I Made a Box for Your Card; You're Welcome.

I was in the check out line of the local grocery store a while ago and an orange clearance sticker caught my eye. They were stuck on these fake book box things - I'm sure you're familiar. I grabbed two of different sizes ($3.50 & $5) with immediate intentions of using one of them as a card box.  I "fixed" the smaller box and will stack it on the larger one to add depth to the table's elements.

The lining on the inside was a wine red color - not one of my wedding colors - so that had to be "fixed." I'd also already picked up a little glittery banner that said "Cards" that I wanted to use. I remembered I'd bought this book of freakingamazing paper from the craft store so I snagged that, cut the paper to size (only for the lid since that would be most visible. Then I washi-taped the edges which doubled as a clean edge and also held on the fishing line from the banner. The lid would flip open too far so I added a length of blue ribbon and boom. done. 

See:

Toot Toot: Wonderland Edition

I cannot remember how old I was, but my Nana once gave me a copy of Alice Through the Looking Glass. It has always been one of my favorite tales - an escape into another's wild adventure. As an adult I remember small details from the story: A girl, Alice, who has presumably fallen down a (tardy!) rabbit's hole and proceeds to drink some magic potions, join a Mad Hatter for a tea party, and meet the Queen of Hearts. Oh, and something about a sly kitty cat and chubby caterpillar that smokes. These are things around which my mind has formed my own story and will now be the centerpiece of...

My bridal shower :) 

A few lovely bridesmaids are working their imagination around the clock to come up with the dopest Mad Hatter Tea Party inspired ideas that they possibly can. My Type-A brain has set up a shared Pinterest board and an Etsy board for us to share ideas and to use as inspiration for projects, one of which I'm about to share! (This is just the one project so far that my MOH has let me do [thank you!] because I'm 94% done with wedding stuff and am antsy to help with this shindig!) 

Wedding Craft: Gold Polka Dotted Vases

Shortly after getting myself engaged I came across these 9" tall cylinder vases at Crate&Barrel. Sooo I bought ten and they sat in the box in our room until this week. 

I considered wrapping them in some leftover lace with floating candles but I wasn't totally sold on the idea; I'm glad I waited until I found the inspiration for my final product via StyleMePretty.

This process was pretty straightforward, as usual. I used the same gold paint I used on the ring box and "&" and a pack of variable sized round sponge ...brushes? sticks? thingies? that I found at Michael's.  I also grabbed an "artist's palette" (that red bowl there) & a paper towel for when I spilled a bit of the obligatory glass of wine (spoiler alert - I didn't spill any!). And the other obligatory-tool-whilst-crafting: Arrested Development. 

Before:

The After, with romantic-lighting:

I started at the bottom of each vase using my largest round sponge and then polka-dotted about 1/3rd of the way up. Then I used the next two smaller sizes in the same manner, overlapping the sizes slightly. A sweet fade, if you will. Go ahead and click that link, you'll be delighted by it. Also, let me know if you were surprised by the result...

Initially I wasn't digging the texture the sponge left but it kind of reminds me of a lacy zinnia flower and I was ready to be done so I left it as you see it. AND it only took seven episodes of AD to get 10 of them done! 

I grabbed and lit just the two 3x3" candles to see how the light reflected off another vase and I just adore the look! It's just what I imagined - a little bit of vintage, whimsy, and mod!

Hanky Bed for My Preciouses

A couple of weeks ago I finished a wedding project, the box for my precious, but I didn't exactly finishfinish it as I still needed to make two little pillows with a pretty ribbon to tie the rings in. 

I have some scrap lace from some table runners I snagged from another bride (she knows about it, I assure you.) and thought it would be really pretty to do two little ring pillows using that lace. Well, I didn't have any polyfil and after pricing a bag of it at Wal-mart the other day - the price wasn't an issue, it was a quantity thing. You can only buy this stuff in quantities like: Fill the Penthouse or Cover Everest with Fluff. 

Cue impatience. I'm for reals ready to cross another thing off my to-craft list!

I only needed a handful of stuffing so I figured I would just find a sacrificial pillow around the house and steal some from it. It would be an unceremonious event and everyone would be better for it. ...right?

A Recipe, A How-to & A Vacation ...almost.

The family just returned from vacationing at Lake Murray for nearly a week; such wonderful time spent with Stephen's family! Before we left I'd started working on a few blog posts - a recipe, a "how-to," and another for just general vacation related bragging :) 

I'm excited to share the first two - a caramel cake recipe that's TDF and the other a roman shade how-not-to-do (mostly) I made for the big boys' room. This particular shade was more difficult than the one I made for the dining room because I wanted the back to be lined; helloooo learning experience. Booku fabric arrived just before we left last Sunday and I am excited to use my new ever-burgeoning roman shade making skills. Seriously, I'm learning the hard way.

Also, just before we left I purchased a(nother) piece of furniture off of Craigslist - an old bookcase hutch thing with some drawers.. and stuff. The plan is to turn it into a not-wet bar and free up some cabinet space, too.  I snagged the paint yesterday and have a tutorial from Pinterest that we'll (Stephen will get to play this time) be loosely following (iCreateWithLove Green Storage Solution). The tute isn't, IMO, a 100% how-to but I think we can fill in the missing pieces, especially after browsing through the q&a's from the author of the post (i.e. type of brushes used, paint finishes, etc.).

So, I guess I have four new posts in the works, yay for you! The rooms in the house are also generally coming along nicely - I'm working on all of them at once so that really slows my progress but I find it near impossible to concentrate on just one at a time :)

Oh, and happy belated father's day to all the poppas and also to the mommas who do double time!

My 3 boys at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia last Tuesday (Josh, Russ, Jack):