Football season is here!!

Are you ready for some football!!!!!!!?????

Well I’m not.

It got here too fast!  Where did my summer go????  Le sad.

But the Fella is BEYOND happy.  Especially since his team played in the season opener last night and kicked ass.

In order to get even more pumped up for the start of the NFL season, he forced me to play a pre-game round of beer pong in the backyard.

 

Forced, I tell you.

Then we watched the game while I also made this.

 

I had him help me hang it during halftime.

Think I may add another one beside it. It is part of the party décor for the baby shower tomorrow. 

I can’t believe it is tomorrow!  Freaking out.

I am so nervous about how it will all look.  I showed you my tassel garland yesterday…..

…. and I made a bunch more stuff last night.  Fingers crossed it all comes together.

Yesterday, I also mentioned that I found the ladder in the above picture on the side of the road while walking our dogs the other night.  I then forced my husband to go with me to get it and then made him ride in the back with it so he could hold the hatch down...and let me tell you, the Fella was thrilled.

 

Look at that adoring stare he is giving me. Or is it an abhorring glare?

 

I think we all know.

We have been using it to hang our towels on out by the pool.

 

And I lurve it. Free and practical. Even 'ol hubby has come around and admits it was a good find. The options are endless.  Here is some inspiration I found on the nets:

 

I am really feeling that laundry room idea!

Well, I will see you next week with a recap of what was hopefully a successful baby shower and also a tutorial on the outdoor chandie.

Smooches!!!


Pucker Up Buttercup!

the baby giraffe

Party Decor Tutorial: Yarn Tassle Garland

My laid back approach to fashion lately is starting to get ridiculous.  I am not even bothering to accessorize, which is like my favorite, as evidenced on this page here. (Click your cursor where it sayshere)  (Some people don’t know to click here when it says here)



The Gap top, BR crops, Target shoes

I will try and step up my fashion game soon…promise. 

But as for today, today I am lazy.  I am lazy because I am feeling happy and content, thanks to some lady dinner time with these baby giraffes last night….



You are looking at four women, in four very different stages of their lives.  There is a mother of two who is currently a stay at home mom, a married attorney trying to start a family, a woman living with her boyfriend and is at the cusp of starting her own business and a very focused career woman looking for someone to share her life with.

There is so much to be learned from one another.  I love getting so many different perspectives on the world.

The margaritas weren’t the only things flowing and the fajitas weren’t the only things sizzling.  The conversation was lively and fluid and varied from career plans, motherhood/future motherhood, family updates, marriage, singlehood, trying to conceive, dating, food, fashion, babies, loss, love and the big "S" word. Santa.  jk.

Miley Cyrus was not mentioned, not even once!!! 

Moving on.  Time for a little party décor tutorial!  Remember this picture?

……that I posted last week on this post here  (I did it again, see!?), as a little sneak peak of the baby shower party décor?

Well here is the rest of the reveal.

Yeah I sucked at this tutorial.  I followed the tutorial on this great blog here.

You should too.

Cute or what?

Obvi this is not the full extent of the décor.  I will be adding many more things up there with the yarn tassle garland.

I found some more inspiration here, and I may have to give it a woo.  Fingers crossed I pull off all the decor and it looks good on the day of...

As for that ladder you see in the picture, I found that on the side of the road while walking our dogs the other night.  More on that later.

Have a grand one!

 

tbg

 

 



Painted Wood Sign Tutorial

I woke up this morning singing!

Oh what a beautiful morning!  Oh what a beautiful day! I’ve got a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way!

And look at this guy gettin' it!

 

Lovin the enthusiasm on this fine Monday morning.

It is so rare to wake up on a Monday feeling like this.  But I did.  Feels almost like an accomplishment.  I am not sure why I woke up like this but it could be any number of things from the beautiful and un-characteristic weather we have been having lately or the beautiful blue hydrangeas the fella surprised me with...

 

Or maybe it's that I feel so good after a weekend of getting a lot accomplished at the house.  On Friday, the fella and I made a list of things that had to be done by this week or else!!!!

-          Paint and hang a wooden sign out by the pool Done

-          Paint a test wall in our long hallway Done

-          Hang a chandelier outside Done

-          Visit Home Depot to purchase materials for some projects and to scout out materials for future projects Done

-          Use the butternut squash I bought in a dish Didn’t get to it but will do tonight, hopefully

-          Swim Done, done and done

-          Try a local, non-chain restaurant We did this three times, bad on us!

-      Paint remainder of the outdoor chairs Four down and two to go

-          See “We Are the Millers” at the theatre It was the funniest movie since Hangover.  Go see it!

-          And the pies de resistance….build a regulation size beer pong table for future parties! Done, with the exception of needing to paint the design in the middle

Sneak peek of the Beer Pong table

 

Looks like fun , eh?

I will go into more detail on the outdoor chandelier, outdoor chairs and beer pong table soon.  Today I want to share with you some of the details about the wooden sign we made.

First thing….the wood.  I used a piece left behind in the garage by the folks who sold us the house.  It was a pretty color of wood, rough enough to not need sanding and had a cool old worn look.

 

Originally I was going to follow this tutorial and paint the sign a pretty color and distress it, but I then got lazy and said forget it….but I will try this method soon.  Everything this woman does is amazing, especially her signs.  Check out her blog.

Back to my sign, I then decided where I wanted to hang it and what size it needed to be to fit in the space.  Then I held the wood for the fella while he sawed it down for me.  Luckily, there is enough wood left over to make another sign.  Maybe a Christmas presie for someone???

I already knew what I wanted the sign to say. “Laissez le bon temps rouler!”  For those of you who don’t know, this is a common saying in New Orleans and Louisiana which translates from French to mean “Let the good times roll”.  My father’s family is from New Orleans and New Orleans is the fella and I’s most favorite place to visit, so this is a common fraise used around our house.  One reason we fell in love with our house was that it is set up well for entertaining.  We think this sign will help set the tone for some fun times in the backyard!

Now with the painting.  Here are the tools I used.

 

Pretty run of the mill craft store stuff wouldn't you say?

I divided the length of the board, in inches, by the number of letters I needed to paint.  That gave me the size I could make each letter and have it all fit on the board easily.  Each letter could be an inch and a half.  I counted an extra letter space for the punctuation at the end.  I also counted the first letter as two because I wanted it a little bigger than the rest. 

So I painted on the fraise.  Here is a shot of it before we hung it.  I left a little space on the left of the "L" because I am going to add something over there eventually.  That will be a surprise for another time.  Also, I took that extra space into consideration in my calculations of space per letter.

 

Here you also get to see a sneak peek of the outdoor chairs I am working on.

So then we drilled it in. Please try and avoid looking into the messy garage.

 

And voila!

 

This is one pleased giraffe, especially considering how little work had to go into it……..I basically just painted a board.  It took about 20-30 minutes total and was free. Score.

Stay tuned for the outcome of the beer pong table, chairs and more!

Once again, yours truly,

the baby giraffe covered in paint