I'm a really bad blogger. Sorry. (But I have pictures!)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

So, I've been super busy with work and school and life and such, so I haven't posted in a while.  But!  Exciting things have been happening.  As soon as I get the photos off Hannah's camera, I'll show you the bookshelves I made.

(inspired by this photo)
(you've already seen this before)


It's very exciting to get all carpenter-y and such, but the best part is that I have a whole new area to play with!  I have so many little stuffs and art and pretty books (as well as plenty of normal, not-so-pretty books) and it's so fun to arrange them (and re-arrange and re-arrange and re-arrange, ad nauseum.)

I also threw a party in Dallas for a friend's 30th birthday this last weekend.  Loryn already put up a post with most of the pictures (but that doesn't mean I can't use the exact same ones.)  I have few of my own, but that's because I was busy decorating, cooking, lighting sparklers for birthday cakes, and being a generally awesome hostess... duh.  (The "duh" was for the general awesomeness part.)

I was in charge of the decorations for this shindig, and I tried to stay as DIY as possible.  I think I succeeded pretty well, because I ended making almost everything we used by hand.  I got a lot of inspiration from Oh Happy Day, because everything she creates makes me want to hop and plane and go to Paris and lock her up so I can just live her life for her.  (Dude, don't look at me that way.  I wouldn't actually do it.  And if I did, I would apologize to her very often.)  

The color scheme was white, metallics, and glitter.  (My floors will never be the same after all that glitter and my sister may never forgive me.)  My first thought was to do streamer upon streamer upon streamer of these from Oh Happy Day (of course) but I couldn't find the crepe paper sheets she uses.  I did find some crepe paper streamers (only in white though) but I ended up dousing them in spray glue on accident right before I left for Dallas, which kind of took them out of the equation.  

(I think I'm gonna save these for something where I need girly and frilly and make them in a million different shades of pink.  So pretty, huh?)


I ended up finding a random picture of some longer fringed streamers made out of tissue paper (which did come in plenty of metallic, shiny shades.) It's from a fake wedding rehearsal dinner that I'm in LOVE with.  Well, fake in love, because it wasn't real.  (Wait, I can still be in love with something that wasn't real, right?  Whatever.  It's gorgeous.)

Right?!?!?!  Right?

I made those in gold, silver, white and this white with glitter in it.  They're great because they're SUPER easy.  I didn't even measure the strips I cut from the tissue paper, I just used the creases from where they were folded to fit in their packaging to cut them and cut a fringe in it all the way up to two inches from the edge.  I just made sure I used different colors from the same brand and they all were perfectly the same size!  So easy.  A bit annoying to cart around (they were so delicate with the fringed tissue paper and you had to very gingerly untwist/untangle to hang them up, but they made such an impact (especially in terms of the visual space they took up in the giant room we had to decorate.)

I also made a million feet of these garlands inspired by ones from Kojo Designs.  Hers were a little closer together than mine (the farther apart you put the scallops, the longer your garland is!) and made out of fabric, but it's the same simple and super easy idea.  I used the gold and silver (matte and metallic) and white tissue paper that I used on the other garlands along with some thin, white crochet yarn/string/whatever it's called.  These weren't very exact or cut cleanly, but you really couldn't tell when they were hung up.



Those two kinds of streamers were hung all over the banisters, windows, doorways and fireplaces.   Since it was a 30th birthday party, I wanted plenty of reminders for Trina of just how old she was getting.   On Word I printed and cut out a bunch of 3's and 0's in different fonts and used them (in different formations, just for a little more individuality) to cut out 30's from poster board (covered in glitter, of course) pretty metallic scrapbook paper, and any other gold or silver scraps I had laying around.

One of the only pictures I have of the decor (remember, I was busy having lots of fun) is this Polaroid of the bar all set up.

(The streamers were hung layered like that over most of the room... I loved it!)
Our dinner on the deck, however, was my favorite part of the party.  We had drinks and appetizers (melon and prosciutto, killer smoked salmon, candied pecans, brie, Gouda, and a few other cheeses I can't remember) set up in the living room.  Dinner had a rustic, French thing going on with whole roasted chicken, pork chops, roasted asparagus and potatoes, a spinach and strawberry salad and lots of yummy french bread and focaccia on the table.  We did it all family style outside on the deck with two tables pushed together, mismatched chairs squished in, layers of vintage lace and floral tablecloths, colorful lights strung up around us, a million glittered candles, and all of Bri's vintage plates put to perfect use.  It was gorgeous, romantic, and so impressive.  (If I do say so myself.)  We've only got one picture of it (of course, taken after dinner so you can see all the mess we made.)


Speaking of those candles, they were the easiest/cheapest thing to DIY ever!  I just took votives from Walmart or something (less than fifty cents apiece!) and used a paintbrush to put glue on in what I hoped look like an organic way.  I covered the glue in large amounts of gold, silver, or clear glitter (my favorite effect was all three mixed together) and they turned out amazing. (Especially when the candles were lit!)  Bri kept a few on her fireplace mantel, so I'll probably start taking credit for having decorated her living room.

If I had thought we were going to eat outside, however, I would have made a bunch of these with some old jars.

(I've wanted to use these in an outdoor party for forever.   
Of course I don't make them when I actually have an outdoor party!)

You can also see the party hats I made in that photo.  I looked at a tutorial Oh Happy Day did (of course, I did... I'm gonna have to start abbreviating to OHD or something) but I didn't have a printer to print out the template, so I had to make do with a little trial and error.  With leftover gold and silver tissue paper, I made little pompoms or fringe for the party hats and they made our (SOOOO YUMMY!) chocolate cake with sparklers (SO AWESOME!  WHY USE CANDLES EVER AGAIN?!?) even more festive and special.  Trina got a gold crown (I went for a little Where the Wild Things Are inspiration) made out of gold poster board.

(3 of the Smothers boys were there!)

Some people freak out about trying to make things their selves, but it's not that hard.  You just have to spend a little time playing around with what will work for you the best, have a little sense of adventure, and just pull out the glue gun/scissors/stapler/whatever.  That's what I hope to do with this blog: show you that you don't have to spend money on ugly, cheap looking things like gold party hats, when you could use a bit of poster board and tissue paper to make a easy and chic version for yourself.

(Do you really want to spend $2 apiece on these ugly things?)

For Trina's present, we bought an album to write sweet notes in and paste the photo booth Polaroids we took.  The Polaroids were super expensive, but totally worth it.  Look how cute the pictures turned out!


OHD (I was right!  I feel cooler when I call websites by their nicknames.) had all of these photo booth props you could download and print out.  I picked my favorites and glued them to poster board, cut them out and attached a dowel as a handle and I was set!  (The bow ties and glasses got a lot of use, but you'll see my favorite one at the end.)

She's got a photo with every single person who was at her 30th birthday party, plus a bunch of ones of us acting silly. 

(Caleb, Loryn and Trina had a serious dance party going on.)

We all know the best part of the album is this, though.
Nana-nana-nana-nana BATMAN!

1 comments:

  1. you make me laugh so much dude. your batman was definitely one of the highlights of the evening. fo sho. oh, and your decorations. (duh.) let's do it again sometime. (plan a par-tay i mean.) don't you think those pink streamery things and the ADORABLE jars would look so cute for a... baby shower??? dun dun dun.

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