Wedding Project Post #1 -- Stained Picture Frames

Two posts in less than a month-- WIN! Yes I realize that's not much to get excited about, but since it had been a year since my last post, it seems like a pretty big accomplishment.

Since I never got around to posting projects undertaken during wedding preparations, I thought I'd highlight some of the projects I did for the wedding. 

So I really wanted to put some personal touches on the wedding and one personalized item I wanted to include was pictures of all our parents and grandparents on their wedding days to be placed around the venue. 

I found a post on Pinterest how to easily stain plain wooden frames to give them a vintage look. The blog the post came from is here and it really was easy! All it took was some vinegar, coffee grounds and steel wool! I bought plain, unfinished frames from Joann's and for 6 spent about $70 on them. 

I mixed the vinegar and coffee grounds and let the steel wool sit overnight. Once the glass and backs were removed from the frames, I was ready to stain!

My work station

I forgot to take a picture of just the plain frames, but the first picture below shows a comparison between the unfinished and stained frames.

Some pictures during the process:

All the frames while they were drying...

Then I let them dry outside for a while....

And the finished products!!

I bought an extra frame so we had one to display an engagement photo!

This was a really easy and quick project and was a great way to bring in a vintage-looking element into the wedding. 

We're currently in the processing of trying to buy a new house so I can't wait to use some of these frames to display wedding photos whenever we're in our new home!!

Until next time,

CZP 

The Hiatus is Over! B's 40th Birthday!

So I know I've been MIA for nearly a year, but life got hectic with my two best friends' weddings last fall as well as my own wedding in March... But I'm back!!!

My wonderful hubby turned 40 a few weeks ago and I wanted to celebrate this milestone. Since he's not a big fan of being the center of attention, I knew a surprise party was out. Instead I wanted to keep it simple and have a low-key party that incorporated some of his favorite foods- BBQ and cupcakes. I found my inspiration from this blog.

I wanted to send out cutie invitations to capture the theme and I found them here.

 

I only did a few small craft projects for his birthday, including staining some wooden crates that would serve to hold the barbecue platters on the food table. I got these crates at Michael's for about $4 each and also found a spray paint stain for them- on clearance for only $2! Below are the before, during, and after pictures of the crates. They looked pretty good and they were super simple with the stain spray. 

Another project I created was a Happy Birthday banner. I liked the idea of using burlap in a couple different places in the decor so I found a huge roll of burlap to cut out the parts of the banner. B's favorite color is navy so I used navy scrapbook paper for the letters and navy ribbon to hold the banner together. So it would hold together, I made each word a mini banner. Below is the final product. 

I also decided to bring the burlap theme into the food labels and found the cutest squares of burlap at Michael's, then layered them with the navy scrapbook paper. Since I didn't have enough of the squares of burlap, I also made some larger ones without the burlap. Below are the food labels.

Since B saw me working on a lot of the projects, the only surprise was the photo collage. B's parents and brother were able to make it down for the party, and I know they all got a kick out of seeing all these photos. 

To make life easy, I had the BBQ catered from 'cue barbeque (cuebarbecue.com) and just had a bunch of side dishes to go with BBQ including a Mac and cheese bar, bacon-wrapped green beans, baked potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw, veggies and fruit.  

       

Some photos of the spread.

And of course, who can forget dessert. I got cupcakes from the same place we got them for our wedding- Jilly's Cupcakery (jillyscupcakery.com). B loves rice Krispy treats so I also had to make a few batches of those. The desserts were a big hit, as usual! 

B had a great time and it was so wonderful for our friends to come and share in his special night.

The food spread with B's banner 

Me and the birthday boy! 

My wonderful in-laws!

And some photos from the rest of the night!

Later in the night, we had to bust out some beer pong and flip cup!

All in all, it was a great night and we so appreciate everyone who came out to celebrate!!

Until next time (I promise it won't be another year!)
Cathy