How-To: Toast to the New Mr. & Mrs.

Giving a wedding gift with a personal touch can be a bit tricky.  You want to give a gift that the couple will love & use, but sometimes you want to stray from the norm.  Items off of the registry are awesome, but every once in a while, you want to do something a little extra.

How about making a beer & wine glass set worthy of any newlywed couple?  They're fun, useful & so cute.  

First, gather your needed items & print out a template.  I found a graphic of a pair of lips & a mustache with a simple google search & them imported them into a Microsoft Word document.  The size of the font for the Mr. & Mrs. will depend on the size of your glasses.  For my glasses, I used 80 point.  Word of advice though, make sure you pick a font that is easy to re-create.  I had to change mine mid-way through (you'll see the difference in the pics).  You'll also need scissors & scotch tape, a paper plate, small paint brushes (tinier the better!) a toothpick & enamel acrylic paint. And not pictured, but good to have: rubbing alcohol.

The important item for this project is the enamel paint, so double-check that you have the right kind.  I used Folk Art brand, which has an 'E' sticker on the top to help label it as enamel paint.  If you get regular acrylic paint, it will come off with use.  You don't want to use them once & have the paint wash off.

Prep the glasses by giving them a good cleaning & then wiping them down with some rubbing alcohol.  Make sure they are completely dry before you start painting.  Carefully cut out your templates & tape them on the inside of the glasses.  It can take a few tries to get them straight, but it's worth it to be patient.

The lips & mustache worked out well.  I tried to follow the lips as close as I could, leaving the white spaces open to make the lipstick marks look real.  For the mustache, I painted the whole template in black & them made some lines in the paint with a toothpick, making it look more like a 'real' mustache.

The lettering was much tougher though.  After trying a few times & quickly wiping off the ugly results, I changed the font.  I ended up using Script MT Bold & it was much, much easier.

After I finished painting the glasses, I let them sit for an hour to dry & then followed the instructions on the bottle of enamel paint.  My brand had to be placed in a cool oven, then baked for 30 minutes at 350 degrees & left in the oven to cool down.  They should be hand wash & top-rack dishwasher safe, though I usually only handwash them to ensure they last.

How To: Fun & Easy Wedding Shower Corsage

Last weekend I helped put on a wedding shower for my cousin's fiance, Tessa.  I loved helping to be a part of the planning & the party was so great.  I got to put lots of pretty, girly things together for the shower & got to see alot of my relatives I had not seen since my own wedding in October of last year.  It was an enjoyable day & I think the bride-to-be had a good time as well. Success!

One of the items I put together for Tessa's shower was a could-not-be-easier, but so frilly & fun corsage.  I love the playfulness of the feathers & it turned out great in her wedding colors, turquoise & purple.

So really, this corsage is so simple to make.  I headed down to my local Hobby Lobby & went straight to the gift wrap section.  There, I picked up a satiny, shiny white gift bow.  These are great things to keep around if you are not an expert in making your own bows (I am definitely not).  They come in a few basic colors & are made with quality ribbon that stands up pretty well.

I then picked out two feather clips, one in turquoise, one in purple.  These should be right near the gift bows & come in a ton of cheery, bright colors.  These are one of my favorite items to keep on hand for projects.  They are inexpensive & can dress up a gift quickly.

Make sure that your feather clips have backs similar to these.  They'll make it a snap to put the corsage together.

Once I was home, I took the bow & clips out of the package.  The bow had both a twist tie & a square of adhesive on the back.  I removed the square of adhesive, but left the twist tie attached.  Next I attached the feather clips to the bow's twist tie using the 'claw' grips.  I fiddled with them a bit to make sure they were adjusted the way I wanted & weaved a pearled stick pin through the bow so we could pin in on Tessa's dress.

Done.  See, simple right?

It's BRINNER time!

Spring is in full swing & if you're anything like me, you are really busy!  It seems like every March, the fates align & we have back-to back plans & projects that don't seem to end.  Being much busier than usual (& more tired, thanks daylight savings!) can make getting dinner on the table a chore.

This is where Brinner comes in.  Breakfast for dinner (brinner) is somehow easier than making a traditional dinner meal & is so tasty.  Last week, after a grueling work day for both of us, we make waffle sandwiches for supper.  They were quick, simple & definitely filled our tummies with deliciousness.

While Andrew cooked up sausage patties on the griddle, I mixed up a bisquick waffle batter.  I added a couple of tablespoons of sugar to the batter mix as well as 1 teaspoon of vanilla to make the waffles taste a little sweetere.  Once the sausage was done, I baked up the waffles in our trusty old wafflemaker & Andrew fried up a couple of eggs.

The crispy, slightly sweet waffles paired perfectly with the savory sausage & fried egg.  The creamy yolk added a decadent richness to the sandwich.  And of course, if you'd like, you can add a drizzle of maple syrup.

For each sandwich, we used two waffles, two small round sausage patties & one fried egg.  So simple, so good.