Nail State Art

My spin on the pin! I have seen this project on Pinterest several times and really wanted to try it out!

I started by spray painting my board with chalk board paint because I had it out from another project and I am sort of obsessed with chalk boards at th moment!

I cut out the state of Wisconsin using my Silhouette, but you could just print it out and cut it out by hand. I taped the paper image down to my board and started nailing!!!

Nailing the nails was a little more difficult than I thought it would be. In some spots it was just hard to hold the nail because of the angle and some I did not get in tight enough (this is important!! especially on the heart because it holds a lot of string!)

I love how it already looks!!!

I then started wrapping my string over all of the nails. The key here was to go slow and to pull it tight but not too tightly or you might pull the nails out. I did have to go back and nail in a few nails as I did this part. Since I used chalk paint I love that I can write whatever I want on the bottom! I ended up giving this to my sister and her husband for part of their wedding gift. I plan to make myself one sometime soon!

 

Not including painting and drying the background, I completed this project over a 6 hour time span. And I did put my little man to bed, make dinner and a few other things, so it took me less than 6 hours. Which is not too bad, I thought it would take a lot longer! 

Linked up at Dog Days of Winter Link Party

Wedding Day Survival Kit

Another day, another wedding post!!

 A good bridesmaid or even the bride will be prepared for any and everything the day of the wedding so that when nothing goes wrong you were just way over prepared! Enter the Wedding Day Survival Kit!

We have had one of these for every wedding I have been in and we may have broke into it once or twice but the most important part was we were way over prepared.

A Wedding Day Survival Kit can be as simple as you want it to be.

My youngest sister actually made this one for her friends wedding. They are going to pass it around among their friends and the only 2 requirements are if you finish something you replace it and you put in your wedding program to document who has all used it!!

Our kit included:

Sewing kit with scissors
Tums
Men's Deodorant
Woman's Deodorant
Q-tips
Static Guard
Make Up Wipes
Bra Tape
Blister Tape
Bean-o
Advil
Tampons
Lotion
Deodorant Remover
Saline Solution
Shout Wipes
Mints
Mouth Wash
Gum
Bobby Pins
Hair Ties
Safety Pins
Hair Spray
Tissue
First Aid Kit

Make sure to check out the rest of my wedding week!! Thanks for reading!

Organized Garage

Well my garage is a organized as it can be for now.... its not 100% done but it is a HUGE improvement!! I participated in the Great Garage Clean Out.

I was not able to do as much as I should have because the first 14 days were dedicated to my sister's wedding and recovering from it :)

I had a small garage sale at my house last weekend and am having a big one at my parents house this weekend so I was able to remove all of my many bins of garage sale items!!! What does not sell will be off to charity!!

I started by hanging a few things up!!! Including my awesome stroller that I LOVE!!!!  I still have a few thins on this side I need to give back or find a more permanent home for! I also hung up my cordless drill!!! (YEAH!!!)

Look at that organized corner!! Remember what it looked like before..... a MESS!!!! I still have some projects in the back corner I need to finish that will free up more space... including those ugly chairs... I have no idea if I will actually finish them or if I will just sell them as is.... we will see. I have decided they will be gone before winter so my husband can park in the garage!!!! I have also (for now) leaned my tables against the wall in the corner. I still have the willow branches in the garage from my sister's wedding....

I never got around to organizing this peg board..... on the to-do list for the future!!!

The biggest improvement... look at all of those bins and organization!!!!!

All in all it is an improvement!! But it still needs a bit more work!!! (I also still need to go through my paint shelf and my "garden" shelves)

Thanks Great Garage Clean Out!!!!! I appreciate the motivation!!!

Bridesmaid Canvas Tote Bag!

Hello! Wedding week continues with a post from the recent bride!!

As I was getting my gifts for my maids ready I decided I would try to decorate reusable tote bags instead of buying paper gift bags that would likely just get thrown away! And I'm a little obsessed with anything neon right now so this was the perfect project for me!

I bought the totes at Hobby Lobby. You can buy them individually or as a pack of three, I think it was maybe 7 dollars for the 3 pack, but I used the 40% off coupon they always have on their website so I saved a couple bucks.

I bought neon pink paint from Jo Ann Fabric. I think it was actually puff paint but I just squirted it into a bowl and painted it on. 

Since the bags were bundled up I started by ironing them so I had a nice flat surface to work with. I also put a piece of cardboard inside the bag to have a hard surface and so the paint wouldn't soak through. I used 2 different widths of tape: 2 wider pieces on the bottom and 2 skinnier pieces along the top. I also taped around the handles so they didn't get paint on them. 

I had a ruler next to the bag to have a loose guideline to follow, but I wasn't worried about perfectly spacing the lines or keeping them perfectly straight.

I printed the letters in a large font on sticker printer paper, cut them out and 

stuck them to the bag.

I only used one coat of paint and I put on a pretty thin layer, I didn't want it to bleed through the tape or through the paper letter.

I made one for each of my maids, with their first initial. I love how they turned out. The gifts fit perfectly inside. Hopefully the girls will reuse them this summer :)

 My cat really loved them too :)

DIY Wedding Garter

It's my third day of Wedding Week!! Do you love weddings as much as I do? I have 3 sister's and Kristin is my second sister to be married... so that mean's there is only one more to go!!!

Another project I was asked to create for my sister's wedding was a wedding garter. The pros: I was only told it needed to have blue in it and she liked lace. The cons: I was only told it needed to have blue in it and she liked lace..... This was a project she told me about a good six weeks before her wedding and I finished it 2 days before...

It was very easy once I figured out what to do, that just took me FOREVER to figure out. I sewed a 2 inch wide band of stretchy lace together. I twisted some blue fabric into a rose hot gluing it in place and added a rhinestone bead to the center.

Super easy DIY wedding garter!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to visit the rest of my wedding week posts!

DIY Wedding Chalkboard Place Cards

Welcome to the second day of my Wedding Week! If I didn't make it clear how much I LOVE weddings yesterday..... if I ever got the courage, I would start my own wedding planning business!

For my sister's wedding I created some VERY VERY VERY simple but cute DIY place cards for the rehearsal dinner. This was one of the projects I was told do what ever you want!!! (YEAH!!!)

I spent a while thinking about this and ended up making chalk board coaster place cards!! I bought chipboard coasters from a local craft store (but anywhere has them!!) I then added a few coats of my favorite chalk board spray paint (I am obsessed!!!) I also added a thin layer of cork to the back. After conditioning the coasters....

SUPER easy super cute (and practical and re-useable) chalk board place card coasters!!

I used a liquid chalk pen for these and I wish I would have just used regular chalk. It was REALLY hard to wash the liquid chalk off! BUT they looked great at the rehearsal!

Check out the rest of my wedding week posts!

DIY Printed Wedding Invitations

In honor of June, and my sister's wedding from a few weeks ago, I am doing a week of Weddings!
I LOVE weddings. I love attending them, I love being in them, I love planning them, I love everything about them!! My younger sister Kristin recently got married (a little over 2 weeks ago - even though it seems like months ago!!) Her and her husband dated for a good 7 years! And when we moved to Michigan she said she was waiting until I got back home to get married so I could plan her wedding! Well it didn't take too long after we moved home that they got engaged (Yes I realize it was NOT because we moved home.... :) ) It was SOOO much fun planning her wedding! I was given creative freedom in a few things (more things as the big day got closer!!!) which was fabulously fun!!! We did so many fabulous DIY projects for this wedding!!!

So here is my Wedding Week!! 

The first fabulous DIY project I am sharing is their wedding invitations. I LOVE LOVE LOVE how these turned out!!!

We used 3 sheets of paper to create this invitation. A black, shinny charcoal gray and shinny white. The finished invite was 5.5 by 5.5.

The best part about this invitation is that it is a pocket folded invite with the important information tucked in the back pocket! To create this pocket, we used one 8.5x11 sheet of paper per invitation. We cut the paper to 5.5 by 11. We then folded the paper at the 5.5 mark to create the back pocket.

The size we used, allowed up to simply create a post card that tucked right into the pocket!

We included:
Stay - hotel information
Celebrate - reception information and parking
RSVP - the RSVP post card

 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the words are lined up on the back!

I have made the invitations for all of my sister's weddings so far and this is my favorite (even over mine!!) I love how this turned out!!! And it was not really that hard once the design was laid out and lined up!If you do something similar please keep in mind these will require extra postage to mail!!! 1. Because they are square and 2. because they are thick!

Stay turned for the rest of my Wedding Week posts!! We had a lot of fun preparing for this wedding and even more fun at the wedding!!! (Congrats K&B!)