Milk Paint DIY is Online

The Milk Paint Tutorial is now available on Cut Out + Keep. Give it a look here.

...and a cat meme.

xoxo,

b

Milk Paint Party Cones

I just submitted a tutorial to Cut Out + Keep. I will let you know when it is available. For now, here are some pictures...

xoxo,

b

Alligator Pinata

It was birthday time again and this year that called for an alligator pinata.

The candy went in an opening in the mouth.  The alligator is based on the one from Oh Happy Day.  If you'd like to see more photos look on my Instagram.

xoxo,

b

Tiny Cakes!

Have you seen these?

This image is all up in my Pinterest.

How can you not see these?  They're all over the pin boards.  I fell in love with tiny cake. Then I looked at the recipe and thought maybe not.  They are pretty and sparkly though so I decided to practice cake decorating on tiny cakes.  Some results were less than fabulous, but...

Made with supplies on hand, yeah, I know, everyone has edible glitter, pompoms, and confetti hanging around.

 It finally worked!  This is not the recipe used on the website however, just a white cake.  I also do not own a mini cheesecake pan like the directions say to use, but I have a set of biscuit cutters.

It took a lot of cake to get this far.

 

Fun Fact: the topper was made from metallic tissue sheets cut into strips and wrapped on a pompom maker. Just add washi tape to finish.

These will definitely be my birthday cake next weekend.  I'm going to use a vegan strawberry cake though and a variation of pourable fondant.  I did print the Celebrate Magazine freebies today and I might use those too.  They're nice, but I might have to do some embossing to add extra sparkle.

So there you go, something as seen on Pinterest actually did turn out.

xoxo,

b

Wedding Brain

I have wedding brain.  It is absolutely a real thing and it is making it hard to concentrate or focus on anything (other than obsessing over a nearly finished to do list and second guessing any decisions already made).  I had no idea I would be this way.

I've been enjoying life as a unicorn.

I have piles for miles.

Seriously, I do.  This is a pile of miscellaneous wedding decorations that are now complete.

I've decided that weddings need unicorns and woodland creatures or at least masks representing said creatures.  So, I justified a few last minute purchases.  The masks weren't expensive, but I usually do well at talking myself out of these kinds of purchases (unless it's Halloween season).  See the tablecloth in the lower left corner of the photo above?  That's where I took my color palette from.  I still have a few tassels left so I'm planning to go ahead and string them up this weekend.  Other than that the only things left to do are bake meringues, buy a few food items for Future Husband's party (he is turning 32!) and get married.  

Completely off topic, has anyone heard of The Musical of the Living Dead?  I just bought tickets.  There's a splash zone.

xoxo,

B

Almost...

The wedding is 3 weeks from today and recently, I introduced myself to Bridezillas via Netflix.  That behavior can't be normal and why would you take on new projects 5 days before a big event?  Anyway, that isn't the point.  The thing that I have noticed is that the brides in the episodes I've seen find it very important for everyone to see them and want people focused on how they look.  That really isn't my goal.  I want to look nice and have nice pictures.  I want to be appealing to Future Husband, but what I want people to see is the decorations.  I want to create an environment and mood through a visually driven experience; add in the music and food and we can bring along the other senses.  I think of the wedding as an opportunity to create a large scale art installation.  I'm not sure if that's good, bad, or normal; it just is what it is.  It isn't my day to be a princess.  It's a day to celebrate everyone we know and mark Team Merry-Miller as going official.  There is no perfection and that is fine.  The amount of decorations will have no bearing on the wedding happening or not happening, but if there's an opportunity to make fun things, I'm going to take it.

Above are pictures of my dining room table.  It hardly ever sees food, but it does get a lot of traffic from cutting mats and glue guns.  There are 160 tassels now and I am closing in on my goal of 200.  Pre-fluffed and trimmed tassels on the table and finished pieces on dowel rods.  The fifth pinata is silver, white and grey and most importantly, close to completion.  I am working to control my "just one more" impulse when it comes to DIY's.  If I would quit doing that, this would be it for projects (except that i decided to make three chalkboards and cut some fabric).  I'll work it out.

I will have so many tutorial posts starting at the end of the summer.  I hope you enjoy the photos until then.

XOXO,

b

What Saturday looked like...

Vicky T

Miss Victoria turned 13 and hosted a DJ'd party.  She also had cake smashed in her face.  She looks pissed.

Gymnasium

A gym, a DJ, lots of chips, M&M's, and balloons, no dancing though.

Giant cake

It was quite possibly the most awkard event I've been to in a long time.

xoxo,

B

Oddly Practical

I promised an update and I know there are 2 of you who might care...

 I added to my NYE decorations for my birthday party and I focused on the living room/dining room area.  I capped it off by setting up hot food and dishes in the kitchen and having a very clean house.  I felt that "Happy New Year" still applied since it was a new year of life.  This was sort of a trial run of what I'm doing for our wedding.  I got to see how space my streamers actually covered, how much tape it takes to hang things, and how long the helium in those balloons really lasts.  My friends refer to me as "oddly practical"; I think that was the word they paired with practical.  I'm not practical apparently because I spent a solid week of long hours on DIY decorations, but I'm not impractical because I used things from around the house.  I was told that straight up practical would be inviting your friends over.  Oddly practical is creating interactive experience out of items in the recycling bin and inviting your friends over.  I'm good with it.

Four types of cake; cookie, bundt, vegan, and cheese.

I lit those sparklers and I made some fabulous vegan red velvet cupcakes and my best vegan icing so far.

I also had party hats and pizza box numbers.  I did a lot of waiting for people to show up and then I sent them texted profanity.

There's a secret about this though...  something that I don't think my party goers considered...  and it doesn't mean that I love them any less, but...

The party was an excuse for the decorations.  I had a party because I wanted a reason to turn my house (at least a portion of it) into some sort of paper crafted experience, but then ya' know, I had to have someone to show it to.  I did learn a lot for my wedding installation and this experience did help me to further develop and refine some ideas.  I also had a great time.

DIY NYE

Close up of the ceiling

 

 

Our little party

We had a 'party' for New Year's Eve.  It was only two of us, but there were decorations and champagne.  We projected movies on the wall and now I want more.  I added to the decorations the next weekend and used them for my birthday party.  Isn't it amazing what you can do with pizza boxes and glitter?

X's and O's

I'll show you the birthday fest as soon as I transfer the pictures.

Cupcak Time Again

It's that time; October 10th is cupcake time. This year we got a little more fancy with towers and layered colors. Instructables featured a how to for rainbow cupcakes and it seemed perfect to try for a 9th birthday.We also decided to make a tower. Throught the magic of paper covered, re-purposed, recyclables, we got this:

I call it the "Leaning Tower of Beiber". It doesn't actually lean, but the centers are a little offset and the photo is angled. There was no theme other than anything she thought of to use or that we had on hand. So there were pirate, Spongebob and heart cups, all types of sprinkles, a few custom picks, and some ice cream cone candles. The picks were made using toothpicks and color prints. The tower is an old box, empty cans, and scrap paper. I guess it was okay for a rushed first attempt.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-rainbow-cupcakes/

(cupcake directions)

http://annies-eats.com/2010/08/19/how-to-make-a-cupcake-tower/

(tower directions)