My Bridal Shower

Here are some pics from my bridal shower back in September of 2014. I LOVED the way my bridal shower turned out--the decorations were gorgeous (Thank you sister and mom)! Most of the decorations were homemade, although some of the decorations were bought from the dollar tree. We love the dollar tree/dollar store in my family! They have some seriously good party decorations.

The first picture you see above are the bridal shower gifts I made for my bridesmaids.
I got the glass jar cup at Old Time Pottery, and then I just hand  painted the jar cups. After the cups dried, I put little goodies in them (socks, lip balm, pop rocks, and a picture of each bridesmaid made with me). I had the pictures printed at Walgreen's and then I hot glued a pop-sickle stick to the picture and put it down in the middle of the jar cup. I got lucky and found those cute colorful socks on clearance.

Here is a pic of how I displayed them at my bridal shower! I think they turned out really cute!

Decorations

So, I made this picture really big because I wanted everyone to be able to see the awesome banner my sister made by hand!!! Is it not awesome? We used it at my bachelorette and bridal parties!

So, Once again, my sister made the LOVE letters by hand! She bought the letters at Hobby Lobby, then picked out colorful scrapbook paper and glued the scrapbook paper to the letters (I'm assuming that was pretty tough considering you would have cut out the scrapbook paper to match up perfectly with the letters)! Anyway, I used these letters in mine and my husband's bedroom. They are beautiful and will last a long time I think. The picture on the right was a gift!!!! I love creative gifts like that. I really did think that was the coolest thing.

 I really loved how all the food turned out. Everything was fall-themed/bride themed. I made the cupcakes and underwear cookies. My sister made the owl cookies, and my mom made my awesome wedding dress cupcake cake. I really recommend trying to make your own food decor because A). You can make it look how you want and B). Make it taste how you want and C). Pay what you want.

I really enjoyed being able to help decorate my own bridal shower, mainly because I love event planning and decorating. I like to have control of how everything will look which is why I helped with some of the food and decorations.

Alright, well I hope you guys enjoyed the pics from my bridal shower and that I have inspired others to DIY! 

Thanks,

Ms. Monday : )

Top Round Steak with Red & Green Bell Peppers and Onions

Top Round Steak with Red & Green Peppers and Onions

Ingredients:
 
1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper
1 sweet yellow onion
2 top round steaks (I got mine at Food City, and it 2 came in one package..it cost like 4 dollars).

Directions:

Set oven to 350 degrees, and bake the 2 steaks till they are cooked pretty thoroughly (about 20 mins)
While the steaks are in the oven, cut your bell peppers into cubes and also cut up your onion.
Place the bell peppers and onions in a greased skillet (I used olive oil) and I honestly just kind of guess on how much oil to use.
Let the peppers  and onions cook on the stove with medium heat while covered.
After the meat has cooked for about 20 min, place the meat with the peppers (This will add lots of flavor to the meat).
Cook the meat with the peppers and onions for about 10-15 extra minutes, or until the peppers and onions are tender.
Also, if you are cooking a side--You can just turn the stove down to very low and leave the peppers and onions with the meat until your  side dish is ready to be served.

Sides

Sweet Potato Fries - ( I just bought some in the organic section at Kroger, I think the brand was Alexia).

Carrots, Broccoli, and Cauliflower- I bought the Steamfresh brand. I cooked it on the stove though, and once it was tender I put cheese on it. I used Campbell's Cooking Cheddar Cheese Soup, which has a ton of sodium in it (not good)! I would recommend using real cheese, I just had this in our pantry and it was quick and easy.

How to make an "I DO" Door Sign for your Bridal Shower

As you know, I am a newlywed and I am super excited to share with you how I saved money on my showers, decorations, food, etc. Let me just say this--DIY projects are so much more fun then just going out and buying whatever it is you need (depending on the time you have). I literally did this project with stuff I had that was lying around the house. I used cardboard (you can use cardboard from a shoebox, cardboard box, poster board, etc), glitter in a bottle, Elmer's glue, stapler, ribbon, wreath hanger, tulle, twine, and flowers.

As you can maybe tell, I cut out the letters free hand. After that, I rubbed glue with my finger all over each letter and poured glitter over the entire letter. I did this one letter at a time. I recommend letting the letters dry overnight.

After the letters have dried, get out your wreath hanger and a long piece of ribbon and tie the ribbon to the wreath hanger.

After the ribbon is on the hanger, either staple or hot glue the letters to the ribbon (or any other way you can think of to get the letters on there).

Next, if you have tulle, you can staple it to the top part of the ribbon where the flowers will cover the staples. The tulle kinda gives the "Bride" look, but it can certainly be eliminated and the sign will look just as good with just the flowers.

For the flowers: You can get a bundle of flowers at the dollar store, just pick out ones that look very full. Next, I would tie the flowers together tightly with twine and tie a sturdy piece of ribbon or twine around the tightly tied flowers and then tie the flowers to the hanger. LOTS of tying, but you can use a bow or ribbon to cover the ties.  You will need to make sure you tie it very tightly. I really recommend the brown burlap looking twine because even if it shows, it still looks really good--like you wanted it to show on purpose.

I feel like looking at the finished product is really the easiest way to explain how to do the project--if that makes sense. Just have fun with this project! I know I did! 
 

DIY: Upholster an Old Chair

Hello There! Today I wanted to show everyone the awesome new chair I created with only a couple of tools and a little material I bought from Walmart.
 
For this project I borrowed 1 tool from my parents, and the rest I had at home. I used a drill, hammer, staple gun, and material I bought from Walmart(only $7.24)!

I will lay out the directions in steps:
 
Step 1: Turn chair over and drill out screws that hold the seat to the chair. Take the seat and set it to the side. It will look like this once you do this step.

Step 2: Measure out the fabric (I just guessed) and cut enough material to cover the back side of the seat so that none of the old seat color shows. You will need someone to help you pull the fabric tight while someone else staples it. As you can see, the yellow color is the old fabric and the chevron is the new! All you do is just staple all the way around the back of the chair. I would put a staple in almost every inch around the entire backside. So one staple, then another inch you would put another staple in and so on. Also, Make sure to do the corners last! If the staples don't go all the way in you can hammer them in the rest of the way.

 

 

 Step 3:Reattach the seats to the chairs. Turn the legs of the chair upside down on a table and place the upholstered seat in it and begin drilling the screws back in. My end product looked like this:

 

This was such a fun project and it was easy!!! I was sort of scared of the staple gun, but it wasn't bad at all! The best part of this project is that I basically have a new chair that only cost me $7.24!! How awesome!

 

Here is the before and after pic:

 

 

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask!! : )

 

 

How to Buy a Wedding Dress on a Budget

Buying a wedding dress can be stressful and costly; however, it can also be fun and affordable if you know how to find good prices! Before I even got engaged I was looking on Pinterest  at dresses that I hoped one day I would be wearing.

 

Alfred Angelo has always been my favorite brand. Their dresses are soooooo gorgeous-- and can also be very pricey! I was SET on getting my dress at Alfred Angelo. I did look around some, but I only went to one other store--David's Bridal (which I was not impressed at all!) David's Bridal wants their clients to put on that stupid corset and bottom dress thingy which I hate. They also never actually give you the size you need, therefore you never really can tell how you will look in any of their dresses. I'm just not a fan ..bleh!

 

So off I went to Alfred Angelo! I tried on regular priced dresses in my actual size and they would actually let me zip them up!! WHOA what a shocker! I tried on the dresses that were on my "loved" list on their website and they really didn't look at all like I thought they would look. In fact, my favorite one looked AWFUL! One of the perks about Alfred Angelo that I really liked was that most of the dresses actually were true to size. I could fit into most of their size 12 dresses (I'm telling you this because in most wedding dresses you have to go about two sizes up for them to fit--which of course nobody is thrilled about, especially when it's for your wedding dress).  So I found about 2 that I really liked that were full priced, but these ran around 1,100 dollars which I think is way too much to spend on a dress you will only wear once in your life!!

 

 So,  I asked one of the Alfred Angelo ladies if they had a clearance rack, and she was sort of stand offish about it and told me that it was in the back of the store and customers weren't allowed back there. I asked her if she could bring some random ones out for me that would be my around my size. She brought 3 dresses out and all but 1 were gorgeous!! I literally found my dream dress there--everything I could have ever wanted in a dress was in this clearance marked dress. it had ruffles, and it was strapless with LOTS of character!! It was around $450.00 and I paid like $500.00 total with tax and everything. My advice to other ladies looking for wedding dresses is to be a bit pushy with the bridal shops. They are bound to have a clearance rack somewhere. You just have to ask and be patient. My dress was actually a size 16 and seemed to be a little big, but it had a corset back so I could tighten it up all the way and it fit just fine. The only alterations I had to have was the bust taken in and the bottom hemmed. Here are a couple of pics of my beautiful dress along with my very handsome hubby : )