Etsy Wedding Registry

Etsy announced a few weeks ago that they now offer a wedding registry and if you are already an Etsy member, signing up is easy peasy!

Go to www.etsy.com/registry.

It will prompt you to give your wedding date...

And you're ready to start adding!

If you're like me and you already have a collection of favorites, they also make it easy to add to your registry on the product pages. Just click on the "Add To Registry" button at the top right of the page under the "Add to Cart" button.

I'm jealous of all you brides-to-be out there. Happy shopping!

Tripp is About to Hatch!

A few weekends ago I helped throw a shower for a sweet friend of mine, Jenni. Jenni and I have one of those "small world" stories. While my husband was getting his Masters at Texas Tech, we met some of our best friends, Mark and Elizabeth. When we moved back to Dallas, Elizabeth kept telling me I should meet her friend Jenni from college. I started working at Anthropologie and Elizabeth said she thought Jenni worked there too but because there were so many locations in Dallas I dismissed it. Then one day Jenni and I shared a shift together and the rest is history!

The hostesses knew Jenni was considering Robin's Egg Blue for her nursery and wanted to coordinate the shower with her nursery colors. Since it was Easter season, we decided to run with "Tripp is about to Hatch" as our theme because I just couldn't ignore the abundance of eggs, nests and bird décor!

 

 

We set up this birdcage and tied a blue ribbon on top to help guests find the house.

I wrapped these bottles (seen here at Jayde's shower and here at Jerrod and Jamie's wedding shower) in rope and secured with a knot. We used these to serve this punch as guests arrived.

 Jenni did not have a guest book so I used my Silhouette to cut birds out of scrapbook paper and guests wrote notes or blessings to baby Tripp and Jenni and clipped them to the bird cage with these. The note in the bottom right was my favorite: "Tripp, I'm getting you your own phone. Prepaid to call Memee."

 

I made this sign by cutting burlap with my rotary cutter and stenciling the letters using stencils I created with my Silhouette. I then secured the bunting to ribbon with hot glue. I tried spray paint but it did not show up so I ended up using white paint.  

I filled blue mason jars with white flowers. I may or may not have made my husband pull over on the side of the road so that I could cut wildflowers for the middle jar.

 

Jenni's sister-in-law has a friend who made the monogrammed cupcakes and cake pop party favors which were not only adorable but delicious too!

Me and the mommy-to-be, Jenni (and Tripp of course)!

And ironically, Jenni walked in with the hostess gifts and the wrapping matched the theme perfectly! She had no idea what we were doing for the theme!

A special thank you to Leslie, Caroline, Melissa, Amy and Sarah for all their hard work on this shower!

DIY Glittered Signs

If you're looking for a simple yet satisfying project this weekend look not more! These DIY Glittered Wire Signs by Oh Happy Day would be a lovely touch for a bride or groom's chair at the reception and they are easy to make!

 

These could also be used for the guest of honor's chair at a bridal/baby shower or for a dinner party. Head over to Oh Happy Day for the full tutorial and have a happy weekend!!!

DIY Fancy Clothespins

For Jayde's Baby Shower I made decorative clothespins to hang the onesies the hostesses made. I am confident I'm not the first person to ever do this but today I am going to share with you how I did it.

Materials Needed:

Clothespins
Spraypaint
Mod Podge
Scrapbook paper
Sandpaper (optional)

Instructions:

1. Spray paint your clothespins the color you would like them. I spray painted my clothespins to be a copper/champagne color to match the scrapbook paper I had picked.
2. Use a dry clothespin to start tracing on your scrapbook paper. If you want to multitask you can set aside one clothespin sans spray paint to trace while the rest of the clothespins are drying.
3. Cut out your traced clothespin.
4. Once your clothespins have completely dried, spread Mod Podge on one side of the clothespin and stick your scrapbook paper to the clothespin. Let it dry and then spread more Mod Podge on top of the paper.
5. This step is optional. If you have excess scrapbook paper on the sides of your clothespins you can shave it off with sandpaper.

Decorated clothespins can be used to hang onesies at a baby shower, lingerie at a Bachelorette Party or shower, food menu cards, the possibilities are endless. In fact, I used the same clothespins from Jayde's shower to hang my Christmas Cards last December:

Also, I recently saw these fancy clothespins used for gift wrapping and to hang pictures:

 

View the full tutorial for these flower clothespins at Creature Comforts.

DIY Layered Cake

What if I told you this cake cost only $5 and required zero baking whatsoever? Don't believe me? Check out the tutorial by Jessica Kirkland on Hostess with the Mostess and you'll find yourself asking, "Why didn't I think of that?!" I know I did! Thank you for sharing Jessica!

DIY Lace Pottery

I saw this DIY for lace pottery on Urban Comfort and can't wait to try it myself. In fact, I wish I'd have come across it before I decorated for the Lace Bridal Shower I did a few weekends ago. My mom bought me an expensive lace bowl on Etsy for Christmas this year. It actually wouldn't have been that expensive except she thought she was buying a set of six and realized she was only buying one when the bowl arrived. After seeing this tutorial, I plan to decoupage lace to an assortment of white bowls to coordinate with the one I already have. Thanks for idea Urban Comfort!

Milk Bottle Centerpiece

Spring has (officially) sprung! I use the term "officially" because in Texas it has felt like spring since November. We made the trip to Round Top last weekend and I was reminded of a the milk bottle crate I purchased on our Fall trip. My original plan was to use it as a centerpiece/vase for my kitchen table and that is where it currently resides sans flowers but the below pictures were taken last fall when I had a fresh bouquet at my disposal. I'm thinking Texas Wildflowers would look stunning if I were brave enough to pull over on the side of the highway to pick them. For now, these photographs will have to suffice.


 
We saw several milk bottle crates again this year. Unfortunately Round Top doesn't occur again until the Fall but I'm sure they'll have them again!