Robot Baby Gifts

I found a lot of robot gifts for Baby Riot that also doubled as decorations for the shower. I want to share them with you, as well as great gifts from other people at the shower, in case any of you know a little boy who loves robots.

Forget the teddy bear, this stuffed robot is the cutest thing ever, right? Riot's gonna love him!

This book is ADORABLE. There are gears that spin, which will be great when the baby gets a little older.

What baby's room would be complete without a robot bobble head?

These little onesies were made by Chelsea's friend and hair stylist. She is so creative! She screen-printed them all herself. She also makes hair pieces that my sister and I love to wear. Visit her Etsy shop.



Last but not least, my favorite gift for the baby was from my amazing friend Sarah. She painted an original piece of robot art for his room. I adore Sarah and I adore this little canvas. You can read more about how Sarah made this work of art at her blog : Miss Sarah.

Happy mommy-to-be and Patsy

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Robot Baby Shower Decor

I wanted to share some of the details from the robot baby shower. 

This is another thrift store frame that I spray painted. It's an easy way to a give a pop of color, as well as label different areas of the shower. There were a lot of people that didn't know each other, so I thought that name tags would be nice. They were especially nice in keeping track of points during the games.

The Robot Party Cricut cartridge arrived the day before the shower, so I was able to make this banner just in time. The cartridge hand so many amazing shapes, I wish that I would have found it sooner. Oh well, I guess Riot is just going to have to have robot-themed birthday parties as well. 

I had this piece of wall "art" laying around in the garage. I bought it a few years ago on clearance at Target for $8. I figured just the frame was worth that much.

I wasn't in love with the tropical leaf so I took it out. I painted a few coats of chalkboard paint directly on the glass. Not digging old-school chalk, I ordered these little guys on Amazon. Chalkboard markers are so cool!

Ryan was an amazing help with all of the decorations. Guests really liked his welcome sign using the chalkboard. Check out the after. The new mommy liked it so much, she asked if she could put it in the baby's room. After the shower, Ryan erased Welcome and wrote Riot's Room.

Ryan also used the chalkboard markers to add these little robots to the bathroom mirror. The markers can be used on chalkboards, windows, mirrors, and more. All it takes is a little water to clean it off.

How cute is the robot baby with a robot teddy bear?!

  

Many of the photos by Sarah

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Robot Baby Shower Favors

We go through a lot of bottles of Starbucks Mocha Frappaccino at our house. We buy them by the case at Costco. So I was so excited when I came across this great idea using the bottles over at Kerry's Crafts. I began hoarding the bottles in our mud room, knowing that I would find a use for them eventually.

TA DA! I decided to finally put the bottles to use in creating the favors for my sister's vintage robot-themed baby shower. The first step was getting the sticky labels off. After hand-washing the first ten bottles and slowly peeling off the labels, not without much frustration, it dawned on me to put them in the dishwasher. Not only does the dishwasher get them spic and span, but right after the drying heat cycle the labels peel off so easily. Just make sure you pull them out and take the labels off while the bottles are still warm.

After the lids were clean, I primed them with a primer spray paint. Trust me you're gonna wanna prime the lids, because the Starbucks logo is very dark and will show through. Then I followed up with some sparkly silver spray paint.

Once you have clean bottles and painted lids, it's time to cut the paper. I used a vintage looking paper pad by My Mind's Eye called Complete Boy. I cut the paper into strips 2 1/2" wide and 9 1/2 " long. 

Put a strip of double-stick tape on each edge and a little strip in the center. Wrap the paper around the bottle, secure the edge and voilà...

I punched out circles and robots then ran them through my sticker maker so that they would stick really well to the bottles.

The finishing touch was a little bit of sparkle. I ran Stickles, which I love, around the circles.



Now, let me tell you a little story to explain the display...

On my drive to the park where Ryan plays softball, there is a farm-style house, wrap-around porch and all, with an organic tomato stand out front. Every week, I slow down as I drive by, gawking at how adorable it is. One week, I drove by and they had a ton of antiques and goodies out front in the yard. I dropped Ryan off at his game and came back right away. It turns out they were setting up for a yard sale the next day, but they were such nice people they let me look around. Not only had the family owned an old-fashion soda fountain in town, but they recently threw a wedding in the backyard for their daughter. This led to many amazing finds for me including : retro tin drink signs, large vintage window panes, and much more.

I spotted boxes of these small wooden crates. They had used them for centerpieces at the wedding. I jumped on the little crates (they were only 50 cents each!), itching to find a use for them.

I primed and spray painted a couple of the crates with a robot silver. Then used them to display the favors at the baby shower. I also sprayed a couple of the crates red to prop up the drink dispensers, which you can see here.

The last step was to stuff the bottles with something delicious. We displayed the bottles near the entrance with this sign that I made using a spray-painted thrift store frame.

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Robot Baby Shower : Food Details

I wanted to share with you some of the food details from the baby shower. Below are little wrapped chocolates. I like to use Hershey's Nuggets. Ryan printed robot images onto file folder labels and then simply wrapped them around the chocolates. Return address labels are also the perfect size for these little nuggets.

I also used the Robot Party Cricut cartridge to make these super cute cupcake toppers. The mom-to-be requested her favorite: rainbow chip cupcakes. We also made chocolate fudge cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Oh yeah!

I know it may be unusual to have adult beverages at a baby shower, but it was at the request of the mommy-to-be. She wanted everyone to be able to enjoy a cocktail, even though she couldn't. What a gal!

I made lemonade and then had raspberry and pink lemonade flavored vodka on the side so that guests could spike their drinks as they please. Ryan suggested sangria as another option. We used the recipe below from allrecipes.com. It was rather tasty. The recipe was a little different from most sangrias I've tasted, but everyone loved it.

Sangria Recipe from allrecipes.com, thanks Hjacoby!

• 1 (750 mL) bottle of dry red wine
• 1/2 cup brandy
• 1/2 cup triple sec
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/3 cup frozen lemonade concentrate
• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup sugar (optional)
• sliced lemon, lime and orange
• 8 maraschino cherries
• 2 cups club soda

Mix together the wine through the sugar. Add the sliced fruit and cherries. The longer you let the fruit soak, the more flavor there will be. Add in the club soda just before serving. This recipe makes about 6 cups worth of sangria. I quadrupled the recipe to fill the drink dispenser.

I also came across an ingenious tip. Usually, you add ice to a large drink container...ice melts...drink tastes watered down. :( Avoiding the watered down taste is as easy as filling an ice cube tray with whatever you will be drinking. Some of you may be thinking...duh, but it had never dawned on me to do it before now. So I made up some lemonade, the night before the shower, and filled 3 trays.

Photos by the beautiful Sarah B from MissSarahLou

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Baby Shower Game : the Price is Right

Oh, how I loved the Price is Right when I was a kid. Every summer, I would spend my mornings, bowl of cream of wheat in hand, watching the Price is Right. I had high hopes of winning a showcase showdown some day. A child sure can dream.

That leads me to the third game we played at the shower: the Price is Right, baby edition of course. Ryan and I went to Target and took pictures of about 10 baby-related items: diaper genie, baby food, formula, baby shampoo, diaper cream, baby monitors, etc. Ryan took pictures of the items with his phone, as well as their price tags. We made sure to choose items that had prices with odd change, such as $4.72 or $16.38 versus items ending in .99 or .00, it's more challenging that way.

Ryan took all of the photos and put together a PowerPoint. He even made a game show curtain backdrop. He's so good. During the shower, we hooked the laptop up to the TV, using an S-video cable, so that all the guests could see the products that they were "bidding" on.

Everyone got a mini whiteboard and marker. I used the mini whiteboards from my classroom, but I bought them originally at Target (4 for $1) in the dollar section, by the registers. You can usually find them there during the back-to-school season.

When an item appeared on the screen, everyone wrote down what they thought it cost. Be sure to mention the store that you took the prices from, because prices can vary greatly from store to store. And believe me those, who are competitive, will challenge you if you don't.

Everyone flipped their board over at the same time. The person with the closest price, without going over, got a point. The person with the most points, after all of the items, received a gift. It was fun to see how different the bids were. You could definitely tell who hadn't bought baby items in awhile (or ever), and who had little ones at home. Some of us were WAY off. I cannot believe how much formula costs! I think it was also informative for my sister. Now she knows what to expect.

Check out those gifts! My sister made out like a bandit.

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Baby Shower Game : Scattergories

I'm a BIG FAN of game nights. Scattergories being one of my favorite games to play. So I came up with my own version of Baby Edition Scattergories. The categories are general, but I included the mom-to-be and baby's names to personalize it. I printed them off on white cardstock, front and back (two rounds), so that it would be a little easier to write on. Make sure you have lots of pens ready.

If you've never played Scattergories, it's really easy. Each round has a letter (an easy way to choose letters is to use the baby's initials). Once the timer is started, each person writes down a word that fits the category, but it must start with the letter. Once time is up, go around the circle (one category at a time) and have everyone share what they wrote down. If two or more people have the same word, no one gets the point. Each answer that is original gets a point.

You can also allow double points for double letters. Here's an example with the letter "R" :

..........................................................................................................................

Food a pregnant woman craves                                       raspberries

Body part that swells or aches while pregnant                  rump

Where the new mommy will be when her water breaks  Red Robin 

(Red Robin would be worth 2 points for using the R twice)

............................................................................................................................

So the words above would be worth 4 points, as long as no one else had the same answers.

We had so much fun with this game. Some of the answers were hilarious! Oh and feel free to "veto" someone's answer as a group, if it's too much of a stretch (Ex: food a pregnant woman craves - elephant).

Mommy-to-be waiting to hear the letter for round one

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Baby Shower Game : Candy Bar Clues

When planning the baby shower, I really wanted to stay away from the typical, completely gross baby shower games, like smell the melted chocolate in the diaper, blindfolded baby food taste test and sucking anything out of a bottle. After scouring the net and brainstorming, I came up with three games : candy bar clues, Scattergories and the Price is Right.

First up, the candy bar clue game. To start with, I laid out all of the candy bars on the floor so that everyone could see them. I had a list of clues to describe each stage of having a baby: conception, pregnancy, the birth and bringing baby home. I've listed a couple of my favorite clues below:

Daddy at conception: Big Hunk

Contractions: Now and Later

Epidurals: Lifesavers

11 pound babies: Whoppers

Time alone for the new parents: Zero

I read the clues aloud and the first person to shout out the correct candy got to keep it. Warning : the more guests you have, the harder it is to figure out who said it first. I'm sure there's a better way to set up this game for larger groups, I just couldn't think of one.

For a full list of the candy bar clues, read on...

Letters to Baby Riot

My sister's baby showers were a success! Over the next few days, I'll be sharing lots of ideas with you all, for a robot-themed baby shower. First up, the letters to baby Riot.

Often at baby showers there is an opportunity to write down advice for the mom. I thought it would be fun to write advice to the baby that would soon be joining us. I was inspired by this letter to baby Violet Marie over at Eat Drink Chic. By inspired, I mean I kept most of the letter's wording and added fill-in-the-blanks. I tried to re-word it, but it was just so perfect. I hope that Amy over at Eat Drink Chic doesn't mind.

I addressed the letters to Riot, my future nephew, leaving the blanks for guests to fill in. The letters were laid out for guests to fill in as they arrived. I made the sign by spray painting a thrift store frame and backing the title with striped cardstock. 

We strung (is that a word?) ribbon over the fireplace so that guests, once finished, could clothespin their letters for all to see. It was fun to read what everyone wrote. I'd like to think that Riot got a lot of good fashion advice (i.e. stay away from parachute pants, socks with sandals and skinny jeans for men).

I'm going to gather all of the letters into a book for Riot. The mom-to-be took a picture with each guest before leaving. That way each letter will have a photo next to it, so Riot can put a face to the name and advice.

After the shower, when the men (dad, uncle and grandpa) re-emerged, I made sure that they gave Riot some manly advice as well. We wouldn't want it to be one-sided. 

Photos by my amazing friend Sarah B over at Miss Sarah Lou

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Letters to baby

This is a sneak preview to all of the goodies I've been making for the baby shower this weekend. I am so excited to see everyone. I'm especially excited to see my students while I'm up there, I miss them!

I made up these fill-in-the-blank letters addressed to my baby nephew that will be coming soon. I thought it would be fun to have guests at the shower fill them in and then collect them in a book for the new mommy to read (and also Riot when he's older). This was my test run. I had Ryan's mom fill one in last night. I love her answers.

To see the finished product go here.