layered spray painted {beer} bottle

Here's another fun way to dress up some empty bottles...

What you'll need :

-Empty bottle (beer, wine... whatever you've got)

-Spray paint, I used three colors but two would work

-scrap paper

-border paper punch

1) In a well ventilated area spray the bottle your base color.  Let dry, it was a sunny day so this didn't take long. Depending on weather conditions it could take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour.  Just make sure it's dry before moving on to the next step.

(I moved it into the sun to speed up the drying process)

I liked the sage but wanted a little more bling so I added a layer of a shimmery spray paint.

I didn't want to totally cover the green, so I just misted it with a gold satin based spray paint.

2) While your bottle is drying grab some scrap paper and use a border punch on the top and bottom edges. Be sure the paper is long enough to go around the bottle.

3) Cut the paper to size, tape onto the bottle.  Be sure not to cover any of the hole punches with the tape.

Juuust barely made it...

4) Now with your last color spray the entire bottle.

Be careful when spraying near the paper, I sprayed a little at a time so it didn't run.  I'd rather go back and spray a little more if I had to as opposed to putting on too much and ruining the design.

5) Once the bottle is dry carefully remove the paper.

Pretty cool, huh?  You can use this as a vase, decoration for a mantle, etc.

This would be great in orange and black (Halloween) or red and green (Christmas)... the possibilities are endless! Have fun with it.

wine {bottles} and glitter

This is a really simple way to decorate some of those old wine bottles sitting around... or {better yet} give you an excuse to enjoy some of your favorite pinot so you can get your craft on.  Although if you end up drinking the entire bottle in one sitting I'd say wait a day or two, some hand-eye coordination is needed for this.

What you'll need :

-empty wine bottles (labels removed)

-regular white glue

-glitter, the finer the better.

Remove the labels from the bottles.  I was lucky and had very little trouble getting the labels to peel off, but I did have a few stubborn ones so here's what I did.  I filled the kitchen sink with hot water, added about a half cup baby oil and some dish soap, let the bottles sit for 20-30 minutes and the labels came off really easily.  If there was any residue left from the adhesive I found a scrub sponge worked well to remove that.  A good tip is to fill the wine bottles with water so they don't just float on the surface.  This works really well with beer bottles too.

Dump the glue into a liquid measuring cup, or a small bowl with a spout.  Mix in the glitter until it's well incorporated.  Carefully pour the glue back into the glue bottle.  The finer the glitter the better, it will come out of the spout on the glue bottle easier, the larger glitter will clog it up.

While turning the wine bottle with one hand, slowly 'glue' around the neck of the bottle.  The more you glue the more will run down, just don't totally load it on - you want it to go down about halfway when wet.  Let them dry overnight.

In between each drip I put a little dot of glue that ran down to add a little more shimmer to it.  I loved how they turned out, and it was super simple!

All done!

This technique can be done on any size/shape wine bottle.  We have a hydrangea plant behind our house so we filled each of the wine bottles with some water and added the flowers to complete the look!

pallet sign

I've been dying to do something with an old pallet, and when my husband found this beauty in his shop I knew it had to be made into something spectacular!

I grabbed some paints, brushes and got to work...

ps. the baby snack container is holding water so I could switch out the paint colors as needed

All finished! We used this for our Corn Roast so everyone knew where to park and where to find the grub... worked like a charm!

my non-Pinterest-ing wedding

My husband and I will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary this Saturday (woo hoo!), and it got me to thinking...

Oh, the horror!

It seems as though everyone is on Pinterest these days.  And I’m just as guilty as the next person.  I’ve spent many a night after my girls have gone to bed pinning delicious recipes, fun activities to do with the kids and of course my fair share of DIY project ideas.  And with our fifth wedding anniversary approaching I can’t help but feel a little curious - had Pinterest been around in 2007 when I planned my wedding it most likely would have been so much more beautiful and amazing, right?

Wrong.

Every time I go on Pinterest it’s hard to ignore the zillions of wedding related pins.  The table settings, favors, centerpieces, floral arrangements, invitations, bridesmaid dresses, wedding gowns, etc.  And they’re all beautiful, but is it worth it?  I’m not going to lie, as soon as I got engaged I went out and bought every wedding magazine in print and ripped out pictures, created a wedding binder and filled it with everything I wanted in my dream wedding.  Each time I found something I loved I’d add it to the coordinating {labeled and color-coded} section.

But this was only something I kept for my own sake, it wasn’t something I advertised and showed to every single person I know.  I wanted my guests to be surprised when they walked into the reception hall for the first time, for them to be as excited as I was to see it all come together.  The last thing I’d want were people to walk into the venue and say Oh, that’s nice - I saw that on her ‘Here Comes The Bride’ wedding board or Yeah, she pinned ten different versions of those online.  Isn’t there anything left to be desired anymore?  If it’s all there in your 943 pins doesn’t it spoil the fun a bit?  And what if your attempts at recreating your virtual wedding falls short, won’t you be disappointed?

I’m not bashing Pinterest in any way... have you seen my boards and dozens of pins?  I’m kind of obsessed.  I think it’s a great reference tool and should be used as such.  Not a I-just-got-engaged-so-my-sole-mission-in-life-is-to-pin-all-things-wedding kind of thing.

Five years later I can honestly say I am so happy with how our ‘ordinary’ wedding turned out.  It was just what I wanted, and then some.  As for my dream wedding binder, it’s packed away with all my other wedding memorabilia and there are a dozen things in there that never came to be - and no one will ever know the difference.  After all, the most important thing isn’t the wedding, it’s the marriage.