Is there anything cuter than a baby in a cute hat? I think the universal answer to that is no. Since I’ve had the pleasure of celebrating with many of my friends this past year in welcoming little ones, I went on the hunt to find a cute hat pattern to sew up for the cuties. I had bookmarked an awesome pattern from Merriment Design in my google reader, so I thought that would be a great one to try first!

The first I made was for Jo’s baby girl Morgan. I whipped it up in a fun purple fabric with the ruffle from the original pattern. The only change I made was to omit the ties (partly to simplify the pattern and partly because I knew she would be wearing it where it was warm and I thought the ties on her chin might be bothersome). Anyway, she’s now 6 months old and Jo sent me some adorable pics of the hat the other day now that Morgan’s little noggin is growing into it. (The pattern says that its made for a petite 9 month old, so I think it could probably fit anywhere from 6 – 12 months depending on the kiddo).

So adorable, right? I love the ruffle!

So then I thought, well hey that wasn’t so hard! I decided to whip a couple up for the twins, too. For theirs I decided on slightly matching patterns but Ethan got cars and trucks while Kaylee got pastel woodland motif. I chose to do Kaylee’s with a solid (not ruffled) brim, because I didn’t want theirs to scream “I’m the Girl!”, “I’m the Boy!”, I wanted them to match together a little better. Plus, that way if Ethan steals Kaylee’s hat and puts it on his head its not too tragic, lol. Here they are the day of their dedication just before Easter:

Ethan and Kaylee were 8 months when they first tried on their hats and I would say they were a bit snug. I had to redo the brim to allow for more clearance, which I’ll take into better account next time. The pattern is really pretty simple, the only trouble I had was that I seemed to have a larger circumference at the base of the crown than the brim allowed, so you can see I had to create a little pleat to make up for it. Oh well, adds character, right?

And here’s a picture of Kaylee showing her parents how much she looooves her hat (thats a laugh not a cry, I promise!). Oh, and I think her dad dressed her for this particular outing

There are a lot of link’s at the bottom of Kathy’s post to other people’s projects, too. Its fun to see how everyone interprets the pattern. Can’t wait to try out more of her patterns and projects.

[Thanks to Jo for taking and sharing all of these awesome photos, and to Dana for capturing Kaylee's first swing]

Do you ever see a tip or trick online and just want to smack yourself it seems so obvious?

This ice serving trick from Real Simple struck me that way. I always toss ice in a bowl and after 20 minutes it ends up a soupy mess, but by serving it in a colander you can avoid that and keep everyone’s ice crisp and fresh.

Any other party tips as we creep closer to the 4th?

Sometimes, celebrations are just so fun.  One day in the winter, a living social deal came through my inbox.  I could not resist thinking this would be just the perfect thing for out group of girlfriends to do for Dana’s birthday. 

Dana loves chocolate almost as much as I do. 

We kept the evening activities a surprise from the birthday gal.  We started out at Purple Cafe, ordering yummy salads and pizzas.  Then the dessert menu came.  We oh-so-nicely convinced Dana we should not order chocolate.  So instead we got creme brulee. 

Then we headed over to Dawn’s Cake & Chocolates in Kirkland.  We had a truffle making class to attend!

The truffles start out as little hallow balls of chocolate (milk or dark)….  Then we mixed our own fillings.  You take chocolate ganache and add well, anything you want to the mix.  You also have to taste test kind of a lot.  Especially if you are the birthday girl.  When you think your filling is ready, you put it in one of these handy squeeze bottles. 

Here is Dana, filling up her little truffles with yummy filling.  Some crazy things included: peanut butter & jelly, hazelnut, raspberry, cayenne, guava tequila, coffee, mocha, almond, strawberry champagne, ginger lemon,  bailey’s … (this is not the whole list, but really just what I am remembering right now.  Maybe Dana/Jackie/Bri would like to comment on the ones I have forgotten???)Shockingly, taste testing was my favorite part.

After all the truffles were filled, we capped them with more chocolate.  Then we got to envelope them in even more chocolate.  Yes, all steps involved taste testing.

There were tons of sprinkles and adornments to choose from.  We not only made our truffles look pretty, but also distinguished which truffle was which! 

We got to place a few of our truffles in little boxes and pose in front of all kinds of yummy decorations.

Here is a box of the birthday girl’s truffles that she made.   Aren’t they gorgeous AND delicious looking???  I have to say, I was impressed.  That in three hours, we ate a lot, laughed more, and got to walk out with 36 morsels of chocolatey wonder.  Happy Birthday Dana!  (and happy chocolates to the rest of us!)

Another summer weekend is upon us, friends. Last weekend we explored Roslyn (where the show Northern Exposure was shot). I’ve been a lot, but this time we went off the main drag to see what else town had to offer. We hit up the farmers market, drove through some really fascinating old cemeteries, and happened upon a vintage trailer rally. (those of you who know me well know I love me a mid century trailer).

I snapped some pics of the coolest one we spotted (although I missed an AWESOME turquoise dodge RV with the camera.) Seeing these just makes me want to hit the highway and cruise.

Recipe for this weekend is more outdoors and I’m stoked to get out there and go exploring! [First image via wanderingairstream.com which is a really fun blog I just discovered - if you want to have serious vintage trailer envy check it out]

* This spring I helped my parents redesign their Master Bathroom. This is a series of posts detailing the design, inspiration, and execution. Read more here *

Before I get into the nitty gritty of how we laid out the space and the infrastructure, I wanted to share some of our design inspiration for fixtures and finishes.

Our family is pretty outdoorsy and hails from the Pacific Northwest (at least a couple generations anyway), so when we first sat down to brainstorm how they wanted the space to look, the immediate direction was natural and northwest.

There is a such thing as taking natural too far, though, and you end up at mountain lodge. We decided that they’d rather save that for vacations and do northwest natural from a more refined, elegant perspective. This meant integrating natural materials, textures, and colors with clean lines and simple sillouettes (oh, and just a little bling to keep things fancy If we’re talking about combining two styles a la Emily Henderson, we might call it “Mountain Modern”

I scoured some inspiration sites looking for some images that captured what we had begun to talk about and these are my favorites.

Next up: Getting it all laid out

*All images via Sunset Magazine