Merry Christmas

with.love
ashley

A little Christmas cheer

Haha, ok so last year we were so busy after getting married and taking our honeymoon during the holidays that there was no way we were getting a family Christmas card out, which I was completely bummed about because that's one of the things I was looking forward to after getting married. Anyway, this year, I was on it. And after a trip to the pet aisle at Target a few weeks ago, I knew our poor cats would be subject to some cat-torture. As you can see, they are very thrilled to be apart of our family Christmas card.

Hope you enjoyed the look of pure terror and annoyance in our cats faces as much as we did. 

with.love

ashley

Christmas Ornaments

I made these awesome Christmas ornaments last year. I came across the idea on Pinterest and of course the link was broken so I just did my own thing. I bought some clear ornaments from Michael's and used some pages from the old hymnal books from our wedding. I just ripped up the pages into small pieces and used mod podge to stick them to the ornament. Once they were dry I used adhesive and then sprinkled them with some glitter glass.

with.love

ashley

It's a positive!!

Good news folks! Me and the MR. are expecting a little in June!! Super excited!! We found out back in September (happy-birthday-to-me) and have kept it a secret. And yes, I took multiple tests to confirm because I was completely shocked that it was positive.

We have passed the first trimester and are finally shouting this good news from the rooftops! Baby-H is healthy and my first ultrasound is in January when we get to find out the sex. Cheers (with water) to us!


with.love
ashley

Boys & Girls Aid Gala

The Boys & Girls Aid helps children find permanent homes in Oregon. Every year there is a Boys & Girls Aid Gala to help raise money for this wonderful foundation. The gala takes place in November/December and my husband and his office for the last couple of years have sponsored a tree. It's such a fun event and it gets the whole office involved. Plus, it's fun to dress up really pretty and watch the bidding.

How it works ...

There are so many ways to donate but I am just going to explain the big trees that get auctioned off. Basically when you sign up to be a donor you can either just donate the money and have the committee decorate a tree or you can be in charge of decorating it yourself. Each tree has a theme and a certain minimum donation amount. So for example, every year there has been a wine tree. It's the only "tree" that's not actually a tree. It's more a like a wood tower to hold a bunch of bottles of wine and then it is decorated.

The decorated trees get auctioned off and all the money goes to the Boys & Girls Aid Gala. So not only is each tree decorated but there are awesome items included with the tree ... like wine.

The first year our tree theme was a "Winter Wonderland." So it was decorated like a winter wonderland and it included items like: a snowboard and a weekend get away. This year our theme was "Games" so any sports games and actual board games is what was included. So there was tickets to sporting events, a fuse ball table, and a bunch of board games.

To decorate our tree this year, my husband's office had this awesome idea to buy a bunch of old board games from Goodwill and make our own game-themed ornaments. They all looked really awesome, but in the end we went with the traditional Christmas colored ornament balls and used a few of the ornaments we had made.

My job this year was to make Monopoly ornaments. They took forever to make and even though we didn't end up using them, they turned out pretty neat. All I did was use the Monopoly money and mod-podged them to a clear ornament (found at Michael's) and then I topped it off with some glitter spray paint.

And here we are in front of our awesome tree! It is so much fun to go and decorate your tree and walk around to see how other people are decorating theres. The themes are always amazing and it's so much fun to watch the bidding on the night of the gala. 

Can't wait for next years gala!

with.love

ashley

Halloween Tour

with.love
ashley

SkeLeToNs

So somewhere in pinterest land my SIL found this super easy DIY. We can't find the pin but we remembered the gist of it. The original idea was inspired by the skeleton heads from Pottery Barn, which seem to be no longer available, but can be seen in this pic here.

Supplies:

• Skeleton heads
• Brown paint
• Spanish moss
• Glass jar/hurricane pillar/candle holder

We found our skeleton heads at Walmart, $3.98 for 17 heads. The original pinner found hers from the Dollar Tree, our Dollar Tree did not have them. We also bought the paint at Walmart for under $1.00, it's just the small craft paint. The Spanish moss was also purchased there and I can't remember how much it was but fairly inexpensive. My SIL and I shared a bag and have plenty left over. For the hurricane pillar, my SIL purchased hers for $1.00 at the Dollar Tree. I used a candle holder from Party Lite.

All we did was put our skeleton heads in a ziplock baggie and added the paint and some water. Then we shook it like you shake the Shake-and-Bake chicken and then took the heads out at set them on paper towels to dry. The paint just gives them a more antique appearance but isn't necessary if you like the way the heads already look. Once the heads were dry I just added them to the hurricane pillar/candle holder while adding Spanish moss here and there and adjusting the heads as I filled up the glass container.

Super easy and super cheap!



with.love 
ashley

Creepy Boa Wreath

I LOVE pinterest! This next creative idea was found on pinterest by my SIL. We both love HALLOWEEN and love decorating so we just couldn't wait to do this DIY boa wreath! 

Supplies:

• Styrofoam wreath ring (16-in)
• Black Boas (depending on the size and how fluffly you can find them, will depend on how many you need. We used 4 6ft black boas that were $4.99 each)
• guaze fabric (creepy cloth-black)
• Wire and wire cutters
• Sparkly skeleton head
• Sparkly spiders
• Skeletons
• Ribbon (to hang wreath)

Yesterday, we went out and hunted down all our supplies. We started at the Dollar Tree, which was mostly picked over. Luckily, they still had some guaze left so we bought a few of those. And we purchased these awesome skeletons in case we couldn't find the sparkly skeleton heads anywhere. 

Then we went to Walmart hoping that we could find everything else for really cheap and that ended up being a complete fail. Not only were 75% of the employees that we encountered that day completely rude, but also Walmart didn't have any of the supplies we needed. 

So then we went to Michaels, which is where we should have started. We purchased a 16 inch styrofoam wreath ring, with coupon for $4.99. 

4-6ft black boas that we ended up getting for $4.99 (they were stocked wrong and were originally $8.99 but they honored the $4.99 price since it was their stocking mistake. HOWEVER, if you can find boas online or if you are lucky and can find them at your local Dollar Tree than that will save you a lot of money). 

We also found our sparkly skeleton head ($1.49) and sparkly black spiders ($2.99) there.

First we untied all of our boas so they were single strand (6ft) not double strand. Then you just wrap each boa around the wreath ring. We cut about 1 inch wires and bent them with our finger so they made a 'U' shape and used those to secure the boa into the foam. 

I used one to secure the first end of the boa onto the wreath and then wrapped the boa around the wreath, weaving around the wreath. Then used another wire 'U' at the end of the boa and repeated the process until all 4 boas were used and secure with the wire 'U's. The wire sticks pretty easily into the styrofoam, and you can use bigger pieces of wire if the 1 inch length seems too small. 

Then I cut random sized pieces of the gauze (creepy cloth) fabric and added them to the ring. I used wire 'U's to secure the fabric and I also tucked some of the fabric underneath the wrapped boas so that it looked more blended. 

Then I cut the spiders off their sticks, leaving about 2 inches of the stick still attached to the spider and stuck them into the styrofoam on top of the boas and fabric. 

For the sparkly skeleton head, I cut of the string that was at the top of the head and then used some of the left over stick from the spiders and stuck it into the skeleton head and then stuck the other end of the stick into the styrofoam ring. 

I also attached one of the full skeletons from the Dollar Tree using more wire. I strung the wire through the skeleton's rib cage and then stuck him into the wreath. Then the final step is adding ribbon to the top so it can be hung. I used black wired ribbon from Jo-Anns and strung it underneath the boas and then tied a knot to secure it to the wreath and then a tiny bow at the top. 

Ta-Da! SPOOKY and CREEPY and oh-so-fabulous! This project cost $31.00. The original project which can be found here is totally AWESOME. She added lights and made her own wreath ring. Have fun and good luck!!

with.love 

ashley

BOO

It's finally OCTOBER, finally Fall!! Probably my favorite season. I love the colors, the smells, the holidays and of course, all the crafting inspiration! And I can't get enough of all the HALLOWEEN decor! My hubbs and I went to T.J. Maxx this year and stocked up on decorations and we were able to decorate our house a little earlier than previous years, so we'll be able to enjoy these SPOOKY decorations all month long. 


Have you ever seen something in the store and the price seems a little high and you say to yourself, "I can do that!" AND for much cheaper!? Well, I say that to myself ALL-THE-TIME. And since Halloween is approaching us I have been been crafting like crazzyy. 

My first, "I can do that!" moment was a couple months ago. I was at a gift shop and saw some AMAZING black, glittery letters and they were priced at $20 each and literally, all they were, were some sort of lightweight letter that were black and covered in glitter. Easy right? YES! So I went to my local Jo-Anns and found these amazing paper mache letters (the same one I used for my 'H' project). They were on sale so they only cost $3.99 each. I bought three of them B-O-O (see where I am going with this?). 

I spray painted these boring letters with black flat paint, front and back. When I was done spray painting the front side of each letter I added black glitter while the paint was still wet. The spray paint was $3.98 for 12oz at Lowe's and the glitter was $2.00 for 2oz at Craft Warehouse. I'm sure you can find glitter for cheaper at Walmart, but I hate going there so I just bought it while I was at Craft Warehouse. I used 3/4 of the bottle of glitter.

It only cost me $17.95 for this whole project v.s. buying all three letters at the gift shop totalling $60.00. 

And now they have a BOO-tastic home on our SPOOKY mantel. 

with.love

ashley

with a capital H

I've recently discovered my LOVE for the color gold. Mostly as an accent color. A few months ago as I was wandering the aisles of Jo-Ann fabrics, I found these awesome paper mache letters. This one was on sale for a dollar off so it cost me $8.99. I've been dying to use metallic gold spray paint, so I thought what better way than to spray paint some of those fabulous letters. 

before

after

 I used the Krylon short cuts Gold Leaf spray paint, found at Walmart for $2.98. 

This project cost me a total of $11.97. I did end up using the whole can of spray paint. Next time I'll look for a bigger bottle at Lowe's.

I just LOVE our gold H! And super EASY!

with.love 

ashley

Chalkboard

I hope everyone has had a fabulous weekend!! We actually had some nice, warm sunshine this weekend which was lovely after our last couple of Fall days. 

Here is a quick DIY chalkboard. Super easy to do. I have been wanting to buy and use chalkboard paint since like a year ago, but just was so busy with other projects. Fortunately for me, my boss is remodeling/updating our office so he said I could have this not-so-fabulous gold frame.

Yep, I saw potential in this poor guy. So I sanded him down and gave him a fresh coat of paint. The plywood you see hiding behind it was purchased from Lowe's. If you don't have a way to cut the wood to the exact measurements you need, they can actually do it for you in the store, which is awesome. Unfortunately, the day that my hubbs and I went to get our materials for this project was the day that the Lowe's cutter was out-of-order. So we had one of our lovely friends do it. 

The chalkboard paint was also purchased at Lowe's and I discovered that they also have magnetic paint so you can have a magnetic chalkboard if you so desire. I used three coats of the chalkboard paint and painted the plywood. Then I used a staple gun and stapled the plywood to the back of the frame. 

Ready to see the big reveal?? 

Voila!! Isn't she a beaut??


with.love 
ashley

Wedding DIY

Since it's the month of August I thought it would be appropriate to blog about my wedding DIY. It's been a year already and I can't believe how fast the time has flown. It feels like just yesterday we were scrambling trying to organize and plan every little detail for this very special day. 

My wonderful Hubs decided to propose March 11, 2011. We thought about waiting till this year for our big day, but then said screw it and went for an August 19th wedding. Which only gave us five, very fast, months to plan our big day. And, I know people out there plan a wedding in less time than that and are way busier than we are, but time flies and I'm a bit of a procrastinator so five months felt like a very short amount of time. 

By mid July I thought I had everything planned and ready to go. We had the venue, dress, catering, floral and photography all figured out. Our invites had gone out and RSVP's were trickling in. Our registry was all up-to-date and we were ready to say I DO. But then one evening as I was browsing online pictures of weddings and trying to decide if we were going to have an arbor or not, I suddenly realized that we had NO DECOR. We didn't need much in the floral department because we were getting married outside. But the venue was this beautiful, private residence/vineyard with very elegant and semi-vintage style. And with all the photos I kept perusing, I knew I wanted some kind of decor. 

SO I found inspiration from the oh-so-fabulous style me pretty blog and went out to the local consignment and Goodwill shops and found pieces to throw together for our wedding and I think everything came together very nicely; very whimsy with tiny details of vintage. 

All wedding photos were shot by Erich McVey. Check out his website and blog, he is seriously an AMAZING photographer!  

I found these amazing shudders at a local consignment shop and knew they would be perfect, somehow, for our wedding. I think I made good use of them. I had my husband hinge them together. I found photos of my parents wedding and had my in-laws give me some of theres and used small clothes pins to pin them to the shudders.  

This delicious picture just makes me thirsty every time I look at it. We have a copy in our kitchen and I think Erich did a wonderful job at capturing our strawberry lemonade. 

Thirsty??

Aren't these flowers so BEAUTIFUL?? Our florist, Stephanie, from Petalos Floral Design did a incredible job with all the floral arrangements. 

The old hymnal books were also found at a consignment shop. I found the birdcages online at save-on-crafts. Totally awesome craft website BTW. And we now have our birdcages as part of our decor on our mantel at home.

All the banners were made by me and took FOREVER. Remember earlier in this post when I said I procrastinate?? Did I mention I also don't have patience? In some of the pictures of the banners you can see that the letters are lifting a bit, that is because towards the end of my project I ditched the glue (that took FOREVER to dry) and used double sticky tape, which is not as durable. 

The supplies you will need to make these DIY banners are as follows...

• Chipboard
• Chipboard letters (or you can try just using craft/scrap-booking paper to make your own)
• Glue or double sticky tape
• Scissors
• Ribbon
• Hole puncher

Take the chipboard and lay it on your paper and trace the outline of the chipboard design. Then cut out the outlines and glue or tape them onto the chipboard. Then hole punch where the holes in the chipboard are. Add your letter/design to the middle using glue or tape. String ribbon through the holes and VOILA!!

These paper cones were made from pages of the old hymnal books from above. I tore some of the pages out and using my kindergarden craft skills, I rolled them into cones. I did have to cut them a bit, more into a square shape, to get the right cone shape that I wanted. You can find a DIY example here. The example shows a more pointy top, but I cut the tops before I rolled them to be more scalloped. Then I hole punched them and added ribbon. We filled them with dissolvable confetti so our guests could shower us while we walked back up the aisle. 

This next picture is very near and dear to my heart. My stepfather passed away in 2006 so he was not able to walk me down the aisle. His sister got married a few months before we did and passed this idea on to me. My mother found a small picture keychain at Walmart and spray painted it white, then added his picture to it. She added ribbon and then I tied it around my bouquet. My aunt found her mini picture frames at Joann Fabrics. 

So focus here on the paper pom-poms hanging from the trees. I bought a TON of tissue paper and took it over to my future mother-in-law's house and we had a tissue-paper-pom-making-party. It took FOREVER to make all these tissue pom-poms. Martha Stewart has a great tutorial here if you need some help. Hers of course look perfect, but I think ours turned out okay. We used fishing line to hang them from the trees and they lined the walk way leading up to the aisle.

Wasn't our view AMAZING??

So we decided to go with unity sand for our unity ceremony. I searched a ton of websites looking for the best price on the jars and sand and they all seemed way too expensive, at least more than I was willing to spend. And if I did find a kit that was decently priced, the shipping was so expensive that it didn't end up saving any money. SO, I went to my local Craft Warehouse and put together my own kit. The jars and sand were all purchased for around $25 buckaroos, compared to $60 online.

I wanted to display some of our engagement photos (also shot by Erich McVey) so I bought some really inexpensive frames from Goodwill and spray painted them white and then added our photos and displayed them in a hutch at the venue.

These cute little birds were purchased on Etsy. Unfortunately, the user is no longer available, but aren't they cute??

This last photo was shot by the WONDERFUL photographers Erik and Robin with Paparazzi Tonight. It is one of my favorites and I highly recommend this AWESOME team for any event!!

And they lived happily ever after...

Thank you to all our friends and family who helped with this beautiful day. Much loves!

with.love

ashley