Our Wedding in the White Mountains

On 10/23/11 we had a small wedding in the White Mountains. It was a simple, stress-free, and perfect weekend. We mostly DIY'ed our entire wedding which was surprisingly easy and affordable.

Up until the day before the wedding, I didn't have a plan for my bouquet or flowers.  I didn't want to put a lot of time or energy into stressing about flowers so on our way up to the White Mountains, we headed to our local Hannaford and Trader Joe's to pick up our flowers and just went with whatever looked best.  I assembled my bouquet the day of the wedding with the help of my brother, who also served as our photographer.  I wrapped the bouquet with some antique lace that I picked up at a boutique and secured it with pearl pins.  For the table flowers, I simply placed each bouquet into mason jars tied with raffia.

I tackled the flowers, my hair and makeup (thanks to the talented ladies at Sephora who helped me pick the perfect wedding day makeup!), and the place settings which were munchkin pumpkins with name tags tied to the stem with jute twine.

We had our rehearsal dinner at White Mountain Cider Company, a rustic restaurant in the White Mountains.

One of our innkeepers served as justice of the peace and we had a beautiful outdoor wedding amongst the fall foliage.  A few photos of the big day:

On our wedding night, we enjoyed a five course meal with our 11 guests at our inn.

It was an amazing weekend we'll never forget and hope to spend many anniversaries to come at the inn :)

Painted Hippo Bookends

I recently spotted these hippo bookends at a thrift store and for only $1.99 for the pair, I had to have them!  This was a quick and easy project - all I did was add a couple coats of glossy white spraypaint.

Before:

Here they are spraypainted white. The books are vintage - from my grandmother's collection.

Spraypainted Candle Holders

I've been a little quiet on the blog lately - nothing major has changed, I've still been aggressively looking for jobs without any luck. Here's a quick project I did a little while ago. I found this pair of candle holders at a thrift store for 99 cents each (originally from HomeGoods -- I found a price tag underneath). They were a little tarnished so I decided to spraypaint them "avocado" by Valspar. I love how they turned out and how my tealight votives fit so perfectly in them!

Before

After

Upcycled Decorative Wine Bottles

I love re-purposing items that would otherwise be forgotten about and thrown away.  I decided to make some decorative wine bottle vases by using some Scotch Blue Painter's Tape, RustOleum Frosted Glass Spray, and jute twine. (Check out my wine cork button project here)

First, I sprayed the bottles with WD40, let it soak in a little, then scrubbed the adhesive off with a damp paper towel.   After the bottles were dry, I taped off stripes in the areas I didn't want spray painted.

 After a quick coat of spraypaint and some time to dry, I peeled off the tape. I had never used RustOleum's frosted glass spray before and I love how it turned out!

 Lastly, I applied Modge Podge to the upper part of the wine bottles, then wrapped some jute twine around them.

Here's the finished product! They'd look great with some fresh cut flowers in them.

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Update: What We've Been Up To

I've been a little distracted lately which explains why there haven't been any new posts.  So what have we been up to?

On Sunday we enjoyed a laid back Easter BBQ with both our families which was a lot of fun.  We hosted the past two Thanksgivings at our tiny, old apartment so we decided it would be nice to have everyone over for Easter in the new house.  Luckily, the weather cooperated with us and we were able to spend lots of time outside.  I meant to take lots of pictures, but between the hosting and hanging out with the family, I forgot.  I did manage to take one of my 93 yr old Swedish grandmother and I on my iphone though.

 

Tuesday was my 27th birthday and Tim took the day off from work so we could hang out and enjoy the day together.  We went to dinner at Gibbet Hill, a local place.  The restaurant is a renovated 100 yr old post and beam barn and it is set on 80 acres of conservation land.  We sat right next to a window and during dinner we watched the Angus cattle grazing on the rolling hills.

I've also been looking for work in most of my spare time, which means not a ton of time spent on my many projects that have been hanging out in the garage.  I graduated law school last year, passed the bar on my first try, but am still looking for full time work as a lawyer.  Hopefully the job market will get better and I'll find something soon because I'm kinda getting sick of being around the house all day.  The plus side is that I never really had a real break before - I went straight to law school from college and law school "vacations" aren't really vacations because they are loaded with the stress of studying and writing papers.  The time I've had off has definitely given me some much needed relaxation and has let my creativity flow.  I love that I now have free time for creative projects, but I will love it even more when I have a full time job so we will have the money to tackle some bigger projects in the house. 

Here's what I'm working on right now (Pardon the iphone pictures, I'm too lazy to use the good camera):

Refinishing the nightstands:

A project I've just begun with wine bottles:

Refinishing the bar stools:

Victorian chair revamp:

I'll be sure to post as the projects are completed!

New England Photography by JM

A little while ago I posted some New England photography taken by my brother JM here.  I thought I'd share just a few more of my recent favorites photos.  I can't wait to make some of these into prints and make a gallery wall! Check out more of his work here.

"Escape"  © 2011 JM

"Life is Good" © 2011 JM

"Placid" © 2011 JM

"Vision" © 2011 JM


All photos are property of JM. Please ask before using any of the above images. 

Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Bars

Since it was Marathon Monday in Boston today, Tim sent me this great link on how to make homemade energy bars.  The recipe and directions I followed were adapted from Boston.com (which was adapted from Susan Katcher) found here.  I ended up modifying the recipe because I didn't have all of the ingredients. 

Here's what I ended up using:

• 1 stick of softened unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup of brown sugar, loosely packed
• 1/2 cup enriched white flour (instead of whole wheat flour)
• 1 mashed, ripened banana
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of crunchy store bought peanut butter (instead of all natural peanut butter)
• 1 1/2 cups of honey granola with sliced almonds (instead of oats)
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I didn't add 1/2 cup raisins or 1/2 cup walnuts)

I thought of drizzling honey over the top, then adding some crushed nuts, but didn't have any nuts.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter an 8"x8" pan.
2. Mix together butter and brown sugar (I don't have a mixer, so I just did it by hand).
3. Mix in flour and granola.
4. Mix in peanut butter, banana, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips.
5. Add mixture to pan and bake for about 30 minutes.
6. Allow to cool and enjoy!

Thrifty Thursday

Today while thrifting I found these gold painted old wooden frames for $4 each. I HAD to get them and I already have a few ideas of what I'm going to do with them. I was thinking of spray painting them, but I love the antiqued gold paint on them and the wood details are gorgeous.

I also came across this sturdy wooden desk chair on wheels. It would look so amazing painted white with a modern patterned seat cushion on it, but for $25 I had to pass on it.

I'm seriously still thinking about this pair of chairs that I also didn't buy.  They aren't real wood and they would have to be reupholstered and painted, but I really love the caning on the back of the chair!

Anyone else come across any great thrift store finds recently?

Spring Cleaning

We've got so much stuff we don't know what to do with it.  This is our 600 square foot above the garage space we'd love to eventually finish off to make into a bonus room.  It's so easy to keep this as our storage room and forget about the space, but it would be nice to pare down and live with less.  It's hard to believe that all of this stuff was at our old apartment which was only 1100 square feet.  There's a little bit of everything in here - a couple bins of clothing we need to go through and will probably donate, some of my old law school books (some of which are listed on half.com), furniture, and basically an assortment of random stuff.  We've yet to tackle this room, but when we do we'll probably craigslist some stuff and have a tag sale. Can't wait!

Room shot from the door

When I went into the room to take a picture, I came across an old bookcase and an antique mirror.  I love re-discovering what we already have! I'm already thinking about how I can transform the bookcase!

And this is our walk in closet.  Before we moved, Tim and I had donated at least 5 huge garbage bags full of clothing and shoes.  While Tim was at work, I decided to tackle the closet so we could actually walk in our walk in closet. 

I can't believe I'm sharing this, but here's a before shot of the closet floor:

And here's a shot of the closet after I organized it a little.  It's not perfect, but definitely a lot better since you can now see the floor!

  I even came across a pair of ugly shoes I've never worn before! I'll definitely be adding these to our consign/donate pile.  What was I thinking...

I managed to fill a small trash bag of clothing and shoes to consign/donate after this tiny closet clean-out. 

At the beginning of each season I go through all seasonal clothes and shoes to see what I can get rid of following these three steps:   

1. If it's brand new and I still haven't worn it, chances are I don't really like it so I get rid of it to make room for some new items.
2. If I haven't worn it for the past year, it's time to go.
3. If it's not comfortable and doesn't fit right. (Like those cute shoes two sizes too small!)

Out With the Old, In With the New!

Or so I thought.  I went to Lowe's to pick up the usual.  You know, a dryer vent cap (some little critters totally destroyed ours to pieces), a couple of rollers, and spraypaint.  I happened to walk past the blinds aisle and noticed that there was a massive sale annnnnnd we just so happened to need some new blinds for our french doors.  Our french door roman shades that came with the house were dirty, but were functional at least until one of the shades broke off.

We weren't planning on buying new ones anytime soon and were just going to deal with the ones we had 'cause there are just more important things to spend money on around here, but who could say no to four bamboo french door blinds in java mahogany for only $5.74 each?!

The only problem is we need 27" wide blinds and the ones I bought were a tad too small at 23".  At under six bucks each we thought we should hold onto them in case we find a use for them.  Although they won't work out on our french doors, we might use one on this door in our sunroom.