Gift bags

So either I have a cold or I have the worst allergies ever.  I can’t tell.  It started off really differently from a traditional cold so I’m hopeful that it’s just allergies.  Which is really possible because on MLK day Sean and I raked leaves, cleaned the gutters, and probably stirred up all kinds of allergens.  Sean even climbed a tree to get on top of our roof since we don’t have a ladder. 

See?  Crazy.

But, the point of this post is not to talk about my allergies/cold or cleaning gutters, it’s to talk about the gift bags I made for my sister’s baby shower.  So, I went to Michael’s with an idea of what I wanted and just started looking down the aisles.  I stumbled on some blue gift bags, Martha Stewart stickers and the tiniest clothespins I have ever seen.

The stickers came in a variety of items, not just elephants as is my theme.   But, they were just too cute so I couldn’t leave them out.  And, the “Thanks so much” stamp was something I already had from Impress  So,  I just put them together and got this:

So there you have it, my little thank you bags.  Now I just need to fill them.  What would you want in your bag?

Baby Shower Part II

Well, I talked about this previously, but the baby shower for my sister is really soon!  The last time I chatted about this, I was wavering between tricycles and elephants as the theme for the shower.  Most of you all chose the elephant route, and I agreed!  But, I am obsessed with bunting flags too so I knew I needed to figure out a way to incorporate them.  Well, my friend Morgana offered to design the invites for me.  I sent her some information and a few samples of what I was going for and she got to work.  I loved the way they turned out.  What do you think?

So, keeping with the theme, we’ll have an elephant cake from Dallas Affairs.  And then to throw in some of the bunting, I’m making signs for each of the different food items with these bunting flags:

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For those of you planning a wedding, it’s actually from a wedding invite, and there are a lot of other cute free downloadables too. 

Ok, so now that you know how I’ll label the food, what will we actually be eating?  Well, I’m still deciding, but I have some ideas.

Prosciutto and Fig-Spread Sandwiches (cut in cut bite-size pieces):

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Endive with crab and avocado:

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Artichoke-Parmesean Crostini:

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Veggies and dip:

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Goat Cheese-Stuffed Mushrooms:

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And for drinks, I’m thinking lemonade for the non-alcoholic drink and Prosecco Sangria for the ladies that want to have a good time:

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It’s not blue though, does that matter?  I tried to find a tasty blue drink and I came up empty-handed.  Pink ones are a lot easier to come by. 

And, for a parting favor for the guests, I’m thinking about elephant cookies:

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I think I want to package them in little bags sealed with a mini clothespins.  Sort of like this, but smaller and for a boy baby shower:

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And, I would love to put them out on display in one of these adorable little suitcases:

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So, what do you think?  Any suggestions?

Goodwill Finds

I felt like I hadn’t done any updating of our house in a while.  I wasn’t really inspired and couldn’t find anything I wanted, so there wasn’t a lot of activity around here.  I think I was using all my energy on recipes and Christmas gifts and whatnot.  Now that I don’t have that stuff eating away at my time, I am anxious to get back to home decor.

I decided to head to Goodwill because I usually have good luck there.  It was during one of their auctions so the store was pretty crowded, but people were congregating around the auctioneer.  This meant that I had free reign of the rest of the store.  I stumbled on some cowboy boots that I really wanted.  I tried to squeeze my foot into them, but sadly, they didn’t fit.  Which is pretty shocking because I wear a 6 or 6.5.  No luck though, so I continued on to the home goods.

I’m always looking for a birdcage because my friend Morgana has a plant in her kitchen that she put inside a little birdcage and I think it’s the cutest thing ever.  Well, I didn’t find a birdcage, but I found this instead:

I’m pretty sure it’s for candles, but I thought a plant would fit nicely inside of it.  As if it were fate, I also found little terracotta pots at Goodwill.  So, I brought them home too and re-potted one of my plants in it to complete the look:

Then, I hung it right in my kitchen window:

I also found some really great oval and round frames.  I plan to spray paint the two larger ones, and leave the little one as is. 

I think for the larger one, I want to use chalkboard paint to make it its own little chalkboard.  What do you think?

So, for a grand total of $12 I got all of these great things.  Oh, and one other frame that I’m already using for wedding pictures. 

Do you tend to have good luck at Goodwill?  What’s your favorite find?

Refurbished Wood

So remember when I was talking about wanting to make my own floor mirror and I made Sean carry discarded wood down our street?  Well, this weekend we finally got to work on it.  It’s not entirely finished because I need to figure out how to hold the mirror part in place, but I was too excited to wait, and I thought you all might have some ideas for what I should use to keep the mirror attached. 

We started with the wood and attached metal brackets all the way down to connect the boards together.  We just hammered them in place.  And by we, I mean Sean while the dogs and I watched:

So here’s where things got interesting.  The wood was split in one spot.  I was trying to be positive and pretend like even though there was a huge gaping crack, this could work.  Finally, I remembered that we own a circular saw, so I suggested that we just use that to cut off the unsightly part.   Sean grabbed it, cut it, and we were good to go.  Here’s the aftermath:

Iused a damp cloth to wipe off the wood. And that was it.  We were totally done.  Oh, right except for that part about attaching the mirror which I still haven’t done.   But before we could drag it inside, we needed to figure out where to put it.  I canvassed our house and decided that it would fit perfectly in our dining room.  So in it went.

And here’s Sean trying to hold the mirror in place so that I could snap a few photos:

He got tired of that gig and left me alone, so the mirror is sitting lower in this one, but you get the idea:

So, it’s coming together and I’m really happy with how it turned out!  Best of all, the entire budget for the project was just the cost for the brackets which were around $2/each and we got 3 of them for a grand total of $6.  But, I still need to find something to hold the mirror in place.  Any recommendations?

Snowmen

I live in Texas and unfortunately we don’t get much in the way of winter weather.  To remedy that and get my snowman fix, I decided to make snowmen cakepops.  I’ve talked about cakepops before and went step by step, so this time I’m just going to get to the good stuff.

I rolled the cake and frosting mixture into little snowmen:

I tried to make some trees too, but those didn’t turn out so good:

Do you see the trees?  Pretty crappy. 

Then I put them in the freezer to harden up while I ran some errands.  When I came back they were ready to go!  I dipped them in the chocolate and decorated them with the sprinkles I had.  I don’t have a picture of the process because cakepops can be really messy to make and I was the only one home, so I’m sorry.  But here they are all decorated and looking pretty:

And a close up:

My camera was having a hard time focusing on the cakepops, it kept wanting to pick up the background, so this is the best of the bunch. 

Anyway, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!

Gifts for the Office

I always struggle with what to get people at work.  I don’t want to spend a ton of money, but I still want to get them something cute.  And, I like to get everyone the same thing, but since there are guys and girls in my office, sometimes it’s hard to figure out a gift that everyone will like.  

Well, this year I decided to get them some mugs and mint hot chocolate.  But, I tried to get a little creative with the packaging of the hot chocolate.  I started with some clear ornaments that I washed out:

Then, dry thoroughly.  Afterwards, I started to fill them with the hot chocolate powder.  You can make your own flavored hot chocolate.  But I took the easy way out and bought some mint hot chocolate from Target.  Also, I had to improvise because I don’t have a funnel, so I rolled up some paper:

Then, I broke a piece of a mint chocolate candy cane and stuck it inside. 

I also made a cute little tag to tie on the gifts:

And, for easy transport, I stuck them inside the mug:

Ta da!  What do you get for the people at your work?

Ornaments

As the packages of things I’ve ordered online start to stream in, I’m reminded that Christmas is just around the corner.  However, unlike last year, this year we have a tree and other decorations that also keep me in the holiday spirit.  We avoided the stores the weekend after Thanksgiving, but the one store we did go into was Target because we knew that we needed a tree.  Since it’s our first year having a tree, we had to start from scratch except for a few ornaments Sean’s mom gave us over the years, and some ornaments I received from co-workers.  This meant that we could pick any color scheme we wanted.   We decided on red and gold because it’s timeless and I figured I wouldn’t get tired of it in a few years and want to start all over. 

We bought several different varieties of red and gold and hurried home to set up our tree.  We went the cheater way with the lights already on the tree, and it made things so easy.  But, I do really miss the pine smell of real trees.  Anyway, we got to work and ended up with this:

So not the best picture, but I swear it’s cute!  And, we still need a tree skirt, but for our first tree, I think it looks pretty good.  Here’s a close up of some of my favorite ornaments:

Remember those guys from Thanksgiving?

And, an ornament to represent my bee moniker, Mrs. Fro Yo:

And, my all time favorite, one that I MADE!  It was my first experience with sewing and ornament making, and I think it turned out pretty cute.  Now I want to make tons more!

Here’s how he looked after I cut him out and before I started sewing:

And then finished:

Granted he looks a little dog-like, but I still think he’s a really cute elephant. 🙂 

If you want to make your very own ornament from these templates, download them from Fellow Creatives:

Aren’t they so cute?  I never could have made mine without the template!

A Not So Christmas Wreath

So, I knew that I wanted a wreath, but I wanted something a little less traditional.  Well, Morgana of Fellow Creatives posted this wreath from Pickles and I was sold. 

The felt was an unlikely choice, but the colors were beautiful.  I knew I had to make one of my very own.  I rushed over to the tutorial, but it involved sewing, and that wasn’t going to happen for me, so I chose my own route. 

Here’s what I used:

• Poms in all different colors
• A styrofoam circle
• glue gun

I started in the center and just slowly worked my way around gluing, sticking and then moving on.  I tried to vary the sizes and colors as I went along.

I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but it gets better…

Molly was curious about what I was doing, so I let her try it on:

Then, I was all done, but I thought it needed something else…

So I added a ribbon and hung it on our door:

Ta da!  For about $6 I had my very own wreath.

Preparing for Thanksgiving

So, you know that we’re hosting Thanksgiving at our house, and you might remember that we just got a dining table, but we have no chairs (I tried to insert links to these items, but apparently wordpress hates me).   Ok, so we have one chair.  In an effort to have seats for everyone, we were on the hunt for more dining chairs this weekend, but we were spoiled by our earlier finds, and wanted to find something in the same price range ($25/chair).  We hit up Goodwill first, but it was a total bust.  I was intrigued by the auction they had going on, but none of the items were worth bidding on. 

So, we headed next door to the Salvation Army and I found a great chair.  Sean is convinced that it’s not a dining chair, but I told him that he needed to think outside the box.  So what did we get?  This chair:

It has great nailhead detail, which I think you can see a little more of here:

This chair was $25!  I think it looks great at the head of the table.  So, what do you think?  Could it pass for a dining chair?

Also, since we’re preparing for Thanksgiving, I found a few things at Target, and used some of my leftover wedding stuff.  Here’s a sneak peek of our table set up:

More to come after Thanksgiving!

New Obsession: Silver Spray Paint

So, this weekend I had a super bargain weekend, which spurred me to look at some of the things I already had around my house and figure out how I might repurpose them.  I tend to get tired of things easily and often buy new things (like clothes), so I’m trying to avoid that with housewares and furniture.  Well, I had this piece of um…artwork, I guess?  But, I was tired of it and ready to put it in the garage or hide it in a guest room that I never go in because I was tired of looking at it, and it didn’t really go with the rest of my stuff.   

I bought it at Target about 3 years ago and it just lost its interest.  But, I thought with a fresh coat of spray paint, I’d probably like it again.  So I picked up some metallic silver spray paint.

It’s a little pricier than the others, but at $5 a can, it was still worth it.  So, I pulled out a tarp and got to work:

I quickly realized that it wasn’t even going to take a full can, so I grabbed some black picture frames I had and sprayed those too:

This spray paint dried so fast too.  This is great for me because I have zero patience when it comes to crafts.  I always enjoy starting them, but if it’s something that takes a long time, I lose interest fast.  The whole project took about an hour and a half, and that included full drying time. 

Here it is all finished:

 

And, a little perspective on where it sits in our house:

I’ll tell you all about that hutch in the picture tomorrow.  It was one of my weekend finds and I have big plans for it!