Monthly Archive for March, 2011

Wedding Crafts

Published on March 21, 2011 in Crafty. 1 Comment

This photograph is a collage of the decorations that my friends and I made for my wedding. (You can click to make it bigger!)

Porter’s mom made the bouquets and boutonnieres. They were perfect. And she did a great job on such short notice!

I designed the “entertainment fans” with a word search, wedding madlibs, and tic tac toe. My dad drilled the holes in the tongue depressors and pencils. Then our out-of-town guests and my family helped assemble them the night before the wedding.

The terrariums were planted and maintained by Porter. I am glad she was in charge of these, seeing as once they became mine, it took me all of about a week to kill them all. She put in an amazing mixture of moss and leafy greens. Each table had a different one. It was perfect.

Porter’s mom also made me about 150 white napkins from twin sheets purchased at IKEA. (Again – AMAZING!) Then my mom spend hours over the course of the week before the wedding folding them into fans. The little box on top says “Thank You”. I made those using the Cricut and put our favors inside.

The triangle flags that adorned each of the chair backs were also made by Porter’s mom. (She has a serger so she got all of the fun serger jobs.) Lisa and Jess traced out all of the triangles beforehand. The day before the wedding Kelly, Victor, Porter and Lisa (maybe Jess, Alicia and Brad too?) figured out how to get those suckers to hang on the back of the chairs. All I know was it was a joint effort to get them to hang.

Those magnets with mine and Eric’s faces? Those were our favors and possibly my most favorite of all of the crafts we did. Sierra came over one afternoon and we plugged away at making these. First I designed the graphics in Illustrator. Then I had them printed on fabric via Spoonflower. I made sure the circles were the correct size for the button covers I had. I glued magnets on the backs of the button covers and Sierra came over and helped cut out all of the Erics and Michelles and put them together. I love seeing them on our wedding guests’ refrigerators when we go and visit!

The last highlight is of the photobooth that we designed. It was a piece of plywood painted in chalkboard paint with a super cute frame placed around a cut out. It also had a chair rail, so it looked like a section of wall. Porter made a bunch of mustaches on sticks along with a monocle and some glasses. We tried to get everyone in the “booth” for photos. We have some super cute pictures of a guests!

There is so much more to come… The next wedding hightlights will be of the cakes that my friends made… so yummy….

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Disgruntled.

Published on March 21, 2011 in reader input. 2 Comments

So I am trying to update my blog via the WordPress app on my ipad and it is totally not working. I hope I can figure out a reasonable workaround soon because it is really frustrating.

Do any of you have ideas?

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Thank heaven for little boys!

Published on March 18, 2011 in Daily Rambling. 2 Comments

I love when my friends have babies. Boys. Girls. It doesn’t matter. I have a million great ideas for newborns. Plus everything is small, so you don’t have to buy as much fabric. I like trying new things when the opportunity comes around. So when I found out our friends Jen and Jef were going to have a little boy, the first thing that popped into my head was…

Did you guess peeped teepees? Because all I could picture was the first time the kid pees on Jef. (Sorry buddy.)

I made these sans pattern. I love my little rotary circle cutter. They are flannel and fleece. it look less than a quarter yard of each to make a set of ten. 

Good luck keeping dry my friends!

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Bargain Shopper

Published on March 17, 2011 in Daily Rambling. Closed

I have a confession- I am not a bargain shopper. I mean, sure, if I am going to buy something expensive, I shop around. But grocery shopping? I am a one-store kind of gal. I don’t look at weekly ads. I don’t clip coupons (I do for Costco, but I don’t know if I would count that). I don’t shop in discount grocery stores, though I do shop at Costco… I am so contrary. And I don’t compromise for something less expensive if there is a brand I know I like available. With that being said, when a product I am loyal to is on sale, I go a little overboard.

Take for example, this stock:

It was on sale for $1.99. That is a pretty good deal. And we use stock almost everyday in the kitchen. (Is this normal? How often do you use it?) But did you see that sticker on the front?!? $3.00 off if you buy 3. That means each box of stock would only cost me $0.99! 

I was shopping with my thrifty sister, who actually uses coupons to her advantage, and she pointed out that you needed to also spend a minimum of $10. So I resigned myself to buying some weird number of boxes so that I can use a few coupons, but not end up spending more than $20 on stock. As we were checking out, the woman kept taking the coupons off. I even tried pointing out the $10 minimum (I’m honest- sue me). So even though I wasn’t meeting the minimum purchase, she just kept taking $3 off every time that third box of stock passed over the scanner. I went back and bought more. I couldn’t help myself. 

p.s. Thanks to my sister, another grocery store accepted an expired coupon that she had buried in the bottom of her purse for Almond Milk. Lisa saved me $13 that weekend on my groceries (though I probably would have bargained shopped on the stock anyway).

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Music making this morning

Published on March 16, 2011 in Daily Rambling. Closed

I tend to listen to NPR in the morning. It is the only time I really get exposed to what is going on in the world. Though lately, I have been falling asleep on my drive. So I decided to try something different- I put on music instead.

Today’s album that got me through my morning commute:

Thanks G Love and Special Sauce.

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Progress – or lack thereof.

Published on March 15, 2011 in Crafty and Sewing. Closed

I have made very little headway on the kimono dress. I just haven’t had the time to get into the craft room and spend “quality time” with the dress.

I did however get an iPad, and though the smart cover is super smart… it doesn’t keep the back from getting scratched up. So I needed to make a case for it. Here’s the good news:

It’s pretty!


Here is the bad news:

It is too small by about 3mm. Yes. Very small by a very small amount. It is okay though. Because I didn’t use a pattern and just kind of “winged it”. So I know how to make it a little bit larger… AND I can add a few pockets for my capacitive pen and charger storage. Plus it gives me the opportunity to make the buttonhole completely center. (Though this buttonhole was WAY better than my last one!)

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