Pennant Banner
Pennant banners seem to be all the rage right now in blogland. And honestly, no bridal shower would be complete without one… Using the same paper I found that matches the colors and feel of the Picnik invitations, I decided to make a banner to hang at the tasting bar at the winery.
Originally, I thought about using ribbon to tie each pennant together but then I stumbled upon a roll of jute in my craft room and knew that it would be perfect for this project.
I started out with a 12×12 sheets of scrapbook paper. Then I folded it diagonally, creased, and ripped it apart. Then I did the same with the remaining piece. The end result is 4 pennants out of one sheet of paper. Each is the same size, and the sides of each pennant is ripped/teared as opposed to cut with scissors which gives it a better look.
Using the Cricut and some dark chocolate colored cardstock, I spelled out JEFF ♥ MEG and cut at size 4 squatty. Really, the font option was called squatty- you can’t make this stuff up. Then I glued each letter onto the pennants. For the heart I layered a great patterned paper onto the chocolate brown heart for a little more detail. Once dry, I used an exacto knife to cut a small 1/3” incision into each side of the pennant. Then I ran the jute through it.
See my error in the first picture? No, the names aren’t spelled wrong. I flipped the two ‘F’ pennants when I put the jute through them. I only realized it once I loaded the picture on the computer. No worries, the problem is fixed now. :) Crisis averted.
DIY Wine Glass Charms
Have you ever been at a party or shower and set your drink down and not been able to find it later? You think you left it on the bookcase, but your’re not 100% sure and don’t really want to drink off of some other person’s glass with flu season in full swing. Since we are obviously having wine (and wine spritzers) at this wine tasting bridal shower, I thought I would find some wine glass charms so there’s no confusion on whose glass is whose. Ya, wine charms are expensive and usually only come in packs of 6 or 12 and I need 15-20. So I did what any DIYer would do and made my own.
At the local craft store you can find little wire hoops in the jewlery section. These are normally used for earrings, but they worked perfect for this too. And it was only $2.99 for 60! I looked at the bead section, but I quickly found that it would get expensive to get buy enough large beads and filler beads to make 15-20 distinct wine glass charms. But then I remembered that my cricut can make some really cute gift tags so I decided to go that route instead. Literally 5 minutes later I had 16 2” tags ready to go.
The rest is just as easy. On the backside of the tag I wrote the name of each bridal shower attendee. Then, I looped the earring hoop through the paper tag and attached it to the stem of the glass. This is a simple, inexpensive, personalized alternative to buying wine glass charms.
Slash
We have slash piles on our property. Some were courtesy of the previous owner, and some are our own doing. They are everywhere! We’ve been burning piles after work almost every night for the past month and there is no end in sight. With last night’s pile we ran into a new problem- things are starting to dry out a bit. Dear Hubby ignited the pile, using a propane tank and weed burner like he always does, and the fire quickly took off with 20 foot flames and started spreading rapidly. We had to run back to the house and connect the 500 foot hose to water down the perimeter of the fire before the whole place went up in flames. And let me tell you, that much hose is heavy and makes it nearly impossible to run.
I haven’t taken any good pictures of the property to put up here. I do, however, have one camera phone picture that was taken a few weeks ago after work during one of our April/May snow and hail storms. There is something so wrong about snow in May.
There are more small piles still waiting to be built. As Dear Hubby works his way around the property limbing trees to make our place look like a park, I follow behind gathering limbs and any previously existing sticks and pine needles into small piles. Since we try to burn the small piles after work each night it’s more manageable then if we had nothing but super huge ones.
I will confess that the property is overwhelming at times. I want to look out my windows and see beautiful trees and prairie grass. Right now I see broken trees, dirt mounds, and lots of knapweed. It will take all summer, but our property will get there. Earlier this week we purchased a backpack sprayer and a few gallons of herbicide. Two adults, one backpack weed sprayer and nine acres of noxious weeds… It’s going to be a long weekend…
It’s Officially Wedding Season
Now that we’re finally seeing some sunshine and 60 degree weather, it’s starting to really feel like Spring. Just ask my budding flowers that are starting to peek through the soil! If five years ago you asked me what Spring meant, I would say chirping birds, fresh cut grass, rainbows, and giddy get togethers. Now that I am a little older and wiser, I know that Spring means damned birds waking you up at sunrise, fixing the piece-of-shit lawn mower once again, excessive rain flooding the new sod, and frantic brides gearing up for their summer weddings. Welcome to the real world, people!
I love this time of year, I really do. Sometimes I think Spring is my favorite season, but then I remember the golden leaves of Autumn and apple spiced spiked cider and quickly change my mind. Each year, Spring is busy for a trillion different reasons. This year I have a new set of events keeping me busy. I am the MOH. Not a MOH. I am the MOH of all MOHS! Okay, that might be a bit dramatic… My only duties thus far (and for the rest of Spring) are planning and executing the bridal shower and bachelorette party. This is what my dreams are made of. I am a certifiable wacko when it comes to planning. Some of the small details are still in the works, but I think I have most of this bridal shower planned.
Here is the invitation that was mailed out a few weeks ago. I have removed some of the top secret information so you can’t stalk my BFF or crash her shindig. I created this invitation using one of the collage templates found on picnik.com. Some of the features on this website are available for free while others require a yearly fee of $26. Last year I handed over the money and haven’t looked back since. Seriously, I love this website. It’s like the cheaper, basic, user-friendly little brother to Photoshop. I uploaded the .tiff file to the announcement card section of Costco.com and ordered 50 of these puppies for $14.99.
I also used Picnik to create some photos to go on the guest tables. Aren’t Meg and Jeff just the cutest couple ever?
The bridal shower will take place at a local winery. They are charging $5 per person for wine tasting, but it’s still cheaper then renting a hall and nicer then hosting it in my backyard. Especially considering the fact that I have no backyard- it’s still a dirt pit.
I digress… Here are the advice cards that guests will fill out for the bride. I am thinking about compiling them in a cute apothecary jar and asking Meg to read them to everyone at the very end of the shower.
Next on the list is making wine charms and pennat banner to string across the ‘tasting bar’. Stay tuned for more details! :)
This house owes us big time. Thanks to one of those real estate websites, I was able to find never before seen pictures of this house when it was put on the market the first time. Eek! Look at our poor living room!
And here it is now.
Before. After. Before. After. And here’s a side by side.
First Floor Peek
There are so many things I haven’t blogged about. Instead of a million wordy posts, I thought I would share some pictures…
Our first floor contains one great room, one closet under the stairs, one half bath, one entry way, and one crap craft room. We’ve spent quite a bit of time making this great room feel comfortable and open which is hard to do with a giant sectional and a non-existent dining area. :)
We LOVE the wood beams. What’s even greater than the architectural detail they provide is the structural security. Yep, these beams actually go all the way down into the foundation.
This window is an antique I scored for $15 and we made a matching shelf. I wrapped old bottled in jute and added a great little wreath.
We’ve had this little sofa table since our very first apartment. In fact, it matches the coffee table and the media table which were our first furniture purchases!
As mentioned in previous posts, we LOVE our kitchen. This year we have plans for crown molding on the top of the cabinets, under cabinet lighting, and a homemade permanent island with a matching countertop.
This is the main door that we use. It’s a side door and it open directly into the great room. Hopefully next year we can enclose the carport, knock down this door and wall and make an actual mudroom and seperate dining room. Hopefully. :)
This is a little dining area in the big great room. We added shelves, extended and swagged an oddly placed entry light, and made the most of this rarely used corner.
So… What do you think? Are we off to a good start? Combine what you see above with the cute board and batten wall, the awesome rustic red bathroom, one crazy messy craft room and this cute entryway at the other end of the house and you have a peek at our first floor.
Dog Mansion
Some people joke about how spoiled their dogs are… We joke about it too. But then we come home and seriously spoil these mutts. Mutt#1 is about 45 lbs and two years old. Mutt #2 is about 70 lbs and four months old. She is still growing and I don’t know what we are going to do with her.
See those ugly mugs? Yep, we love them. We worry about them while we are at work. Race home early to feed them and even pet them all night. So it’s only fitting that we built them a dog mansion. Their little doghouse was getting crammed. Mutt #1 would pile in first and then Mutt #2 (the heaviest one) would lay half on top of him. It was only a matter of time before she crushes him…
We decided on 4′x4′ and wanted it to match the house. Cedar shingles and all…
We still have to finish the trim and paint it white. It has a heat lamp in there and it’s quite spacious. Here’s Dear Hubby installing the light.
Beaded Garland
The top of our kitchen cabinets were lonely. Sure, the blue mason jars gave them a bit of company but they were still crying out for more.
I love that red berry garland that you find at Christmastime so I got an idea… Maybe I can find some of that in white for the top of the cabinets. So I searched and searched to no avail. No one had any red garland, let alone white garland. It’s the garland off season, apparently. So, I had to improvise. I had purchased little stalks of garland after Christmas to use for wreaths next year. I decided to turn the little stalks into long strands. It took some wire, wire cutters, and a whole lotta patience and time.
After the long strands were done, I needed to paint them. Things are still pretty cold around here. Finally, this week we are out of freezing temperatures during the day. It’s glorious! But, its still a bit cold to paint. I hung the strands outside and painted them white. But then I ran out of paint and got cold… So, the paint portion is finished for now. The beaded garland looks great on top of the cabinets if I do say so myself. :) I am still looking for an old 1′x1′ window frame with glad to put in the corner. Constant improvement. Isn’t that the new homeowner’s mantra?
Board and Batten Bandwagon
It’s popping up everywhere in design blogs and I decided that I needed a board and batten wall too. The wall on the backside of the stairs was the perfect target! It’s long and plain and needed a little help to say the least.
The first step was deciding how tall to make the ledge. We decided on 5 feet- it’s tall enough for pictures to lean on and be out of the way but not too tall for me to dust it. The next step was deciding whether to have wide boards or not and how far to space them apart. We chose 3” MDF and spaced them about 14” apart. Some choose to put a thin sheet of wood down first or to sand the texture off the walls. We skipped this step since our texture wasn’t too prominent.
MDF is really affordable. You can buy a sheet of it and cut the strips yourself, or you can cheat and buy pre cut sections from your local hardware store. We glued the pieces to the wall with wood glue making suring that it joints up tight with the bottom trim. Then we used a brad nailer to makes sure it wasn’t falling off. Once everything was in place, we spackled and sanded the brad holes and along the trim so it really looks nice. Then after two coats of paint, with a tiny roller, it was done.
Here it is… The before and after…
We love it! The only thing I hate is the security system on that wall. We have the key pad and one of the motion sensors on that wall. Oh well. This is still a huge improvement over the blank boring wall we had before!
Third and Final Bathroom- Yay!
Dear Hubby had a week off from work recently. A snowmobiling trip was (thankfully) cancelled so he had some free time to tackle the bathroom. First up was removing the sink and toilet so he could tear out the floor. It had been a little while since he got to flex his renovation muscles, and since I wasn’t there second guessing his every move, I think he actually enjoyed this project.
Originally, we thought that the bathroom just featured a horrible caulking job near the tub. It wasn’t until we removed the globby mess that we discovered the screws that were put in the laminate to keep the bathtub from bowing out. Great, right?
We removed the screws and it seems to be fine so far. Next step- choosing a flooring. We were going to go with the wood look-a-like, Allure from Home Depot, but after reading reviews we decided against it. Some people said that the rubber smell from the product still lingers a year after installation. And since this bathroom has zero ventilation we decided to go with tile instead. But again, zero ventilation means zero heat so porcelain or ceramic tile would have been too cold. Then we came across this fake tile from HD. It’s amazing. It looks real, you grout it, but it’s not cold and it won’t crack when we drop things on it- which WILL happen.
Our old vanity was practically new, but it didn’t go with the vision we had in mind so we found a new one for $60. Thank you, Craigslist for this affordable, antique, huge pedestal sink! And thank you Craigslist for helping us sell the old vanity for $50!
Here’s the transition- keep in mind it’s still not finished.
We had to remove the medicine cabinet and patch up the wall. The beadboard and ledge were easy enough to install. All the accessories are from TJ Maxx or Ross. So, do you think this was a good transformation for $200?
