Summer Projects

I'd like to pretend that I could find the time or wherewithal to post about each of these projects separately, but I think I'd prefer to be honest with myself.   So, I hope you find some inspiration here, because you certainly won't be finding any in-depth tutorials...

Filing Cabinet Spruce-Up
Among my recent projects is a filing cabinet spruce-up.  Michael is in the full swing of working largely from home these days, which means that we have stacks and stacks of legal files in various places throughout our condo.  I finally got him to get his hands on a Craigs List filing cabinet as I had found some inspiration through the interwebs on how to spruce these babies up (check out my dedicated Pinterest board to this very thing here).   I bit the bullet a while ago on a roll of this gorgeous Graham and Brown wallpaper for many an unknown project, so I finally put it to use on this one.  I had originally envisioned covering the drawer fronts and painting the rest a royal blue a la our bar cabinet, but once I had the paper on, I wasn't convinced I needed to take it any further.  I would welcome your thoughts on that, though.  Of all the inspiration that I pinned, I largely followed this tutorial from Picadilly Market.  Thoughts?

Class Reunion Decor
My next big project was the decorations for my 10-year high school reunion, which was this past weekend back in Tennessee.  Since we were trying to pull this off on the cheap, I stuck to decorations made from cardstock and tissue paper.  Specifically, tons of paper rosettes and tissue paper garland.  I didn't actually start the rosettes untill I got home, and they quickly begain to take over my parents' entire living room.   They were patient with my mess and even made some helpful suggestions along the way.  Seriously though, if I never make another paper rosette as long as I live, I'll be happy. 

For the primary installation, I hot glued rosettes of various sizes to four pieces of foam board.  After all the rosettes were in place, I carved around them with an xacto knife to get rid of the extraneous and  unsightly foam board.  I labeled each appropriately on the back so that it was easy to put them together once I got to the venue.  No pictures of all of this, but I attached them to one another by hot glueing a few cheap balsa wood sheets that I picked up at Michael's.  Finally, I hung the whole thing from the ceiling with some twine and topped it all off with a banner I made by printing out this free font in size 400 or so. 

All of this was supplemented by tissue paper fans (that I picked up for a great price here) and some scrappy garland (inspired by this tutorial).

Circle Quilt
And finally, I made what may be my favorite baby quilt to date for our friends Brad and Sarah.  I tried my hand at a circle quilt using this tutorial, and I love it.  I used Michael Miller's Summer Soiree cheveron fabric in both yellow and black and Michael's Miller's 2-D Zoo fabric.  Check it out!

And I made a cute little minky blanket with some matching, but much smaller scale 2-D Zoo fabric.

While at home in Tennessee, I also got to enjoy some time with my best friend Sarah's new little guy Brooks.  You should fully soak up this pic, because a scene like this is unlikely to be witnessed again for quite some time.  Suffice it to say that this is one life step that I am not remotely ready for, but I did enjoy my brief time with Brooks.

That is all for now. 

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Birthday Mixology + Streamer Love

Last night, Michael and I threw ourselves a birthday party.  No shame.  Our birthdays are fairly close (23 days apart), and I was looking for an excuse to decorate our place (I'm so into streamers right now it's not even funny.  Which, yeah, I know is weird.)  and force people to have fun within a prescribed theme of my choosing. 
I'm not sure what the theme was exactly, but the jist was that we infused some booze and asked our friends to come prepared to mix up some creative concoctions of their choosing using our booze.  Michael had no faith that our friends would come through, but as I suspected, they totally did. 

So, anyway, here's some of the graphic designings that I threw together for the evening and some photos of the set-up, which involved some creative furniture rearranging and, subsequently, a completely perturbed kitty.

the invitation, which we sent out via e-mail

the labels for our infused booze

a recipe card for our guests to share their concoctions

Ugh, I'm so awful at food photography that I'm hesitant to even share these photos.  We basically just lifted these ideas from some of our favorite appetizers. 

The first was smoked salmon with egg salad served on toasted baguette.  Seriously, don't knock til you've tried it.  We first had this combination at brunch a couple of weeks ago, and it's a-mazing!

The second was endive with sliced almonds, mandarin oranges, goat cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper.  So delicious and refreshing. 

Try both of these. Do it.  We also had bread, homemade butter, nuts, savory shortbread, shrimp, etc in an effort to keep people's stomachs full in order to avoid things going south quickly (We're talking about a cocktails-only party here, people! Very risky.). 

And so that our friends' creativity (and/or research skills) doesn't go to waste, here's some of my favorite ideas that came out of the evening:

Melon Limeade

3 parts Melon Vodka

1.5 parts Sweet & Sour Mix

1 part Sprite

1 squeeze Lemon Juice

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with lemon slice and cherry.

2 parts Bacon Bourbon

1 part Lime Juice

.5 part Simple Syrup

3-4 dashes Tobasco Sauce

Mix lime, syrup, and bourbon.  Shake on ice.  Pour in tumbler and dash Tobasco on top.  (Optional) Garnish with bacon.

French Martini

2 parts Pineapple Vodka

2 parts Pineapple Juice

.5 parts Chambord

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

My Bloody Summer Delight
3 parts Pineapple Vodka

3 parts Blood Orange Italian Soda

1 part Lemon Juice

In collins glass, pour ingredients over ice and stir.  Garnish with lemon wedge, and drink with adorable stripey straw (not optional).

WARNING:  If you decide to throw your own cocktail party, take it easy, because things can start to look like this very quickly...

Now I must go tend to the party's aftermath (which honestly, isn't that bad because apparently, as you get older, your friends become more responsible and considerate.  Who knew?!)

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