a vintage garden party.

i love birthdays. when i was growing up, my mom always made our birthdays so special. she made all of our cakes; i have many memories of barbie dolls with skirts made of pink frosting, and rocking horses with licorice-whip-reigns.

i'd been looking forward to bella's first birthday party for months! i knew exactly what i wanted to do: a vintage garden party. lots of flowers, lace, jars&bottles and vintage-y decorative paper. i found images of this sweet lil party on my google searching, which provided the inspiration for bella's party. because of budget constraints, i stuck to just a few sweet treats for our guests, and handmade everything from the decorations, to the cake, to the homemade cake ball pops. it was a lot of work, but really enjoyable, and oh-so-fun.

my friend, amanda, of {aka}photography (see our images on the side of my blog... amazing, right?!) asked if she could take some photos to capture the special day. i was happy to oblige :)

the table

silver platters for frosted sugar cookies (dollar tree, $1 each)

pink cherry blossom branches/pussywillows (joanns, $8 with coupon)

lace tablecloth (borrowed from mother-in-law)

square white paper plates, napkins, plastic forks (dollar tree, $1 each)

paper doilies (dollar tree, $1 each)

wine bottles and jars for candy and flowers (washed out jam & spaghetti sauce jars, free!)

flag bunting: scrapbook paper & ribbon (hobby lobby, $12)

mod podged tray for centerpiece: scrapbook paper, mod podge and an old wooden tray (all on hand, free!)

i made these blossom branches out of branches i found at a park and my in-laws yard. i washed out old wine bottles and made "blossoms" out of scrapbook paper and tissue paper. placed on paper doilies i purchased at the dollar store, i loved these sweet branches!

i made this photo bunting by making the traditional flags out of scrapbook paper and ribbon and then took mini clothespins and pinned the pictures to the ribbon. nick&i took pictures of bella at each month in her crib, so this was like a decorative timeline :)

i made this rosette "b" for bella by cutting a b out of foamboard and making what-seemed-like-thousands of rosettes out of pink tissue paper and gluing them on with my trusty gluegun. i hung it on the wall from pink ribbon i hot-glued to the back.

for decor on the gift table, i took some old shudders my friends gave me and pinned various photos of bella throughout her first year using mini clothespins. this kept with the vintage-y theme and served as the perfect showcase for some of our favorite pictures of our sweet pea :)

bella *loves* strawberries, so i made her the yummiest strawberry cake from a paula deen recipe you can find here. i frosted it with storebought whipped cream cheese frosting. i also handmade her cake toppers--paper and fabric flowers i hotglued onto lollipop sticks--and stuck them into the top of her cake.

for quenching our guests thirst, we served pink lemonade in this glass dispenser and ice water served in vintage glass bottles.

i have become a huge.fan.of.cake.balls, so i wanted to try my hand at making cake ball pops. with the help of my friend, amanda (who mastered the dipping!) they came out super cute. i filled a pink basket of bella's with blocks of styrofoam and covered it with moss i purchased at the dollar store (moss for a dollar? yes please!). i stuck the cake ball pops in the styrofoam along with little signs i made on lollipop sticks that read "happy birthday bella grace".

i also handmade cards to label each treat, embellished with ric-rac, ribbon and fabric flowers.

my fav: reeses pieces easter candy! not only are they the best candy everrrr, but they were perfect for bella's party because of the pastel colors. i scored four bags of these on clearance after easter, and filled old crystal bowls and washed out spaghetti sauce & jam jars that i also decorated with scrapbook paper and fabric flowers.

bella had so much fun opening up her presents! including this handpainted stool from her aunt jessica, uncle james & wyatt! soooo special.

i *love* handmade quilts and we have several of them, thanks to nick's grandmother :) i spread them over the floor for people to sit on, and to give a picnic feel.

cake time :)

family shot :) i think in the background you can see our ugly apartment chandelier that hangs over our kitchen table... my girlfriends, amanda and jessica (who are incredibly artistic and creative!) made white tissue poms and covered it up for me... thanks girls! super cute.

perfect birthday! it was such a special, special day with our family and friends. i love having all these photos to capture the memories for bella to look back on. still can't believe she is one. trying to hold on to all of these moments before she is playing with barbies, wanting to drive, or asking me to shop with her for a wedding dress (tear). thankful for the days we've had, and SO excited about the days ahead.

we love you, sweet bella grace!!

this post is linked to these *sweet* blogs:

faith, trust & a little pixie dust
little rays of sunshine
homemaker in heels
mod vintage life
tatertots and jello
the shabby nest
dyi by design
at the picket fence

bacon time with the hungry hungry hypo

centsational girl

today's creative blog

my girlish whims

farewell big, empty wall.

so we have had this big, empty wall for almost two years. it's above our recliner, almost in the corner of our living room.

it's been bugging me for nearly two years.

in an effort to decorate but not spend a lot of cash, here's what i came up with. i handmade a frame using one of my favorite prints from our wedding. and... it was really inexpensive! i ordered a poster print from walgreens photo online, using a coupon (they always have some coupon codes to use, don't fret) and i think the total cost for this 16x20 print was around thirteen buck-a-roos. yessss. i then went to home depot and bought a piece of plywood-type-material. sorry for the vague description! it was thin and only around $5-6. i had them cut it for me there (so i have another piece to play with too! *bonus*) and took it home and sanded it. i first spray painted it brown and modpodged photo to it. but when nick&i (or mostly nick) hung it on the wall, there was too much brown. soooo... i used the tin-foiling technique i used here on my tin-foil tables to create an antique-y silver-y frame. i will still probably add some faux glaze to the top to finish this look, but i haven't gotten to that just yet.

sepia tone poster print: walgreens ($13 with coupon code)

plywood: home depot (around $6)

tin foil, mod podge, pewter finish for frame: already on hand

foam board&scrapbook paper for "c": already on hand

bottle: goodwill (0.50)

button flowers: walmart ($5 for a bunch... i dried them out)

frame: already on hand

ceramic bird: pier one ($4 for a pair)

antique wall sconces: ebay ($6.99 + shipping)

i also purchased these antique bronze wall sconces from ebay... just a quick coat of white spraypaint and i'm in love (and how much do i love krylon spray paint? a.whole.lot).

i repurposed this old shelf i had found a while ago on clearance at target and put a few accessories on it... my friend hannah had these super cute bird salt&pepper shakers on a shelf at her house that she told me she got at pier one for 4 bucks. yes please! i made this "c" by using an x-acto knife to cut a c out of foam board i had on hand and covering it with scrapbook paper.

this is my favorite picture of bella taken by my super-duper talented friend, amanda, of {aka}photography (she also did all the family portraits on the right side of my blog!) yeah... amazing, right??! i put it in a vintage-y distressed frame i had bought years ago and i *love* it. anyone that knows me and my decor-loves, knows i'm obsessed with bottles (remember my other shelf??) i think i found this one at goodwill, and i loooove these yellow button flowers dried out... i have them all over our house!

so long, big empty wall. with a little thrifty-ness, creativity and repurposing, you have been conquered :)

this post was linked to this *lovely* blog:

http://www.homemakerinheels.com

some blog style.

for your viewing pleasure, my lovely readership.

finally... got some new pics up and revamped my blog a bit. let's face it; it was getting a bit blah and outdated. i love blogging, but i just don't know much about technology. so, during bella's nap time this morning i decided to put on my explore-blogging-technology-thinking-cap and try to manage some sort of a face lift.

voila.

here is the finished product! i am one happy girl. hope you enjoy.

i added some labels to make it easier for you to search for various things, such as recipes or other topics of interest.

i know, i know. i am so talented. (yeah righhhht. way behind the times.)

so, same blog... same recipes, same posts, same craft/decor ideas, same pics... just updated a wee bit and wayyyyy more stylish.

enjoy!

ps. all of my photos on the right hand side (except for our wedding one) are lovely creations by none other than {aka} photography and the talented amanda guevara. look her up on facebook and if you're in the dallas area book her TODAY!

thursday three.

so, i'm totally stealing this from a friend's blog. she does a "friday five" for her family, where she posts all five members of her family's highlights for the week. i thought it was really cute, a good way to document our life at a glace annnnnnd gives me something easy to do each week on my blog.

score.

i decided to continue the trend with doing mine on thursday for "thursday three". so, here goes!

nick

i don't even have to ask my husband about this one. nick teaches (7th grade life science, 9th grade biology and 12th grade anatomy) and coaches (football, basketball and track) at a private christian school downtown. there he is known as "coach cornwell", the young, cool teacher... and i'm pretty sure the heartthrob of the female student population. it's true. so last friday they had a pep rally for the last football game of the season... which included... a dance off. right. up. nick's. alley. (if you haven't seen my husband dance, i really think he might've missed his calling. i mean, my man can dance) and even better? it included the song "bye, bye, bye" from the ever popular N'SYNC which luckily nick remembered all the moves to from when he was in middle school. and no christian school pep rally is complete without playing "soulja boy" (??!) which, nick also had the moves to go along with as well. not only did he win the dance off but that night at his football game, i was bombarded by parents, students and other teachers all telling me what awesome moves my husband has. he was definitely the talk of the school... and probably still is :) oh, how i love that man!

meg

it's hard for me to pick just one highlight of this week... but i'm going to go with our family photo shoot we had on sunday evening with the *amazing* amanda guevara of {aka} photography (http://http//www.facebook.com/#!/pages/aKa-Photography/109238242457095?v=wall). amanda is a good friend of mine and she is seriously just so talented. if you live in the metroplex, you should book her ASAP! and if you don't live in the dallas area, well, she's only a plane ticket away :) she's THAT good. those of you that know me well know how much i love pictures. and we have an incredibly hard time trying to get family photos that actually come out! so this photo sesh just made my little picture-loving-heart soooo happy. i am just in love with the style and look of these photos and they capture our lil family so perfectly... here are just a few of the ones she took!

bella

this week nick and i introduced bella to "baby einstein" videos for the first time. she's been teething and just has had some cranky days so for her sanity (and ours) we broke out the ole baby entertainment. saturday afternoon she snuggled in bed with us and we watched together. she was soooo excited, just kicking and squealing away and loving the images and music. it was so cute. getting to be with daddy and mama AND getting to watch tv?? life doesn't get much better for our almost-six-month-old. she was in heaven.

so there you have it. our first thursday three. tune in next week... same time, same place :)