Scavenger Hunt Housewarming Party

Last June, we moved into our new home. It's crazy to think it's already been over a year that we have lived here now. Little by little we are working on projects to make it more personalized and exactly how we want it.

After we moved in and got settled, I wanted to have a Housewarming Party so our friends could see our new place. As I was still new to the area, our circle of friend was pretty small and didn't know each other well. I didn't want just an awkward gathering of people all standing in one room staring at each other. So I turned to Pinterest for some fun ideas for a housewarming gathering.

Sadly, I found only a handful of ideas and none of them really interested me. So I came up with my own idea! We decided rather than lead each group of people through the house and show them every room, we would let them explore for themselves while on a fun mission. My husband and I created a scavenger hunt and it turned out really fun! It also cost us just a few dollars to put together.

Here's what you will need:

• paint chips, a different color for each couple/person x 2 (one for guest, one for gift)
• random, cheap White Elephant-type gifts that you already have around the house or go to the Dollar Store. We had a mug, candle, picture frame, SPAM, magic towel, photo coasters, mini package of coffee, and a few others I can't remember.
• wrapping paper

We had two of each color of paint chip. One of each pair was used as the postcard to invite our friends. In a sad moment of blogger failure, I forgot to take any pictures. It was a basic invitation written on the 3 tones of paint colors saying When, Where, and to bring their invitation with them as the bottom color on their paint chip was their clue for a game.

We wrapped each random item, cut the bottom hues of each second paint chip and taped it on the gifts as a tag. Then my husband had a lot of fun hiding the gifts throughout the entire house. They were all visible without having to open any cupboards, drawers, etc. When our guests arrived, we explained the game. They would give themselves a tour of our home while searching for a wrapped present with a paint chip tag matching the bottom paint chip of their invitation. They were all so excited and immediately started exploring.

Once all the gifts were found (we had to help with a few of them), the fun continued with a White Elephant gift exchange. All the wrapped gifts were placed on the table. Going around the room, each person got to choose to open a new gift or steal someone's gift. We went around the circle two times and allowed multiple steals. Everyone enjoyed it and I think it was a really fun way for friends to see our new home without the awkward "and here is the other bedroom" tour.

And of course, what is a party without some good food? Well just plain boring that's what! I made Butterfinger Cookies, Pink Lemonade Cupcakes and Berry Ka-bobs.

I found these adorable striped straws and couldn't resist adding them to the cupcakes to look like little cups of lemonade!

Fresh berries are always a hit in the summertime.

This party was the first time I got to use my water canister. I love it and definitely need to have more parties so it can come out of the closet more often!

The whole spread, complete with a chalkboard menu.

Have you ever thrown a housewarming party? What fun things did you do?
Or have you ever been to a fun housewarming party and what did they do?

Summer Fashion: Maxi Dress

Summer is my favorite time of year! While I love shopping for clothes any time of the year, summer clothes are also my favorite to wear. I love racerback tank tops and sun dresses the most. Anything that allows me to get (slowly) tanner and wear my super comfy Rainbow sandals is a big win in my book. This love for summer clothes can be dangerous however. Dangerous for my wallet. Especially if Target has a bajillion cute items at the same time. Oh!
Then it's all over.

Excuse the grainy cell phone picture

I try to show restraint. And by "try" I mean avoid going in the stores with the cute clothes and tell myself I have plenty already and still love them so I don't need more. Well it usually works. But then, there's some adorable, must-have, on-sale summer dress that calls screams my name and I give in. This summer was no different. And the cute clothing item in question this time was this beautiful, coral and gray, chevron striped, racerback, maxi dress. All my favorite things combined into ONE garment! How could I NOT buy it?

So I did! :) I did use a 15% discount mind you because, well, that helped justify it...even though I honestly needed no justifying since I'm not on shopping probation or anything. Once it came, I loved it even more than seeing the picture online! Don't you love it when that happens? For those of you wondering, the dress is from Kohls and is Lauren Conrad brand. My exact dress is no longer available online but you can find similar ones here and here.

One of the things I love about maxi dresses is how versatile they are! With the right shoes and accessories they can be dressed up for a nicer event but with flip flops they are just as good for a casual summer day. Another thing I truly love about them is that it pretty much feels like you are wearing pajamas all day! Soooo comfy. So far I've worn it to my husband's basketball awards banquet, the awards ceremony at school, and my dear friend's bridal shower. I'm planning to wear it to church this Sunday.

What's your go-to summer fashion?
Are there certain aspects (color, print, style) of clothing that make it hard for you to resist?
Do you ever feel the need to justify buying cute clothes even when no one else needs the reasoning but you?

Chalkboard Pantry Door

My last post was about my making chalkboard labels for organizing your pantry jars. After that, I figured it was an obvious transition to show you my pantry door makeover! You may remember from my Home Photo Tour that I have a corner pantry with a cute skinny door next to my fridge. And if you didn't...well here's a refresher:

I've known ever since moving in that I wanted to paint that door and do something fun. As I mentioned last time, I am loving the chalkboard trend and so the idea came to me (most likely via Pinterest, because let's be honest I am a total copy-cat and not an inventor of awesome ideas) that I would paint the door and the top middle panel would be a chalkboard. The only question was, what color to paint it? My dishes and kitchen is full of colors. I didn't know should I try to match something I already had or go with something totally new? And if I'm matching, WHAT item/color do I match it too???

 And so, like with most of my projects, that one question with no good answer meant that I pushed it to the back burner for a good procrastination simmer. Well thank goodness for friends who have different personalities than you! My wonderful friend of many years came over for a weekend of projects! Seriously, she came to help me paint and get things done. How awesome is that? Aren't you all jealous that I have a friend like that!? If you're not, you should be! This girl is awesome!

 
We initially set our sights lower with the only task to accomplish being: Paint the Master Bedroom (blog to come about that soon when a couple more items get finished). However, like I said, this girl is awesome, and once she gets going, she is on a roll! We got not just one, but four projects done that weekend! And we had time to boat on the lake for 3+ hours! I'm really thinking she needs to move across the street...help me persuade her!

Once I mentioned my idea for the pantry door, actually I don't think I even finished saying the words, she said "Let's do it right now!" Oh but hold on there girl, what color? See this is where things come to a halt...."the same color as your Kitchen Aid!" 

 
Oooooooooo. I liked it. No, I loved it! We were just about to jump in the car and head to the store to buy paint when I suddenly remembered that I still had more than half a quart of paint from when I did my little entryway table. Hmmmmm...that could work.

  It was almost a perfect match to my Kitchen Aid, which is Pistachio by the way. So without further delay, we started painting! We did two coats and then taped and covered with newspaper so we could spray paint the chalkboard. I did three coats of the chalkboard paint.

The next morning we (and by 'we' I mean my husband) put the door back on. I was so excited at how good it looked. I seriously could not stop smiling. I was also smiling because we spent $0 to accomplish this project since I already owned both paints from previous projects.

But then we didn't stop there. I grabbed the prints and frames that I had bought several months ago to go in my kitchen. I used some of my patterned cardstock to mat the pictures, framed them, and then asked hubby if he would hang them.
 

Aren't they so cute? I love the vintage look of them and the pops of color! I ordered these prints from All Posters. They are several more to choose from and it was hard to pick only three of the cute prints, but I have limited wall space in my kitchen so I had to stop at three.

Ta-da! This little corner just makes me so happy! So glad my wonderful friend came and helped me get this done finally! Just think how productive I would be and how much more decorated my house would be if she lived here! She was quite intrigued by the (much) lower housing costs here compared to where she lives...(I'm using every persuasion I've got).

I update the chalkboard every week with the meals we will be eating for the upcoming week. My hubby loves it so he can know what food to look forward to. I really need to practice some fun fonts and handwriting now that I have a big chalkboard.
 

Thanks so much to my friend for all her inspiration and help!

Do you have a friend like mine who is so different from you that its helpful?

What projects have you procrastinated on for SO long and then finally did?

Do you have any fun artwork in your kitchen?

Make Your Own Vinyl Chalkboard Labels for Pantry Jars

I love the chalkboard trend! I used chalkboards as part of my wedding decor two years ago and now I use it in a few different places in my home. One of the ways I use chalkboards is labels on my pantry jars. 

I made these labels myself using my Silhouette and chalkboard vinyl. It was my first vinyl project and I was pretty nervous to do it. That's the reason I procrastinated on doing it for so long. But finally, one night I buckled down, watched some video tutorials and decided to go for it.  

It was so easy! I kicked myself for not doing it earlier. Ah well, at least it's done now. For anyone else who's not yet ventured to make their first vinyl project yet, I decided to give a step-by-step picture tutorial to help you have the confidence to see how easy it really is and do it yourself.

My jars are the Korken glass jars from Ikea. I love the look of the big metal clasps and that they have seals. I bought some in all three sizes. They are such a good deal! The small jars are $2.49, medium jars are $3.49 and the larges ones are $4.49! For my own pantry, I purchased 4 small, 4 medium, and 7 large. 

My vinyl and transfer paper is from Expressions Vinyl. When I got my Silhouette for Christmas, my mom also gave me a bunch of different colored vinyl. I need to make something else now that I've conquered my how do I do this? vinyl fear.

Depending on the width of your vinyl, you may need to adjust the rollers on your Silhouette (the white plastic cylinders around the silver bar in the front) The sticker on the inside of the lid gives directions for how to move them. Also, you want to make sure you select "Load Media" instead of "Load Cutting Mat' which is the default. (and then when you are done with this project and make another one, make sure it's switched back to "Load Cutting Mat" so you don't cut into the edge of your mat and then only get half of your design on the paper--ya learned that the hard way, sigh)

I searched in the Silhouette Online Store for a label design I liked. I chose this Artisan Label Set of three different labels. Once I downloaded the design, I un-grouped so I could work with just the one I wanted. I tweaked the proportions to fit my jars better. Before I cut anything on vinyl, I used some scrap cardstock and cut the three sizes to see how they would fit on my jars. I did a little bit of adjusting, cut again with cardstock to double check and then saved my new design of the three labels sized perfectly for my jars.

If you are interested in re-sizing that particular label to fit on the Korken Jars, here are the dimensions I used:
Small-- 2.25"W x 1.286"H
Medium--3.5"W x 2"H
Large--4.125"W x 2.357"H

Even once I had used the cardstock first, I still wasn't ready to cut all of the vinyl labels at once. I cut just one of each size first. I actually went through the whole process with the small label before taking any pictures to make sure I could focus and get it right. I put them as close to the top edge and each other as I could to save vinyl. Here they are all cut out still on the vinyl backing paper.

I peeled the unused vinyl back just enough and stuck my ruler under it so I could have some room to work without it sticking and getting in the way. 

Cut some transfer paper that will completely cover the vinyl shape. Again, I didn't want to waste and go too big, but you need to cover past all the edges.

Then you peel the transfer paper away from its backing.

Stick it right on top of your vinyl shape. Since I put my two shapes so close together, I started inbetween to gain as much edge as I could without sticking to the second shape. Then I just slid my hand across to smooth it down on the entire label.

All covered! You can see through the transfer paper and make sure you've covered all edges.

Then use your scraper and go from the middle outwards in all directions to make sure the transfer paper gets a good adhesion to the vinyl at all edges.

Carefully peel back one corner of the transfer paper. Go slowly to make sure the vinyl is coming with it. If your vinyl is not coming up, push the transfer paper back down and do some more pressing, rubbing, and scraping.

Now your entire piece is on the transfer paper and ready to go.

Make sure your jar is clean and fully dried. I had washed and dried all mine way ahead of time. You will need your scraper again too.

If you want, you can measure and get all precise about where to put it on the jar. Honestly, I just eye-balled it. 

Because of the roundness of the jars, I thought it was easiest to stick the label down in the middle and then press out in all directions to stick the rest.

After pressing and rubbing it down with my fingers, I used the scraper to go over it again. This gets out any air bubbles and really gets the edges to stick.

Having clear glass jars was helpful, because I looked from the other side sometimes to check for air bubbles or making sure it was straight. I also used this to help make sure all the jars had the label in (mostly) the same place. Once the first jar was done, I would put another jar of the same size almost touching it while holding my label on the transfer paper in between the two jars. Then I looked through the back of the new jar to see if where I was holding the label lined up with the already-finished jar. I adjusted as needed and then touched the middle of the label to the new jar just enough so it stuck in the right place but then I spun it around and worked with my fingers to really stick it down well. 

After you've rubbed and scraped, then it's time to take the transfer paper off. This is pretty much the opposite of when you adhere the label to the transfer paper in the first place in that when you pull back the corner you don't want the vinyl to come with it this time. Choose one corner of the paper and gently peel back making sure the vinyl is sticking to the jar all along the way.

And there you have it! Wasn't that easy? And it looks so wonderful!

Remember to prime the chalkboard first by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk all over the chalkboard and then erasing. This step is important unless you want the first thing you ever draw/write to always remain there.

  Yes, I know I don't have very cute handwriting, but at least I now have chalkboard labels on my pantry jars!

My first three completed! The small jar was the hardest to do and some of my labels have air bubbles and creases that will not go away but I'm okay with it. It's only noticeable to me because I made them, well and I guess you now since I told you. You do have to take some extra time really finding the right spot with the little jars though because they have a very small area of flatness from top to bottom.

Three down, twelve jars to go. Once I got my system down, it went pretty quickly.

I played a little bit to arrange the last twelve labels in a way that saved the most vinyl.

After just a couple hours, all my jars were labeled and filled.

They're all put away in my baking cupboard and the prettiness just makes me so happy. 

So what do you think? Do you now feel confident and informed enough to make your own vinyl chalkboard labels? Or any vinyl project for that matter.

What vinyl project should I do next? I know the sky is the limit but I don't have a specific project in mind so I need some inspiration.

What was your first vinyl projects? Any other helpful tips for vinyl projects?