Waiting for Spring

Just like much of the rest of the country, Springtime is arriving slowly in the Great Plains. The Sandhill cranes were a few weeks later to arrive on the Platte river, the robins a bit later to arrive in my back yard. I’m keeping track of the hummingbird migration map and the trail of sightings is ever so slowly inching northward. The boys and I have been enjoying this live webcam feed of a hummingbird nest in southern California, and now I can’t wait to show them one in real life. It will be a different species since we only get ruby-throated hummers here as they pass through on their way north, and they are beautiful.

This past week has been warmer and sunny and we’ve been able to be outside to enjoy it. I started some clean-up of the dead, brown garden beds, but need to wait a few more weeks to see what will green up yet. I fear many of my perennial herbs may not have survived this past winter…

While there are bits of green out there, nothing is blooming yet. Feeling a need for some color besides brown, I picked up some pansies at the nursery when the boys and I went the other day to check out some other plants. They are big and beautiful and hopefully add a cheery touch to the front porch.

I planted them in an old colander I picked up at a garage sale last summer for 50¢. Lined with burlap and filled with potting soil, it will need some attention to keep moist, but I love it on the old high chair next to the front door. There will be more added to “Springify” the front porch, but I’m good with this for the moment. We have a rainy forecast for the weekend, so I’ll wait for that to pass.

One thing that is not waiting, though, is the magnolia tree. It is finally budding and I’m very excited. Yesterday it did not have flowers. Here’s what I found today:

 

By tomorrow this bud be fully bloomed. Heck, it’s going to be so warm today that we might see a whole flower by this afternoon! I expect the entire tree to be budding/bloomed by the beginning of the week. Yea! Springtime IS coming to stay!

 

 

Using up the Burlap

Okay, so we haven’t even really touched the burlap, the piles and piles of burlap, left from the wedding, except to pack it away in totes and put it in storage. I’m still waiting to hear from Jess’s friend who wants some of it for their wedding next Fall before I decide on projects for the pieces we cut for table runners. Besides the yardage we have several pew bows and rolls of burlap ribbon.

When I was unpacking Christmas decorations, there was a wire wreath form in the box that had nothing on it. I thought about using some faux greenery for a Christmas wreath for the front door, but I already had a really big one on the front of the deck (did I ever show you that?…) and didn’t want a smaller “twin” on the door. While wedding planning, I looked for lots of ideas for using burlap, and pinned a few links to tutorials for wreaths. This one was my favorite, and there is a tutorial for her method, but I needed to “see” the process being done, so I hunted down a YouTube video. This method was easy and went fairly quickly, leaving me with a full, poufy wreath.

 

My only complaint is that the burlap is rough, therefore a bit hard on the fingers. And it took a lot of ribbon. Like a roll and a half, which is about 15 yards. I used non-wired ribbon, so it has a “softer” look to it, I think. The photo at the top of this post is the plain wreath. A wooden snowman now hangs in the center, a Christmas decoration, but one that works for winter and January as well. It will be fun to come up with new ways to decorate this wreath for various holidays. Since it’s so neutral, just about anything could be added, though whatever I do use will not be glued or permanently adhered.

Okay, so that’s a few yards of ribbon taken care of, any suggestions for the piles that remain?

 

 

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 18 – White House Greetings

Only a couple more days until the big event! Yesterday Jessica dropped by after picking up her mail and handed me an envelope. Yea! It took just under six weeks, but the congratulatory greetings did come from the White House. Jess wanted both the envelope and the card displayed, so I used an 8x10” frame and backed it with burlap.

 
It’s a lovely message:

There are specific guidelines to follow in order to get greetings, but you can request them for several occasions:
ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS. Anniversary greetings will be sent to couples who are celebrating a 50th, 60th, 70th or later wedding anniversary.
BIRTHDAY GREETINGS. Birthday greetings will be sent only to people turning 80 or older or veterans turning 70 or older. OTHER GREETINGS. A limited number of special occasions other than birthdays and anniversaries exist for which the Greetings Office will send appropriate recognition to United States citizens. These occasions include important life events such as:

• Wedding (send your request six weeks before the event)
• Baby's birth or adoption of a child
• Retirement after at least 30 years on the same job
• Eagle Scout Award
• Girl Scout Gold Award
• Bar/Bat Mitzvah or equivalent religious occasion

I think it would be fun to work in the Greetings Office at the White House and see all the different wedding invitations that come in.

The Nester’s 31 Day Series

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 15 – Read the Signs

Words have always been an important component of our lives – we love to talk, we love to read, we quote movies and song lyrics in normal conversation. Knowing that, it was no surprise when Jess decided she wants a few signs around the wedding reception hall. She amassed quite a list, and we’ve honed that down to just a few, but they’re fun ones. I don’t have the big ones ready to show you yet, but these two are for the apple cider bar and the candy bar:

The “Love me tender…” sign is for the candy table, and I love that she chose lyrics from a song by Elvis Presley. My mom loved Elvis, so this is kind of a nod to her.

The other one has lyrics from a song by Scott’s favorite band, Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers. It will sit on the table where we put the apple cider bar, near the cinnamon sticks and red hots.  There are a few touches in this wedding that recognize his being a fan of this band. He doesn’t know about most of them, they’re Jess’s surprise for him.

These signs were made using “art” I picked up at Goodwill for a dollar or two. The “love me tender” is done in vinyl, cut with my Cricut, and stuck to the glass, then I covered the backing in burlap.  The “spice” sign was printed on brown Kraft paper, then we added a strip of burlap and one of brown satin ribbon. It added the perfect texture even though it’s all under glass. I’d intended to paint the frames, but Jess wanted them left the way they are. So now I will spray paint the wire frame holders. Those came from Dollar Tree.

I think these little guys add a fun and personal touch that will be somewhat unexpected, and the one sign will probably puzzle a few. Oh well. It’ll be interesting to hear what they think it means…

 

The Nester’s 31 Day Series

 

 

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 14 – Back to the Burlap

A few posts back I told you there were a dozen burlap rosettes. I used one on the card box, four for the junior bridesmaids’ dresses (photos to come after the wedding), and there were seven left. We opted to use those on some of the wine bottles and they turned out great!

We added small jeweled buttons to some, a pearl, and a broken dragonfly pin to others. The one on the right in the second row from the top is actually part of an earring that belonged to my grandmother.

We like the look so much I’m going to add a pearl to the rest of them for the junior bridesmaids and on the card box.

Here’s what they look like on the wine bottles. You can’t really see in this photo, but the bottles were first wrapped with twine around the center section of the body.

These are a bit “bolder” than the other wine bottles we decorated, but I think they’ll look great in those centerpieces.

 

The Nester’s 31 Day Series

 

 

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 11 – Prettying Up the Flowers

Just after Jess and Scott were engaged, I happened into an old friend whose daughter had married in the Fall a couple of years ago. They had a couple of large boxes of silk flowers just perfect for us. We didn’t use all of them, but the bridesmaid’s bouquets were already assembled, and they were almost perfect.

We tweaked them a bit, and added what I call “bouquet holders”, which is a plastic piece that is much like a handle. Rather than pay $6 each for the official floral bouquet holders, we spent $7 on a piece of PVC pipe and I cut the holders to the length we wanted. (Yes, I used the chop saw all by myself. I’m afraid of motorized blades, so this was quite a feat for me…)

We wrapped each holder in burlap – I know, that’s a surprise.

 

A little hot glue and enough length to roll it completely a couple of times did the trick.

 

  They still needed a little “something”, so I tied on some brown silk ribbon in a corset pattern.

Then Jess asked for a monogram for each of the bridesmaids, so they would be able to tell which bouquet was theirs. I hadn’t soldered anything in a long time, but we put together these little glass “tags” with the girls’ initials on them. The letters are printed on the pearlized paper we used for the invitations. You can’t really tell in the photo, but the shimmer shows through.

The final touch was a little heart charm, then it was tied on with twine.

One of the bridesmaids was here when I put this together, and she really liked it. She’s been working on those twine-wrapped balls you see in the background of the photo. I’ll tell you more about those another day.

The Nester’s 31 Day Series

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 10 – The Heart Will Tell

More burlap today – yea! Hopefully you’re not tired of it yet, cuz there’s plenty more to come.

The Head Table will be the only one at the reception with place cards, so I made some sweet ones. My inspiration was found here, and they were easy to put together.  A few strips of burlap, some hot glue, ribbon, and nametags. I hand-wrote the names since the tags were so small.

 

Aren’t they cute? The bridal party will know where to go when it’s time to eat.

The bride and groom have their own special hearts: