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

I forgot something...

I made a wreath for the door.  It's based off this tutorial and uses the Happy Halloween banner from this tutorial.

crow wreath

You can't see it in the night time photos, but it's lovely.  I tied strips of burlap around a wire form and then sewed a few to fill in spots.  I added some wide bird print ribbon for a hanger, pulled the feet off a fake crow, and distressed my printed banner.  I printed the banner on a textured grey card stock and then I did some stamping and painting to make it feel worn.  I added cork to the paper so it would have some dimension.  The original instructions are all in the first tutorial link and just do your thing from there.

Okay, now I think I'm done.

xoxo,

b

The 2013 Cube is up!

This year my faux office is spending October dressed as a pumpkin patch.  There are hay bales, crows, and all the cardboard pumpkins you can handle.  The house will also be a pumpkin patch this year.  I decided to carry my theme through and make everything interchangeable.

I wanted something that would make a large impact without costing too much.  I looked at lots of decorative lawn stakes and thought they were great, but it's expensive to buy very many and the large ones are out of my budget anyway.  So I raided the recycling at my house and at work.  I drew some rough gourd shapes and cut them out.  I used a combination of acrylic and spray paint to bring them to life and then I got out the glue gun to build pumpkins with all of my painted pieces.  As long as I have spray paint and cardboard, I will have decorations.  I will also have feet covered in over spray.

xoxo,

orange and glittered

 b

It's the final count down.

The last round of bits are finished.

This is it.  I'm finally tired of wedding blogs and done with Bridezillas marathons. The decorations are as done as they can be before being loaded up and put in place.  The food has been started and all the confirmations have been made.  Other than some meringues that just wouldn't work out, I'm done for a few days.  (I do plan to climb back on my stand mixer tonight and show those meringues who's who.)

  This part is kind of weird.  This part is waiting... I think.  We still need to clean the house for the birthday/ thank you for helping grill party, but that doesn't seem like much.  The house is little and only half of it actually needs to be clean for our at home pre-wedding bit. What to do?

Vegan dark chocolate sorbet, nom.

Maybe go on a baking binge?  I found this recipe for sorbet and I've already made it twice.  I've been substituting coconut milk for the water.  It's very rich and very chocolatey, but it keeps disappearing so it must be good.  Also, zombie musicals are good.

X's and O's,

BMerry

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