their future!).

Here is my birthday boy and newly baptized baby girl!

with our latest handmade creations!

Your little one will be stylin’ and having fun this summer with our newest handmade items! From the cutest baby espadrilles you will ever find to cushy cubes that will entertain baby for hours, we’ve created unique, handmade gifts that you can share with the little ones in your life for just about any occasion. Shop now!

PS. Be one of the first to get the news from embe by signing up for our email list. Just enter your email over on the left!

Do you have a Facebook or a Twitter account? If so, today is your lucky day! Become an embe Facebook fan and Twitter follower for your chance to win some handmade goodies!

It’s that easy…all you have to do is become an embe fan/follower by March 5 and you’ll be automatically entered to win an embe handmade item – one item each for Facebook AND Twitter! To fan/follow us, visit:

http://www.facebook.com/embeshop (or use the link in our fan box on the left sidebar)
www.twitter.com/embeshop

Already a fan/follower? You’re automatically entered! Want to increase your chances of winning? Refer your friends! Your name will be entered additional times if your friends let us know you referred them to our giveaway. For Facebook, just have your friends comment that you sent them to us on our page after following. For Twitter, have your friends retweet with @embeshop and @yourname.

Facebook fans have the chance to win one pair of our popular sk8er booties (retail value of $25)!

Twitter followers have the chance to win an adorable baby kimono sweater (retail value of $36)!

Fan/follow us today and don’t forget to refer your friends to increase your chances of winning!

Become an embe Facebook fan and Twitter follower by March 5 and you will be automatically entered to win an embe item. embe will be giving away two items – one for each social media site. All fan/follower names will be collected and randomly selected by our kids! Winners will be notified by March 10.

A few weeks ago I posted about some party theme ideas I found. In the end I decided to go with a color theme of pink and green and to save the more specific themes until our little one was older.

The color theme came about when I was making the invitations. I turned to scrapblog.com to create it because I knew it would give me the stickers I needed and the freedom to create the invitation I envisioned. Scrapblog offers printing but I had some cardstock already and decided to print the invitations at home.

After that it all came together….

From top to bottom:

The “happy 1st birthday” banner was  home-made using scrapbook paper, cardstock, and paper string. Look for a tutorial in our craft tip of the week soon!

The scrapbook pages were displayed on a wall and featured a lot of our baby’s firsts and milestones.

I wanted to share with our guests the monthly photos I took so that they could see how much she had changed. Each month had two photos tied together with ribbon and pinned up with a clothespin decorated with flower punch-outs.

No party is complete without a birthday hat! There will also be a tutorial for this in the craft tip of the week soon as well.

We started the party in the birthday shirt and tutu, which were a huge hit. The front is our little one’s first initial with a little crown – for being the little princess! The back of the shirt says, “I’m one!” with a large one underneath. The onesie was made using photoshop and iron-on sheets. The tutu was bought from Trinity’s Tutus on Etsy.

It was a lot of fun making many of the decorations and celebrating our little one’s first birthday with family and friends. I think she really enjoyed it too!

My daughter loves toys that make the crinkly noise. She also loves to wake up before us in the mornings but we’re lucky that she will play in her crib for awhile before calling out for “ma ma ma ma.” We usually know she’s up though by the “crinkle crinkle” noises coming from the crib because I always put the soft one in before I go to bed.

She only has one soft crinkly toy and not wanting her to get bored of it I decided I’d make her one. The idea struck when I was refilling the diaper basket and was getting ready to throw away the plastic bag they come in. As I was crumpling it up it made a “crinkle” and a picture flashed in my head of a plush toy. After digging through my fabric and craft boxes I sat down at the sewing machine and made Ella the elephant!

She’s stuffed with two of the diaper bags which makes it soft as well as crinkly and perfect for an in the crib toy. I added some texture using a reverse applique for the ear, button for the eye, a knitted i-cord for the tail and stripes of ribbon on the back.

I went a little overboard on the details, but it doesn’t have to be. Sewing a silhouette of an animal and embroidered facial features would be just as fun for any baby – the important part is that it crinkles!

Since I already had a collection of fabric, I thought it would be cute to make each of them their very own personalized apron. I made the apron pattern from an existing apron I made way back in the 7th grade for home economics class (yikes, that was a long time ago!). I embellished each apron with cute iron-on shapes and hand-embroidered their names on it. For one of the aprons, I just used ribbon for the neck and waist ties. Within a day, I had completed two unique and girly-cute aprons!

Along with their very own custom apron, I purchased each of them a kid cookbook and fun measuring spoons to finish off their gift. So, not only did they receive a birthday gift made from the heart, they received a something that could last them for years and also spark some creativity of their own (I’m guessing their mothers would call that a mess!). And to top it all off, I didn’t have to spend a fortune. After receiving “thank you” calls and promises for some real food the next time I visit them, spending the time to make their gifts was totally worth it.

NOTE: You can totally do this for boys as well (my nephew also loves to play “cook”!). Just use “boy” colors for the apron and adhere sports or animal appliques!

A lot of people are surprised to learn that I’m a self-taught knitter or that I knit at all! It all started when I got married and discovered a love for HGTV. I remember watching a show called “crafters from coast to coast” and thinking that it would be fun to pick up a crafting hobby.

I initially learned from a “Learn to Knit” kit I picked up at Michaels. While the book was helpful in learning the basic techniques of casting on, knitting and purling I found I needed more guidance then what the book could provide if I wanted to make more than potholders. Not knowing anyone who knitted and being an IT professional, I turned to–you guessed it–the Internet!

One of the firsts websites I came across was knittinghelp.com. What drew me in were the free instructional videos. They were just the thing I needed to learn more advanced stitches, like increasing and decreasing! (It’s funny to hear myself say that increasing and decreasing were considered advanced but to me each new technique is advanced!) Even now, four years later, I return time and time again to KnittingHelp for a refresher on a technique I hadn’t used in awhile or for something new.

Another site I use is knittingdaily.com. They just recently started posting how-to videos and some of my favorites are how to knit joggless stripes in the round and tubular cast on. The knittingdaily blog also is a wealth of information. It’s taught me how to take my body measurememtnts to ensure that a sweater will fit, how to knit lace, and different types of cast-ons and cast-offs.

I’ve come a long way since my potholder days and I owe it to all the great online knitting websites. Now that I’ve given out my secret, you can start knitting now too!

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with KnittingHelp and KnittingDaily, nor did they pay me to say such great things. KnittingDaily image from knittingdaily.com

Cathy and I are very excited to unveil embe, our online shop offering unique, handmade gifts for babies and tots! I remember one day back in May when we took the kids on their first official playdate, the idea came up to start something together. At first, I thought “it’s just an idea” but after giving it some thought, I realized that there was something there. During our first meeting, we both shared our ideas for what we could call our shop, and we both came up with embe on our own. Now, talk about coincidence!

The months leading up to our launch can be described as exciting, filled with late nights, inspiring, a learning experience, fun, and fulfilling. Starting a business is a lot of hard work but so rewarding in the process. We are both passionate about being mothers and being creative. embe allows us to combine both passions, and we hope that you join us on our creative and parenting journeys by reading our blogs and enjoying our creations for the little ones in your life!