Fun Finds, and projects

I've found some great things this week and one of them was some time.
I found the time to whip up this shrug from 3 vintage doilies.

I Came up with a new idea for these old coin purses
as dresssed-up business card holders

And found these great vintage maps
I think I'm hanging on to these for awhile. Love the colors they used on the old maps. I love how they look in my work room.

Did you find some great stuff this week?
How about time, did you find any of that as well?


I'll be spending the rest of the week getting ready for...

Last Wedding post...The Photo's are in

I have a hard time calling this stuff Junk, it just looks too pretty. But most of it was thrifted, repurposed, vintage items. From brooches, to doilies, to chippy garden stuff. It was so fun to put together, and I'm so happy to share it with you.

After much bugging by his Mom (me), Allen got the edited pics to us today. Here are the wedding decorations, through his eye.

The entry table
The typewriter was found in my grandparent's house and has been used by my Dad and all my uncles when they were in school. The paper inside was printed in a large old fashioned type font, on my computer at home. The Arch, Candles LitThe draping
The Bride and groom have a moment before the "before wedding" pics.
Flower Girl coloring during the reception.
Remember I put craft paper on all the tables and plenty of crayons.
We saved all the artwork for the B&G.

The piano above where there was a toast and a first dance.
The lattice and frame hide a fire extinguisher.
I had no idea this area would be there, and we threw some decorations together on the fly. Extra rose peddles covered the top of the piano, a few green glass vases (we had plenty) filled with babies breath, and the frame and lattice.

Below is a vignette I did, the chalkboard says "honeymoon fund". There are 2 green glass bowls inside the suitcase. I used books as lifts and filled it in with flowers and doilies.
They collected quite a bit :)
The tossing bouquet sits beside the suitcase. The vignette below was also a last minute idea ( I had a stash of stuff I wanted to maybe use but did not know how it would be used. This is on the other end of the "honeymoon fund" table. Between the suit case and the area below, was blank space for gifts. By the end of the reception it was overflowing. The letterpress blocks say "gifts" "cards" "love" &"xoxoxo". Inside the goblets are the vials of bubbles.
The bride put together a coffee bar with all the flavorings anyone would want. She used my chalkboard tags. The tags had a hole on one end. When she came to me to figure out a way to hide the holes,I just happened to have a bag full of creamy buttons. We bedded each tag into the buttons, covering the hole.
I want to show you the cake table. This was such a great idea. The MOB baked all these pound cakes and they displayed them on all this clear classware on different levels. The cake topper had it's own glass totem of honor.
Below is not Allen's photo, but shows the complete table.
It was a great look, and the cakes were so good, served with Strawberries. Yum, I get hungry every time I look at the pics. I take no credit for the cake table, that was the MOB, the Bride and a friend's idea. I love it!!!!!
If you take away any idea from these posts, this one should be it. You can see more on Allen's blog here.

Lessons learned:

Since this was the first wedding I've ever decorated for (not really even my own). I knew that there would be a lot to learn. Fortunately most of it came out perfect, but I did learn a few things. Some I figured out beforehand, some after.

So if you are thinking of taking on a project like this you might want to read my Lessons Learned below.

#1How you think a project will work, usually has to be altered. It seemed that with each project, I had an idea in my head about how it would work. Then when I went to do it, I had to alter it because it didn't work as I had imagined.

#2Mock ups are important. Don't wait till decorating day to figure something out. Try it at home first.

#3 Do as much of the work before hand as possible.

#4 Don't light the candles too early

#5 Multiple lighters in multiple places are a must!
As well as multiple scissors, and pliers.

#6 Instead of trying to coordinate it all myself, next time I'll have teams, each with a leader in charge of certain areas.

#7Accept any and all help offered.

#9Don't sweat the small stuff, nobody will notice.

#10 Things will go wrong, try to roll with the punches.

#11Have fun, enjoy the process.

Now Back to Junkin

Recent Finds Retro groovy fun

I've been hunting and FINDING lately and it's time to show some of the goods. First above, are some wind up walking robot things. Great to add movement to a project, or for the kids. Couldn't pass those up. Below is one of those old ice cream parlor cold storage thingies, it even has the ladle scooper.

Old Telephone operator headphones.
A whole bunch of stuff that needs to be cleaned, I'll be bringing much of this to the
Junke & Disorderly sale.Isn't this a fun find. It's a wind up wooden horse toy. The man is broken but I just loved it and the colors.
A sweet paper bride and groom
And for Christmas... I'm keeping this one.
Also a whole bunch of old retro scarves found at goodwill.
Groovy
This one's my fav
Psychedelic Man

Son's Photo's made the Style Me Pretty Wedding blog

As you may or may not know, my oldest son is a wedding photographer extraordinaire!!!



He recently shot a wedding here locally that has made the Style me Pretty Wedding Blog.
You can view it here





If you know someone between Ft Worth all the way to Shreveport, who is getting married soon, it's worth it to pass Allen's info along. A Quote is free, and the photo's will be fabulous.
Never skimp on your wedding photographer,
I did and I'm still paying for it:(



I can't wait to show you some of the pics he took at the wedding I recently styled, but I have to wait one more week:( he said I can't see them before the bride!


Happy June!!!!

Latest find, vintage Aprons-love em

I've never been a fan of vintage aprons, but these caught my eye. Owned by a former wedding cake maker, they are stylish, sexy, and oh so fabulous. I would have loved to have known this women. Enjoy they are all for sale, and reasonably priced.
Simply send me an email if interested

I believe in the picture above these are made form feed sack cotton.


Va Voom!!!


They are all pretty slim but have nice long ties in the back. All have pockets.

Look at the smocking on this one


This one is my favorite, I might just want to keep it.


don't forget! June 18th

2nd Annual Winnie & Tulula's Junk & Disorderly Sale coming up

The Reception- Wedding post #4

The reception had two distinct sections that I was in charge of. A coffee bar area and a large room with tables. Below you see the bistro tables in the coffee bar area. Each had a single green vase and a doily with the same burlap ribbon treatment that we did on the pews.
At the back of the pic above is a coffee serving area. Although I did not decorate this area, certain elements were my contribution. See the little chalk board tags. Those are my creation, made with salvaged materials. I sell these tags in just about any quantity on my etsy store and they are great for weddings, as well as many other uses. We also used them to label the different beverage serving containers, Lemon-aid, Coffee, Water Etc.The bride has a great sense of style, and a knack for doing the "out of the ordinary". Her first request was green glass, Lots and lots of green glass. We began buying all that old green florist glass just after her engagement, over a year ago. You can find these old florist vases at garage sales for anywhere from a dime to a couple of dollars. Very inexpensive and when displayed in mass they looked fabulous. We were buying any green colored glass piece we could find, and various candle holders worked their way into the mix as well.
You can see one of the picture frame panels I spoke about earlier. This is a great way to add interest to walls that cannot be nailed into.

Some glass pieces had flowers, some had candles, some had crayons and even floating rose petals. One of my ideas for the table scapes was the craft paper that was draped over the tablecloths. It served several purposes. First to give the room more of a rustic feel, soften the white, make the doilies pop and for the kids, and adults, to color messages to the bride and groom etc. It worked great, and entertained the little ones, and we saved all the wonderful artwork for B&G to keep.

Now for Food-Not my responsibility

In a departure from the traditional wedding cake. The brides mother baked lots and lots of these beautiful pound cakes, which were then decorated by the ladies above and placed on a fabulous multi-level display of clear glass pieces. I hope to get a picture of it later, but I did not take one myself.

As I said before, I was not in charge of any of the food and there was a fabulous team of ladies who came in a decorated a wonderful fruit and cheese table.
My helpers set up the tables and place every piece of green glass that would work well for food display on this table. Then on Sat morning these ladies came in and worked their magic. See that fun green glass cande-lier? I found that just 2 weeks ago and knew it would be perfect for some use in the decor.
Makes your mouth water...

I hope to get better pics of the brides table as it was fabulous and a great way to save money and make a huge statement.

This wedding was absolutely beautiful, and a perfect example of how a beautiful wedding can be decorated on a budget. Below is a partial breakdown of some of the decor costs, not including food.

Green glass-unknown but most will be resold and most was under $1

Lots and Lots of white and cream doilies, Also owned by me and will be resold or re-purposed into projects, so cost zero. If I was not going to re-sell cost would be about 50-60 dollars in doilies.

Craft paper 1/2 of an industrial roll 16.00.

Table cloths, cost of cleaning only, borrowed from church

frames, $1-$2 each, painted black with spray paint about $15.00 worth of spray paint.

Lattice panels, borrowed, actual cost would have been about $115.00

Candles, All garage saled cost less than $5 total

Old books used as lifts, all owned by me or brides family cost zero.

Chalk board tags, if purchased by me .85c each

Ribbon $50.00

Plus cost of babies breath as flowers.

So you see, with a little imagination, a lot of time (to accumulate large quantities of props) it can be done inexpensively and still look fabulous.

I'm updating the post below on the chapel decorations with costs as well. Most of my readers are great re-purposers and love creating fabulous things on a budget. So I know you will appreciate the cost breakdown.

More tomorrow, gift table, and hopefully some pics of the cake table.