My Etsy Shop

      So you remember, oh I don't know, a couple of posts back when I said that I was going to have an etsy shop up and going middle of June?  Well lets just say that my eyes were bigger than my stomach!  Ok so starting an etsy shop is suppose to be like some sort of fantasy right?  I mean I thought I would make a couple of things and post it onto etsy and boom done I can quit my day job.........wow that was a bit of a stretch but not by that much.  Starting an etsy shop is so much more time consuming that I thought it would be.  I am learning so much through the process.  I am such an ADD crafter.  When I craft it looks like a Hobby Lobby run by monkeys on crack!  And I am pretty much ALWAYS crafting something sooooo you do the math on the condition of my house at any given moment...yikes.  Anyway it is not going to be the middle of June but it will be as soon as I can figure it all out.   I am currently trying to figure out exactly which products I am going to make, what the cost is, the shipping, how much time it takes to make, etc.  But for now I love stationary so I have been trying out all the styles in my head.  So here are some ones I have come up with lately.

Can anyone guess what the silhouette is on the card above???  

Please tell me what you think!  

A Lamp Redo

I had such a fun weekend with my family!  We went "thrifting" on Saturday and found some really cheap  but perfect items for repurposing or refinishing.  I can't wait to see how it all turns out!  Last week I got a boring circa 1970's brass lamp that I was determined to update and hope to sell in my Etsy shop.  Here it is I would love to hear from about what you think! I also am putting up some other pictures to show you how I got from A - Z.

Before

After

  Here was my process - 

I spray painted the lamp a chocolate brown (what mess in the background??  What are you talking about??) :)

Then I took joint compound and painted it on with a paintbrush.

I sanded out the rough edges and put a coat of cream colored paint on and then distressed it with a fine grit sandpaper.  I really love the texture that it gives, you can see it in this picture pretty well.  It looks like an aged piece of pottery.  

I recovered the lamp shade in burlap and ruffles and.............finished!  It is actually bigger than it looks. It measures 31 inches tall and 17 inches at the widest part of the shade.  

I am pretty happy with it.  Let me know what you think!  

So excited this morning!

Ellie's 7th Soiree is being featured on Catch My Party!  If you are in need of inspiration for a party this is the site for you!  It has hundreds of real parties that people have put on the website.  Go on over to see

Ellie's 7th Soiree on the front page!  So exciting!

Teacher appreciation gifts

Listen up!  {Confessional}........I am a procrastinator.....ugh I said it!  I put it out there for all of you to see.  It is part of who I am and I am constantly trying to better myself in this area but it is one of my faults.  I hope you are going to choose to love me anyway......On the bright side I work BEST under pressure so some of my best ideas come from the 12 hour period before my deadline.

I do have a reason for this confessional.  I am sharing the last minute gifts that I made for the kids teacher appreciation gifts late Thursday night.  I made them from stuff that I had laying around and I think I started at about 11:00pm....see I told you PRO-CRAS-TIN-ATOR!  Anyway I thought that they turned out pretty cute and they were super simple so I thought I would share so if any of you wanted to give it a try yourself you could file it away in your memory bank.

I started with blank cards that you can buy at any craft store.  Or you could just cut from card stock if you really wanted to.

Then I cut out brackets with my Silhouette machine {That I got for Mothers day and am sooo thankful for!} and glued them on with an amazing glue pen from Martha Stewart.  No seriously its amazing!  It is a felt pen and a liquid glue almost like a paint pen you should get one from Michaels.

Then cut out the letters and glued them on.  Super easy and fun.  If you don't have a cutting machine you could always use chipboard letters or cute stickers.

I am really liking the lowercase letters right now.

Switched it up with these and put a scroll design....as I am sure you can see :)

Here are some examples of others that I have made in the past.  It really is such a fun gift to give homemade, personalized stationary.  Give it a try and if you do send me pics! 

Eat more {cake}..

I didn't do this anytime recently but I just wanted to share this cake with you.  I love meringue and so does my Mother in law so for her 60th (really she was turning 35) birthday I made this cake.  It is a 3 tiered, classic white cake that I got my inspiration from Martha Stewart Weddings seen {Here}.  I used Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting that you can find the recipe from Martha as well {Here}.  After icing the cake I put on Meringue flowers that I piped onto parchment paper and baked.  I adapted the recipe from Martha again...she has a recipe for Meringue Mushrooms but I just made the flowers instead....So I followed her Meringue Recipe and followed the bake times of the Meringue Mushroom Recipe.  Let me know what you think and if you ever try it for yourself!

{Can't Get Enough!} of Pinterest

It is official!  It is the newest social networking site that allows you to "Pin" up pictures onto inspirational boards.  It is seriously addictive and so fun!  I can get lost.  There is no downloading or uploading all you do is pin from any website that you see.  You have to go and request an invite! Go on over to Pinterest to go check out all of the boards.....sorry I am not more technologically inclined to know how to put the pretty pictures up of the site itself so you will just have to jump on over and see it for yourself. :)

Silhouette Bracelet

As much as I love parties I love silhouettes JUST as much!  For Mothers Day I made my Mother-in-law a pearl bracelet.  It is a pearl bracelet that has 2 silver pendants with the initials and birth date of the kids.  There is also another pendant that is double sided with a silhouette on either side.  I am seriously in love with it...I decided to make it on Saturday.......you know....the day before Mothers day!  So needless to say I made a few mistakes but I fixed them and I am pretty happy with it.  Anyway check out the pictures.  I am working on making more to sell on Etsy so if your interested my shop should be up and running Mid June.  I will keep you posted.

Garden Party

Loved this party!  So fun and sweet and precious under this gigantic beautifully amazing tree!  The kids were so cute and had on their best "tea manners" it was stinkin cute!

Fiesta!

Perfectly appropriate on a day like today!  We had a fun little fiesta and some of the details were in the table runner and the stick-on mustaches, hot tamales, and chiclet gum!  

Ice Cream 1st Birthday Bash

This was a super cute 1st birthday party in the park.  The guests were mainly friends of the birthday girls brother and family so we had an ice cream bar, a candy table and a pinata for the boys.  Check it out!