Catching up.... BJ's graduation

So it's been a while since I've posted. I just returned from a lovely week at the beach (more on that later). I 'm here to share the pictures from BJ's, my cousin, graduation and party.

 

These were the DIY projects (I posted the details of the cupcake stand in my previous post). For the paint on the cupcake stand, I had to end up using the same paint I used for my porch. Spray paint and regular acrylic paint just wasn't cutting it.

For the frame, I used acrylic paint and then sandpaper to distress it.

 

 

These are the only pictures I have from the décor but you can see the cupcake stand worked perfectly.

 

 

These pictures were taken after his graduation.

 

 BJ and our grandparents

 

This picture was taken at the end of the night.

 

It was a great day and I was proud to see this fella graduate!

 

 



DIY Cupcake Stand

I have been wanting a nice cupcake stand for some time and because everyone should have a good cupcake stand on hand right!?! BUT I could never find one that was priced reasonably or one that I loved or one that held more than 12 cupcakes or, well you get the point right? I read a couple a blogs and saw different ways to "diy." So, I combined all the things/tips I read, browsed around Hobby Lobby and came up with this.

 

Supplies:

- 3 wooden circles (I used a 14" and 10" which were both from Hobby Lobby and the smallest one,  6.75" from Wal-Mart only because I could not find a smaller wooden circle at Hobby Lobby)

- 2 different sizes of wooden candle sticks (Again, I bought these in a bag from Hobby Lobby. Each bag had 6 candlesticks. I used all 6 of the rounder, fatter ones and just 2 of the skinnier, taller ones)

- Gorilla glue (or a wood glue that you prefer)

- Paint color of your choice

 

 

Instructions:

 

1. Glue the 4 rounder/fatter candlesticks on the bottom of your 14" circle. (I just kind of eyeballed it and used a ruler to make sure they lined up).

 



 

 

2. Let that dry. I'm impatient so I just waited like 3-5 minutes until it seemed stable. While waiting for it to dry, I glued a round, fat candlestick and a tall, skinny candlestick together (make 2 of these).

 

 

3. Find the center of the circle and put one of the two candlesticks from Step 2 in the middle (this was not as easy as it seemed - we measured and also eyeballed it).

 

 

4. Let that dry and then add your 10" wooden circle to the top of the candlestick.

 

 

 

 

5. Repeat Step 3 (add the second candlestick to the center)

 

6. Add your last wooden circle, the 6.75" circle,  to the top.

 

 



 Voila! You're done!

This entire project including spray paint was about $20!!!! Make sure you use the 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby for the 14" wooden circle or catch it when the wood products are on sale.

This took us about 20-30 minutes to make and probably would have been shorter but we were deciding on the right "look" for the tiers.

 

I haven't painted this yet because the Gorilla glue instructions said to let the glue dry for 24 hours.

 

Disclaimers:

- Along the way, I removed most of the excess glue; however, according to the instructions, you should be able to remove the excess glue once it has dried BUT I didn't want to chance it.

-I had help! (One person held the candlesticks in place, slightly raising it for the glue, once we decided where the "center" was, while the other placed the glue down. That was our technique).

 

 

I plan to use it Saturday for my cousin's graduation party. So come back for the "finished product" and to see how many cupcakes this stand will hold!

 

-jen

 

 













What I have been up to......

I have some OCD tendencies. I love to buy things to have on hand to craft for gifts and "orders" but sometimes I have "too much" on hand and I get into a purging mood where EVERYTHING MUST GO! Saturday happened to be that day. I had some extra tumblers (like 17) that were taking up space, keychains that I ordered in Febrary but had never really played with and other random items that I bought to vinyl. So here are some pictures of all those things projects I completed. It felt good to get rid of them give them a home.

   I did these onesies a while back.      Monogram wine glass for a friend

      

Keychains

 Monogram t-shirt. I also did a long sleeve gray one with coral print. OMG I loved it!

I made 16 of these. 7 for my cousin to give to her friends and 9 for the seniors at my school.

Bye-bye tumblers!

I also finally found the "anchor monogram" and made myself a cup. Not the best picture, the anchor is pink with a navy blue monogram but I LOVE IT!

That is a picture of most of the things I made. I still have some things left to purge like a random candy jar and some chevron mirrors.

Now, here is a "phone dump" (random daily pictures)

Ginger on a nightly walk

Stalking Ginger to see why she keeps begging to go outside.... Just to sunbathe I guess

Pens and pencils from Target $1 spot make me happy :)

Random trip to Benson to find an ice cream shop with homemade ice cream (over 100 flavors). Ben found this place on some random blog/article. Choices scare me, so I went with chocolate. Yeah I know, I am a loser! Ben got "German Chocolate Cake" which was oh-so delicious and definitely will be my choice next time.

More Ginger pics

Sneak peek of graduation party supplies (are you surprised that it's chevron?!?)

I know this was such an exciting blog post. I promise, summer is coming and maybe I can spice things up a bit.

Good read

With Memorial Day coming up, I think of the beach and laying out by the pool. And it just so happens that yesterday, I picked up the perfect, easy beach or pool read from the library (yes, I still check out books from the library!). So far, it's really good, the chapters are short and it's a breeze to read (I'm a fourth of the way into it). Check it out!

Porch Re-do

One weekend in April, I painted my porch. My house trim is all white but for some reason my porch was  painted a light khaki-ish color. The paint had started chipping so since I needed to repaint it, I decided to paint it white to match everything. My grandmother loves to paint so she graciously volunteered to help and for that I thank her!

Before

Before

During

Cute helper with paint on her nose

After (in the process of cleaning and removing tape)

I was so pleased with how it turned out!
Disclaimer - I will admit, I wanted to be lazy and hire someone to paint  it for me (I had even gotten an estimate for $200) BUT it was super easy and much more rewarding to DIY. I am glad my grandmother talked me out of hiring someone and graciously helping me! However, I do not keep things/messes contained well and the amount of paint I had on myself, clothes and in my hair was ridiculous; my grandma came out without a drop of paint on her?!?!

 Happy Monday!

Thoughts on Thursday

Sorry, the blog has taken a back seat. Just a lot going on right now.

I don't think I have ever really mentioned what I do, but I am a speech therapist or if you wanna get technical, a speech language pathologist. I work at a school full-time and work at 3 nursing homes to fill-in when their SLP's are slammed, need a vacation, etc. And the last 3 weeks has been crazy work-wise! Things are starting to calm down and school is winding down. I can't believe we just have 13 more days left. 

I am also in the middle of planning a small graduation party for my cousin, BJ, who is like my brother and helping plan a baby shower for a friend.

That's all that has really been going on my way. I do have things to share/catch-up on here.

Have a great Thursday!

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Recap..... DIVA Half-Marathon

This past weekend was the weekend I had been anticipating since January.......

MY FIRST HALF-MARATHON

My friend Megan who runs races pretty frequently, talked me into signing up. I then talked my friend Christy and Tiffany into signing up. I trained really well January through mid March but then life got really hectic and I didn't log as many miles as I should have the last several weeks. So I was really nervous about the race.

My friend Megan met me in Wilson Friday and we headed down to Myrtle Beach. 

Our first stop was to pick up our race packets.

I was thinking, what did I get myself into?!?!

Ali Vincent, the first female winner from Biggest Loser was there and we met her, chatted with her, bought her book and got her autograph. She is so friendly and inspirational. It was one of the highlights of my trip because I am a BIG Biggest Loser fan. (Ignore my outfit, I drove and chose comfy clothes. I forgot Ali was gonna be there and pictures were gonna be taken or else I would have dressed more appropriately.)



We left from there, went to the condo, showered and dressed and then headed out to dinner.

On Saturday, we were really hoping to squeeze in some beach time but all the weather forecasts called for clouds and rain so we weren't sure that we would be able to. We headed out to breakfast and to shop at the outlets. The sun came out while we were shopping, so we quickly ran into our favorite stores to shop and then head to the beach (Ann Taylor Loft, JCrew, Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy). The stores did not disappoint and everyone was having fabulous sales.

The weather was PERFECT! Sunny, breezy and cool. I read a book and napped. We stayed out there for about 3 hours and then it started getting chilly so we came in.

Next up on our to-do list was to find where Myrtle Manor is filmed. Myrtle Manor is a show on TLC. Think "redneck, trashy, trailer park." I have only watched maybe 15 minutes of the show. It has to be one of the worst shows ever. I don't foresee there being a season 2. But since the show is filmed in Myrtle Beach, we wanted to find it.

When we discovered it, we found that it was not really run down or trashy as they make it seem. It was a regular trailer park. At the back, there were 2 older campers, an above ground swimming pool and the Tangles hair salon. I believe they added all this for the show because it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the trailer park. We snapped a few pictures.



Once we left Myrtle Manor, we returned to the condo, showered and headed out for dinner to CARB LOAD for the big race.

We ate at Preston's Seafood Buffet and it was delicious! We definitely got our carbs in!

We came back home and prepared for the big race!

The next morning, we met Christy and Tiffany at the race site and snapped a few pictures.



I made us "team" tank tops. I loved how they turned out and we received some compliments on them.

(FRONT)

(BACK)

Then the long, awaited race started. We saw Ali along the course. It was so fun to run, more fun than I thought would be. Megan ran with me since this was my first. We did a run/walk method (5-6 mins running, 3-4 mins walking) and every now and then we would run a mile here and there. I felt really good up until about mile 10 then I hit a wall. The last 3 miles were the hardest but I pushed through and kept going.

This picture was around mile 6 I believe.

We finished at 2 hours 56 minutes. The chip time was 2 hours, 55 minutes, 5 seconds. I was stoked because my goal was just to finish. I had projected I would finish around 3 hrs, 15 minutes so the fact that we finished under 3 hours was awesome in my opinion.

 Right before the finish line, you receive a boa and a tiara. This picture was taken minutes before crossing the finish line and I was having difficulty with my tiara, haha.

Once we crossed the finish line, we received a medal, rose and glass of bubbly.

Here are some post race pictures.

Let me tell you... I'm not a runner, I'm not an athlete. I owe it all to Gu Gels (and no one paid me to say that). But I honestly believe I did as well as I did because of Gu Gels.

The packet says to take 1, 15 minutes before and 1 every 45 minutes during activity. I followed this to a "t." I also stopped and drank Gatorade at every station and had my own water on a hydration belt that I drank along the course. I believe if I had not done all this, physically my body would not have lasted (especially with the amount of training I had done, or lack thereof).

Also, if I can do this anyone can! Honestly! Because like I said I am not a runner or an athlete. Prior to this, the most I have ever ran was 3 miles and we ran a little over half this race (thanks to the gels haha) and walked the rest.

The high and sense of accomplishment you get from doing this is amazing. My friend Christy and I have already been discussing future races because we definitely got hit with the "running bug." Now that I know I can do it, I want to keep doing it. I want to try to improve my times and maybe eventually run the whole race. I could go on with everything I gained from completing this half-marathon but I'll stop.....

So that is my weekend recap. It was awesome because we managed to squeeze it all in (tanning, shopping, half-marathon, etc).

Have a great week!

-jen