Paper Napkin Flowers

I recently ran across an awesome tutorial at MADE for Simple Wedding Flowers. I sent it to Courtney, and thankfully she agreed to let me give them a shot at making some rehearsal bouquets for the bridesmaids for her Memorial Day Weekend wedding! The flowers are made of...get this...napkins! Yup! Napkins!

I used three colors - purple, white, and silver - to create 6 inch flowers. After many trials, I settled on three color combinations I loved. Purple with white middle, white with silver middle, and silver with purple middle. 3 of the 6 inch flowers created the perfect bouquet size. 

I used 4 beverage napkins for each flower (12 layers total after separating the napkins) - 3 of the outside color and one of the inside color. Each layer of napkin was smaller than the last with the outside layer being the largest and the inside (different) napkin being the smallest.

After cutting the napkins down to size, I scalloped each napkin's edge. Then I accordion-folded the napkins and secured them.

Instead of twist ties, I used coated floral wire which is forgiving and can be cut to whatever length is necessary. This allowed me to leave a "tail" to twist with the other flowers to create the bouquet.

Separating the napkins was a challenge. The white napkins were easy, but it seems that the more color that is in the napkin, the more difficult it is to separate the layers. The purple was by far the most difficult to separate. 

After everything was separated, I was able to fluff the flowers and twist the edges to create a more cohesive flower look (instead of bow-tie). 

For the "stems" I used 3 wooden dowels painted with a shimmery white/silver paint. I hot-glued the "tails" from the flowers into the middle of the dowels. I just hot-glued until they felt sturdy.

The bouquets held up well, and looked great in pictures! Here is Courtney and one of her bridesmaids getting ready to practice the wedding entrance. Courtney has the rehearsal bouquet I talked about here, and Julia, the bridesmaid, has the flowers from this post.

My SIL and MIL are starting to catch the DIY bug, too! They created these super-fun wands for the flower girls to carry during the rehearsal. Aren't they precious?!

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Crafting and Container Gardens

So for my SIL's wedding, I was asked to make her rehearsal bouquet. If you ever want a good laugh, just google "rehearsal bow bouquet." Hours of fun await you! 

Typically, they're a hodge-podge of bow-tacularness. Not always pretty for pictures. I wanted to create a beautiful bouquet for my SIL. 

She was showered with many gifts, and there were plenty of materials to work with. I had thought ahead (knowing that the bows would be used in a bouquet) and given Courtney a big silver/white sparkly bow. That became the centerpiece to her bouquet. Her wedding colors were to be silver, purple, and white. The big silver/white bow was accented with purple ribbons, creating a cohesive focal point. Remaining silver/white bow tails and purple ribbon were used as streamers. Curling ribbon bows were used around the focal point and all over the back of the bouquet.

Travis made the perfect model for pictures!

In other news, we're starting a container garden in our back side-yard. We're researching what plants to use and trying to decide how/where we want to put everything. We'll probably start with just a couple of herbs (and maybe a vegetable if I have anything to do with it) and grow from there.

Right now that side-yard looks like a jungle. A weedy, spidery, trashy jungle. Here's hoping that I survive the clean-up!

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Weekends and Weddings

Whew! The last half of May was a blur! 

Hannah came to visit us for a week. She is interested in going to physical therapy school once she graduates, and it is encouraged that she get some observation hours in a variety of settings. She was able to observe two wonderful physical therapists that I work with, and she said she really enjoyed it! She was tons of fun! We cooked some awesome food, shopped till we dropped, and crafted all sorts of fun things.

Strawberry'N'Cream Trifle

 Homemade Lemonade

For Memorial Day weekend, we took off to Dallas for Courtney and Sam's wedding weekend. We were so thankful to be a part of such a wonderful wedding!

Our first wedding event was the bridal tea Courtney hosted for her bridesmaids. It was held at the tea room in Nooks 'N Crannies in Plano, Texas. 

Next up came the rehearsal. Courtney and Sam were married at a lovely venue, Reflections on Spring Creek, in Plano, Texas. For the rehearsal, I made some mock bouquets for the bridesmaids to carry. I also put together Courtney's bow bouquet, made of the bows from her showers. More pictures of those to come!

Next up was the rehearsal dinner, hosted by Sam's family. The dinner was held at a local Italian restaurant. It was a great chance to get a picture of the family including it's newest (official) addition, Sam!

The next day, it was wedding time. Courtney asked me to tie the bow for her wedding cake. Talk about nerves! 

Here I am trying to decide on the proportion of the bow for the cake under the watchful eye of the beautiful bride and with the help (finger) of Travis.

The wedding was amazing. Courtney looked beautiful and everyone was so happy! The bow turned out beautifully. and looked great in pictures! I can't wait to see the real photographer's photos!

Not the best picture, but I was glad to see Alexa and my mom, too! Miss Alexa recently graduated from Heath High School and will be heading to Texas A&M in a few weeks to start classes! I am so very proud of her.

Like I said earlier...whew!

It's So Fluffy I'm Gonna DIE!

These little guys are pretty much the cutest thing since forever. 

Love this idea so much. I saw this over at Love From The Oven and had to give it a try because her tutorial was awesome....and who doesn't love peeps?

It was super easy. I was worried about the marshmallow peeps melting from the chocolate, but they were magically A-ok. I ended up doing two thinner coatings of the white chocolate bark so that the peeps eyes and colored sugar were covered completely. I also used some minty green nonpareils, multi-colored nonpareils, and some pink sparkle sugar as my decoration.

My favorite part about making fun stuff is giving it away. These little lovelies went to a co-worker and her family. But...I have another package of peeps waiting to be bedazzled!

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Weekend Wrap Up Party

Shower Banners

For my SIL's shower, I also made a few custom banners to match the {Country Love} theme.

The first one was (obviously) the name of the bride and groom. It was made with purple lettering on white textured cardstock mounted on violet cardstock. The shape of each pennant was a theme repeated throughout the shower (on favor tags, other banner, and gifts). It fit perfectly on the hostess's beautiful fireplace and was a great photo backdrop to remember the day!

The second banner was for the food table. It also used the same pennant shape as the first banner, but used the more western-style font (same as the favor tags).

This was my favorite banner. I just love the chunkiness of the letters with the swirly shape of the pennants. 

One tip for creating the banners: When putting them all together on ribbon, use a table and connect each pennant separately. This way, you can control the arc shape of the banner. If you don't connect each one separately, the ribbon may not set straight when you hang them. 

Favors and Fire Investigation

My beautiful sister-in-law had her bridal shower recently, and I was able to travel back to Rockwall to participate in the festivities! The inspiration for her shower theme was found via Pizzazzerie. It is acutally Dooby Design Group's {Country Love}. 

For her wedding, my SIL's colors are royal puruple, silver, and white. For her shower, we added in red as an accent color. I remember that by the time I made it through planning to my own shower, I was almost sick of my color scheme. The apple red complimented the royal purple and white beautifully.

I was in charge of the favors for the shower. I knew something with a country-ish feeling was in order. I decided on using mason jars decorated to include a homespun plaid with silky ribbon and a custom tag.

I found the fabric at Joann's on sale. I used 1/2 yard of each fabric to create 12 circles of each color. The circles were approximately 7" in diameter and cut with pinking shears.

The ribbon was 1/2" wide ribbon from the floral department at HobLob. I used about 2' of ribbon for each bow. The ribbon was held in just the right spot by some photo mounting squares placed on the edge of the mason jar lid. 

The custom tags were approximately 2 1/2" tall and 2" wide. I used a swirly tag design with a western-style font to keep with the theme. They were made using my Silhouette cutter. 

That thing is uh-mazing. 

Each mason jar was finished with a color coordinating plastic spoon. In the future, I'd like to find some eco-friendly wood utensils, but with traveling and all I was good to get what I got!

The contents of the mason jar were two different trifles. The first one was a Strawberries and Cream Trifle. The second was a Death By Chocolate Trifle. I'll post the recipe and tips for creating individual trifles at a later date, but believe me that it was DE-licious. 

In other news...Travis was approved to take the fire and explosion investigation certification exam. Just when we thought we were done with testing....

And yes...I said "we." It doesn't matter what anyone says, studying is a joint effort when you're married. I've made a bajillion vocabulary note cards in my married/dating years for subjects I never thought I would/wanted to study. 

Engineering - check. Law - check. Safety engineering - check. Legal ethics - check. Bar exam - check. Fire investigation - in progress. 

Thankfully, he only has a week to take the exam and postmark it. This will be a quick one! Back to studying for me.

I'm linking up to:

Weekend Wrap Up Party

Ferrys and Freeways

This weekend was crazy. Travis was in Dallas on business on Thursday and Friday. I actually realized on Wednesday that I had the next Monday off work. So, I decided to drive to Rockwall to see my family and then just drive back with Travis. I say "drive to Rockwall" like it takes 20 minutes...ha! It's actually 6 hours each way.

I got to spend time with my SIL and MIL working on wedding invitations for my SIL's wedding in May. I helped design the invite and coordinate the papers, etc. I helped with the maps, and I may have a tutorial on how those are done in the future. They turned out really cute!

She has a very creative eye and designed her own response cards, labels, and programs! 

In other news: I'm always skeptical about new shoe styles. I've always been this way. Last summer when "top-siders" came back I could not fathom spending $75 on one pair of shoes. Especially since I wasn't sure if I'd actually wear them much. 

The solution? "Ferrys" 

Shoe Carnival :: Solstice-leather

The term "Ferrys" comes from a combination of the words "faux" and "Sperrys." Turns out...I loved them! Wore them just about to death. 

Today, I decided it was time for some new ones. I made my way to Shoe Carnival (I'll explain this later). Browsing through the Ferrys it struck me. Why not just buy Sperrys? $75...that's why. 

Shoe Carnival :: Bluefish-leather

But wait! I'm at Shoe Carnival. Quick price check, and they actually sell for $59.99. Hold up. What's that I just heard over the loudspeaker? "Take $10 off any pair of shoes over $49.99 purchased in the next 10 minutes." 

Yes, please, and thank you. I've never made a faster decision when purchasing shoes. Done and done. Final purchase with tax was $54.11. Ferrys would have cost me $43.28. So...for true-to-life name brand Sperrys, I paid $10.83 more. Worth it? Time will tell.