Thursday, July 28, 2011

Your new favorite Grape Salad Recipe


This recipe is from my sister, Danya. It's easy and DELICIOUS! You're gonna love it...and so will everyone you make it for!

8oz cream cheese, softened
1 small container of Marshmallow Creme
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. chopped pecans
Grapes (seedless, any color)

Mix cream cheese, marshmallow creme, 3/4 c brown sugar, and 3/4 c. pecans
Add grapes
Sprinkle remainder of brown sugar and pecans on the top
Chill for about an hour-ish...or don't...whatever. :)

Check this stuff out...
Are you drooling??

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Busy little bee...

I haven't posted in a while....that's because I've been too busy crafting to post about my crafts. :) I wanted to post a little update/teaser for you (like you care...lol) I'm throwing another baby shower TOMORROW! YAY! :) It's bumblebee themed and cute as heaven! You know I'll post pics...eventually. ;) But for now, I have to go and set up! Those tables aren't just going to set themselves! Happy Thursday!

Monday, May 9, 2011

A little birdie baby shower


I am so excited to share these pictures with you! (**Make sure you've been to the bathroom before you read this post....it's pretty LOOOOOOOOONG! Ha!) My older sister, mother, and I threw a baby shower for my little sister on Saturday. I've been talking about it for a while, so I'm sure y'all knew that I would be posting these pics as soon as I felt like it. ;) My little sister, her husband, and their little girl are just as country as cornbread, so we knew that we had to throw her a country shower! She's having a boy, so we went with birds as the theme...we used blues, greens, and browns as our color scheme and I'm pretty much in love with how everything turned out!
We originally planned to have the shower outside at my husband's grandparents' farm...check this place out....
I know...gorgeous, right? And the rusted out cars made it even more perfect! I was SO excited to throw the shower here...Mother Nature had other plans....it rained ALL WEEK LONG! So the grass was up to my knees, the ground was swampy and gross, and there was rain in the forecast for the day of the shower as well....sooooo....on to plan B. We had it at our back up location, our church gym. Not nearly as beautiful and definitely not our #1 choice...but I think it still turned out adorable. :) Ok...I've made you wait long enough...here are the pictures!
Let's start with invitations...I made these bad boys on Publisher using auto shapes and some cute fonts....Easy breezy! I also backed them with Kraft paper and tied the directions card to it with twine. I wish I would have taken a picture of the actual invite...they were even cuter. :)
(Phone numbers & e-mail addresses were blacked out for security purposes, of course.)

An overview of the whole room. The hay bales used for seating was in the original plan when we were going to have the shower at the farm...I already sacrificed the location, no way I was sacrificing these babies, too! :) Have I mentioned that I have the BEST HUSBAND in the whole world???? ;) (**And the best father-in-law, brother-in-law, and friends! It took a village to put this shower together!)

Another view of the room...from above.

Side view of one of the tables. I loved that the tables were a borderline headache. :) There was ZERO blank space on them...it doesn't get much more country than that!
Another view of one of the tables.

The centerpieces were SO EASY! Just a branch with cute paper leaves on wire...put it in a vase (that I had from my wedding!), wrap with some wrapping paper, and tie with a twine bow!

This is what each place setting looked like. The real wood chargers were my favorite part! My father-in-law found a fallen tree in the woods and he cut these with a chain saw. Then, we just painted the baby's initials on some of them, and birds on the others. :) Don't worry, they're blank on the other side, so we can use them again.
Each napkin ring was stenciled with the baby's first initial. :)

I couldn't just put regular pencils on the tables for the games...I had to wrap them with twine and put them in a can so they would fit in with the theme. :)

Each table had two of these on them. Just a log (cut from fallen trees) with a hole drilled in the top and a piece of wire hot glued into the hole to make the picture holder. These displayed the maternity pictures that I did of Patrick, Danya, and Jaycie.

The favors were chocolate birds in little nests that I made out of twine. And lucky us, right after Easter these robin eggs were on sale 1/2 off! Wahoo! My sister, Gentry, made the little tags with a T for Tucker (the baby!)...they added just the right finishing touch.

The food table. :)

These are the yarn balls that I talked about here! They turned out pretty cute, huh?

Had to put one of these guys on the food table, too!

Jaycie (my sister's daughter...soon to be big sister) said that she wanted to make something extra special for Tucker's party...so she drew this picture of him. How precious?? Maybe my favorite part of the shower decor...

Candles done by Gentry. :)

The owl cupcakes were made by my momma...how cute is it??? She is so talented!

She even made baby ones, too! So cute!

We put the water bottles in a wheel barrow. :) Do ya love it?

This is where Danya sat to open gifts.

The burlap pennant banner was just what it needed.

We hung these from the stakes holding up the banner and from the lattice work behind where Danya sat to open gifts.
A closer look. Those are spray painted Easter eggs...bought on sale after Easter, of course. And hanging planter baskets from the dollar store. :)

A cute wagon on the gift table. (My mom bought this at A.C. Moore for like $15! The original price was $70! What a steal!)

Wooden crates and a beautiful bird cage for a filler. :) The bird cage came from Hobby Lobby...and it will find a home somewhere in my house...I'm in love with it.
Seriously...in love.

My adorable little sister with the wreath I made her to hang on the door at the hospital after Tucker makes his arrival.

Me, Danya, Mom, and Gentry after the shower. I can't believe I'm actually posting this picture because I look like I've been hit by a bus...but whatever...it's the only picture we took together. :) I'm so happy for Patrick and Danya! They prayed for this baby for a long time and after two miscarriages and lots of heartache, the Lord is blessing them once again with a baby! God is so good! I can't wait to meet sweet Tucker! I'm sure he's going to be as wild and precious as his sister! :)
I'll leave you with a few of their maternity pics...I took them at our original location...you'll see why I wanted to have the shower there!
This last one is my favorite. Beautiful girl! I love her so much and can't wait to meet her brother! :) I hope you enjoyed my post as much as I enjoyed throwing this shower! It was so fun and I couldn't have done it without my mom, dad, sisters, husband, in-laws, and best friends (the Herberts!). Love y'all so much! XOXO



longest. post. ever.

Monday, May 2, 2011

DayNight


Few Showers
High
72°F

Precip
30%

Wind:From SSW at 8 mph
Humidity:62%
UV Index:7 High
Sunrise:6:26 AM ET
Avg. High:73°F
Record High:90°F (1986)



Showers
Overnight Low
58°F

Precip
30%

Wind:From SSW at 4 mph
Humidity:68%
Sunset:8:27 PM ET
Avg. Low:49°F
Record Low:33°F (1970)

It's only a 30% chance of rain...that means it won't happen, right??

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

It might just work...

Ok...so I know I mentioned my sister's baby shower coming up....and if you know me, you know that I almost never have an exact plan for ANYTHING! I usually have a basic idea, but then I just let my impulses and creativity run wild and just go with it! This post is one of those ideas...not even sure if it's gonna work...but I'm gonna post about it anyway...




I have a bazillion "yarn balls" that we made for my wedding. I had everybody and their mother (sometimes literally) working on these suckers for months before the big day. Now to say "yarn ball" you're probably thinking..."what on earth was she smoking when she decided to hang yarn from the ceiling at her wedding?" I don't blame you...but check these suckers out...this is what I'm talking about when I say yarn ball...
They really were beautiful! Here's a pic of them hanging from the ceiling. This pic was taken while we were still working on putting the room together.... :)


Thanks to Amy Wilson for the pics! I swiped them off of her Facebook! :)



So anywho...the yarn balls will be so cute at the shower! I had planned on using them....and then I saw this from Positively Splendid....



I posted about flowers similar to these, here, that I found on Craft Snob. But seeing them made out of burlap just made my head spin. How cute are they? And how much cuter would those yarn balls be if I attached a few of these guys to them before hanging them?? Picturing it in my head...I can't even speak. Good thing I can still type....




What if it doesn't work?? What if the burlap is too heavy?? Have no fear...we can always make paper flowers like these from Elise Blaha...




The vision I have in my head is a take on this light fixture (that I've always been in love with and will hopefully own someday when I have a house with a room that can handle it) from IKEA.





Obviously, they won't look exactly like this...but this is the idea...I want a version of this...not this exact thing. Ya know? My inspiration, if you will. :)
I am dieing as I sit here because I'm so excited to see how perfect they're going to be. At least I hope they'll be perfect. If not, whatever, they'll be dumb and I'll figure something else out. :)

On another non-related note...look how cute this earring holder is? Same chick from Positively Splendid...she used one of those adorable flowers on it, too...I may need to make myself one of these....