SAW IT. PINNED IT. DID IT: BANNER + TURKEY PLACE CARDS

Hey, you turkeys!
Who's ready for Thanksgiving in t-minus one week?

You know my answer to that.

Before I get to the good stuff...
Thank you all for the 60 some comments/emails on my post Tuesday.

You know, the one where many, many of you stepped up and said hello, finally! 

How fun was that?!

 So glad many of you aren't 'invisible' anymore. :)

If you didn't get an email back from me, make sure to go to your comment to see my response
 (it will be below it.)

This week has been busy, to say the least, preparing for our Friendsgiving sooo today I've got 2 pretty painless Thanksgiving crafts for you. A "thankful" banner that can be used as a decoration in your home and then these cute little pine cone turkeys for place cards. Even if you aren't hosting Thanksgiving this year, you may next year and the banner is just fun to have around the house so feel free to pin, save, share these.

Since Steph and I have ESP, you get double the banners today, which I know is exactly what you wanted.

First up...
Turkey Place Cards.

Here is the original pin:

Here is how I made them:
(the only pine cones I had were silver, except 2, -so I went with it)




All I did was hot glue gun a row of feathers in the back of the pine cone, and a row of about 3 feathers in front of those one.



Next, you attach the names of your guests (also with a hot glue gun) and they look like this...


{the host and hostess' pine cones ;)}





That's it!
I can't wait to see them on our tables.


Now, it's time for the Thankful banner.

Here is the original pin:
(and where you can get FREE letters for your banner!)

Here's how I made it mine:


Once you pick what cardstock you want, simply cut out the letters and glue on the paper.
I gave about 1/2 an inch around the perimeter of the letters so you could see the paper.

then all you do is hang your letters on twine with the clothespins.

It may take a little longer if you have a little fur baby dying for your attention and photobombing your pictures....do you see him in the mirror?

"Why do you need a banner when you got me?"

There ya have it.
Two pretty simple, pretty inexpensive, but pretty cute crafts for the holiday I'd like to think!

I can't wait to see what you link up this week.
Next week we will have a little break since it's Thanksgiving, so come back with full craftiness/yummy recipes/etc. in 2 weeks!

**We only ask that you credit the original source of your pin and that you include our button (below) and link to both me and Steph's blog somewhere on your post. To do this-just copy the text in the box below and paste it in your html for your post. Please, please, do this so we can follow along and other can join in on the fun, too!

Before I go, I'm guest posting on my friend Jane's blog today, go check it out here and say hello to her while her and her husband are traveling the world! No joke. She also lives in Lake Tahoe, which makes me kinda sorta hate her (except not really), since as you know it's our new favorite place!

*

I MUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION.

----my three best friends (since high school)---

This weekend....how do I begin to explain it?
It's about to be photo overload up in here, friends! Don't say I didn't warn you.

It started out by me dropping Billy off at the airport on Thursday for his annual guys golf trip with his family to Florida, and then receiving a picture of all of them on this massive boat enjoying the 80 degree weather.  Jealously was written all over my face (or my text message).

However....my weekend? Fabulous.

Not only did I host my girlfriend Marissa's baby shower with 3 other girlfriends, but I also had a big girly slumber party with one of my best friends Angela all weekend. I can't tell you how nice it was to have her company all weekend long since Billy was in Florida! We had so much fun going out with our other girlfriends to the casino Friday night, that may or may not have ended with us dancing like fools in front of hundreds of people, and making a visit to Waffle House at 3am. We keep it classy...not ashamed, not ashamed. Saturday we had a blast running errands together (it had been 70 all weekend!!) and making breakfast in the morning. For a second, it felt like we were back in college again...hangovers and all. 

The best part, though, was the baby shower we hosted on Saturday night. It was held at a gorgeous condo complex in Hilliard and there were about 50 people who came out for it. Marissa and her fiance Mike wanted it to be a couples shower, so boyfriends/husbands and families were invited as well. This was my first time hosting a baby shower, and I have to say I loved it! Seeing all our crafts and little details we worked hard on come together was awesome. The food was good, the booze was flowing, the guests were having fun (it seemed like!), and Marissa and Mike had a smile on their face all night.

Marissa and Mike are having a baby boy, named Maddox, and wanted the colors to be blue and black (she loves the damask print), so we mainly used those colors and added some others here and there.

We knew from the beginning that we wanted all of the crafts/decorations to be functional and things that the mommy and daddy to-be could use in the future. I made a onesies banner that hung from the fireplace out of twine, cardstock, clothespins, and onesies. It was originally supposed to read "baby boy", but the fireplace was smaller than I thought and I couldn't fit it all. All of the centerpieces were filled with toys, stuffed animals, towels, washclothes, etc. and we did a jar filled with "baby wishes" that they can keep and read in their baby room. At the entryway, we made a big diaper cake and had a corkboard that they can use in the babies room as well!

 

{My parents (left) and I matched really well, didn't we?! haha! It was so funny!}

Our girlfriend made the cutest fruit display out of a plastic baby tub and fruit. How adorable is this?

Being that I'm a huge picture fan (you didn't know this about me, did you?), I wanted to create something fun and unique that the guests could participate in that had the same feel as a photobooth. NOTE: GUESS who brought their camera and realized when she got there that her memory card was at home? ME. YIKES. Thank the lord for my girlfriend Rachel who brought me hers, or else none of these pictures would have happened!

Anyway-I took an old mirror we had lying around the house, removed the mirror from it, and spray painted the frame baby blue. Then I made fake mustache's and glued them on wooden sticks so everyone could pose with them to create a mini, silly photobooth area. I played photographer for the evening and encouraged the guests to let me take their picture throughout the night! Everyone seemed to love it and it's so cool that Marissa and Mike will have all of these pictures of their guests to look back on from their baby shower!!

I may be a little biased, but this was the greatest idea ever. ;)

{only half of them! and at really special times, the 'staches even became unibrows.}

The favors were blow pops covered in blue tissue paper with a sign thanking the guests for coming. Pretzel rods were placed next to them so the guests could have a salty/sweet treat on their way out!

As far as baby games-we decided to fill a big plastic baby bottle with gumballs and candy and asking the guests to guess how many were in the bottle. We also taped the word "BOY" made out of cardstock paper to the bottom of a random chair before the guests arrived, and told everyone to check under their seats to see who the lucky winner was. Being that there was so many people, these 2 games seemed to be enough and were easy enough that everyone could join in.

Both mommy and daddy to-be received some wonderful gifts and the shower couldn't have gone any better. It was so nice having all of our families there with our friends, too.

End result?

Now here I am wanting to plan our future child's baby shower.
But I guess technically I've done that ever since day 1 on Pinterest. Oops!

Linked up with Sami for her Weekend Update blog hop!


Have you planned a baby shower before?

How was your weekend?!

DIY: Pier 1 Photo Frame

I'm in the process of making a room in our house more of an office space.

Previously, it was pretty much a waste of space. It had a random couch and small desk that didn't match thrown in the corner. The couch was never used other than by Rocky. He would sleep on it all day while we are at work. So sorry Rocky, but that isn't enough reason for me to keep it, so I sold it on Craigslist.

In the mean time, I mentioned I painted the walls from a bright red to a more neutral tan color with one chocolate brown accent wall. We've also bought a modern desk to go in the room {LOVE it..can't wait to share it} and I'm so excited about how the room is looking!

I will share 'before' and 'after' pictures once it's totally completed :)

While browsing for things for the room, I found this frame photo holder at Pier 1 listed for $28.00.

I liked the idea of it and toyed around with the idea of buying it for about 10 minutes but then the *lightbulb* came on in my head {imagine that}....

Ask hubby to help me make it!

We did it in a matter of a few days (only because we had to pick up the wire in Cleveland when we were out of town) and it was SUPER easy!

Total spent on this project: $3.50

yeah...screw you $28.00 - We're smarter than that!

Here's what you'll need:

-Empty picture frame (we used an old frame, around 8 x 11, that I had laying around and I painted it white. You can use any size/color you like!)

-Clothespins (I couldn't find them in white so I painted them white)

-Wire

Steps:

Since I didn't buy my frame in the color I wanted, I had to paint it white. I sanded it first and bought acrylic paint and applied 2 coats. Painted the clothespins white as well. Waited until they were dry.

Then we measured how far apart we wanted the vertical and horizontal lines to go so that I could fit enough pictures. We kind of just eyeballed it.

Billy used his hand drill and drilled the wires into the appropriate spots to create the spots for the pictures.

Last and final step was to put the clothespins on the wire and pick your favorite pictures to hang :)

VOILA!

Here's the final product on our wall in our new office space...

(sorry for the bad quality..taken with my iphone)

Now get busy and make your own photo holder..really easy and is different than your standard picture frame! :)

Have a great Thursday!

xo. katie

Our Christmas Scrapbook

There are so many different reasons why I've come to love blogging but one of my favorite things is the sharing of different ideas for your home, recipes, crafts, etc. I absolutely love when people post cute ideas because sometimes I just am not that creative to think of it myself! :) 


I can't remember where I saw the idea of a Christmas scrapbook for every year of marriage (actually I think I saw it on multiple blogs!) and I knew I had to do it... it is such a cute idea! Since we got married this past year...what a perfect time to start it! 


The best part is you only have to do 1 page (or 2 if you don't have enough room like me!) per year so it'll be really easy to keep up with. On the page, you can include your Christmas card you sent out in the mail to your friends & family, a picture from Christmas day, and whatever else that is important to you! 


I finished our "2010" pages this past weekend and figured I'd share it with yall! Plus, I never got to share our Christmas card we sent out so you can see it on here :) I did 2 pages this year since it was our FIRST year married and was super special but I am going to try and just keep it to 1 page the following years!

Stickers galore (all 70% off!!): Check!!

Scrapbook and Christmas paper: Check!

A little cut, glue, and decorating action and VOILA!!!!

Page 1...

Page 2...

I LOVE that we'll be able to look back each year we are married and see the cards we sent out and how we spent Christmas together! 

Thank you Blogger...

XOXO,

Katie