One Cute Nursery

The Joy of Designing for Baby and Beyond

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Cricut Father’s Day Promo – Gift Card Included!

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Hi there!

You all know how passionate I am about crafting and yes, I do a lot of graphic design on the computer and it seems like the scissors and the glue gun are a part of my hand these days…{As a matter of fact, I cut and squeeze the glue gun so much that I think I am showing signs of carpal tunnel syndrome…Yikes!}. But, I would say 90% of my projects wouldn’t be complete without my Cricut Expression 2. 

Cricut Expression 2


The first Cricut I owned was a gift from my husband on my 29th birthday. 
{ Oh Gosh! it sounds like a long time ago….not really though 🙂 }. 
I started using it for making personal scrapbooks and for home decor projects. Little did I know that after having our first {and only} child I would be crafting his first birthday party decor and that those same decorations will bring me to this day…crafting party decorations for kids all over America. Last year I upgraded my Cricut to the Expression 2.
If you are still thinking about what to give Dad for Father’s Day, and he is a techie kind of person, here is a good idea:  how about a Cricut Expression Father’s Day Gift Pack?

Here’s what is included in this special offer:

  • Black Cricut Expression Machine
  •  $50 Cricut Craft Room gift card 
  • Bonus deep cut blade 
  • Tool kit 
  • 2 Cricut Color Ink pens 
  • Project starter materials including stencil, vinyl and iron-on 
  • Idea book to get Dad making projects of his own 
I am not sure if this black Cricut Expression®  is a limited edition or not but it sure looks nice and elegant for dad! 
Stencil, vinyl and iron-on included!

Love this sample project, perfect for a father-son day spent at home labeling all things possible! 😉

Find out more about this special offer and read about all the features of this black Cricut Expression  here.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

Nautical and Patriotic Summer Parties

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It’s been awhile since my last post. Please forgive me! The good news is, I have been busy as a bee crafting parties for many kids all over America. April was my highest month in sales and revenue since I started 2 years ago so I spent all the month of May handcrafting parties back to back. I am stoked! What started as a hobby, has become this mini-industry and I have become a mompreneur. What a great job I have, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Ok, so April was my best month {yet} and what actually inspired me to write this post is the popularity of my Nautical Birthday party decorations. I sold over 60 nautical party items over the last 2 months {wow! that’s an average of 2 a day!}. I must say it: they are beautiful! and with summer just around the corner, I know many mommies will look for them in order to celebrate birthdays with our beautiful red, white and blue.
These are all the products that I have currently available. And, if you don’t see what you’re looking for, I will make it happen! 😉

1. NAUTICAL BIRTHDAY PARTY HAT FOR BABIES:

I first made this party hat without any instructions from my customer. She just said: ‘I trust you!’ . I love that!. It was put up for sale the next day and it has been a big seller. Some customers ask me to add a number 1 to it for baby’s first birthday and it can be done at no extra charge.

It is made out of cardstock with fabric ribbon trim and ties, die cut anchor embellishment and soft pom-pom at the top. It measures 7″ tall and 4.25″ wide. It “sits” on top of baby’s head. {I owe you a tutorial on how to make these easy party hats}. Will be back to this post with an update.

This lovely nautical bunting banner is handcrafted from start to finish in my own studio. The nautical patterned cardstock is printed at my own studio and each pennant is hand cut {yes, no Cricut here at all}.It features a sailboat, a whale, a boat wheel and an anchor. 
It is strung with red grosgrain ribbon and the nautical images {also printed at my studio and hand punched) can be switched or changed. Some customers design their parties based only on whales and sailboats so they just have to tell me and I will use the design they want and leave out the ones they don’t.

Nautical Happy Birthday Bunting banner by Posh Paper Parties


‘ I am One ‘ banners are a must for babies’ first birthdays! Usually hung on the front of the baby’s highchair for that ‘picture perfect moment’, they are affordable and make a beautiful keepsake. Our nautical highchair banner is a mini version of the Nautical Happy Birthday banner described above, hand cut and hand strung with red grosgrain red ribbon.

I am One Nautical High Chair Banner  by Posh Paper Parties

4. NAUTICAL WATERPROOF BOTTLE WRAPPERS:

Bottle wrappers are trending. I describe them as an inexpensive way to decorate your party table. One dozen of bottles wrapped in a beautiful and personalized nautical wrapper, makes a great impression. The labels are printed and cut to size. You don’t have to do a thing, just peel and stick. Best of all, they are weatherproof. They can be put in the fridge or they can be submerged in a cooler and the ink won’t run. 
I believe this is a must have item for summer parties, backyard gatherings and for a 4th of July party…why not? Just ask! I will personalize it for you. I have also personalized these labels {and all other nautical party decoration items} for Ahoy! It’s a Boy! baby showers.

5. NAUTICAL FAVOR TAGS:

Favor tags are the number one seller in my shop followed by cupcake toppers. All of our favor tags designs have been a great success, especially because of our signature die cut shape in the center. The nautical favor tags feature a beautiful tiny die cut red sailboat. What’s not to love?

All our favor tags come pre-strung whether with satin ribbon or – in this case – with 100% cotton baking twine in natural color.

Nautical  Favor Tags by Posh Paper Parties

6. NAUTICAL CUPCAKE TOPPERS:

These nautical cupcake toppers were the starting point to design this Nautical party package. Made out of high quality cardstock with food grade lollipop sticks. They feature a sailboat, an anchor, a whale and can be customized with the child’s name, age and initial. 

Nautical Cupcake Toppers by Posh Paper Parties

and last but not least, we have this beautiful welcome sign:

Handcrafted with three layers of cardstock, personalized with child’s name and age. 

Nautical Party Welcome Sign by Posh Paper Parties
As always, any item in our Etsy shop is customizable to your needs at no extra charge (as long as the customization does not include any major changes in graphics and colors). 
Many orders of this Nautical Party Package have been placed in advance for summer parties. If you’re planning to have a backyard cookout, a beach or a pool party or any gathering this summer, make sure to stop by Posh Paper Parties and order your party goodies on time! Better yet, mention this blog post, follow us on Facebook and receive a 10% off coupon code on any order up to $100.00. All orders over $100.00 receive a free door sign as pictured above (item #7)! 
Once again, thanks for stopping by and spread the voice with family and friends.
XOXO

Ninja Party Decorations – New Designs on PPP

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This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. For more information, please read my Affiliate Disclosure page.

Looking for some ninja birthday party ideas? You are in the right place! I am so excited to show you this brand new design!

Last week we celebrated my nephew’s 6th birthday. He is such a big boy now you know?, practicing martial arts and doing what most 6 years old do…fight with swords and pretend they’re bulletproof!

So, who else could design a black, red and white ninja birthday party suited for a ‘master’ like him? Auntie the crafty…

We started from scratch. I purchased beautiful ninjas clip art and designed the invitation. He is obsessed with the ‘katanas’ {the ninja stars} and nun-chucks so I made sure to purchase a design that included them.

The party was held at the place where he takes martial art classes. Just like for my little boy’s 2nd birthday party, we only had a short time to get set up and with only a small 6 ft table where we tried to squeeze all the goodies. It all turned out great! 
This time, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and instead of designing a long straight ‘Happy Birthday’ banner with ninja images here and there, I looked for some inspiration on Pinterest and found wonderful ideas.  I decided to stick to one in particular…Look for the credits at the end of the post. 🙂
Banner inspiration via thecrafftedsparrow
I thought about using a couple of  tri-fold project display boards to imitate a japanese room divider…While searching high and low on how to make the banner special, I landed at The Crafted Sparrow’s blog. Once I saw how she created this beautiful banner and hung it in front of a red fabric background, I changed my mind and put that tri-fold project display board to work in a much better way. 
I bought red cardstock {poster size} and covered the tri-fold board on both sides. Then, covered the creases with 3/8″ black grosgrain ribbon and hot glued each banner separate spacing them evenly on the center of the board. For the banners, I printed each letter on bright white cardstock and then cut the silhouette of each one of them. 
I have also bought one ‘pirate sword’ {I know, pirate?? it was all I could find at my local party supplies store} and I was planning just to prop it on the table over a red box …but then my background looked blah! so I decided to go purchase another one and we {grandma helps too!} ‘framed’ the banner with them. Before, we wrapped red and black grosgrain ribbon around the handles of each sword. 
Ninja Party Cupcake Toppers by PoshPaperParties
I made him simple 2.25″ round red and black cupcake toppers and used all of the ninja images I had available in the package including swords, nun-chucks and katanas. We went for plain vanilla white buttercream icing on chocolate cupcakes to match the decor.
and because we all LOVE cupcakes and buttercream icing, here is one more ‘sweet’ shot! 😉
For the bottle wrappers, I made a ‘black belt’ design that everyone loved for its impact and simplicity…
My nephew has a sweet tooth..{don’t they all?} so we bought a couple of glass containers and filled them with Cherry Twizzlers Nibs and mini marshmallows. To those jars I added a little 1.5″ inch ninja tag mounted on 1″ wide black satin ribbon.
We wanted to go for Chinese take out boxes for the favors but they wouldn’t fit some of the surprises my nephew had picked for his friends, so we went with red and black medium (9″) gift bags. I added contrasting ninja favor tags with red and black backgrounds.
And last but no least, a thank you note to his friends for sharing with him such as special day packed with fun and lots of ninja action! 
All Ninja Birthday Party Decorations designed and handcrafted by Posh Paper Parties with the exception of the Happy Birthday banner, inspiration drawn from The Crafted Sparrow blog.
Find these and more party ideas in my Etsy shop! All items seen on this post can be sold separate.
Thanks for looking, 

Baby Shower Games Ideas – Simple and Fun!

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My girlfriend is having her third baby in a few months and most people think that when you have more than two babies, you don’t need a baby shower anymore. Why not? At baby showers we are not only ‘showering’ the ‘new mom’ with gifts but we are having an excuse to get together and have some fun!

So, I am throwing my dear friend a ‘Diaper and Wipes Shower’ {you always need those, if you’re not cloth diapering} and we are gathering by the pool for a brunch! Yum! I will make sure to come back to this post and give you an update.

While searching on Pinterest {but of course} for fun and simple baby shower games to do that day, I landed at this wonderful post written by Kris @ Driven By Decor a blog which -by the way- has made it to my blog lovin’ list!

photo via Driven By Decor

Here is a brief of the games! Click on the title of each game to read the full description and how to’s!

1. Name That Baby: have your guests bring a baby picture of themselves and play a ‘matching’ game!

2. Daddy’s Knows Best: ask the ‘dad to be’ some questions like ‘what is the biggest craving ‘mom to be’ has had during the pregnancy? ‘ and then have mom guess his answer. Kris took it up a notch and videotaped the father’s answer! Swoon!
3. Wishes for New Baby: have the guests write a thoughtful wish for the baby on this free printable Kris has created! And speaking of… take a look at these Wishes for Baby cards I made too!

4. Late Night Diapers: this one is my favorite. Have your guests write messages on the diapers to make late night diaper change a fun task!

photo via Driven By Decor

I love how simple, inexpensive and fun games ideas these are for a baby shower! Thanks to Kris for allowing me to share her post. Please make sure to drop by Driven By Decor and show her some love!

Looking for more Baby Shower Ideas? Click here and read one of my most read posts!
Thanks for stopping by, happy Friday everyone!
XOXO

Custom Birth Announcements – Printable Files

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I have been wanting to share with you these custom printable birth announcements I am starting to design for my nursery decor Etsy shop. I wish my listings could grow faster but it’s insane the amount of orders of birthday parties I have to fulfill each month.

For my first attempt, I created a nautical birth announcement… of course.

Each custom birth announcement print measures 8″ x 10″  formatted to be printed on a 8.5″ x 11″ paper. After the purchase is made, the customer will receive a rough draft of the file for approval and then it will be re-sent in a 300 dpi PDF form.

Here is another example I made for my girlfriend’s little girl…

These birth announcement prints make a perfect gift for the new parents. What a wonderful way to treasure baby’s very first vital stats. 
If you’re interested in purchasing one of these custom birth announcements, please email me to onecutenursery {at} gmail.com or send me a conversation via Etsy. I will design your printable file with the colors and theme of your choice. As always, the sky is the limit! 
Thanks for looking!

Shabby Beach Cottage Retreat – Pinterest Sunday

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Good Sunday morning!

Pinterest has become such a great source for me. Whenever I am lacking of inspiration, ideas or I am looking for an answer to almost anything, I pull out my Pinterest app and there you have it!. And I often end up lost browsing for new craft ideas and home decor…Especially home decor for the dream beach house I don’t own {yet}…

Who doesn’t dream of a shabby beach cottage?

photo via hutkerarchitects

This morning {while looking for something else, of course} I got lost in four words: SHABBY – AQUA – BEACH –  COTTAGE….I am sucker for all things beachy, shabby and aqua blue…So, I gathered some of my favorites beach cottage pins for you…Nothing that you can’t find on Pinterest but these pictures sum up my love for that cottage feel and look.

1. A Welcoming Beach Cottage Porch:

What I love about this picture: besides the obvious aqua blue boat, I love the mix of shabby fabrics: plaid, gingham and stripes.

photo via completely-coastal

2. A Warm Foyer:


What I love about this picture: besides the obvious aqua blue old beach wood paneling, I love the wall art made out of seashells…I am a beachcomber so, now I have a new craft idea to bring to life. The coral table lamp tops it off.

photo via completely-coastal

3. A Modern Kitchen with a cozy cottage feel:


What I love about this picture: besides the obvious pale blue beadboard {I am sucker for beadboard too!}, I love the open shelving, the beach dinnerware is gorgeous.

photo via bhg

4. Must Have Beach House Dinnerware:


What I love about this picture: well, it’s obvious! And wherever you see birds and flowers together, you know you have a shabby chic look.
photo via everythingturquoise

5. The Dream Beach Cottage Master Bedroom:

What I love about this picture: the right amount of aqua blue in a fresh, bright and airy white room. I absolutely love the iron bed frame.
photo via coastalliving

6. The Welcoming Beach Cottage Guest Bedroom:

What I love about this picture: the shabby chic ornate details on the bed frame. I might just paint my own white shabby chic guest bedroom set in aqua blue one of these days…
photo via  rosesandrustblogger

and last but no least….

7. Must Have Shabby Chic Cottage Style Nursery:

What I love about this picture: I LOVE IT ALL!  and I blogged about this vintage inspired nursery before.

photo via parenting

For more shabby chic, coastal living and beach cottage style decor, follow me on Pinterest….I am always pinning new finds!

For easy pinning of this post, just place your mouse over the picture of your choice, a Pinterest logo will appear at the top right corner of the picture; click on it and pin away!
Happy Sunday and happy pinning! 

Free DIY Valentine’s Day Cupcake Toppers and a tutorial

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DIY projects for any kind of party have become popular in the last couple of years and even though most the items I sell are handcrafted by me {yes, one by one}, I also love designing DIY projects for my customers. They come in handy especially when they are overseas.
The most popular item sold for birthday parties are the Cupcake Toppers and today I am going to show you step by step how to make yours at home,  given you already have purchased or downloaded a file for free.

I have made these Valentine’s Day Party Circles for you. Download them here for free. Please remember to read my Terms of Use first. Let’s get to it!

First of all, you must gather your tools and materials. Some items – such as paper, printer and scissors – you should have handy at home but if you’re not the crafty type, there are some other items you must purchase or borrow. Click on each item to take a look or purchase some of my favorites. 
TOOLS AND MATERIALS:

 – White Paper Card Stock – 65 lb

– Inkjet Color Printer
– Sharp Scissors for paper
– 2″ scalloped squeeze punch
– 4″ Lollipop sticks or wood craft sticks
– Hot glue gun or craft glue
– Hot glue clear sticks if you decide to use a hot glue gun

OPTIONAL ITEMS:

– 2″ circle squeeze punch
– 2.25″ circle punch

TUTORIAL

I will break it down in 4 easy steps: print, cut, punch and glue.

1. PRINT
With your color printer, print your file as many times as you wish at 100% scale.

2. CUT
With the scissors, cut each row of the party circles.

Now, for the tricky part:

Each craft punch has a different “reach throat” that’s the maximum distance your craft punch will reach on the paper. The one I use for my crafts has a very small throat and it’s a matter of trial and error until you get the hang of it. Gosh! I wish there was a scallop punch out there with long reach. I am sure there is, I just haven’t done much research. I like mine, it’s easy to use and soft on the hand; the open head allows you to see the design before you punch…I like that!

You can see in this picture that the circle is not centered, that’s because the “throat” of my punch does not reach further….

…so, we cut again. Note: this is trial and error, so be easy on the trims… 
…until we get to this. Perfect!
or this…I personally prefer the scalloped punch…You’ll see why later…Keep reading!
2. PUNCH:

Once you are absolutely sure that your design is perfectly aligned and centered, punch away!

4. GLUE:

Fire up your glue gun and start gluing the lollipop sticks to the back of your punch out. I use a *very old* cutting mat where I put down my hot glue gun and use the grids as guide. 


Put a 1″ long ‘strip’ of hot glue to your lollipop stick like this:

and then adhere the stick to your punch out:
Pardon the thread of hot glue hanging…Remove any rests of glue…{*blush* }. 
At this point you can be done with your cupcake toppers and they look cute…However, I am going to show you how to add more “pizzaz” to them. Here is when you could use that optional  2.25″ circle punch.
Punch out a 2.25″ circle out of contrasting cardstock. I used white, black and pink for these particular Valentine’s cupcake toppers…
Put another 1″ long ‘strip’ of  hot glue in the back of your semi-done cupcake topper like this:
…and stick it to your punched out 2.25″ circle.
and now you’re done!
If you have ANY questions, I would love to hear from you! 
Thanks so much for looking, sharing, and for all the LOVE! Have a wonderful weekend!

Choo Choo Train Birthday Party – More items added!

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Hello everyone!
This post is an update for the Chugga Chugga Choo Choo Train Party post I wrote back in October ’12.
I honestly wish I had the precious time to post all products at once, but if you are reading this and you work from home and take care of a toddler and of all the house chores, bills and errands…You get me.. 🙂 Anywho, how about some updates on my Train Birthday Party decor ? 

This is the invitation, laid out as a train ticket. It’s so fun!

Here is a shot of the actual invitation printed and ready to ship:

Train Birthday Party Invitation by Posh Paper Parties

Now, we have some other goodies available at the shop. Like the matching Thank You note:

Train Birthday Party Thank You note by Posh Paper Parties

No party is complete without cupcakes. So here you have the matching cupcake toppers for this Choo Choo Train Party.

Train Birthday Party Cupcake Toppers by Posh Paper Parties

And last but not least, the DIY project that all of you have been requesting via email: 2″ Party Circles.

Party circles are so useful, they serve more than one purpose. You can craft stickers, cupcake toppers, favor tags, scrapbook pages, etc. All you need is some imagination and of course some crafty tools.
Train Birthday Party 2″ Party Circles by Posh Paper Parties
For more info on these and more products, visit my Etsy Shop.
Happy Friday everyone! Oh! and come back soon for an awesome tutorial on how to craft your own cupcake toppers with a free downloadable DIY 2″ Valentine’s Day Party Circles and a special Valentine’s day offer from Cricut.
Thanks for stopping by!

Owl Themed Crib Bedding Set – Exclusive Custom Design!

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I grew up making homework in the same room where my mom used to sew all kinds of stuff. Cute stuff.
I watched her sew from evening gowns to bedding to custom Barbie doll clothes. Yes, my Barbies had a big closet! They even had beach towels that matched their bathing suits!

I truly believe that I got the “need” to save all those leftover pieces of scrap paper from her. She would save every tiny piece of fabric around because she knew that one day, it would serve a purpose again…Like for making my barbies bathing suits. 🙂

Long story short, shortly after my father passed away last year, I thought that all this talent and knowledge my mom has for sewing, needed to be passed on to me somehow. After all, I am the crafty one in the family. I could – literally – spend hours trying to figure out how to craft something until I get it right. And today I know more about sewing than I did 6 months ago.

So, we sat down and decided to take One Cute Nursery {OCN} to the next level and jumped into the adventure of designing and sewing custom crib bedding.

Here is what I call OCN’s “first baby”. ****Update: this item sold on 02-07-13****

Owl Themed Crib Bedding Set
OCN has been a mix of all things baby, not only handcrafted decor, but we went from blogging about nautical nurseries, to gender neutral nurseries, to kids’ parties decorations ideas. The party decor “niche” started growing so rapidly, I had the need to open an Etsy shop strictly for that, and I have named it Posh Paper Parties, the main reason I did this was because I knew that {as a shop} I wanted to separate the two markets.

We {mom and I} are looking forward to see what happens next! So, I wanted to share with all of you these beautiful pictures of this custom made crib bedding set. I have personally picked the fabric and put together a contrasting design.

Owl Themed Crib Bedding Set

The owls panel was the starting point. I fell in love with it!. Love the patchwork and the color palette. We decided to stick to the pale yellow {or cream if you’d like} and green.

The minky fabric is a must in a nursery. Is soft and cozy, so we used it on the crib bumper and on the reverse side of the owl blanket. We found the perfect fabric to make a matching fitted sheet for the mattress and you can see how seamless it all looks. Peaceful! I LOVE IT!

The accent pillow is also included in the set!

Owl Themed Crib Bedding Set
The bumper is one solid piece {6 batting pieces inside}, made out of non flammable, hypoallergenic, polyester fiberfill batting. We added a generous amount of fabric ties in order for the end user to be able to make bows {or knots} depending on their taste.
Love the ruffled skirt, but we are also looking forward to make a solid flat skirt in the future for a more modern look. I will come back to this post with an update whenever we make a new set!

Owl Themed Crib Bedding Set

This 4 pieces Owl themed crib bedding set is available for saleat our Etsy shop and it is ready to ship!

 ****Update: this item sold on 02-07-13**** 

 It is the only one of its kind and we won’t be making the same design again. So, if you are looking for exclusivity, this is it!

We heart custom orders, email us to {onecutenursery at gmail dot com} with any questions or requests.

Thank you so much for looking! Have a wonderful day!

Posh Paper Parties – Partyware & Printables

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It’s been awhile… I have been terrible at posting, but I love how you all keep coming back to read my posts for some party decor inspiration. Thanks for that! 😉
Last month I made a bold move and re-named my paper goods business. One Cute Nursery still exists as an Etsy shop and can be found here, however all the party decorations and printables found a new home and I named it POSH PAPER PARTIES. 
If you have been following my blog from the get-go, I am sure you have seen me grow from mommy blogger to mompreneur….and I am having a blast! 
One Cute Nursery was born for the love of all things baby, from nursery decor to birthday parties but once the demand for paper goods, invitations and printables spiked, I felt the need to re-brand my shop. I have left open One Cute Nursery on Etsy and I recently added personalized tutu bow holders! I will also be adding some crib bedding so check back here for an update!

All new { and old } Facebook fans to come like Posh Paper Parties, will receive a 10% off coupon code good to be used on our Etsy shop! Make sure to send me an email to poshpaperpartiesco (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject “New Facebook Like” and I will reply back with your code! 
I will be launching Posh Paper Parties dot com next year and we will celebrate with a HUGE giveaway… Also, One Cute  Nursery {the blog} just turned 2! and I will come back with a blogiversary giveaway next week! So, check back next week for a giveaway post! 
Thanks for stopping by and from the bottom of my heart, Happy Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones!
XOXO