Garden name stakes

We planted the fall garden last weekend and I was thinking it looked a little blah.

Rather than waiting for the actual plants to grow I gave the garden my own pizzazz!

The scrap pile gave me a few beauties.

Martha helped me with the letters

These little cuties were born.

Aren't they cute!

*Best Part* 

I got to finger paint the words on the sign.

It took me back to my younger years :)

Disclaimer- I am well aware that the broccoli sign is spelled wrong. I am terrible at spelling. The hubster is generally pretty good. We disagreed about how to spell broccoli. I listened to him. He was wrong. Now every time someone points out that it is spelled wrong I can tell them that story.

I am obviously a fabulous wife ;)

Much love

a few of my favorite decorations * A BIRTHDAY BASH *

Today I am going to share a few little projects I did to make the house feel extra special on Zadie's big day.

She stayed with her grandparents the night before the party so I wanted the house to really make her excited from the minute she opened the door.

Since the theme of the party was "A Few of Zadie's Favorite Things"

we HAD to decorate with balloons because they are definitely a favorite of my baby girl.

I just picked up a helium tank at Target add blew up as many pink and blue balloons as I could.

 

We also used a few outside to make the house a little easier to spot.

I made a simple pendant banner to go over the food table and covered wall behind/ beside with pink streamers in a hombre design.

I used this tutorial to make the hot pink tissue paper pom-poms.

I hung them from the ceiling all over the room with the food and in a cluster above the drinks table. (first picture)

The cupcakes were decorated with a mini pendant banner hung from bakers twin and skewers.

I placed the party favors around the cupcake stand for a little extra color.

To make these I simple painted the lids of clean baby food jars, added some gumballs, and tied a sweet pink ribbon around the top.

I wanted to use Mason jars SO BAD for the kids drinks but I didn't think glass cups would mix too well at a two year old's party. 

All I could find at the store were cups with zoo animals all over them, that did not quite match the look I was going for so I covered those bad boys up.

I got the pattern for the cups by tearing one apart, laying it down flat on a piece of paper,and sketching the design.

A piece of scrapbook paper cut by the pattern and glued to the cup did the trick.

Adding the blue straws was the perfect touch to round out the color theme.

The kids (or parents) wrote their name on the cups with a sharpy.

It worked out perfectly!

Well guys, if you are getting tired of the party post I totally understand.

I will be back very soon to the regularly scheduled programming ;)

There are only two more party posts to go...

Next up: the food and games.

Lots of love 

linking to these great parties!

a few of my favorite things 2 * A BIRTHDAY PARTY *

Up next on the diy menu for Zadie's birthday is this cupcake stand.

I think my crafting theme for this party was keep is simple-sweet

(an old saying from my cheerleading days- don't judge. ;)

If you missed my last post about the painted glass vases you should check it out.

I let you know in that post that the color theme for the par-tay was turquoise and pink.

This cake stand does not exactly fit in the color theme- but I thought it was close enough

and these plates... yes i said PLATES

were far to cute to pass up. 

I have seen similar ideas to this cake stand on other blogs where all the supplies were bought at the dollar store.

Unfortunately I do not have a dollar store near my house that I feel real safe going into...*insert* ghet-to 

One of the few negatives to living downtown in my city.

If you choose to buy your supplies at the ole' dollar tree you could definitely save some mullah,

But seeing as I only spent a whopping 10 bucks on this cutie...

and I didn't have to paint it...

I'll stick to Target :)

I used two large and one small plastic plate from Target.

Then I buggied (totally a verb) over to the candle section and bought two glass taper candle holders.

When I got home I whipped out my handy dandy E600 and glued those bad boys together.

(I tried hot glue at first and it was NOT strong enough!)

It goes a little something like this:

large plate

glue

candle stick

glue

large plate 

glue

candlestick

glue

small plate

Wha~LA!

This little cutie was born.

Here is how it looked at the party

Just perfect.

Much love

Linking to these great parties!

erasable weekly calendar { Tutorial }

Today was back to school day where I live.

Thank goodness that doesn't effect me anymore/yet!

Oh I hated those first day of school nerves when I was a teacher.

As a mother,  I am TOTALLY not ready to send either of my children off to school.

They  need to stay with this mamma for.ev.er.

(Today I feel that way. Tomorrow I may be willing to pay someone big money to take them ;)

I know back to school means busy. busy. busy.

I made this little beauty a couple of weeks ago and it has been a life saver.

a weekly calendar

erasable

cute

Yeah, I'm loving it.

You want to make one too?

First go find a frame with 7 or 8 openings.

If you are lucky- you'll find one on clearance like I did. Whoop!

Take the mat out of the frame and cut the burlap about one inch larger than the mat on all sides.

Fold the burlap over onto the back of the mat and glue down (I used hot glue).

Be sure to snip your corners so they don't end up to bulky.

Your mat should look like this from the front once you are done.

Take your scissors and cut from the center of each frame to the corners.

Fold each piece of  burlap back and glue. Trim the excess burlap off.

This is what your mat will look like when your done.

Pretty pretty :)

Use a picture (the size of your frames) to cut out the scrap book paper.

I used the paper that came with the frame- you know the one with all the random smiling people- to tape my scrap book paper to.

Paint the frame white.

Put it all back together and Wha-La ~

You have a cute new calendar!

I hope this helps make your busy school year run a little more smoothly :)

Much love

Life is beautiful sign { Tutorial }

In my many months of perusing pinterest I spotted this sign idea...

But I guess I never pinned it!

Lame

Props to whoever came up whit it!

It stuck with me though, and I have been dying to make it ever since.

I actually started this project right after Mattie was born 

but it took me forever a bit to finish it.

Those sweet newborns sure are needy aren't they!

Do you wanna make one of your own?

It was so fun!

*Tutorial*

I took an old beat-up piece of wood we had in our junk pile

(gotta love post baby body...)

and cut it into four equal sized pieces.

Paint them with a couple coats of stain and let them dry.

Grab one piece of cut wood (I grabbed the one that was the most warped and damaged)

Pull some scrap book paper from your stash and brush mod podge on the back.

Place the paper on the wood where ever your heart so desires.

smooth any bubbles out

and then smile at your handy work :)

Finally slather on a thick layer of mod podge onto the entire board.

For the letters:

If you are like me and do not own any type of professional cutter thingy 

(you know what I am talking about :)

you will need to grab some contact paper and cut out your letters.

(If you have one of those cool cutters feel free to whip it out now)

adhere the paper to the wood and paint the letters

(I did this same technique to all 4 boards)

I love the imperfections it came out with!

(Isn't it just a perfect fit for the meaning of this sign- 

It is usually the imperfection that makes life beautiful.)

Okay.

Enough of the deep thoughts :)

I used a scrap piece of wood and nailed it to the back-connecting the four boards.

(sorry no picture)

(I have changed it up a bit since this picture.

 I have filled all the frames and 

I added a large empty frame behind the

 pictures on the right to balance it out a bit)

Now it is sitting cute on my fantle (fake mantel)!

And I L.O.V.E. it!

Do you ever have those projects that just make you smile every time you look at them?

This is totally one for me!

I'm linking to these great parties!