The Beatles surprise party

Well we managed to pull it off. Mom was completely surprised and with so many people from a small town invited this is a big accomplishment! I had fun thinking of all of the ideas for the party. Some of them were not my original idea most were not necessairly Beatles related just good ideas that I incorporated. Here's the scoop...

I started creating the invitation but decided it would be a good idea to put Joe's nephew to work since he went to school for graphic arts kind of stuff. He created the album cover and then I took the image and added the pictures of my mom.

I even made sure the envelopes stuck with the theme using the font...

The centerpieces are frames I painted black and then used black electrical tape on the inside to attach the 3 together. I printed pictures of mom and Beatles related things on vellum paper. The glass is still in the frames, just not the back matting so the candle lights up the photo. Scott picked up a bunch of old records at Good Will so I just covered them with colored paper and we used those to set the centerpieces on as well as other decorations. The idea for the centerpieces came from Martha Stewart. The instructions for the tissue poms I also found on Martha Stewart. I know a lot of people don't like Martha but I do and DVR her show daily!

The Oreo Album Pops were a last minute accidental find. I think I ran across them on someone's pinterest board only they were decorated very elegantly. I decided to just use a white chocolate chip and make them look like record albums.

The Abbey Road abstract I did find on Tip Junkie.

The Abbey Road table cloth I came across the idea while not looking for it. I was actually looking for outdoor curtains for our pergola. It's just a flat sheet from IKEA that I taped off and painted.

The guitar picks came from Personalization Mall. These were a cute favor for all of the guests.

All of the food had names based off of something related to The Beatles.
-Rolls - Ringo Rolls
-Fried Chicken - Chicken & 'Wings' with Paul McCartney
-Mostaccioli - Mean Mr. Mostaccioli
-Coleslaw - Octupus's Garden
-Green Beans - Let It Be-ans
-Baked Potato - Digging My Potatoes (they actually had a song that never made it to an album called this!)

Although you can't see the details in the picture I did do this project to create ruffled streamers.

Fall Mantel

Well, it's been a great week off of work. We had my mom's surprise party last weekend so my next post will probably be all of the details for that. We spent this past week in Lake Geneva relaxing. We went fishing, golfing and looking for property on a lake. We came back on Friday and it's great to still have the weekend before going back to work I decided it was time to get out all of the fall decor so here's this year's fall mantel. You'll notice that the fish is still there but not for long! This week I will be ordering a canvas from our engagement pictures and it will replace the fish Finally :)

Pergola

It's been a long time!

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the project in process was the pergola.  We finally got everything done and love sitting out there.  It's so cozy and feels like an actual room.  Well I ended up not having to make the shades or curtains as I found them already made in outdoor fabric at reasonable prices!  Excellent news for me because other projects have come up. 

One of those projects is our wedding!  In June we were engaged and have set a date of 5/19/2012 for the wedding.  Most posts until then will probably be about projects related to the wedding :)

For now though, here are pictures of the pergola...

The furniture is from American Sale.  They price match so shop around.   After we found what we wanted I looked online to find it cheaper and did so we went back in told them we found it for less and they beat the price! 

The curtains and curtain rods came from Improvements Catalog.  I came across them, got on their mailing list and got a coupon! 

The shades I actually got through Ace Hardware so working for them has perks :)  They are by Cooloroo and Ace is  retailer that sells them so I got those at a good price too!

I'm not going to say where the ceiling fans came from because they may have been from an 'orange' competitor!  Sometimes your options are limited and finding ceiling fans with a wet rating isn't something you find everywhere.

If you didn't guess by those 3 things I'm all about finding bargains and shopping around.  Sometimes it may take a little bit of time to search but Google is great and you'll find what you want and save a little money.

Monthly Baby Stickers

I don't know what was going on about 9 months ago but I'm glad I wasn't drinking that water!  In the last month there are sooo many people having babies.  I made these as a gift, they are stickers that you put on their shirt and take the monthly photo.  This is just a couple of them, but there are 12 to get through the first year.  The concept was not an original of mine, I saw it over at my cousin Beth's blog.  To create mine I used my Sizzix Eclips for all of the pieces and ran them through the Xyron to make them a sticker. 

Joe's birthday

To say Joe loves golf is an understatement.  Until recently the living room was a golf range.  We spent many nights early in our relationship at the driving range!  On nice days I'd hit balls too, but a lot of times I'd park myself at the bar and have a couple of drinks as he popped in and out.  I'm definately a fair weather golfer!!  If the heaters are on at the range it's to cold for me :)

If you haven't figured it out by now, this blog is mostly about my projects so here's another one!  I made a golf cake for Joe's birthday.  The cake was really good, it's a Betty Crocker recipe, layers of banana and chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting!  One of these days (see prior post on no time) I'll brush up on my photography skills!

So many ideas so little time

So many ideas, so little time is my theme lately.  I find more and more that I want to be doing something that I truly enjoy, scrapbooking, making cards, sewing (I think), baking etc.  It's not that I completely hate my job, I am very fortunate but at the same time my passion for it is gone. 

Sometime in the next few week's I'll post about the work on the patio we are doing.  We got new furniture, the shades are on order, I will be making pillows and curtains for the pergola and it will be stained.  All before the end of May!

In the mean time I came across this contest and thought that having new projects to buff up my sewing skills would be perfect!  I've sewed 1 thing so I need all the practice I can get...again, so many ideas, so little time!

Sherrod Studio: Sponsored Giveaway

Easter Cards

Here are a couple of my latest projects...

Spring mantle

Well here it is, spring already! I can't wait for the midwest 'spring' to remain on the warmer side. We are in the phases were it's in the 30's and snowing to 60 the next day. Here is the mantle for the spring. The fish is still there. Time has gone so fast that it hasn't even really phased me! I do have a project idea that when I get the time to actually do it then I'll broach the topic of moving the fish :) It's not completely what I had in mind but with time and my Sizzix having some issues this is what it will be.

Valentine's Day Mantle

Now that I have a mantle to decorate I thought it would be fun to have it decorated as we go through holidays and seasons.  Here is my Valentines Day decor.  It was actually kind of hard with already having a red wall so I kept it pretty simple and didn't want to go overboard.  Also, don't you love the fish as the nice focal point!?  Well not me :)  One of these days soon the fish will have a new home on a wall somewhere else in the house.  I didn't want to move in and just take over so I'm taking it slowly with suggesting we move the fish.

I found the idea for the heart wreath at The Idea Room.  My wreath was about 12" from top to bottom and I purchased 3/4 of a year of felt and had more than enough I didn't count the circles either but think it was somewhere around 80.  I also took a long strip of the felt and wrapped the white foam wreath.  I put it together and if you weren't looking at it straight on you could see the white.  I took it apart and wrapped it and put it back together again.  It probably only took a couple of hours total, not too bad.

The pictures really aren't very good, I had been having problems with my camera and never knew how they were going to turn out!  That's not a good thing so I've since then purchased a new one.

 The Idea Room

Hopefully a final solution

Well the last post about the cats and everyone winning wasn't the last of it.  As it turns out Reese and Ben weren't getting along as well as we thought.  Now Reese and Twix are upstairs and Ben gets the downstairs to himself.  Ben really doesn't like them because he sits at the step in front of the gate and howls at whichever one is sitting there egging him on.  I really wish I knew what went on in their heads!

Oh, we also figured out how Twix was getting up and down.  She is going through the rungs at the 'L'.  She always was a daredevil because that isn't an easy maneuver.  She's the one that will walk across the banister, climb into open ducts (lesson learned while painting once) and the list could go on.  I definitely see where the saying about how curiosity killed the cat came from!