Wedding Weekend Wrap-Up

 As some of you may know, my brother got married this past weekend. I had been working behind the scenes on a few of the design details as well as the rehearsal dinner, which was held at our house. I didn't want to ruin the surprise for the guests attending, so I've been recording my projects and am so excited to finally share them all! So here is my wedding weekend wrap-up!

I had mentioned the wedding centerpieces back in March, so Mary decided that she loved the look of the frosted glass, but felt the colored glass was a bit too much for what she had in mind. 

So with the help of my cousin, Jessie, we got to work frosting upwards of a hundred mason jars. We were lucky to know someone with a very large collection of jars and willing to part with some. 

We tried a few different ways to get that wrapped up look. The electrical tape ended up leaving a black residue on the glass that was(or so I heard, my aunt Kathy was kind enough to do the cleaning portion) a pain to get off. The twine made the lines on the jars not as sharp as we would've liked. So ribbon was the best choice. I have seen this done with wide rubber bands too, which is probably the way to go. 

Jessie and I giving the jars a first coat of paint. They ended up needing two, so keep that in mind when purchasing paint. 

Onto the next project! Mary wanted to display the place cards on a board with ribbons holding them up. So I used some scrap plywood, shelf liner, spray adhesive, a staple gun and vintage ribbon that my nana had saved. 

First I glued the shelf liner onto the plywood boards as a background to the ribbon. Then I just stapled the ribbon ends to the back of the boards as tightly as possible. 

Here are the three boards, ready for some place cards!

Next, I got to work on a program. Mary had a coupon to VistaPrint so she asked if I wouldn't mind designing a program for her. 

Using the basic layout and colors, I designed the place cards to correspond. 

And the table themes as well!

For the rehearsal dinner I used some leftover jars and wrapped a bit of twine around them and placed tea lights inside. To keep the tea lights from moving around, I put a 1/4 cup of epsom salts in the bottom of the jars. I also collected roses from around the yard and put them in vases with twine wrapped around them as well. 

The programs in their basket and ready to be passed out!

I had a few frames left over so I printed out a little sign to put near the guestbook. 

Here are the place card displays all set up!

You can see a frosted jar in the background and how nicely they add to the centerpiece arrangement. Also notice the place card in the foreground.

And while everything really came together perfectly, the best part of the whole day was seeing how happy Mary and Phil were. Congrats!

--Heather

Marbled Glass

Well hello old friends- the Two Girls have been very very busy lately but we are back with an awesome project! This project was so easy and I already had all the supplies (and if you're a chick, you probably have all the supplies already too).

Supplies:

Glassware with a flat bottom

Assorted nail polish

clear nail polish

straw or pencil or toothpick

container filled with water

nail polish remover

q tips

masking tape or painters tape

Fill up your container with water and pick out a few shades of nail polish that would look good together.

Tape off the sides of your glassware-for this project I used some shot glasses. You can do this with any glass, as long as it has a flat bottom.

Now pour in a few drops of your nail polish into your water, layering the colors on top of each other.

Using a straw or toothpick or pencil (anything with a sharp, pointy tip you don't mind ruining), drag and swirl around your polish. WORK QUICK! The polish starts to harden pretty fast, so you need to be speedy. (Hence the limited amount of photos for this project).

Dip in your glass just below the surface. You can even gently swirl it around for an added marble look.

Let them dry for about 2 hours or until they are not tacky anymore.

Peel off your tape and using your nail polish remover and q-tips, touch up any color that dripped through your tape. Then layer a coat of clear nail polish across the bottom to protect your design.

How fun! What a great idea for a gift! I'm thinkin' bridesmaids gifts for your bridal party in the colors of your wedding- wine glasses maybe? Endless possibilities, so give it a try!

Bottoms up!

--Emily Jo

Tee Shirt Upcycle

Here is a big tee shirt:

Let's make it cute.

Supplies:

Oversized Tee

Scissors

Tape measure or ruler

This is a quick way to update an old tee for Summer. 

We'll let the photos speak for themselves in this post (that's how easy this is!)

I love off the shoulder shirts, and am the cropped top queen. I also love me some bandeaus so I love finding shirts with over-sized arm holes to show them off. So I made a shirt and incorporated all these things!

Creepy myspace self photo collage time!

Possible Memorial Day cookout outfit?

There are so many things you can do with old tee shirts. Share any of your designs with us: emilyjojohnson1@gmail.com

--Emily

Weekly Wall Planner

Here is a project that will help you stay organized this Summer:

Supplies:

Picture Frame

Paint Samples

Glue

Dry Erase Marker

Scissors

I'm a busy busy girl and I'm hoping this will help me a little bit.

Look at this mess. I took apart my frame, and cut up some old magazines for the background of my planner. Collage time! This isn't necessary, but my frame was too big and I wanted something interesting in the background.

I love paint samples. They are FREE and they save you time on painting. This project is good to have a color scheme with, so just chose a color and get all the different shades of it at the paint store.

Then I glued down my samples overtop of my magazine collage. One for each day of the week.

I had some letter stickers, so I used these to label Monday-Sunday. You could always just use a marker or paint instead though.

Put your frame back together, grab a dry erase marker, and get planning!

To do: blog post this project!

This project was tough to photograph because of the glare.

To give you an idea of the size, here it is on my wall.

Happy Planning :)

--Emily Jo

Layered Beaded Necklace

A few years ago, while still in Savannah, I stopped by The Beadstro one day - our local bead shop - and picked up a few hand-painted ceramic beads that promptly got stashed away for later. I had completely forgotten about them until recently and decided that it was time to show them off. I wanted to just string the beads on a simple silver chain but didn't have one available. Then I remembered that I had some silver seed beads that could work just as well!

Supplies:

Needle and thread

Beads

It doesn't look like there are many seed beads there, but once you start stringing them up you realize how few you actually need. From that little section I probably used only a little over half of them for the entire necklace. 

Once you've threaded the needle and made a knot at the end that is big enough to stop the beads from falling off, just start stringing! This is one of those great projects to do while watching Netflix(I'm watching Sons of Anarchy for the second time and it's just as good as the first!).

Once you've filled up your string and made sure it is the length you wanted, add on your bigger beads and tie the two ends of thread together. 

How cute are these beads? Just simple blue and pink flowers with gilded edges that will definitely add a little life to my spring wardrobe!

--Heather

Quotable Artwork

Even if you don't have an artistic bone in your body, you can do this project.  I've been coming across some great quotes lately and have been stockpiling them for some sort of project. Canvases were on sale at my craft store, so I decided to do a quick painting to test out some quotable artwork.

Supplies:

Canvas

Acrylic Paint

Alphabet stickers

Choose a few colors, and then go nuts.

Paint all over your canvas, different colors, textures, patterns, just keep layering.

Keep going until you like the look of things, or until Dateline is over (which is what I did).

Take your alphabet stickers and space out your favorite quote.

Then paint over it in a solid color. Be carful around the letters to make sure they don't unstick from your canvas.

When you peel off your stickers once your top coat is dry, it will show your abstract design right through. Such an easy project, and a great way to add a conversation piece to any room.

...and yes I painted my lips and then kissed the canvas.

--Emily Jo