This year I am hosting a small brunch after church on Sunday and thought I would share my low-cost idea.
The menu
Turkey Sausages with Apples sliced diagonally
Fruit Juice Bar
For the Table Settings I am painting some lovely little eggs I
found on-line and put everyone's initials on the egg. (see photo below)
Then using paper shreds (you can do this yourself if you have a shredder, which we don't. And I found them at the dollar store, so it was a win there.) I am making little nests like my sweet and amazing friend Jessica did last year as seen here. The table is going to be done all in white with white ceramic birds and other items down the center.
The feel is relaxed garden and I think it will be great!
With everything I looked around my house and gathered items I already had together. The same approach was used for the recipes. I went to my pantry and freezer, made a list of what I had to work with then scoured pinterest and cooking light for recipes that required the least amount of purchases.
We will be sure to post pictures but wanted to give you some ideas in case you were in a pinch with figuring something out for Sunday!
How are you celebrating Easter? We would love to hear!
The Holidays are one of my favorite times of the year to craft, and craft I do. I thought I would share with you the name banner that I made for our sweet son right before he was born. It was very simple and inexpensive, and 6 months later I still love how it looks!
* To make this banner I used pages from a book purchased at Goodwill, the same one used here. I decided to do rectangles after comparing it with the triangle idea of a traditional banner and just not loving how it looked. I cut out 5 rectangles for each letter to use as backing and to give it a heavier appearance.
* Then I used a set of magnetic letters, like the ones found at the dollar store, to trace the letters onto extra pages from my project here. Any image with vivid colors, like those in a map, would work beautifully.
* I then used craft glue for the letters, gluing them to the top sheet of the stack of five.
* Using a standard hole punch I punched a hole in each corner, which made it stay flush with the wall better than having just a standard center punch.
* Using twine, one of my favorite things in the world, I laced it through the holes and it was done.
I had these lovely planes left over from a shower for Baby Love and decided to loop the banner through the tail of each one. Amazingly this banner is exceedingly lightweight and is held up with packing tape. Yes, tape. Tape that won't ruin walls. This would be great for a kid's room, or for a party. It is easy to control the look and gives a vintage feel to a space. Happy Crafting!
As it is summer Baby Love needs a place to splash around on those hot days. So naturally we set out to our local toy stores searching for a compact tub or table for him to use this summer. We saw things like:
and...
All of which were easily in the $40-$75 price range, not to mention very large and well, um...."colorful". Our outdoor space in our wonderful city apartment is compact (read small) and we use it constantly. The thought of having our outdoor space overtaken by the plastic toddler gods made us both cringe. But we knew that Baby Love needed something. Then we had a light bulb moment and pulled out a fabulous tin centerpiece bowl that we had used in our wedding and ever since.
It stores easily under our outdoor loveseat, does double duty to float candles when Baby Love is asleep and he LOVES it! When it is left out it isn't an eye sore and it didn't cost us a penny.Our advice to other parents in situations like ours? Look around at decoration stores instead of toy stores and don't feel bad if it looks like it belongs in your space. Your kid will love it just the same!
No, I really, really do.
They have to be one of my favorite flower but they are spendy and pretty unavailable most of the year. One thing I don't love about Peonies are the creatures that come with them, ants. It is rare that I don't end up with a tiny colony of these pesky creatures after bringing my favorite flower home from the store or farm. So this last week when I went to pick some from a local farm I spotted the ants, spotted the flowers and cringed. Then I was hit with a brilliant and very "captain obvious" moment: If I only pick those that are still tightly closed, then I can have my Peonies without the crawly pests. So I picked 5 buds at different stages of development and a week later let me tell you they are beautiful and full, but best of all, they are ANT FREE!!! So spread the word, and if you already knew about this trick, shame on you for not telling me sooner! <wink>
One of the projects we worked on in our week absence was the addition of a table and chairs for baby love. We had been looking online, at consignment sales, craigslist, you name it we searched there. Being that our budget is squeaky tight we really didn't want to spend more than $30 on this addition. After much debate we made the trek to Ikea where we found our little lifesavers on accident and THE table and chairs.
Priced at $19.99 they fit our criteria for cost and were smaller than some of the other ensembles. After Abbey's pregnant self tested out the chairs they were approved for adult use as well. And from Drab and Sterile they were transformed to a pretty Fab little set. If we do say so ourselves.
Want to do it yourself? Here is what we did with a few tips and tricks included free of charge. <wink>
~We found a vintage map that we loved on this wonderful website with all sorts of vintage maps and animal prints.
~After saving the image to our computer we opened it with our favorite photo program of the moment, Picasa. In this program you can make the image into a poster and it will allow you to split the image, which we did, into four pieces. ~Then we printed the four pieces onto normal paper, having the image bleed over to the edge.
~Using Modge Podge
we quickly smothered the backs of the pieces of paper, lined them up and adhered them to the surface. We knew it would be almost impossible to keep it wrinkle free and loved the distressed look wrinkles can add to a finished project. So we pressed some of them out and embraced other sections that became very wrinkled. ~Using a large paint brush we spread Modge Podge all over the top surface as well, even the surrounding sections that didn't have the map on them which ensured that the surface was level at the end of the project. Over two days we applied multiple layers, giving a great seal and gloss to the table top. At the end we realized, UH OH. Any wetness, aka spilled water cups from snack time, would make the surface sticky. We searched online, thank you google, and found many recommendations for using a spray adhesive,Krylon's Matte Finish 1311
, which we had on hand. After three layers of this the tabletop was sealed and ready for use. Note: we did let it air out on our deck so the house didn't smell like fumes. Use your judgement on this aspect and don't keep it inside if it is still stinky.
Our crew was small this past week as we gathered to say goodbye to our Monday Mates. To celebrate we enjoyed takeout and some themed desserts. I made Emily's Sugar Cookies (because she is oh so sweet), in the shape of hearts of course. And Chantal's Surprise Brownie Bites (due to the emotional roller coaster she took us on this season). The brownie bites are a favorite cooking light recipe of mine. Then I hid nuggets of either caramel and chocolate, or coconut and Craisins, and swirled a bit of caramel on top. All of the roses used for decorating this season had dried, so I used the petals and buds for decorations. And tons of candles. Oh! And don't miss the blog that Steph and Abbey did on all things fashion and Bachelor, here.
Monday's we will miss all of your drama!
Happy St. Patrick's Day! We spread a little luck o'the Irish in our home and thought we would share a little peek with you on this lovely, lucky day!
For the information on the printables we used read our blog here.
If you are playing along with us here is a prompt for today:
What are you thankful for in your kitchen?
Today we are thankful for these adorable new additions that we found at Target for $1!!! Perusing the dollar section you never know what you will find and this past week we struck gold when we found these little bowls. They are actually in the gardening section and would make adorable planters, but even more adorable popcorn or snack bowls. They have already been initiated with Monday nights Bachelor Popcorn ritual and have the green light!
Perfect for parties too! Scattered around a food table with little snacks and treats. Oh! And did we mention the flattering shade of yellow and green we purchased them in? Perfect for all of our Football gatherings as well. Oh yes, these little loves make us very grateful!
Play along with us! Every Thursday we will post something we are thankful for, and I would love it if you did so as well on your blogs. It is medicine for the soul to give thanks and when done regularly contentment comes into reach. And it can be anything silly, personal, or blog related. Just take a moment to give thanks!
I found this blog bit I wrote back when we were pregnant with Baby Love. It is fun to hear my expectant voice come through and made me start the thought process of decorations and conversions to the room for this next kidlet. Enjoy it in all of it's rawness!
"We were just notified that the apartment we wanted is ours. Which means that we will now have an actual nursery, no more baby in the pantry! The room is actually a little larger than our current bedroom and has wonderful natural light. The theme, after much thought, will be world travel and Tintin. We have collected some beautiful vintage maps and atlas' over the years and we plan on framing them. There will be a dark brown accent wall to help the old world colors of the old maps stand out better. We have a nice dark blue rug and will work with dark blue, orange and all shades of brown in the room. These colors are also dominate in the comics, so it will be a nice tie in to a “theme” that can grow with him as he gets older.
Tintin is a vintage comic from the thirties that Kevin loved as a young boy. In addition the original language of the comics is in French, which will allow Abbey to dust that part of her brain off a bit and promote baby boys language development. In the comics Tintin is journalist/detective who travels the world fighting pirates, flying vintage planes and uncovering evil plots. We have been on the hunt for these vintage comics in English and have been able to procure a nice little lot to start his library of adventure stories. It is great that there is the flight element in many of the stories as it will be a fun topic for his Grandpa Haffner to tell him more about! We have included some images of Tintin for your viewing pleasure."
