Red White and Rooster-4th of July Tablescape

I am celebrating the 4th with a sentimental trip to my farming days!  We used to spend the summer working the gardens at my grandmother's and selling our vegtables at a roadside stand.

What started my inspiration was the Hen!

I saw her in a shop down in Amish Country, didn't buy her, started on my way, got about 2 miles down the road and turned around to go back and get her!  She was just too cute to pass up. 

 I also bought the litttle white rooster and hen at the same shop.  I found the red ceramic egg carton on sale at Target. 

We sold green beans, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes.  July Fourth is too early for corn on the cob around here - we used to say "knee high by the 4th of July".

I banded my candles with some denim I ripped in strips to get those frayed white edges and added some button stars, flags, and white flowers.

 At the other end of the table I placed some flowers in a Coca Cola wood box I picked up at Walmart.  I loved the little red collander from Marshalls, which I filled with snap peas.

I used red bandanas from Hobby Lobby as napkins, and the tablecloth was something I had - I believe it was from Kohls.   

Half of the fruits and vegtables I used on this tablescape are real and the other half are fake!  Can you spot the imposters?

I hope you all have a wonderful time celebrating our great nation's independence!

I will be linking this post to the following parties:

Tablescape Thursday @ Between Naps on the Porch

Feathered Nest Friday @ French Country Cottage

Seasonal Sunday @ The Tablescaper

Ohio State Dessert Table

I helped out with my neighbor's high school graduation party this past weekend.  My main focus was putting together the dessert table.  The graduate wanted to make cupcakes and another gracious neighbor brought cookies, but the rest was up to me.  Since this young lady is Ohio State bound, (not to mention that all three of our kids have either attended or are still attending Ohio State)  I was all for the Scarlet and Gray!

The centerpiece was the Cake Pops!

I filled the tins with styrofoam and cover the ugly white foam pieces with some red shredded paper, then just stuck my pops in so they were easy to grab and easy to refill.

I used a variety of tins for some of the other treats.

The goodies I made included chocolate dipped pretzel rods, white chocolate mini pretzels, Rice Krispie treats, haystacks, chocolate covered Ritz with peanutbutter, dark chocolate dipped marshmallows, cake pops and my favorite, oreo truffles.

If you have never made oreo truffles- they are heavenly and easy to make.

Take one package of oreos and stick it in your blender and grind them up cream and all  - until they are fine crumbs.  Throw the crumbs and a bar of softened cream cheese in a bowl and mix until well blended.  Roll the crumb and cream cheese paste into small balls and place the balls in the freezer for a couple of hours.  Dip the cold oreo balls in chocolate and then back in the refrigerator to set up.

If you don't eat too much of the oreo paste as you are rolling the balls - you should end up with about 50 truffles!  But they won't last long, they are addicting.

The easiest treat to make was the chocolate dipped marshmallows! 

and of course, you can't have an Ohio State dessert table without Buckeyes!!  These were already provided so thankfully I did not have to hand dip all of those. 

It was a great celebration for all of this young lady's accomplishments and we wish her the best in her collegiate career!

I am joining the fun at the following linking parties:

Wow me Wednesday @ Polkadots on Parade

Let's Dish @ Cuisine Kathleen

Strut your Stuff Saturdays @ Six Sisters' Stuff

Busy Monday @ A Pinch of Joy

A Friend's Beautiful Wedding!

We went to the most beautiful wedding yesterday and just had to share some of the details with you.  Remember the Wedding Shower Gift Post with the burlap I did several weeks ago?  Well this was the wedding.  The bride and groom are both Eco friendly, earthy people and their wedding reflected their love for nature.  The reception was held at a very rustic open air, beautiful, historic picnic pavilion that once belonged to the Hoover Company (of vacuum cleaner fame!) God blessed this couple with the perfect weather for their day.  And also blessed  both the bride and the bride's mother with an  incredible eye for detail.  They did a fabulous job with the reception, it looked like it was straight out of a magazine!  So I couldn't help but share these pictures with you,  I think you will enjoy it as much as I did!

Wedding Seating Chart

The only thing I can take any claim for - is the fact that I lent them the door we used at our daughter's wedding last year for the seating chart! 

The Head Table

The Bride and Groom's table was adorned with burlap pennants, mercury glass, and her beautiful natural bouquet.

Guest Seating had burlap table runners, battenburg lace chair covers, silver chargers, mercury glass votives, birch pots with herbs and a beautiful wildflower center piece.

This picture is not the greatest, but the bar had pennants hanging inviting you to "Wet your Whistle".

My favorite though, was the Dessert Table

This Dessert Table was as delicious as it was beautiful. 

I love the use of the old suitcase and crates.

Then add the lace tablecloth, the "Life is Sweet" Sign and the garland made from fabric strips the whole vignette was just gorgeous!

Fun was had by all!

We wish the best for the Newlyweds!

I have joined the fun at:
Seasonal Sunday by The Tablescaper
Table Top Tuesday by A Stroll Thru Life
Masterpiece Monday by Boogieboard Cottage

Time Flies When You're Having Fun Mantel

Welcome to my submission to The Great Paper Mantel Challenge!  Emily at 52 Mantels threw out a challenge to create a mantel using 100% paper.  I took her up on the Challenge and this is where it lead me!  I chose to do a whimsical summer theme of "Time flies when you are having Fun!"

Speaking of Fun - this was a lot of fun to put together.  These are all easy projects made mostly from things around the house.This is all made of paper products such as ribbon spools, paper straws and boxes,  with an exception - I can't lie - the three little brads in the middle of the pinwheels, and the tape and glue holding everything else together.  (I tried gluing them and every morning I came down at lease one of the Pinwheels had popped- so I finally gave in and used the brads)

I started with my favorite thing, the Kites!  These were made from Scrapbook paper and backed with some poster board. 

The tails are just newspaper strips I wet down slightly and twisted until it looked like a string tail. .

 See that piece of white paper that looks like a bikini top?! That is the template I used for the bows I attached to the tail.

I used that same wet paper twisting on the vines for the flower garland.  But this time I used strips of craft wrapping paper.  The flowers were stamped out on newspaper and a variety of yellow scrapbook paper and cut out by hand.  That took a while but was a good project while watching So You Think You Can Dance!

The clocks and picture frame are just from boxes that I spray painted with flat black paint.  I cut out a gold mat with  a border punch and used my black and white copier to copy a favorite photo of my kids when they were little.  I also copied some clock faces I found in various places and decoupaged them onto the boxes - easy peasy. 

The pedestals are made from the ribbon spools and just stacked up - I added a band of yellow to add some color.  The paper straws came into play again, this time painted black to make my clock fly. The newspaper spheres probably took me the longest to make.





I took one page of the newspaper and

cut it in thirds for long strips,

then cut those long strips in half. 

Then each side of the strip into the center

so that all of the raw

edges would be in the middle.   

Fold that piece in half long ways

and start rolling the strip up. 

Keep it nice and tight. 

 I used my glue gun to glue the end down

and then on the back side to glue it to a paper mache ball. 

I hope you are enjoying your summer because mine seems to be flying by!!

Here are the links to the other Great Paper Matels in the Challenge!

I hope you have had fun with all of these ideas.

Father's Day Golf Table

Father's Day and Golf go hand in hand at this house!  My husband and boys have a tradition of playing in an annual  Hockey Dads and Sons Father's Day golf outing.   I wanted to do a Father's Day Tablescape but I had to keep it kind of low key and not too much fuss about it!  After all - it is all about the guys this time.

Golf is definately the theme!

A special Pin Marker for Dad

Dinner at the 19th hole

I thought my polka dot dishes would be fitting.  I ended up making some napkins because I could not find anything I liked.  Where are all the plaids when you need them?  The placemats are from Bed Bath and Beyond and the flatware is from Home Goods.

Did you see who is joining our dinner?  Arnold Palmer!  I couldn't resist using cans of his half tee/half lemonade drinks at the table.

Hopefully my dinner will be up to par with the table!

I hope all Dads out there enjoy their day!

Thanks for stopping by.

I have linked up to the Party at:
Cuisine Kathleen Let's Dish
Between Naps on the Porch Tablescape Thursday

Office Book Shelves ReDo!

Ok, Yesterday my A.D.D. cleaning tendancies kicked in.  I started with the simple task of cleaning off my mantle for a new project (more to come on that in a couple weeks) And ended up clearing out the whole wall of bookshelves in our office.

Let me go back here a minute - I need to show you a before picture first!

 I call these Bookshelves loosely because there are in fact very few books and alot of junk on these shelves. When looking for a place to put the things I was clearing off my mantle, I got a phone call from the 1980's saying they wanted all their country crocks back!  I have to admint there were pictures of neices and nephews on here that are at least 10 years old.  I even found a rowing award my husband and I recieved when we were first married with no kids in 1983- we didn't even live in this house at the time! It was over due for a good weeding and cleaning.

So this turned into a huge project. Pretty soon I was out in my garage again with the cans of spray paint.

I painted several frames and and a storage box black.  Then I decided I needed some more metal looking objects so I painted a few frames with my personal favorite can of spray paint - Rust-oleum Hammered Silver.  It gives it more of a metal look than just a flat silver.

  From the frames, I moved on to flower pots.  I sprayed this with a fine mist layer of black first and then the hammered silver lightly over to top of the black, letting some of the black show through, just to give them sort of an aged look about them.

I bought some black file boxes for all the papers that had been piled up around the office.  I edited the items going back on the shelves - a pile of keep somewhere else, a pile of Goodwill, and a pile of trash!

Then there was plenty of room for the items I loved from my mantle to find a permanent home in our office.

The end result is a much cleaner, more up to date look.

Now back to cleaning the rest of the house!

Thanks for stopping by.

I have joinded the party at:

Saturday Night Special @Funky Junk Interiors

Sunday Showcase Party @Under The Table and Dreaming

Metamorphis Monday @Between Naps on the Porch