DIY Christmas

Get excited, Family! It's all about the DIY Christmas gifts!
Last night I finished up a baby quilt for a friend due in January. She is having a boy! I have to make another one for a GF due in April, but her shower wont be until Feb so i have time. And i just found out another GF is due in August!! it's a very exciting time and i am going to try to make some other baby items like wash clothes and burp cloths! neither one of them are going to find out what they are having so i am brainstorming ideas for cute gender-neutral fabric. i just dont like the green and yellow!

i would add a few other things that i recently made, but my mother was looking at the blog and i dont want to spoil anything!

Hostess Apron

This was my first Thanksgiving as a married woman and my first holiday that i didnt spend with my family! it was very bittersweet and i called my parents numerous times throughout the day. my in-laws came up for the long weekend and we cooked dinner at our place. it was a lot of fun and a lot of work all for about 15 min of stuffing your face!!

every year that my mother hosted thanksgiving, she would have a craft for the ladies to do. sometimes, even the men got involved. well i didnt want to force "DIY projects" on my in-laws so i took the task into my own hands! i made hostess aprons for myself, my SIL and my MIL. my MIL loves syracuse so she obviously get orange and blue and my SIL love lilacs and the color purple. mine was made with left over fabric, but it happened to be pink so it was perfect!



here is the tutorial i followed. they took about 20-30 min each!
http://angieasplund.blogspot.com/2009/03/hostess-apron-tutorial.html

A First Attempt

I am planning on attempting my first piece of clothing.

Ok i tried to make a skirt last summer and it seemed to be going well, but i put it down and just havent picked it back up!

so i am going to try to make this cute wrap. i have the exact same thing that my gf gave me for christmas years ago and i wear it all the time! i wear it some much that now my husband jokes and asks if that is a new piece of clothing and tells me he has never seen it before. Joann's had 50% off their jeresy knit fabric so i bought 1 3/4 yrd in a hunter green and the same yardage in black.

i washed and dried the fabric the other night and plan on starting the project this weekend.

stay tuned!

DIY Floral Hair Pin

I made these the other weekend when my mother was in town
i had left over fabric flower petals from my bridesmaid hair pieces
i just singed the edges and layered them with a glue gun.
the middle piece is pink tulle gathered and glued
i hot glued a bobby pin to the bottom, but next time i think ill sew it on
they are quick and easy to make and small enough to add a few to your hair for a little something extra!

DIY Clothing Labels

Allyson Hill has an amazing titorial for DIY fabric labels!
I have Joanne's Coupon sitting at home waiting to be used!

happy printing:
http://allysonhill.typepad.com/allyson_hill/2007/06/make_your_own_l.html

Pumpkin Muffins

It's that time of year! my pumpkin obsession is in effect!

the other night i refused to turn the heat on, so in an attempt to warm up i decide to bake!

here are some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins!

delicious!

DIY Birdcage Veil

Here is a little pic of the birdcage veil my mother and i made for my wedding. (i need the DH to take a better pic). i ordered 8" white russian veiling from housefabric.com ($4.95 for a yard and it ships out very quickly), a metal comb i took off another little veil but you can also get them at housefrabic.com, white felt (michaels), silk flowers (michaels) and beaded feathers (michaels).

i loosely followed the directions from OnceWed.com and was very happy with the results. my suggestion is do not sew anything until you are sure where you want the veiling to rest. we pinned it down to see how much puff and swoop we wanted. once that was set i cut the felt and sewed the veiling to it. the flowers we arranged several different ways until we finally hotglued them down and then placed feathers in random places also using a glue gun.

i put the birdcage veil on right before we got introduced. i didnt want to wear my fingertip veil all night, but still wanted some sort of veiling. this was a perfect option!

DIY floral haircomb

here is my beautiful MOH, my sister! i started making my BM's hair pieces, but only made one and just didnt have time to finish them the week of due to everything else i was doing. sooo i returned from the hair salon the day of the wedding and my uncle and brother-in-law are sitting at the dining room table making the hair combs!!!! first of all, i dont think i would have finished half the stuff i did without my uncle and B-I-L! they are just amazing! so here is a pic of the haircomb. they are made with plastic haircombs from michaels, loose flower petals (michaels) and rhinestones (michael's). all of it was assembled with a gluegun. is there anything that cant be done with a gluegun!? the girls and i really liked them and it added some fun to their hair! thank you tom and jim!!!!!

Cupcakes!

Just a quick pic of our wedding "cake"

we did a cupcake tier instead and was really happy with it!

we ordered a mix of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes all with vanilla frosting from a local bakery that also rents out the tray. no this isnt a DIY project, but it would be if you have a helpful friend or family that loves to bake! you can rent the tier, buy one or i have seen people make them using antique plates and candlesticks ( click here for directions to make your own cake/cupcake stand).

End of the Season

Tomorrow marks the end of our 2009 wedding season! it will also end our three weekends-in-row wedding stretch! Besides our own, we had 5 weddings this year! We had the honor of witnessing one cousin and four dear friends tie the knot to wonderful men!! although it will be nice to have a free weekend, i wll miss the seeing friends and family, the dancing, the seeing new places, the excusses to dress up and the free meals (that include dessert)!

oh and tomorrow's is on the north shore on a beach. minor detail- it's supposed to rain! i'll be hanging my rosary beads for good weather!

Soilmates

I just have to share the cutest thing that my mother made!

she made these for our post-wedding brunch

i dont know how she made these but i am going to find out and will share!

she even sewed the little outfits herself!!!!!

DIY Escort Cards

I completely forgot to take pics of all these wedding projects so now i am scrambling around trying to take pics of what is still at the house. we have to wait 9 weeks- yes, 9 weeks for our pro pics and i am hoping he has good shots of the DIY projects!

My mom and i went to paper source one sat morning. thank goodness she was there because i felt very overwhelmed and stressed about the projects i was taking on and didnt have a real idea for the escort cards. enter, amazing creative mom. we found escort cards (ok that is not DIY). they came in all sorts of colors so we grabbed purple, green and orange- color scheme! then found great hot pink labels and you can download the layout from their website for easy printing!! we had a cute border hole punch that we used along the bottom of every place card and used a corner punch to round the bottom corners. we used a 1/4 inch rectangle hole punch to make openings at the crease of the card for ribbon. all hole punch items were from michaels. the ribbon we used is also from michaels- sale $1 for three rolls! we tied a bow at the top and then stuck the label to the card. inside i used number stamps with black ink to indicate a table number. it was cheap, easy and looks so beautiful! i love using color so it was nice and bright on the escort table. hopefully my photographer has a pic of it all laid out!

DIY Wedding Favors

Ok so the week before my wedding.... the clovers died!!

my amazing brother-in-law heard about the problem and called me to walk me off the ledge. awhile back i posted about a cute seed packet idea ( Love Grows.... i used design 2 without a lable on it) and told my BIL about it. He then did some research and using the seed packets, came up with the cutest idea that would also allow us to still use the 160 little pots we had bought!

i downsized the seed packet printout by 75% on the copy machine at work (yay for multi-tasking) and was able to fit 4 of them on a regular sized piece of paper. scrapbook paper was on sale at michael's that week (i took it as a sign). i got 6 sheets of 6 different pages, staying with our color scheme- purple, lime green, hot pink and orange. i first cut all the scrapbook paper down to a regular sized piece of paper so it would fit in a copy machine. i then copied the packet-printout to all the backs of the scrapbook paper and had to cut EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM! thank goodness my mother helped! we used double-sided tape to put the packet together and filled it with sunflower seed that my mom got at the local tractor supply store- 20 lbs for $10!! at michael's, i also got little plastic ziplock bags. my father and husband filled them with potting soil (also from tractor supply). you have to buy the dry soil or else there will be moisture in the little bags and it doesnt look nice. my mother and MOH (my fab little sister) tied all the bows with the thank you tags! my mom and i had brought all the ribbon at michael's when it was 3 rolls for $1- we used a thicker ribbon in either green, orange or purple and added a thinner pink ribbon on top of the thicker one to each pot. my mom had cut all the ribbon, made a knot in the middle and hot glued it to the back of the top of the pot- we had to do this or else the ribbon would never stay up on its own. my mom and i got the hot pink paper for the tags at paper source, printed off the thank you notes, cut them up and stamped them with three different little stamps also from paper source. it was a huge team effort and i couldnt have done it with without my family! i must admit that in the end, they were so much cutter than the clover idea and our guest really loved them! the best thing is- we did 142 wedding favors for under $100!! people have emailed to say that they have planted them and are watching them grow! we did a have a few clovers left over so we potted them and used them on our escort table. they looked cute and saved us from having to add another center piece to that table.

Happy Hips

I have to post this beautiful DIY fabric belt done by Heart of Light!

Come on over and check out the step by step directions at 100 Layer Cake.

Isn't it lovely!?

Hair today gone tomorrow

it's not DIY- i went to a stylist!

but my mom watched her and now swears she could do it herself!

if only i could be in high school again! my sisters and i would have another option other than the beautiful french twist for semi's and prom!

Bird Cage

this past weekend i made a bird cage veil for the reception!

ok really my mom was a huge help! we worked on it sunday afternoon!

i used the directions from once wed (posted below)

they were very helpful for ideas and then my mom and i did what worked for us!

it def takes more than one person- you need a second set of eyes to make sure the fitting is right with the flowers and the netting. i didnt take any pics and left it at parents house so the view of will have to wait but i must say it's FABULOUS!

i love it! and the FI thought it was great- yes i showed him! i get so excited with my craft projects i always have to show him! i cant wait to wear it!

Rehearsal Dinner Centerpieces

Keeping with our garden theme- my fab mama made these for our rehearsal dinner center pieces. love them!

we can either give them away or use them all weekend for the cocktail hour tables or at the sunday brunch! what would we do without mothers?? i have no idea!

UPDATE- clover invasion

well, they have grown!

they are at the perfect size right now which makes me worry about what they will look like in 5 weeks!

these even survived being tipped over and falling all over the garage after my father took them out one morning. i told him that i appreciated the help but asked him to please leave it to my mother from now on! typical dad fashion, im sure they were in the way of the lawn mower and used excess-man force to move them and well that's what happens when they are resting on top of a wheel barrel.

Lucky in Love

My mother and i planted 200 peat pots of clover last time i was at my parents house.

the lady at the garden shop said clover takes about 4 weeks to germinate, but then it grows pretty quickly. we thought we were all set- it would germinate around mid july and we would have cute little clover plants to give away as our wedding favor. well two days after we planted the things i got am email from my mom:

"You know that woman at Hadley Garden who said it took 4 weeks to germinate those clovers?

She's an idiot!
You now have out there 10,000,000,000,000,000 clovers all about a quarter of an inch high. HELP!!!
I think I need a gardening staff!!
Love Mom"

oh and then we think a deer got to one of the planters so now we have about 160 quickly growing

clover plants- yeah for DIY wedding projects!

this is a to be continued post!

Card Container

i finally made my card box. i got the design from Heather Drive.
i basically used her directions and all her supplies.
it was a HUGE pain drilling and screwing those corner hooks!
FI did all the drilling- he seriously doesnt trust me with machinery!
i asked my mom if it was vain that we put pics of ourselves in there or should we just put pics of that cats? she said to use pics of ourselves. so we put in ones that remind us of good times- our trip to Italy where we were in a field of sunflowers in Cortona, along the westcoast in Big Sir, our first anniversary that we spent in VT and pic from the top of Mt Monadnock right after FI proposed!
i really like the finished product!! hope it holds up for another 2 months!

wedding pots

went to ikea this weekend and bought these pots

i plan on filling them with little plants and use them as the favors for our wedding guests.

they came in a package of 3 for $.99- cant beat it!

Ice cream addiction

i think i might be obsessed!

tonight i made vanilla chocolate chip!

I scream, you scream...

Another amazing shower gift put to use!

my mom and aunt gave me this wonderful cuisinart ice cream marker and i used it for the first time last night.

i made mint chocolate chip ice cream. all it called for was 1 c whole milk, 2 c heavy cream, 3/4 c sugar and mint extract (totally no fat or calories). mix it up and throw it all into the machine. last 5 min add the chocolate chips and within 30 min you have homemade ice cream! it was delicious! our neighbors came over to watch the sox game so we all have a bowl!! and there is still some left over for tonight!

Head Nesting

I love the look of birdcage veils, but i dont know if i can pull it off.
so.... i thought about making a little one for my reception.
http://www.oncewed.com/ has a great demo- its a perfect place to start if you are interested in making one. i ordered my fabric last night- ill keep you posted!

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Veggie Delight!

it's june in new england so i can finally feel confident we wont be getting any last minute frost. i planted some plants recently out on the porch- we are renters and do not have a yard so pots it is! usually i only do tomatoes and basil but this year i was feeling a little wild and got some peppers and cucumbers. we will see how they do! 

~Cupcake Craz~

another amazing shower gift! my little sister gave me the giant cupcake cake pan and i used it last night to make a cake for my managers birthday!!
it only takes one box of cake mix- follow the directions on the back and split the batter between the two pans. i baked it for about 40 min, let it cool and frosted it! it was easy and is just too cute when its finished!!

Sweet Potato Fries

my big sister got me a WONDERFUL shower gift- a deep fryer!! 

i always try to make sweet potato fries but i had to make them in the over and they would just come out soggy and mushy! not fun! 

so the other night i used by new shower gift and the result was, well, AMAZING! 

all i did was fill the fryer with oil up to the limit line, chopped up sweet potatoes and then threw them in the basket for about 3-5 min, laid them on paper towels and salted them to death! the FI and i  ate the first two basket rounds before we sat down for dinner. nothing like a good burger and sweet potato fries on memorial day!!