After finding out we were pregnant, we looked around our two bedroom condo and realized there was definitely not enough room for three people. So in August, we moved into a new house in the suburbs, with enough room for the three of us (and then some, if we feel so inclined). The house we chose has a great floorplan, but definitely needed some work. We spent the fall getting the house livable, painting and having a new floor laid down on the bottom level. As the fall wore on and I grew increasingly huge, I was less and less able to tackle new projects.
The first few months after T-Money was born, I didn’t feel crafty at all. I was definitely in survival mode – eat, nurse, sleep (sort of), repeat. But when he started sleeping well, and we got in a good nursing pattern, a little inspiration returned and I decided to try a small project.
And when I say small, I mean tiny. Namely, placemats. We bought a new kitchen table and I wanted to try to keep it looking nice, at least until there’s a little man banging, scratching and drawing on it. It literally took me 3 weeks to finish 6 placemats. Babies are super demanding, folks! But I’m happy with how they turned out.
I made them reversible, using two fabrics from Premier Fabric: Feathers in Spirit/Slub and Gigi in Coastal Blue/Slub.
We only keep 4 of the 6 chairs at the table, unless we have company, but I went ahead and made 6 placemats. I also have a little fabric left, which I want to use to make a few hot plates. W’e’ll see how long it takes me to get to that!
The only thing I don’t like about these is that they come out of the washing machine pretty wrinkled. But for my first post-baby project, I think they look pretty good!
My last Wedding DIY post. And only a year and 4 months after the actual wedding. 😉 These are the smaller projects I did for the wedding, which probably don’t warrant entire posts devoted to them. But I’m proud of them nonetheless and wanted to share!
My husband is a huge Beatles fan, so when making the little pillow for our Ringbearer to carry, I decided to add “All you needs love… Love is all you need.” I used the freezer paper stencil method I’ve discussed at length in previous posts. Unfortunately, this somehow got lost after the wedding and never made it home with us. Sad face.
I made these confetti rings that I found in Martha Stewart’s Holiday book, using gold tissue paper. As you can see, I couldn’t manage to get the folds in the paper out, and didn’t end up loving this project.
Instead of the ubiquitous slide show, I made a small photo display with baby pictures and photos of our relationship thus far.
Koufeta is a Greek Wedding tradition that I wanted to incorporate as a nod to Mike’s Greek heritage. Traditionally made using Jordan Almonds, we switched to little round mints to avoid killing my highly nut-allergic husband.
The little boxes were hand folded using scrapbooking paper. Truth be told, they were folded twice, because the mints ended up being bigger than I anticipated. It was a HUGE HUGE hassle, but I think they turned out so pretty!
We made these adorable welcome bags for our out of town guests, but it appears I never photographed them. The bags included two homebrewed beers (made by Mike), these homemade cookies (made by me), a guide to the “Best of Memphis” and a few other odds and ends.
**Photo credit: Most photos taken by our wonderful wedding photographer, Sarah Rossi.**
It’s been over a year since my last post, but I’m going to jump back in where I left off… wedding crafts! Yay!
Remember this post about my Save the Date cards? After taking that photograph, I cut the large chalkboard into a lot of small chalkboards and used them all over my wedding.
My favorite chalkboards were the ones on the Cupcake Buffet Table. We had 5 flavors of cupcakes, plus a cake to cut, all from Muddy’s Bake Shop in Memphis. It looked SO cute. Plus… cupcakes. YUM.
Instead of making programs (which would just end up in the trash anyway), I used two large chalkboards for this information. These were on either side of the steps where we said our vows.
These two chalkboards hung on the gates to the garden.
One of our “favors.” More on the Koufeta in a future post!
On the Guest Book table.
This hung in the tent where we had our reception. This is one that I actually preserved using hairspray. I knew I’d want to keep this one forever!
Since the wedding I’ve reused most of these chalkboards MANY times. As I mentioned above, I did preserve a few by spraying them with hairspray. It makes the chalk permanent, but also takes away the dusty look, so I’m glad I didn’t do it on all of them. I have to admit I was sad to erase some of these (especially the big ones that took so much time).
Have a great day, everyone!
**Photo credit: All photos taken by our wonderful wedding photographer, Sarah Rossi.**
So… wow. It’s been well over a year since I posted to the blog.
I do have a good reason for being AWOL, though. I’ve spent the last year + working on my biggest project to date. Look what I made!
Easily the best, coolest, most amazing thing I ever made! But also, as it turns out, quite time consuming. Let me just say, I do NOT get mommy bloggers. How do they have the time?
That being said, with the kiddo sleeping pretty well (knock on wood), I’ve gotten some energy and free time back, so I’m ready to start working on new projects. They’ll likely be small to start off with, but hopefully I can come up with some interesting ideas! Stay tuned!
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