Pie Contest!

My friends Danielle and Steve hosted a Ping Pong Tournament and Pie Contest this past weekend - what a blast. They live in West Seattle and have a lawn with an amazing view. They provided drinks and we brought our own picnics. What a fun idea. Add in ping pong and pie and the fun is non stop. 

Danielle reached out to me the week before the event to see if I could pull together some signage for the pie table as well as some award ribbons for the top pies. What a cool thing to be asked to do. Of course I said yes even though I knew I had a crazy week ahead of me. I did some research on award ribbons and came up with some ideas for signage based on vintage tablecloths. You can find them here on my Pinterest page. (I love to start a project with a mood board - gather all my inspirations and ideas together).

I had great hopes of folding ribbon perfectly and creating stunning award ribbons. Well that didn't happen. Did I mention I am not really crafty? Armed with a hot glue gun I burnt all my fingers and made a big mess all over my desk but, I finally made it through with some decent results. 

I started with a variety of ribbons and some flat wooden circles from the wood craft area in Michaels. I painted the circles yellow for this project to match the ribbon (these have holes like buttons in them - but I am covering them up with the award name so they work perfectly).

For each award I cut out lengths of ribbon then glue gunned them on individually. Many of the awards I looked at were made with one long length of ribbon folded and attached. I could not quite manage that and have it look as good as I wanted. I then glued on the tail ribbon to the back. I experimented with different combinations and came up with some pretty cute ribbons. 

The other pieces I worked on were the signage for the table, judges and winners of the contest. I printed them on card stock so they would be stiff enough to stand up. 

The funny thing that day was that I was so excited about the event that once I got there I forgot to take any pictures of the pie table all set up . I also did not take one single picture of the pie I baked - which to my surprise won first place. I really could have kicked myself. 

Paper Wedding Decorations

I love a good party. I need no excuse to get people together, cook up some good food and decorate. For me the ultimate party is a wedding. Really, when else in your life are you going to have all those people in one place celebrating one of the biggest decisions in your life? Whether it is big or small it can be awesome. 

I have been really busy the last couple weeks as we count down to my friend Yvonne's wedding. She is amazing. Her fiance is amazing. Her wedding is going to be the same. I have the great honor of being her wedding coordinator and helping with the decorations. I will make sure everyone shows up in the right place with the right stuff at the right time. I will make sure everything looks great. It sounds so easy but believe me there are a million moving parts. 

For the reception we are looking at tissue pom poms hanging from the ceiling over the dance floor. I could wax poetic about paper decorations for days. I love them. I find them to be very nostalgic - circa 1950's prom or wedding. When done right they are fun and happy. They add texture and smiles to everyone's faces. 

You can find paper decorations on Luna Bazaar and Devra Party Corp> I also show how to make tissue balls here. I look forward to sharing pictures from the reception. 

Christmas Inspiration

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. I love the entire Christams season. I don't get crazy with my decorating but I do love to come up with a new theme for our tree and other decorations every year. This could get expensive but we try and re-use and make as much ourselves as possible. Mr. Ramon gets to choose every other year and this year was my year. 

I felt really inspired by red and white. Classic and so clean. I wanted it to look homespun but with a modern edge. What set it all in motion was these adorable felt hearts from IKEA. They looked rather handcrafted but still modern. 

I decided to build around this a Scandinavian theme. Red and white, felted accents, white lights, reindeer and graphic patterns for paper and tree skirt. These are some of the images from my mood board. 

 Check back for a post of what our Christmas actually looked like!

Save this Date!!!

So exciting - we hit our first big milestone. We sent out save the dates on the 6 month mark from our wedding.
This is a big accomplishment for us as Mr. Ramon has been insanely busy with a big project and it was a team effort so we needed to coordinate all the different pieces.

We had originally decided to screen print on wooden postcards - but then got together for a brainstorm session that left us interested in fabric, sewing and screen printing. We are really trying to do all of the elements of the paper goods for our wedding ourself (with the help of some amazing friends and family) - not wanting to out source or go the mass produced way. We both love paper goods and tend to geek out on them all the time. I spend way to much time perusing blogs filled with paper goods and right now with wedding on the brain it could fill up all my days if I let it.

We hit up a local fabric store and found two prints that were indicative of our "rustic glamour" theme. A little home spun a little fancy. First I had to join the two fabrics together with a iron-on binder.

Then I cut each piece out just big enough to go into the envelope - and pinked the edges.

Then it was Mr. Ramons turn - get paper and screen print the image on and cut them all to size. He has a really great friend who is a pro at screen printing - so this was a chance for him to learn some new tricks. Once that was done I was back to work. I glued the top of each paper to the fabric so it was secure to sew. I chose coordinating thread for a nice visual pop.

As the timeline drew near - I had some assistance from my mom with the sewing. We left the edge strings a little long - they looked so nice.

Mr. Ramon made some pretty wrap around labels for addressing our save the dates.

So the finished look was this. We were very happy with the results - they spoke to what is to come at our big day as well as hand crafted and unique. Such a fun project.

party flowers

Spring is here in the Pacific North West. Or at least it is attempting to be here between the  hail and sideways rain. But the tulips and blossom trees are pushing forward putting me in the mood for a spring get together.

I sent out invites to a close group of friends for a little gathering of snacks and drinks.

I wanted to make the homestead a little more festive so I decided to attempt to make some of those awesome tissue paper flowers that are featured on almost every party and wedding site.

I found directions on Martha Stewart and they were so easy to make.

Ramon helped out and ironed to tissue paper for me - we used 8 sheets for nice fullness - I would like to try with more and see how it comes out.

I worked on the accordion folding and cutting the ends to create the petals and then secured them with florists wire - then we separated the layers

The tricky part is to fluff the layers and create seamless balls so you cannot see where the two sides meet.

Ramon hung them from the ceiling while I art directed the installment - overall they looked really good and people who came over thought they were pretty and were surprised I made them. Which either means I don't look like the crafty type or they looked real good!

As I am also wedding planning I thought these might be good in newspaper for a more rustic flower look - they also would be quite smashing in black tissue and a pop of green.