what CAN'T you do with paint?

Saw this image over here and totally fell in love!  I love the colours, the proportions, and most of all, the POTENTIAL.  One of the things that I think would be great with a setup like this isn't just the storage or colour or whatnot, but the profile it makes against the wall that would make everything placed on or above the dressers seem that much more interesting.  And in case the colour's scaring you off, I don't see any reason why this couldn't be done in, either, shades of the same colour, or in more neutral shades (think how great charcoal grey, or a soft white, or, gosh, imagine a set of deep cherry red lacquer against a bright white wall!!)

rain rain

Now this is timely!  I was JUST trying to convince the hubs of my great plan to install narrow bookshelves behind my daughter's bedroom door that hold the books upright...  Then I saw this great idea!  You gotta know by now that I'm a sucker for repurposing stuff, right?  Yep.  Those are RAIN GUTTER bookshelves!  Cheap and cute??  Loves it!  (Though I think, personally I'm going to stick to my original open-faced plan...  The only thing that concerns me with this is that they wouldn't be as easy to clean out.  But in the same respect, you could easily use them to hold small toys, crayons, etc. that my open shelves wouldn't be so practical for.)   If you want diy instructions, check 'em out over here.

some more.

I am in LOVE with this great gift idea from You Are My Fave.  Now my mind is reeling with other fun possibilities...  Hmmmmm.  Now I just have to find somewhere local that would sell similar containers...

next up...

And it begins...  the hubby has the long weekend off and started off by coming home from work today and promptly heading out to the garage to start working on the plywood "forest" he's making up for Christmas.  Yep.  That's right.  Not even halfway through November and we're already not just thinking it, but actively participating in the madness. (In his defense, there's every chance that he'll be up north for the majority of the winter, and this probably IS his last chance to get this stuff done.  And at least we won't turn the lights on until  Dec.1st... I hope.)  So with him all cheery and covered in "Pine Green" spray paint, I can't help but think of what MY plans will be...  See, our agreement is that he gets the outside, I get the inside, and we otherwise do. no. intervene.  We both learned years ago that we both had VERY strict ideas about what we liked/wanted for Christmas...  And neither of us was happy to compromise.

Anyhoo, this all really leads up to this GREAT idea I just found for door decor, instead of the standard wreath.  Though, now that I'm thinking about it, it might look pretty as a pair, flanking the navy shutters on the picture window at the front of my house...  Pretty, and pretty easy to diy.  I'm SO stoked for this!  Image found here.

other people's weddings: Lauren & Desaray

While planning my own wedding I would often come back to A Practical Wedding, not so much for design tips or diys or visual inspiration, but for inspiration of a kind that is found it what it MEANS to get married, and be married. Especially since me and the hubs were together for eight lovely years, pre-engagement, I often felt silly and wasteful to be planning this "party" all about us... seriously, how conceited are weddings? But over and over I found the writers there found, through their own voices, those of other writers, or from bits and pieces of their faiths, way to inspire me to find in myself and my husband the truly special, wonderful, and significant reasons to go through with this time-honoured ritual... And the wedding here is no different. From the AWESOME idea of the buttons as favors (rock 'n roll, cute and kitschy all at once!), to the "buttoned" cake, to what I think are some of my fave pieces of wedding advice... well, see for yourselves! Images from here.

"We ordered buttons as wedding favors and I made sure to create special buttons for volunteers and guests of honor. I spent quite a bit of time “pinning” people during the reception, which was a wonderful and whimsical way to literally touch my loved ones, look them in the eye, smile and thank them."

"I think passing heavy appetizers also saved us some money. There’s the obvious difference in price compared to a seated meal or a buffet, but then there’s table, linen and dish rentals, centerpieces and escort cards that we just didn’t have to worry about – or make or buy." This is a GREAT idea/point. In our small wedding (and I'm assuming a lot like it) one of the biggest expenses was the linen, centrepieces, etc. Though I'm wondering what the cost, staff-wise would be? Or maybe you just set them out on pretty cocktail stations here and there? Or buffet-style?

And ok, this might seem cheezy, but this was probably my favorite piece of advice, if only because it's SO true. Definitely falls into the category of you won't understand until you're in the thick of it (and by that, I don't mean the making of a wedding, but rather the GETTING MARRIED part). "My biggest piece of advice about weddings is just to have one. So many people, especially gay people, are so deeply ambivalent about throwing a wedding and for a lot of good reasons. But, really, it’s hard to understand the power and the purpose of a wedding until you are planning your own."

things I did today

• Watched "The Brothers Bloom" and "My Life in Ruins". The former was great. Really great. Also this might be one of my fave movie posters EVER. Image from here.The later just meh, despite my love for my fellow canucks (honestly, there was a scene where a tour guide called the "Polite Canadians" Americans, and they beat the crap out of him. It was pretty great.) and a super-sexy Greek, it was SO clicheed and formulaic even I couldn't get into it.

• Discovered the joy that is mixing a pinch of chipotle powder into your hot chocolate. If you're still cold after THAT, well, you're probably dead.
• Got an orbital sander (HELL YES!) which means that the number of projects I can take on has just grown exponentially! Woot! Which also meant that the touch up jobs I've been meaning to do to my piano and end table finally got done, but it looks like the bathtub will have to wait until I pick up some more hardcore sandpaper...
• Found two solid wood desks on the side of the road, and ALMOST have the hubs convinced that they ARE in fact out there for anyone to grab and that WE should be the ones to grab them! I can't wait!
  

yip yip! I figured it out!

So, here's the thing with been uber-cheap, but unwilling to just allow things to continue to suck due to said cheapness: it's takes a LOT of thinking to figure stuff out. You can't just run out to the store to BUY the table that would look perfect in that space. You need to somehow either MAKE it, or FAKE it. In general, I have a $40 maximum budget for any given project, and that has to include EVERYTHING needed for said project, regardless of size or involvement. So when I figure out a few ideas along the way (like buying paint that can be used for EVERYTHING, thus making it worth having a $25 bucket around at all times. Or like having yummy vanilla icing by the tub, that can easily be tinted any colour to suit, instead of making whole batches at a time. Or like the fact that a package of co-ordinating scrapbook paper can be a miracle when it comes to crafting (everything will GO but not match, and you'll look like a co-ordinating freaking genius). Or that Modge Podge came straight from heaven.) I get pretty excited.
So, after upcycling the kitchen table and chairs, and with snow on the ground inspiring future project-dom, I've turned my eye to the large cedar chest currently taking up residence at the end of our bed. While awesome, and the PERFECT size, this chest USED to be in my daughter's room, which is where it received it's FIRST redo... in hot pink felt (it's from the late seventies and was previously covered in ripped up, nasty brown leather. Not exactly princess friendly.) Yeah, oddly that glaring pink doesn't exactly GO with our champagne, pewter, and grey/blue bedroom (shocking, I know).But with the cost of fabric being, you know, stupid, not to mention (believe it or not) we're down to just ONE fabric store in the city which makes it HARD to get to, I've been trying to think of more cost-effective ways to recover the poor thing.... At first I thought "Aha! Ikea!" But the only fabric that was suitable was, obviously, the most expensive... So then I moved on to "Hey! I'll just use a cheap curtain panel!" But the "cheap" panels only came in either brown or taupe NEVER JUST EFFING GRAY (ok, ok. the no gray thing kind of frustrated me...)
But now, with the help of post over here I've got a think! I already have a fleece blanket that we're not using that'll match our bedroom suite perfectly! Yay! So off to the garage I go to wrangle up a staple gun and a screwdriver! Wish me luck! Image from aforementioned post.

paint is cheap; furniture, not so much

Which is how, on our first snow day up here in the almost-frozen tundra, I found myself armed with sandpaper, brushes, and a drill... I've always hated the finish on my second-hand kitchen table, but size-wise, and in terms of quality it's still pretty decent. And frankly, I've got a project brewing that I'm gonna need any and all available pennies for. So, while I would LOVE to invest in a new set, it's just not in the cards right now. I've been saying for a while now, "I've got no money, but what I do have is time and ambition." So, I scrounged up the remaining paint from my kitchen's back wall (mmmmm... brownie batter brown...) and the white kitchen/bath paint that I ALWAYS make a point of having on hand (I do EVERYTHING in this: trim, baseboards, cupboards, doors, you name it. This way, one can can deal with almost any touchups that ever need to be done due to scratches, dents, scrapes, etc. What can I say? We're a rough bunch.) A set of inexpensive knobs to match the rest of the hardware throughout the house, and I was set. All told I spent about $13. Not bad. Now the table might not be perfect but it's MUCH better, and you know, not oak! Yay! First up is the before, followed by a closeup of the after with the new hardware, as well as in context with one of my previous projects: the upcycled bookcase turned kitchen cabinet. ps. sorry about the pic quality; my camera suuuuucccckkkkksss...

hey! I've got one of those!

So, we live in a 60 yr old house that still has two of the original single paned wood windows (not exactly practical in -4o degree weather!) This summer we were able to rip out one of the three that were there in order to replace it with a lovely new one, and were able to, at the same time, preserve the original frames... but, seeing as how we are not exactly "shabby chic" people, I have NO idea what to do with them, though I don't want to throw them out, either! If only we'd done the window BEFORE the wedding, I could've scooped this adorable idea! Images from here. And seriously, how much do I love the painted on table numbers, too?! Lovely.

man, those Mennonites can bake.

So, today I found myself (and still do, to be honest) completely in over my head with projects and problems, not the least of which was that my feeling overwhelmed was helping me to do precisely NOTHING about any of it. Which is how, with just an hour and a half until I had to leave the house, I found myself making 50+ cupcakes for a little girl's bday party. (*Note to self: when you jokingly give someone a gift certificate to your "bakery", do NOT assume they won't cash it!) Yeah... so I had a request for chocolate-chocolate chip cupcakes with pink icing. Which, y'know, should have been easy (it's not like this is new to me) but I REALLY like to try to do things better each time, which is why I was stalking through the 'net looking for a BETTER chocolate cupcake recipe. But, unfortunately, time was ticking away, and all of the "best" recipes all seemed to include foolish things like "melting chocolate", or "using cream"... Yeah. No. Low maintenance = good, in our house. Not to say that I ALWAYS avoid those things, but I do honestly believe that there's usually a supremely tasty, SIMPLE alternative to most things...Which is how I ended up just adapting a recipe I've made a bajillion times, though not lately, with some of my newfound baking prowess ie. I actually kinda sorta learned what I've been during wrong all these years! So, yup, "The Mennonite Treasury of Recipes". Yeah, listen, I don't know. I don't even know where this thing came from. It just sort of has always been there. And this one recipe is COVERED in butter schmears, and cocoa, and whatnot (which is MY general way of judging how useful a recipe is). And let me tell you, a sore gut, and chocolate covered kid later, they were GREAT! VERY moist, and still fluffy, chocolatey, a wee smidge salty (which is perfect, I think, to balance out icing, even the mild kind I prefer). Without further ado, I give you my no-fail chocolate cupcakes:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Kraft Miracle Whip (not regular mayonaise (though you could experiment with the amount of salt and whatnot if you were determined) and NOT the light stuff (too sweet))
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 2tsp baking soda
• 1/4tsp plus a pinch salt
• 1tsp pure vanilla extract
• 5tbsp cocoa
• 1 bag mini baking M&Ms (optional)
  

Preheat oven to 350F and line mini-muffin tins (or butter/spray). Blend together Miracle Whip, vanilla, and sugar. In a separate bowl sift together remaining dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients and water alternatingly to Miracle Whip mixture until combined. Add mini m&ms. Fill muffin cups approx 2/3rds full and bake for approx 14min. Let cool completely before frosting.

**I made this little S's on top of the cupcakes by simply pouring melted white chocolate wafers (easily melted in the microwave for 30 seconds) into a piping bag and then "writing" the letters onto wax paper. Pop 'em in the freezer for a couple minutes and then pop 'em off and stick them in the icing. Honestly, it's super easy!

other people's weddings: Kelli & Toby

Are you kidding me??? A treehouse? That is amazing! Honestly, as soon as I saw the treehouse I was totally sold. Add in the super cool (and undoubtedly cost effective) paper garlands in the trees (such creative repurposing!), and the GORGEOUS palette, and I was a goner! Images found here by Brookelynn Photography.

other people's weddings: Shane & Adam

Winner: PRETTIEST wedding ever. Honestly, I must have gasped and sighed "Ooooooh. Pretty." a solid dozen times flipping through these pics. From the bride's amazing styling (hair, sash, dress, makeup, headpiece, all freaking gorg!) to the b-maids dresses, the table "numbers' (One word: Dollywood. They had a Dollywood table. I love them.), the parasols (I don't care. I know everyone uses them. I still think they're delightful when done well.), and, oy, I love that ring shot! Images from The Bride's Cafe by Sarah Roads Photographers.

cake #2

Well, lads and ladies, it's official: I'm a slacker. With a day and a week until the wedding I still have AT LEAST 7 cakes to bake... whoops. Meh, no worries. I'll pull it off! Y'day I polished off the rest of the cupkies (my signature deep-dish chocolate chip cookies, which I had to make more of because I ate a ridiculous amount of the first batch!), as well as whipping up a seriously tasty mocha cake that will just need to be glazed. Today I'm using that gorg pan pictured above (which I got as an AWESOME shower gift! Thanks Baba!) to do a test run of this recipe. The plan is to take the cake with me tomorrow to my buddy Eva's 10yr anniversary party (see how far behind we are!). Wish me luck because if it works out, we might have more than a few of our own pretty rose-shaped cakes at our wedding!

the end is NEVAH in sight

Just found this over at iDiY and I have a bad feeling that dozens of little drink tags are in my future! Whoops! I really need to stay off the interwebs (too. much. info. *brain explodes*) and start ACTUALLY working on my last projects seeing as how W-day is only EIGHT DAYS AWAY! GAHHAHAHAHA! (in my defense I haven't been able to find even CLEAR straws, so this might be a cute way to dress up what I CAN find. Story of my life. And YES, I get it, I'm that bride that's co-ordinating her straws. Wanna fight about it?!?!)

UPDATE* Didn't make quite these (I just couldn't figure out a size that could include text but wasn't too large in proportion to the straws) so instead I made cute little flags from the same co-ordinating stack that I made the invitations, drink tags, table trivia cards, and colouring books from! Seriously! Best $10 I ever spent was on that stack of cardstock! I'll post pics just as soon as I can find my BLOODY CAMERA! Gah!

look at me, all green in stuff

Keep the recycling coming! Comment I posted over at East Side Bride in response to the comments about this: "The length of a marriage is inversely proportionate to the cost of a wedding. Bullsh*t. I've had it with the holier-than-thou budget-wedding people. If you want to set a budget and hold yourself to it, great. Set a tiny budget! But just FYI, it will not make you a better person. It will not guarantee the success of your marriage."

What I wrote: "No, your wedding should not, and just IS not a reflection on your future marriage. It just isn't. It's not just a budget thing. Just because your wedding is disorganized doesn't mean your marriage will be. Just because your wedding is perfect doesn't mean your marriage will be. Really your wedding is simply a party in honour of your marriage. In the same way that a fab or horrible birthday is not an indicator of how well or poorly you'll live for the next year."

Besides that though, I'm noticing a serious backlash against the whole budget/diy/crafty wedding thingamabobber. Seriously, if you're not crafty, that's cool, really. Don't want to DIY? Whatevs. Got a big ol' budget and really would like to just leave the planning to a pro. Rock out. BUT, and this is a big but, some of us actually like, no, LOVE that shit. Really. It's important to me! If I wasn't trying to score deals, and make neat stuff, and find pretty quotes, and whatnot it wouldn't be my wedding. And really, if you are perfectly comfortable with what you've been finding in the bridal mags, and the event rental joints, why would you be searching online for inspiration??? I'm not being snotty, I'm just genuinely confused...

Oh, and the "I'll spend whatever the eff I want. Why are you judging me thing?" Usually NOT aimed at the girls that can afford it. If you've set a budget, big or small, and are sticking to it, great! But the idea that just because it's your wedding day you can let all common financial sense go out the window is ridiculous. Because, really, where does it end? When you buy a house are you ALLOWED to go over budget because it's your first house and it's a BIG DEAL? No, of course not. How about kids? Should you buy them the moon because they're your children and they're a BIG DEAL? no.

Should your wedding be great? Yes. Expensive? Sure, if you can afford it. But it IS a financial decision, and not one that should be ignored just because it's your wedding! Please, I'm begging you: do not avoid other financial responsibilities because of the emotion and hoopla of a wedding. Don't go into long-term debt. Don't make financial decisions today that WILL affect you and COULD take a toll on your MARRIAGE after the wedding. Because there will come a day, sooner than you think, when you will have to PAY for all of this! All I'm saying is to work within your means, whatever that is to you. And THAT is advice you can take to the bank.

can we take a moment to discuss the awesome

that is the chalkboard "menus" here? Yeah, they're awesome. Now where can I score me some on the cheap??? I have an idea, but I might have to get back to you guys on it! Image from Green Wedding Shoes by Aaron Shintaku.

tick tick tick tick

Had a sudden moment today where I realized that I can't even bother trying to find any last minute stuff for the ol' W-day online since it won't get here in time at this point! GAH! K, freakin' out a little now! Couple of little projects left, but definitely two big ones I'm procrastinating on! dum dummmmmm.... Image from Really Linda Baker.

***confession: I find cuckoo clocks oddly creepy. Cuckoo clocks and nutcrackers. Seriously. Creepy.

never say never: pt. gazillion +1

What I did today: made labels and bags to place on the tables so that our guests can take the flowers home (yay for no waste! Yay!) and made tags to hang off our fancy schmancy Christian Lacroix water bottles so folks know they're actually allowed to drink them! Believe it or not, most people that have seen them have just thought they were there for decoration! Needed to clear THAT up asap! So, along the "never say never" lines, I tied off approx. 45 tiny purple satin ribbons.Very close to the top of the list of things I SWORE I would not be doing: tying tiny "wedding colour" ribbons on ANYTHING. Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. How else was I supposed to attach the tags, though? And in terms of the "flower bags", I just couldn't think of any other neat way to have them on the tables without binding them together... with ribbon. At least I didn't use tacky gift wrap ribbon! It could have been worse... at least there's no frickin' curled metallic pink ribbon anywhere!
Anyhoo, here's the tags for the bottles. And, yep, still working on that SAME pack of scrapbooking paper! Best $10 I ever spent! I'm loving how it's adding a little texture and flair, while still keeping everything co-ordinated! You likey? (yeah, there's a trillion labels on that one bottle, but that's just so I could show you some of the different textures. Each bottle will only have ONE tag per.)

not a "green" wedding, but...

I do genuinely try to do things to cut back on some of the obviously bad-for-the-environment things we do: we recycle religiously, we compost all our yard scraps and clippings, etc. But mostly anything I do that's environmentally-friendly has more to do with my overwhelming hate of waste than some greater purpose. But means to an end, I guess, eh? Anyhoo, along those same lines it's occurred to me how even those weddings that claim to be so very green can, in fact, be so very wasteful. Just the amount of paper and packaging ALONE is staggering. With this in mind I've done my best to cut down on our own wedding. Think about it: just by limited to invitation to a single sheet, single envelope, and requesting e-mail rsvps, you could cut your paper by AT LEAST HALF! That's pretty significant! Especially in an industry as large as the wedding world, if even a fraction of brides chose to do this, it WOULD make a big impact!

Along those same lines, I'm trying to re-use and re-purpose, even before the weddings, the odds and ends that might normally go to waste after our diys. Which is how I came to be sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor, patchworking together the odds and ends left over from the invites (which, yes, I kept. You never know when you can re-use little bits, here and there!) With the sections, glued together, I was able to recover my small, but ugly collection of cookbooks that sit prominently in my kitchen. Now they're pretty, stylish (I think?!), co-ordinated, and very organized. All together, the project cost me, literally, nothing. I simply cut the glued together sheets into strips long enough to wrap around the book covers, and attached labels (which were also bought, at the dollar store, for wedding-related projects) to be able to identify the newly disguised spines. Maybe my mother-in-law's right: NEVER throw anything out. You never know when you can use it. (Feel free not to tell her I said that though, k?)

Before: pile of brightly coloured, seriously chaotic, not to mention messy cookbooks, BEGGING to be prettified.

The only supplies needed (if you'd like to do it yourself it was SUPER easy. Just make a band of paper, preferably heavier weight for durability, long enough to wrap around the book, with approximately three inches extra to wrap around the covers. Score the fold lines lightly for neatness, and cut the height of the band to match up with the height of the book, added about a 1/4 inch for clearance. Attach labels (you can print them out using Word; just search mailing labels) or hand write names on spines to be able to identify them, and voila! Done!) I HIGHLY recommend using co-ordinating but different papers. Keeps it looking neat, without being too boring. I'd love to see a whole bookshelf done like this. Imagine the possibilities!? The colours!

That right there would be the Martha Stewart Classics, which is normally BRIGHT orange. I have an irrational hate-on for orange. Yeah, it HAD to go!

Finished, with labels. Nice, neat and organized. This actually really helps since a lot of them didn't actually have names on the spines to start off with so they're all much easier to find now! Oh, and kind of cute since every time I look up there it reminds me of our wedding! yay!

o. my. fekk.

This is delicious. Honestly. How could I NOT love this?!?! Peonies. Raspberries. Purple. Vintage glassware. This makes me SO excited for summer. Can you smell those warm raspberries yet? Images from Ritzy Bee Blog by Corbin Gurkin Photography.