Friday, April 26, 2013

Super Hero Cape

As part of my shower gift to the mom-to-be I made a super-hero cape for her older son.  He has to this point been the only child so I wanted to do something to include him in the festivities and to help make him excited to be a big brother.  He is really into Superman, so I decided to make him a similar style cape with his initial, "P", and "Super Brother" on it.

I bought some red satin fabric at Joann's for the cape and used felt I already had for the "P" emblem.  I also bought iron-on letters for the "Super Brother" part.

I first got to work on the "P" emblem.  I made a shield shape out of blue felt with a slightly smaller shield in yellow.  Then I drew a "P" on black felt to fit into the yellow shape and cut it out.  To give it a finished look and to hold everything in place I sewed a border close to the edge of the felt layers.


The red satin fabric I cut in a slightly tapered shape so the neck part wouldn't bulge too much when gathered for wearing.  I then sewed the shield on to the red fabric by stitching a border close to the edge of the blue felt.


Then I ironed on the "Super Brother" letters.  The package of letters I bought only had two "Rs" so I modified a "B" and the "Rs" to get 3 of the same "R" shape.


I had two pieces of the satin fabric so I sewed the right sides (shiny sides, the one with the writing) together leaving a large opening at the bottom for flipping everything right side out and two a 1.5" gaps at the top for stringing ribbon through for wearing.  I then topstitched around the the sides and bottom of the cape to keep the fabric from shifting and to close up the opening at the bottom.  I also stitched 1.5" from the top of the cape to create a channel to keep the ribbon in place.  I then strung 1.5" black and white stripe ribbon through the channel at the top of the cape for tying the cape on. 

And here we have the finished cape with "Super Brother P" showing it off :o)


My friend loved the cape and so did her son.  She told me he wore it for the rest of the afternoon :o)

Monday, April 22, 2013

A Super-Hero Themed Baby Shower

My good friend Samantha is expecting a baby boy in about a month so there was a baby shower to plan!  I along with my other good friends Vicki, Bonnie, and Monet all played hostess for the special day.  Sam and her husband decided to decorate the nursery with a super-hero theme so we stuck with that theme for the baby shower.  It was a co-ed party so we also decided the super-hero theme would be guy-friendly too.

I was mainly on decoration duty as it was something I could work on ahead of time as I'm an out-of-towner.  In a previous post I showed how I made tissue paper pom-poms in super-hero/comic book colors (red, blue, yellow, and black).  I also made a couple bunting banners out of comic books and poster board.  I cut pennants out of poster board in red, yellow, blue, and black.  Then I cut slightly smaller triangles from comic book pages that I glued onto the poster board pennants.


I then used duct tape to string the pennants together.  I found some fun red and white chevron duct tape in Target's dollar area, but only one roll, so I had to use red duct tape for the second banner.  I placed the pennants comic side down onto the edge of the duct tape to prevent creases (as I figured out after the first banner) and then folded the duct tape in half with the pennant stuck between.


And here are the two finished banners:


 I also made a "Baby Shower" banner, similar to how I made this Halloween banner, using comic book pages.


I found plates and cupcake wrappers at Michael's that I thought fit the theme.  Vicki baked and decorated some yummy lemon, strawberry, and chocolate cupcakes.  I also bought a cookie cutter from The Cookie Cutter Company that Bonnie and Monet used to cut-out sugar cookies and label with words like "Pow!", "Wiz!", "Bam!".  The cookie cutter is actually a spider web but I thought it would work for the action bubbles in comics.


Bonnie, Monet, and Vicki set-up a candy station for party favors:


............they also made a city backdrop for the food table..................


And Vicki made a super-hero diaper cake!


All-in-all, everyone had a good time and our friend Sam appreciated the love shown to her and her soon to arrive baby boy.  And us girls had a fun time party planning! :o)