Simple Must-Haves: Basket of Coozies

We put together this basket of coozies which we keep on the top of our fridge.  When we have company, there are plenty for everyone to choose their own which helps keeps track of who's drink is who's! It's easy to take out onto the deck in the summer, and fun to collect!

Custom Deck Step

 When we were building our deck last summer I wanted it to have character but not be cluttered with typical 'Deck Junk'. I decided to add more artistic detail by wood bruning a suttle message into the bottom stair backer.  I thought 'Go Gophers' with the Minnesota 'M' was perfect!

I started by printing out a template.  I got the Minnesota 'M's from Google images and typed out the 'Go Gophers' in the size and font I liked.

On the back side of the printed paper, I rubbed oil pastels along the outline of the image/text.

After the oil pastels were on the paper I layed them out on the board and taped in place.

Next I traced the outline of the images/text by pressing firmly, which transfered the oil pastels on the back side to the surface of the wood like this (I later switched to blue pastels since orange didn't show up well):

After the image was transferred onto the board, I traced the lines with a wood burner which both darkened the line and indented it, resulting in this:

It's hard to see the design in photos, but here are some shots of the finished board installed!

Funny 30th Anniversary Gift

Our friends recently celebrated their 30th Wedding Anniversary. I had seen thirty beers given for a 30th birthday, one for each year of their life.  Since our friends love beer, I thought we could do the same for each year of marriage!

We made labels for each year's beer that listed the anniversary, year they celebrated that anniversary, the traditional anniversary gift (paper, linens, cotton, silver, etc.), and something that had to do with the traditional gift that year (so we were being traditional and not just giving them beer ;-) )

Some were straight forward, some were personal jokes, others we tried to make funny like the ones above.

Simple Must-Haves: White Square Paper Plates

I am in love with white square plates. They always look fancy, work with any season, and the plain white background tends to make the food look more tasty! This creates a struggle when I have to bring food to an event, because I want the food to be presented well, but I don't always want to go through the hassle of getting a plate back from the host. I was very excited to find these Chinet white square plates at the grocery store, which I now always have in my cupboard and use for bringing food to parties!  They are the perfect solution!

Holiday Decor Mother's Day Gift

 I like giving gifts that I know will get used, so I thought this would be a nice Mother's Day gift.  For both my Mom and Mother In-law, I gave them a frame that matched their decor, frame stand, and a packet of subway posters for each season which also included a neutral print for off-seasons.  It was fairly inexpensive, and now they have some fun decor for each season that doesn't take up any storage space or effort to set out and clean around!! I printed all of the subway posters from Eighteen25 which can be found here.  Below are some of the prints I included.