Quick, Cheap and Easy Thanksgiving Tablescape Ideas {Our Friendsgiving}

We've recently moved to a different city- one I lived in about 5 years ago and it holds my HEART.  We are SOOO happy to be back here and loving our more laid back life style.  For our housewarming party it was perfecting timing to host it as a Friendsgiving. {Not familiar with the term "Friendsgiving"???  Its basically Thanksgiving, but with friends and each person brings a dish- the host only does the Turkey.}

I was so excited to reconnect with all my friends in this City and host them in our new home, but was worried I wouldn't have time to make the gathering as beautiful as I wanted to.  Thankfully, the day before two friends came up from Seattle to help us celebrate and I had extra help to put together a pretty environment for our guests.
This is Ashley [I've written about her before here]

We had four different tables to sit at to accommodate everyone coming- it is important to me that everyone have a space to sit and enjoy their meal and the company.  This ended up being helpful when I didn't have 20 of the same type of table settings.  I was able to set and decorate each table a little differently and tied them all together with a few special items:

I'm Thankful For.... Kraft Paper Place-mats

Because I didn't have enough of one type of place setting to make each on the same, the placemats Ashley and I created helped to tie everything together.  I purchased a roll of Kraft Paper at Fred Meyer and used my rotary cutter and cutting mat to cut 20 rectangles the size of place mats.  Because the paper came on a roll, it REALLY, really wanted to roll back up- so we placed some heavy tool boxes from the garage on them over night to flatten them out, worked great!  

Once they were flat, Ashley used my acrylic stamp pad and my letter stamps to create a "I'm Thankful For" stamp and stamped each place setting.  We also included a nice pen so that our guests could jot down a few things they were thankful for, if they wanted.  Most did, and I enjoyed reading what they wrote as I cleaned up!

I also used wood rounds as part of the centerpieces left from our wedding to tie most of the tables together-

The four tablescapes

Vintage Rustic

An unaltered vintage wooden table with a white linen table runner, Autumn China, Beaded Leaf Centerpiece and Candlestick.

Breakfast Bar Leaf Plates

A cozy spot for two- I got to use my beautiful leaf plates at the breakfast bar setting, with a gold charger, cloth napkins and Mason Jar Mugs.

Felt Leaves and Candles

Beautiful felt leaves, Autumn China, my vintage candle stick holder, White-Trash Wine Glasses with tea light candles and some ANTLERS!!

Linen Forest

This table is three card tables with ONE LONG linen table cloth (that I quickly finished the edges of off of an interior decor fabric bolt).  Wood rounds, two rustic urns with moss and pumpkins, and a rustic green glass vase with some grape vine pumpkins and my square modern plates finish off this woodsy table.

The ONLY item I purchased to make these tablescapes for our Friendsgiving was the Kraft Paper, and it was $3.99 for the whole roll.  I encourage you to get creative with the items you have around your home, and outside your home to create some unique, and unforgettable tablescapes for your Thanksgiving Celebrations tomorrow.

I am so thankful for all of my friends that read my blog, THANK YOU-  and Happy Thanksgiving!

{Burlap "Joy" Banner} A little bit of Embellishment goes a LONG way & GIVEAWAY!

My favorite photographer, Lindsay Porter from Lindsay Porter Photography asked me to create a banner for her upcoming Holiday Mini Session.  She wanted something simple and rustic to compliment the venue for her sessions, a Christmas Tree Farm.

I decided on Burlap and Lindsay wanted it to say "JOY".  I always sew my letters on my banners, unlike most that I see around that are painted.  [You can even follow along the tutorial I created to make your own here if you'd like to make your own!]  I feel like it gives a more professional, finished look.  After sewing the pennants and the letters, it was too plain.  I wanted the banner to be rustic, but not drab.... so I decided it needed a little EMBELLISHMENT!

I have experimented with all different types of fabric flower making from all the wonderful tutorials on pinterest.  But there was one style I hadn't tried yet... the rolled fabric flowers.  I did a quick search for a good tutorial and came across this one from jones design company.

I quickly created two cute little flowers.  Then, I used some heavy fusible interfacing to stiffen up some fabric to make some leaves and hot glued it all onto the J and Y of my banner and WHHHAAALLAAA!  See how much difference a little EMBELLISHMENT makes?!

What projects are you working on this Autumn and Winter that could benefit from a little bit of Embellishment?!  We'd love to hear about them- please leave a comment telling us about them to be entered into the giveaway for a chance to win one of these banners for yourself or to give to a friend!! And please share, share, share this post for MORE CHANCES TO WIN!

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Gender Neutral DIY Baby Shower Gift Ideas

I am headed to one of my best friend's baby shower this weekend, and I am super excited to see all the ladies and babies!  However, this strong friend of mine has held out in finding out what the gender is of her FIRST BABY at the request of her husband!  This is fun and exciting and all, but it makes gift giving difficult.  Especially when I want to hand-craft gifts special, just for this little sweetie.
Aimee has special requested one of my {Monthly Onesie Sets} as her baby shower gift, but I don't want them to be gender neutral, so those will have to wait.  BUT, I can't show up EMPTY HANDED, right?!
So, I went on a Pinterest Hunt to come up with some cute, and easy gifts for options to take to the shower.

I hope you enjoy my collection of DIY Gender Neutral Baby Shower Gifts below! [Click the image to follow a link to the tutorial]

Burp Cloths

Do Not Disturb Sign

Diaper Caddy/Organizing Bin

UpCycled T-Shirt Bibs

Soft Blocks

Closet Dividers

Alphabet Art

Nursing Cover

Taggie Blanket

Baby Blocks

And of course, what I've schemed up to make, I cannot find a tutorial for--- so I guess I will have to make my own for you all!

It's along the same ideas as this:

Christmas Card Book

I better get started!  Stay tuned to see what I've come up with!

My tips and tricks- WORKING WITH BURLAP and a bonus project idea

Kyle and I have some really special friends named Andrew and Ashley.  Oddly, Kyle actually met Andrew online in one of those really manly "diesel truck forums".  They've turned out to be true blue friends- that time and time again always are there for each other when they need something.  Kyle and I have really valued their friendship.
Recently, Andrew and Ashley joined one of two of the best clubs on earth- MARRIAGE (the other is parenthood).  I was honored to get to help Ashley with some of the planning of her wedding decor.  And I had so much fun keeping my eyes peeled for "lavender and rustic" themed details.
When Ashley came across the concept of a burlap and wood ring bearer pillow, I jumped at the opportunity to make one for her ceremony.
It turned out so cute, I wanted to share it with  you and a few tips to working with burlap.

Tip #1

Burlap stinks, is messy and itchy.  I've learned a trick to helping with these three issues. The first is ALWAYS WASH AND DRY IT BEFORE DOING ANYTHING!!!  I stand by this piece of advise for almost all fabric, but in the case of burlap it is especially important.  By washing and drying it-most of the stink, stiffness and excess fibers and dust are removed.  It will leave less of a mess on your work surface and be much more pleasant to work with- after being washed.  You can even wash and dry it a couple of times if you'd like it to be even more pleasant!

Tip #2

SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE.  After I wash and dry my burlap, I always take it outside and shake it as hard as I can to remove any of the residual dust.  I have TERRIBLE allergies, and as strange as it sounds, burlap makes me sneeze, my nose drip and my eyes itch.  So the more I can do to make it pleasurable to work with, the better!

Tip #3

Cutting burlap can be a challenge- it can be super frustrating to measure out the piece you need, use a hard edge to cut and then end up with 18 frayed edges that seem to pull all apart when you start to work with it.  I'll illustrate my solution to this problem using photos I took while creating my gift for Andrew and Ashley.

I started with a strip of scrap burlap, about six inches wide.  So then, to make a square for the pillow, I needed two pieces that were 6 inch square.

To create the straight line at 6 inches, find 1 strand of jute that looks to be right about 6 inches and give it a little tug.

Because this was a thin piece of fabric I was working with, I was able to pull the whole string through at ease.  If you are working with a wider piece of fabric, you may need to use a tool to pull the string up in the middle of the fabric, cut it and then pull on the two strings you've created out through the middle.  

You can see at the left of the fabric, that the void that is being created by the 1 piece of jute being pulled out, is enough to follow with scissors to cut a straight line.  That is EXACTLY what we are going for!

Now, you can use this void to cut along and have a perfectly straight edge!

Now, in this case, I wanted to have slightly frayed edges.  But at least I had a straight edge to begin with to pull some jute strings out to create the fray!  

That concludes my tips to working with burlap- I hope you learned something, try it out and find it useful!  

Below are photos of my finished project- a gift to our dear friends on their wedding day.  

Love it, have to have it and don't want to make it?!  No problem- I'd LOVE to make one for you!  Find the listing in my Etsy Shop here.

Do you have any other tricks or tips to working with burlap?  I'd love to hear about them, please comment below!

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3 Quick Patriotic Handcrafts- part1- Starry Banner

For my summer Mantel I wanted to create a Patriotic theme that could last from Memorial day to Labor day with the highlight of Independence Day, of course.

Part 1- Starry Banner

I knew I wanted a banner or garland of some sort- and had pinned a few different ideas. After creating the Jelly Bean Banners, I decided a quick and easy way to bring some RED, WHITE, and BLUE would be to use the same technique, but with star shapes.
I used my Silhouette to cut out 3 different sized star shapes in 3 different colors.  White was 1.5", Blue was 2" and Red was 3".  I sewed them on to wax paper leaving space between each star.
 

After they were sewn, I carefully peeled off the wax paper revealing just the thread and the stars!  I had enough stars to create two 4' garlands and I LOVE them both on my mantel!  I even had enough little white stars left to add them into my two other Patriotic Handcrafts to tie everything together!

I can't wait to share another tomorrow... stay tuned!

Sewn Applique' Rag Tie Bunting Tutorial and Candy Land Themed 1st Birthday Cake Smash Reveal

Before Madisyn was born, I came across the facebook page of a local Newborn Photographer.  She had a Newborn Photography special I just could not pass up.  We bought one for our little Sweet Pea and one for our friends due with Little Baby Hunter 6 weeks before Madisyn.

A few days after Madisyn was born we had our first major outing- Visiting Miss Lindsay Porter at her studio she had at the time, in downtown Snohomish (which is a SUPER cute little town, if you've never been- GO!).  We had so much fun taking photos of our sweet babe and scrunching her up in the funniest little poses- Lindsay was such a professional and I adored her personality.

Needless to say, our relationship with Miss Lindsay did not end there.  Madisyn has had the pleasure of being photographed by Lindsay Porter Photography every couple of months in her first year and a half of life.   I am so glad that we took the time and expense to have these photos done- they will be treasured FOREVER.

Over the last 20 months I have gotten to know Lindsay a little bit better at each photo session.  And as the bunch's product line in Baby Galore, 1st Birthday Outfits and Accessories grew, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to offer these adorable outfits to Lindsay's Clients as well.

What better way to launch our co-branded effort than for a  CANDY LAND THEMED CAKE SMASH!?  I had SO much fun creating the outfit AND Lindsay asked me to handcraft a Sewn Applique' Rag Tie Bunting for her photo-shoot backdrop.

I found a few tutorials here and there- but none of them had the step by step with photos like I longed for... SOOOOO- here is one for you!!!

Cut, Iron, Sew

The first step is to figure out how big you want your bunting triangles to be.  I wanted about a 3 foot banner total, so I eye balled the length on my ruler and decided they needed to be about 9 inches tall and 6 inches wide at the top of the triangle.  I used my fabric ruler to measure and rotary cut 1 triangle.  Then I laid that triangle on top of my ironed fabric and the ruler over the top of that and rotary cut along the edges, using my first triangle as a pattern.  I cut a total of 6 triangles (You will need two for each finished triangle.  

I used my Silhouette to cut out my letters with interfacing and ironed on my letters onto 3 of the triangles.

Once the letters were ironed on, I sewed around the edges of each letter with a coordinating color thread and puled the loose ends through to the back side of the fabric.  Because this isn't a peice that will most likely be washed very much, or at all, I didn't tie off the loose ends of the thread, they should be fine just pulled through to the inside.

With all 3 of the letters Applique'd, I then laid out the triangles without applique' over the top of each letter triangle (right sides facing), pinned and stitched around 3 sides (leaving the top open).

Cut, Flip, Iron

After you've sewn around the 3 sides, cut the tip of the triangle off (the excess fabric outside of where you sewed) so that when you flip it inside out there isn't a lot of bulky fabric preventing you from getting a pointy tip on your triangle.

I used a chop stick to carefully poke the tip of my triangle to get all the fabric pushed inside out.  Once you have it all flipped, iron it to get a crisp finished look.

Trim, Measure, Bind

After you sew your 3 triangles and flip them right side out, they won't be perfectly straight across the top (unless you are perfect, I obviously- AM NOT).  Use your rotary cutter and ruler and trim the edges so you have a straight edge to enclose in your binding.
I purchased premade Extra Wide, Double Fold Bias Tape from Hobby Lobby to use as the ribbon for my bunting.  I cut the bias tape to 3 feet long and then folded in half to find the middle.  I marked it with a pin.

I arranged my bunting triangles on my cutting mat with the spacing I wanted to allow for room for the rag ties between each triangle.  Notice my center of the bias tape pin is the in center of the middle triangle.

And then I pinned each triangle inside of the bias tape fold so that the raw edge was covered.

Sew, Rag Tie, and Done!

After pinning each triangle, I used my widest zig-zag stich on my sewing machine and started at one of the ends of the bunting and sewed all the way to the other edge, taking out the pins as I went.  After it was sewn, it looked like a finished project, but I wasn't done yet.  I used strips of coordinating fabric and tied knots in each strip between the triangles until there was no exposed bias tape remaining... And that's all there is to it!

What do you think?  Easy to make, right?!  Stay tuned to see a few photos of the cake smash session with this set as a prop and maybe even a little Photography Special and Etsy Coupon Code!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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