An Elegant Dinner on the Patio

Prom.

A super fun, super expensive fancy event for teenagers.

I'm jealous.

Seriously.

How often do Moms and Dads get this kind of treatment without having to pay through the nose?

So I guess you could say I'm living through my child.

My boy was going with a great group of kids and I knew a couple of the moms.

We suggested doing a dinner supplied by the Mom's as a way to help the kids save money.

I think it turned out fabulously!

And with minimal cost.

Sometimes it really does take a village to pull off something this amazing.

So let me give you the low-down.

There were 12 kids, 6 couples.

Someone supplied the table linens and dishware.

I did the center piece.

There are Mason Jars, votive candles, playground sand, Christmas lights, sheer curtain fabric, 

babys breath flowers and a Pallet wood platform with finials for legs.

The only thing I spent money on was the candles and the babys breath.

The Christmas lights were piled up in the center.

Then the sheer fabric draped over the lights.

Then the pallet wood platform and finials.

Mason jars with playground sand and candles were next.

Finished off with the babys breath flowers spread around the jars.

It truly looked magical with the Candles lit, twinkling lights in the background,

and lovely dinnerware for each place setting.

The kids had a great time.

And at the end they called out the moms and gave us a standing ovation.

It was awesome!!

Just a quick rundown of the dinner:

To start it was artisan bread bowls with spinach dip served with pita chips.

A small cup of lime sorbet to cleanse the pallet.

(my boy was the only one who knew what that was, 

the rest were just excited to have some ice cream!)

Salad with choice of toppings and dressing.

More Lime Sorbet.

Italian Cream Soda to drink.

Dinner was chicken breast, roasted vegetables, and baked potato.

Lime Sorbet.

And finally a gorgeous Piezookie which is just my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe 

pressed into a ramekin, baked and topped with vanilla ice cream, 

and drizzled with chocolate and caramel sauce.

They looked so good I had to take a picture.

My friend went a little crazy with the chocolate and caramel drizzle-ing across the top,

but hey, how often do we get to do that?!?

Plus it makes the dessert look amazing!

All in all, it was a lot of work, for not much money.

And the kids had a great time.

Perfect!

Farm Fresh Eggs

I should have been born and raised in another place and time.

Not that I don't like my life now, but

I really, REALLY want to have a farm with chickens,

goats, sheep, garden and an orchard.

But for now I live in the suburbs in a subdivision.

A tiny piece of land. Just enough for my fruit trees and a garden.

But I can dream about chickens.

A crazy thing to dream about I know, but still.

I'm a farm girl stuck in a city girl's body.

So when I found this bird font over at DaFont, I had to use it in my pallet wood creations.

It would be perfect for the kitchen, or on the barn next to a chicken coop.

See.. still dreaming about farm life.

Anyhoo.

I screwed the pallet wood boards together like normal,

then did a couple of layers of paint.

A little blue.

A little green.

And a good white wash to top it off.

Then I pulled out the projector and added this image with black paint.

A little country.  

Very cute.

Here chicky chicky.

Mama needs some chickens!

Here it is over at Twigs and Twine with some of my other creations.

Zippers and a Little Bling

It's so fun to go through my pictures every once in a while.

I was going through my pics of our trip up the West Coast last summer.
My dad just had back surgery and is down and out for a little while so my
sister had the brilliant idea to put together a digital photo frame for him
with pictures of the family.

As I was going through my pictures from our trip
I found some pictures of some bracelets I made a while ago but never got around
to posting them.

Honestly I'm not sure why.
I love how they turned out.

Plus maybe I need to take a break from pallet projects for a little while.
I've got a major living room redecorate coming soon that has a heavy
dose of pallet wood so let's try something completely different.
I'm like that sometimes.
So here goes.

Forewarning:  This post will be picture rich.

Alright.  Let's go!

I love Zippers!
I love the fun funky design of some of them.
The cool industrial metal ones.

While brousing through SAS in Phoenix,
which is my proverbial 'kid in a candy store' place,
I wandered over to their zipper section.

Big ones.
Little tiny ones.
Fat ones.
Colorful ones.
Separating metal ones.
Chunky plastic ones.

All for so cheap.
The zippers I'm using here cost me $0.25 each.
Seriously.
$0.25 each.
Awesome.

When I saw them I knew they would be perfect for bracelets.
Kind of an industrial meets steampunk effect.
Fun and unique.
Perfect.

So I dug out my jewelry making supplies and started putting things together.

A key, a charm and some beads were all this bracelet needed.

Afer I trimmed the canvas tape away from the actual metal zipper.

A few jump rings and a lobster claw closure and it's done.

Easy.

Zippers and charms.

Perfectly cute and fun!

For this bracelet I decided to leave the canvas tape on and allow the zipper to function

unlike the previous one.

I found another set of fun charms.

A heart.

A love charm with definition,

and I made the bead charm with a head pin and some beads.

Then I attached the charms with a jump ring to the hole in the zipper head.

This way I can unzip the zipper if I want or leave it closed all the way.

The ends got a bar clamp and a toggle closure.

This is a great way to finish off the ends of the fabric.

I had to push the canvas strips together a little

to get them to fit in the bar clamp but not too much.

Then just press them closed with pliers and add the jump rings.

Easy peasy.

I think it looks beautiful on my wrist.

Fun dangle-ley charms.

 Fun.  Funky.

Pretty.

Perfect!

Pallets and Chandeliers

I regularly go to Pinterest for inspiration for my pallet wood projects.

Usually I just type in Pallet wood in the search engine and go from there.

There are some seriously talented crafters out there!

Chandeliers have held a special place in my heart.

I think they are beautiful.

Any way, any design, any material.

Especially the ones with beads and candles.

Very old world.

Very stunning.

So I came across these two pieces along with some others

that got my creative juices going.

Source

Source

I had done this one for my daughter a while ago.

But for the store I wanted to do another one out of pallet wood.

I searched Google images and found this one.

Simple.  Sweet.  Elegant.

Exactly the way a Chandelier should be.

So I assembled the boards like normal and used my projector to put the image on the board.

I love this method because it allows me to make the image the size and orientation exactly the way I want it to be.

I fit the image on the board and started painting.

A bit more detailed than normal but fun nontheless.

For the beadwork I used a q-tip dipped in my paint..

It worked perfectly!

I did add some stain once the image was painted because the boards were too pale

to show the white Chandelier properly.

I love how it turned out!

Pallet wood and Chandeliers.

A perfectly unique and beautiful combination.