dinner party place cards

In the early part of college, a group of friends of mine decided to throw a formal dinner party and me and my friend took that fabulous idea and ran with it. We went all out: we created formal invitations and hand delivered them, we secured a quaint location (friends backyard + tons of twinkle lights), we came up with a fancy menu, and came up with some amazing decorations (i.e. ambiance). The whole endeavor sparked my love my event planning and probably changed the course of my life forever (no, seriously). After that, I was kind of known for dinner parties and would make the effort to plan parties for all the special occasions. There was the ugly sweater Christmas party (a classic), the Valentine's Day dinner party for those of us who didn't have Valentines (not as depressing as it sounds), and my personal favorite "the Joint-Joint Birthday Party" (don't ask about the name).

The Joint-Joint birthday party was a joint effort (pun intended) between me and my friend whose birthday falls 5 days before mine in April. We decided we needed to throw a combined birthday party to celebrate and with a ton of help from my friends we ended up with an amazing dinner party that friends still talk about.

But, this post wasn't intended to simply brag about my party planning skills (that was just a nice perk)-- I wanted to share with you an awesome (and incredibly inexpensive) place card idea that we used for the party that could be taken in so many directions and used for an immeasurable amount of events.

Supplies needed:
-Mini terra cotta pot (roughly $1 from Michael's or JoAnn's)
-Acrylic paint
-bamboo skewers (you can find them at any grocery store)
-Cricut cutter and "Walk in My Garden" Cricut cartridge
-Cardstock/scrapbook paper in various colors
-Foam paint brush (or any large bristled paint brush)
-the essentials: glue, scissors, tape, etc

For these place cards, we painted  the terra cotta pots with basic white acrylic paint. Obviously you can use any color you want to match your color scheme for the event. Lay the pots aside to dry and paint the bamboo skewers with a green acrylic paint to look like the stems of flowers.
The daisies were created using a Cricut cutter and the cartridge "Walk in My Garden" ( <daisy1> and shadow option selected to make them thicker). We chose various shades of pink cardstock for the flowers, but again, you can use anything that goes with your color scheme. If you don't have access to a Cricut cutter or that specific cartridge, you can use a variety of stencils or free form drawing to create your flowers. Or, get creative and come up with other shapes to use. A lot of craft stores and scrapbook stores have pre-cut chipboard shapes that could be painted and/or covered and used as well. It just so happens that the Cricut cuts a lot of shapes really quickly and saves you a lot of time. Amazing tool if you have access to one :)
Probably the coolest part of these place cards was the picture we used of each person for the inside part of the flower. This is an optional step since you have their name on another "stem" but it was a really unique and personal touch that we added to each place card. We found each picture from our friends' Facebook albums and used Photoshop to size each picture and make them into circles. After they were printed we used a circle punch to punch out each persons' head (punches= huge time savers!) and was then glued to the center of the flower to complete it
**side note: we printed two of each person's face. The first picture of the person's face was used for the flower place card. The second face we glued on key tags and used as champagne glass drink markers by attaching them to the stem of the glass. This could be a whole tutorial in and of itself, but unfortunately, I have no pictures of them or the process of making them. Sad day. Trust me, they were amazing and a huge hit. They are an awesome idea for any party where you're going to use wine or champagne glasses and don't want your guests to get their drinks mixed up. I used key tags like these ones:

These are from etsy.com but you can find them at any office supply store/scrapbook store. The ones we used were white.

The names were printed on regular paper and glued onto a coordinating color of cardstock and both the flower and the name were attached to the bamboo skewers. I cut the "name" skewer so it was slightly shorter than the flower skewer to add a little bit of dimension.

Lastly, we scrounged up some dirt from our backyard (it doesn't take much to fill the pots) and both skewers were arranged in the dirt. Voila! Amazing little place cards that your guests can take home :)

other pictures from that evening:

(all pictures courtesy of my amazing friend Ashley)

--L

Party Time

Pretty sure I need to throw a party just so I can purchase these straws from Dime Store Buddy's Etsy store.

Yay fun!!

-M

Oh hello! You are so helpful!

Just came across Pugly Pixel and she is fabulously helpful for all things related to blogging and design stuff and so cool!

There are tutorials and jazz...so. much. jazz.

I know this is the lazy woman's blog post but hey, at least it's up and semi-inspiring.

By the by, someone ordered chipboard. Somebodies will be crafting as soon as said chipboard comes in the mail.

-M

a crafty project: prayer diaries

I have horrible blogging etiquette -- sorry for leaving without a moment's notice and then not posting for weeks! Horrible, horrible, horrible. Truth is, I quit my old job, took an trip amazing trip to Colorado Springs (which I have absolutely no photographic proof of other than one camera phone picture taken at an amazing BBQ joint in town--Rudy's any one??), then landed a better job, started training for the better job, got overwhelmed with training for the better job, started settling down into better job....and now I'm back!

I've been hoping to post a little tour of the humble, yet amazingly awesome studio that M and I use to construct our little creations but I was, and still am, having trouble tracking down the pictures so I'll save that for another time and give you guys a little crafty tutorial.

This project stemmed from the idea that I wanted to create something unique, meaningful, and useful for my friends graduating from Bible school back in June. I came up with the idea to create a prayer diary similar to the ones they were required to use and write in daily while in school but with some modifications. My idea was to create a prayer diary where my friends could keep track of when and how many times they prayed for a particular thing and how/when that prayer was answered. I thought it would serve as a good reminder to persevere in prayer as well as a great way to look back and see what the Lord has done in your life and in other's lives.

It turned out to be easier to create the pages on Microsoft Word versus Photoshop since I'm very much a Photoshop n00b and I didn't have enough time or patience to try to figure that out. Microsoft Word is actually a very versatile program and I was able to create all of the pages fairly simply using mostly shapes and text boxes. The finished product ended up looking a little something like this (except the finished product actually has a bottom half...why the screen shot cut it off, I don't know...me and screenshots aren't getting along right now):

Has space for the prayer and in the grid they can mark the dates they prayed for that particular thing. Clever :)

In addition to those, I created pages that had space for them to write verses they enjoyed, passages they read, or any other form of enlightenment they wanted to jot down to look back on later.

After all of the pages were created, I had them printed at a CopyMax because it was a (seemingly) simple job that  didn't need any special paper or color. In actuality, it turned out to be an incredibly frustrating endeavor due to some trimming errors they made, which left me in tears on a couple of occasions (being sleep deprived, short on time and having my own paper cutter snafu didn't help, either) but it all sorted itself out and overall, I learned a lot for next time.

For the covers of the prayer diaries, I used 5x7 chipboard and covered them in scrapbook paper using PVA/bookbinding glue. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use plain Elmer's white glue or any other kind of liquid glue unless you like having bubbles and ripples on your covers and that's the sort of effect you're going for. Double-sided tape also seems to work well, but M and I have become experts at the other stuff so we tend to use the glue. I usually use a foam brush to apply the bookbinding glue and a brayer or a bone folder to get rid of any creases/wrinkles once the paper has been applied

After the covers were complete and the prayer diary pages were in order, I used The Cinch (amazing little contraption) to punch the holes and bind the book for a professional finish.

Overall, I'm super excited about how they turned out (minus the trimming errors made by CopyMax) and I would definitely make these again in the future. With the cost of supplies and printing they turned out to be around $6 a piece--a pretty good deal considering how unique they are as a gift.

I received a sweet little thank you note from one of the recipients of the books that said "Thank you so so much for the super awesome prayer diary/journal! I had just been thinking about how to create my own version of the trusty blue books...and lo and behold, you've already done. So, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect gift. I am looking forward to getting lots of use out of it in the coming year." I'm so glad they're already coming in handy!

The finished product (one of seven):

--L

Sneak Peek

So that long-term summer project was shortened a wee little bit. Little Green Notebook is hecka inspiring so I started one little project of the long term project.

It's going to involve this wallpaper:

Source: Hygge & West

Heck yes.

-M

Hello, I'm Kate and I'm Awesome

Oh Joy! just did a sneak preview of Kate Spade's Holiday Collection (see here). Yes, I want all of it.

Or maybe I could just start with this little guy instead:

Source: Kate Spade

Right.

-M

It's L's Day and M's Postin'

Bad blogger, bad, bad blogger. One shouldn't miss 3 posts before posting 1 post...The math isn't right.

You're going to get a lot of M because L has been out of  town. Sorry dudes.But to make up for it, I'll try to post more project-y, stuff we're working on either together or apart.

The list of stuff I'd like to do in my life of DIY fashion is extensive. So, here's one project. Let's look at this as long term....next summer term...ish...maybe.


I am currently trying to figure out the work space in my bedroom. Currently (as you can see), the desk functions as a large shelf on legs (no storage). It's a laundry-hamper-important-enough-paper-pile-stuff-in-general place. My chair is sometimes in the room and sometimes it's outside the room for extra seating. Clearly, it's not exactly used. It's just not comfy!

Taking a page out of Little Green Notebook's blog and her home office (This woman is freakin' amazing. And she might be Arizonan too. Woot woot!), I was inspired to do something similar.

I like the way she painted her desk and then the bars too. So, I will probably do something similar but I'm not sure what. It's this IKEA desk.You can imagine a before/after here:

As for the rest of the room. I like this bedding from West Elm (Eep! Pricey!). Ideally, I want a rug from my favoritest place, Anthropologie, but it's not gonna work for the price of $100 (for a 3 x 5!). So, I went to look at Urban Outfitters and found some much better priced rugs, which is what I have below. Finally, the little drawers are also from IKEA and it would go under this desk. I decided that I wanted to cover the front of the drawers with the wallpaper there (Imperial Trellis by Kelly Wearstler)

And there it is. The corner of my room will be decorated as such. If and when this project gets started, I'll be sure to post pics. But remember, llloooonnnnggg term. :D

Sorry for the delay! I'll try to get some more stuff up later. We finally got started on another book so I'll show you all the progress of that soon.

Ta ta for now!
-M

PS Look at who made it on Yahoo's American's Best Ice Cream Places list: Sweet Republic!