Shower Time!

My amazing sister-in-law Beth is getting married next month!! Her bridesmaids (including moi) put this adorable shower together! Everyone did an amazing job with their crafts and foods, it was so fun to plan and to attend!!

 I put this wreath together starting with the grapevine, added the burlap flowers with floral wire. The "H" is a wooden letter from Hobby Lobby and I totally scored with the Chevron scrapbook paper (also a Hobby Lobby find)!! Because I can't make bows the ribbon has wire in it and I spiraled it to make it fancy ;-)

 Susanna made these dot streamers with circle cut outs and thread, they looked so great hanging from the mirror! 

 These letters are spray painted with Rust-Oleum "Eden".  The B's and heart are hot glued to natural burlap. I left the glass out of this 11x14 frame that is painted with Rust-Oleum "Antique"

This frame and the one below are pained the same "Eden" color, but the pictures were taken at different times of the day. I used stencils to make the off white heart and charcoal letters.

 Wedding date!!

Cucumber Shooters: I used a potato peeler to make the lines, and then cut the ends off the cucumbers and sliced them into 4ths.  Next was the melon baller (which apparently I don't own, so I used a tsp scoop) it should end up about the size of a shot glass with the bottom still in tact.  I filled them with chicken salad: canned chicken, mayo, walnuts, and a little mustard.

 Kate picked up these perfect initial mugs from Anthropologie.

 Susanna cut up a million fruits to fill all the clear cups, it was such a great way to add lots of color to the table, and it made it easier that they were individual servings.

 Mandy made 3 different flavers of pancake muffins! There was chocolate chip, gingerbread, and pumpkin!

 Kate made the bacon bundles on the left (pretty sure I ate about 20 of them), on the right are pastry puffs filled with avocado, salsa, and greek yogurt, they were really tasty!

 The center of the back are egg muffins, with peppers and sausage made by Mandy. Teal created the cake pop stand (and a majority of the pops;-)) she covered styrofoam with green chevron paper from Hobby Lobby, it matched the party perfectly! 

Teal also made the tissue paper balls (which I have yet to attempt!)

This banner was made with white & natural burlap and stenciled with charcoal paint, and then hot glued to twine.

LOVE the mimosa bar! We had three different kinds of juice, orange, blood orange, and pink lemonade. The runner is green chevron and natural burlap.

Party Favors! 8oz mason jars filled with homemade sugar scrub, chevron paper on the lid, a thank you note tied with twine and a little scoop.

Sugar Scrub: 1 cup of sugar to a half cup of olive oil and ten drops of essential oil. We had peppermint, lemon, and lavender.  I get my essential oils from DoTerra. 

The labels were printed on a full sheet of labels and cut to size. They say Beth's Bridal Shower, along with the date and "flavor" of the scrub!

Wesley's Halloween Birthday (last year)

Since Halloween is getting close I thought I would share party pics from last year and the super cute food/recipes!

Nothing fancy here just a banner made from Halloween scrapbook paper.

Down the super long hallway at my parents house I had balloons tied in a zigzag pattern.

I'm not to fond of all the layers in 7 layer dip, so this might be more like 5 or 6 layer dip. I put the meat (i think), beans, cheese on the bottom and guacamole on top and lined around the plate with tomatoes sliced in halves. The spider web is made with sour cream, I put it in a ziploc bag and cut the corner off and squeezed it out in the spider web design. The oh so scary plastic spiders completed this look! 

These super cute tooth picks I found at Hobby Lobby.

Mummy Dogs: So simple and so yummy! I wrapped uncooked hot dogs with crescent rolls. I pulled the dough as I wrapped to make them stringy and then they went around the hot dog several more times.

Eyeball Deviled Eggs: Added green food coloring to the yolk mix and topped with a black olive (the 7th ingredient that doesn't make the cut in 7 layer dip) . 

These were sort of a fail ;-/  Slice the apples add the peanut butter to hold the teeth in, but instead of slivered almonds like you see here use mini marshmallows.  It will look SOOOO much better!

Plates I got from Party City.

LOVE this drink server I got as a wedding gift! Anyway this is Hawaiian punch, the top is filled with plastic eyeballs that float perfectly for a gross effect! 

Creative Wesley wanted to be a robot and so he picked out the pieces and we created this masterpiece! 

Gumby made an appearance!

This is where I earn Mother of the Year, I forgot birthday candles so he got to blow out a Yankee candle.  Thank goodness the Scentsy obsession hadn't started yet we really would have been in trouble!

His birthday cake was a dirt cake: Pudding, whipped cream and Oreos all mixed together and then topped with crumbled Oreos, gummy worms and plastic bugs.

The spider webs and "Chandeliers" are from the $1 store.

This would have looked better with black or white candles, but still turned out.

This is a cold spinach dip with carrots stuck in it to look like a hand.

Garage Sale Obsession (kinda)

First of all I have to say thanks to my hubby, not only does he not think I'm crazy when I tell him I want to do this (or any of my other wild brained ideas), but he supports and encourages me! Pretty much the month of May I would go to garage sales early (too early) in the morning, look for unloved but salvageable items and bring them home with me. Then I would spend the rest of the weekend at the craft store, hardware store, and our backyard with sander and spray paint in hand.

This is one of my FAVORITE pieces! I LOVE the hot pink color that frames this mirror, but I can't keep all my projects or I will end up on an episode of hoarders. So this piece along with a few of the others are available at my etsy store Love, Lynch (if you're local disregard the shipping cost)

 This bench and the one below are both painted black with a burlap top.  I have a new found obsession with burlap ;-)

 Painting/Stenciling burlap is somewhat easy (somewhat = it took me several tries to figure out how much paint and the best way to apply) Acrylic paint, with a sponge ended up the best most effective way for me. All that to say these would be super cute with an initial or monogram stenciled on top.

 I think this mirror is so neat and different, just needed to be cleaned up and brightened up.

 I purchased these pieces separate on different weekends, but figured since I had a lone chair and a desk with out a chair they should go together (I can be really smart sometimes).  This is currently my sewing table in the man cave. (Scott now refers to it as the Wo-man cave)

 Can you tell I like adding color to things? I (with help of Scott cutting the wood into the oval shape I needed) gave the footstool a padded top, covered with the fuzzy zebra fabric. I wanted to bring a pattern to the chair and I thought a pillow would be best way and then matching the footstool finalized the little rocking chair.

Sister is my inspiration for this piece, she has a beach theme at her place.  I ended up sanding this table down around the edges to give it a worn look.

Best for last (seriously!) This is proof how much my husband loves me.  I text him a picture of these chairs and said honey can I please get these for OUR house, they are bright orange (my favorite color) and velour and I couldn't just leave them there.  He said YES! So I painted the legs white and added the "Grease" pillows. We have one on either side of our fire place and they are perfect!

I've taken a break from garage sales for June, it's been a busy month and I have to sell some of this stuff to make room for new things!  I've done mostly furniture, but I have come across a few things I couldn't pass up, for example: one pair of little boys Rock & Republic Jeans and one pair of Seven jeans, I paid $5 a pair and resold each on ebay for $35.  I don't plan on making a living this way, but it is a fun hobby!
P.S. if you want to try this I suggest the app Garage Sale Rover, I didn't discover this until after a few weekends of checking craigslist, maping out the ones I wanted to go to on map quest, & printing out the sheet, all of which took a good hour or so.

Burlap and Bling

Since I've pretty much covered the walls in our house with photographs of travels, deer heads from hubby hunting, a few projects and a wall of crosses, I'm now moving on to decorating the front door.  I guess that means it's time for a bigger house ;-)

Here are my supplies from Hobby Lobby, I decided to choose the scrapbook paper first (for the "L") and then match the ribbon, cross, and flowers from that.  

 I left the plastic wrap on the wreath so it would be easier to wrap with the burlap ribbon.

I traced the "L" on the back of the scrapbook paper and then cut it out and used wood glue to stick the two together.

 

 Next I wrapped the ribbon on the top of the wreath.  I used a staple gun to fasten everything to the backside.

I just tied these pieces into knots and stapled it in the back.

With the left over scrapbook paper I cut little triangles and fastened them over a leather string. I used the back side of the paper so it wasn't too matchy matchy with the "L"

I used  smaller ribbon to hold the "L" on.  1. I couldn't figure out how to make it stay 2. It added a little more flare ;-) (hot glue may have been the way to go)

Final result!!