Category: Tutorial

DIY Photo Table Runner / Day 3 of Feel Good Blogging Challenge

Sharing a tutorial that adds value to my readers kind of freaks me out a little.  I’m not going to lie.  I have written tutorials in the past and I love each one I’ve done.  But being asked to write one today, without warning is a little scary.

DIY PHOTO TABLE RUNNER
I’m going to share how to create a fabulous photo table runner using muslin, pictures, sheet music and paper doilies.  You see, I hosted my sister’s bridal shower in my backyard a few weeks ago.  I went all Pinterest crazy on it and create a lot of neat, personal touches for her.  She is the only sister I have and her wedding is a pretty big deal.

I found a few different versions of a personalized photo banner and decided to combine them for this event.  My sister’s favorite song is Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  Our Mom used to sing it to her before bed when she was a little girl.  I had several copies of it printed, pictures printed and purchased some paper doilies on sale at Hobby Lobby.

I asked my Mom to come over the night before so we could get it started.  I had purchased some muslin from Hobby Lobby (with a coupon – my sister would be proud!).  I had an 8 foot table and the table was 30” high.  I wanted it to hang pretty far off the table to where it was actually draping the ground.

bridal shower decor
What you need for this DIY photo table runner
:

4 ½ yards of fabric in about a 5” wide strip (if you don’t want yours to be as long as mine then you can take off some length).
50-70 pictures, all different sizes
15 pages of sheet music
15-20 paper doilies, all different sizes
hot glue gun\

Here’s how you do it:

Lay out your fabric on a table.  Start gluing your pictures, sheet music and doilies randomly.  Keep in mind the direction of the pictures.  More than likely the runner will be in the middle of the table with people sitting on both sides.  You want to try to get the pictures to be facing the correct direction so someone or words aren’t upside down.  Keep gluing until you have all of the muslin covered.  I went over the runner one more time gluing smaller pictures and doilies to add more of an interest.

DIY table runner
It’s a pretty simple DIY project that really adds some personal touches to the table.  I think overall I spent about $35 on the entire project.  I ordered the prints from Walmart.com with a coupon and had them shipped to my home for an even cheaper cost.  I would recommend doing that if you have several weeks before the party.

Developing A Budget As A Couple

tips for developing a budget

It’s no lie that finding someone, dating them, and then planning a wedding with them can be a bit difficult at times.  Combining two ways of doing just about everything to create one unified way can be frustrating and asks for a lot of compromise from both people.  That is the same for when you are asking two people with separate incomes, separate budgets, separate bills, separate bank accounts (wow! that’s a lot of separation) to come together to make a single family unit.

A team approach is the best.  You have to realize that the debts are no longer his and hers, they are now yours.  You have to plan to payoff the debts together and in a way that works best for the family unit.

Developing a budget is key.  As Dave Ramsey (roughly) says “You have to spend every dollar on paper before you actually spend it.”  That means calculating both incomes, all payment of bills, and putting aside some to savings.

As you might guess, J and I have been taking Financial Peace University.  While we aren’t finished with the classes yet, we are making progress.  Recently, we sat down to make a new budget that worked for us.  We kept finding reasons to not commit to a budget, but then we weren’t getting anywhere.  Here were our excuses reasons:

1) we just moved and had a lot of unusual spending – such as our final bills for our old utilities, moving truck, extra gas for driving further than normal, etc…

2) weren’t sure what J’s new monthly income after taxes and 401(k) draws was going to be

3) I switched to salary with my job and again, we weren’t sure what my monthly net income would be.

See, reasons.

tips for developing a budget

We were tired of reasons and it was time to get started.  I took Dave Ramsey’s forms and made a basic template using our monthly bills that we can hang on our fridge to talk about when monthly bills come in and get paid.

Cheers!

How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshop

How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshopchair / nails / walls

Chevron is everywhere.

 Walls, bulletin boards, wallets, watchers, shirts, and even nails… Since I do love a good trend, it should come as no surprise that I am using a hint of chevron in my wedding decorations.

We are having a few paper goods printed and I decided early on to design most of these myself (i.e. programs, thank you notes, menus, etc.).  I am having several designs for our printed goods – Stripes, chevron, polka dots… oh my!

You know I had no problem making a strip design or polka dot design in Photoshop – go figure!  I can draw a straight lines and circles on the computer! I was so proud and maybe a little too big headed because my chevron attempt was not successful.   I actually had to think and work at this one!  I didn’t want anything to be actual work, where’s the fun in that?!

I have since perfected it based on a few other tutorials online that I combined.  I thought I
would share my revelation with you to save someone else frustrations.

How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshop

Create a new file… I made mine the size of a notecard 4”x5.5” and put on the grid option.

Select your color and the rectangle tool.  Using the grid measure out equal boxes (for me I needed 6).

How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshop How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshop

Then rotate every other box either 45 degree or -45 degree, then line up the corners to be overlapping.

How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshop

Once your first chevron print is done for the entire length then select the layers and link together.

How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshop

Finally, duplicate the layers and space them out evenly.

How To Create a Chevron Pattern in Photoshop

There you have it, a nice chevron print that was easy to make and no hair pulling was necessary.

Since I wanted to add words to my design, I created a nice white box on top of the print.

Cheers!

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Bracelet Stacking Tips

I’m a sucker for trends. Fashion trends, social media trends, etc. I guess, I’m a follower of sorts. I like to jump on the bandwagon before it gets too much steam. And I am glad that this whole bracelet stacking has taken off. I’ve been stacking bracelets since my punk days back in junior high. Yes, yours truly was a skateboarding, baggy jean wearing, bracelets out the wahzoo awkward teenager.

Who better than someone who has been stacking bracelets for 12+ years to come up with some tips?  That’s exactly what I thought.
bracelet stacking tutorial


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bracelet stacking tutorial
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Tips for the perfect bracelet stack:
– similar finishes make a great, chic impact
– add different size bracelets to add interest
– choose items that you can live all day in. There is nothing worse than taking time to select the perfect stack just to have to take it off at work because the jingle of the bangles is too much or gets in the way of typing.
– combine different styles for an eclectic look.  I like pairing boyfriend watches with studded bracelets or dainty chains with out of the ordinary bangles.

Happy stacking!

Cheers!

 

 

Diet 7-Up Biscuits

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a day filled with love and yummy goodness!


J and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together this year.  Due to work schedules we both weren’t able to make the drive home, especially since our drive is in opposite directions of one another.  It just made it too difficult.  So, we made the best of it and celebrated on our own.

I got there just in time for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to start, which is my absolute favorite part of the day.  I’ve seen a 7-Up Biscuit recipe on Pinterest lately and it looked delicious.  I adapted the recipe to be a bit more Weight Watcher friendly and the results were a-mazing.

Ingredients:

2 C. Heart Smart Bisquick
1/2 C. light Sour Cream
1/2 C. diet 7-Up
1/4 C. melted butter (I used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter)

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix sour cream and bisquick together.  Add 7-Up to mix.  The dough will be really soft.  Melt the butter and pour into the bottom of a 9×9 pan.  Next, sprinkle some bisquick mix onto the counter and spread out the dough.  You don’t want to knead the dough, but just pat and spread to be about one-inch thick.  Use a glass or a biscuit cutter and cut out biscuits.  Place in pan and bake at 450 degree for about 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes 9 servings – 4 WWPointsPlus per serving

I had one biscuit that didn’t want to cooperate when I was putting it into the pan… I’m sure you can figure out which one that was.  Oh well! Recipes can’t always be picture perfect, but they were still delicious.

No Heat Curls {Tutorial}

I have seen these headband, no heat curls on some blogs and pinterest.  So, I decided to give it a try.  My hair has a natural aversion to curl – this aversion goes way back to when I was a senior in high school and waned curly hair for prom. You know the classic – you always want what you don’t have syndrome.  After several, long hours at the salon my hair was curly… and weighed an extra 10lbs from all of the product!

I’ve gotten off topic.  You take a stretchy headband and place over your head (across your forehead).  Then take your hair and wrap it around the band until it’s all tucked away. like so…

In the morning your hair may look something like this …. or if you are a more peaceful sleeper it may not look so jacked up.

Take out the band and ta-da you have curls!

Disclaimer: I’m sorry that I decided to go au’ natural in these photos and…well for the poor quality.  I was pretty tired the night before and then might have overslept the next morning.  Girl does have to get her beauty rest!

So far, the curls have lasted.  Of course, I gave them a good dousing of hairspray.

Enjoy!

About 8 hours later, I was still sitting in front of my laptop studying for my pending stats test.  I had ran to the grocery store, started a casserole for dinner, and may have taken a break…or two.  Here’s what the hair looked like:

I think it still had some nice texture to it. Definitely not the same amount of curl tho! Darn my hair!