A Cookie Monster 2nd Birthday Party

My favorite nephew turned two last weekend and we celebrated with a cookie monster party!  Ruger loves Sesame Street and cookies (yummy, yummy!) so the party theme was a no brainer.  And of course we DIYed as many details of the party as possible. 

The invitation I designed in Publisher with our color scheme and cookie monster graphic:

The decorations were all in shades of brown and blue with polka dots and stripes.  I designed all the printables including table signs, centerpieces, and a banner using Publisher.  The centerpieces were just paper circles glued to wooden skewers and stuck into the little tin buckets that I used last year.  Yay for the party vault! :)  They were double-sided and the other side said “Happy Birthday Ruger”.  They were simple and cute.

There were more signs on the treats table and food table, as well as one indicating a drinks spot (Me Thirsty!) and a place for gifts (Me Want Presents!).  That cookie monster sure is greedy! ;)

I also made several paper garlands with brown and blue cardstock that was punched in circles and sewn together into a chain.  I love it! 

Like last year, we decorated the metal doors in the carport with paper medallions.  I took all the blue and tan ones from last year and changed out the circle in the center for a cookie themed one. :)  Then I made a few new ones in a turquoise paper.  They have magnets on the back to stick to the doors, but you could just tape them up to a regular wall or doors.  These things are going to get a lot of use in the future!

In addition to all the printables, we also DIYed a bunch of edibles!  My sister made sliders for dinner and all the fixin’s.  It was delicious!

We also had some other stuff for Cookie Monster to munch on, like… plastic utensils!  Nom, nom! :)

We had three kinds of cookies (obviously!) as well as cupcakes and a cookie monster cake!  I made most of these and I’ll be posting a tutorial for the treats soon!

We also had little treat bags so guests could take cookies home as favors.  The bags were from etsy, and I made the labels.

The littlest cookie monster enjoyed his fair share of cookies and some cake!

We also had balloons, but they were dancing in the wind all day.  You know, when the children weren’t stealing them to release into the sky!  The polka dot ones were my favorite, I found them on Amazon.

After dinner and cake, Ruger had a great time opening presents and playing with his cousins.  He got a couple tractor toys, a fancy tricycle, a toy chainsaw (his favorite) as well as a bunch of other toys and lots of new clothes.  It’s great to be two!

We all had a lovely afternoon watching Ruger delight in his birthday and celebrating as a family. 

Happy Birthday Ruger!  We love you! :)

P.S.  For details from last year’s cowboy soiree click here.  And for more party ideas, check out the Party Time category.  Happy party planning!  I’ll be back soon with the all the details and a Horvath-style tutorial for the cookie monster treats.  :)  Stay tuned!

More Mulch…

It seemed as though the mulching would never end.  That’s what happens when you are dealing with a huge new garden area with no grass, four new planting beds and a bunch of mud.  It takes a lot of mulch to cover all that area.  We started back in June with the first huge trailer load.  My whole family came to help unload it.  That first load covered the big hill bed almost all the way and the shady corner.  After two more loads from Mama’s truck, we were left with a bit of the hill, the creekbank bed, and the left side bed.  So, once again my family all came to help and John brought another trailer full of mulch two weeks ago.  Don’t I have the best family?  I just ask and they appear with work gloves and wheelbarrows and trailers!  :)  Yay Guthrie Power!

Since I had already taken pictures of Guthrie Family workday 1, I skipped that part on workday 2.  So all we have are the after pictures! 

What is with all these leaves!  I did not order those! :)  Also the bushes are looking kind of dead-ish.  I’m giving them a chance to recover before I pronounce them.

While we were at it, we replaced the tiny cherry tree on the corner with a corkscrew willow tree that Mama got on sale at Lowes.  The pretty flower in front of it is cleome.  There are two of those on this side and they are blooming like crazy!

The creekbank bed needs more flowers, but at least it has mulch now!

In other creek news, Mama rebuilt her tiny dam and it is trickling merrily now.  Hope it doesn’t wash away again!  We also cut back a bunch of branches over the creek.  I tried out my new rain boots in the water and they are swell.  It was fun splashing in the creek and cleaning up a bit. 

This is the opposite corner by the creek.  It’s what we call “the mound” which was basically a pile of weeds/dirt/roots that was left after we cleared the land.  It’s eventually going to settle into a flat spot, or so I’m told. ;)  For now we are just hacking down the weeds and planting in front of it.  I’m also piling corn stalks on top.  It’s very picturesque. :)  I’m planning to put a compost bin here on top, just to add to the attractiveness. :)

This view is looking back toward the willow tree.  The corn didn’t do very well, and a lot of it was eaten by the deer.  I did get a few really good ears, but most of them were small and poorly pollinated, so hopefully I will do better next year!  Despite my efforts to keep them away, the deer also ate all of my tomatoes.  Boo!  I did get a few jalapenos and bell peppers… guess deer don’t eat those. :)

This is the lily and forsythia bed on the left side.  We are eventually going to add more to this bed, maybe some roses or some more crape myrtles.  We’ll see…

The lily bed runs up and meets with the shady corner.  The mulch basically loops the entire border of our property down here.

And in the middle we have the island which has a pink weigela bush (pronounced why-gee-la) and some butterfly bushes.  We are also going to add a couple blueberry bushes on the other side of the birdhouse.  The birds will love that, right? 

Back up the hill the mulch is finally finished.  We still need to finish our little rock bed around the tree and add some plants! I’m thinking some creeping phlox.

After all the mulch was unloaded the men drilled holes in my steps and pounded in rebar so they won’t be falling down the hill.  We have a bunch more steps to set now, too.  Stay tuned for that.

Our next project down here is to tear out the garden (which is spent, except for the tomatoes, which are just being eaten by the deer) and till everything!   Then we are going to plant grass for the lawn and rye in the garden.  Still lots of work but at least the mulching is done!  (For a while…)  Okay, stay tuned!

A Metal Roof

You may have noticed the sad state of our roof in past posts.  People (namely my father) have been telling me I need a new one for a while now.  Lucky for me, my brother-in-law Josh is a professional roofer.  He convinced us to go with a metal roof, which is more durable and will last longer than traditional asphalt shingles.  We are the first in our neighborhood to have a metal roof… trendsetters! 

Josh and his team came Saturday morning to install our new roof.  I want you to know that I woke up at 7am to get these pictures for you!  Well that, and my sister and my nephew were along for the day, so I had to get up to play with them! :)

We sat outside and watched the transformation.  First step:  roll out felt underlayment on the existing roof.  Our existing roof was needing to be replaced but not so bad that we had to tear it all off and start on the bare wood.  So they just put the new roof over the old one.  The felt was hammered into the old roof.  Riley didn’t like that part, she hid in the bathroom the whole time.  Bandit was under the bed. :)

Next, trim away all the shingles that overhang the edges and the gutters.  Don’t make a mess or you are fired! :) haha!  They didn’t make a mess, actually, that’s what the wheelbarrow was for.

Next, start putting the metal sheets on the felt.  These were screwed down.

After all the roofing is on a particular section, cap the edge with a piece of trim called a “rake” or gable trim.  There’s also a little piece of trim around the chimney.  When the whole roof is finished, a ridge cap goes on the very top peak of the roof.

Next you drill holes for the ice breaks along the edge of the front and back.  Ice breaks are these little metal pieces that line the edge of the roof and stick up a bit so after it snows and the snow/ice start to slide off a very slippery metal roof, it will be broken into small pieces before falling to the ground.  Without ice breaks the snow will come sliding off in one giant piece and if you happen to be walking under the eave at that exact moment, you will be crushed by the falling snow.  How dramatic!  Alternatively if no one is walking under, the giant wall of snow will crush my hydrangea bushes.  So hopefully the ice breaks will prevent that.  Anyway, drill holes, then put a dab of Storm Blaster sealant in each hole before screwing in the ice break. 

That is all, you are done!  Josh and his team finished our roof in two and a half hours!  And now I don’t have to worry about replacing my roof again for 40 years!  Can’t beat that warranty!  :)

The new black roof looks so nice with our black door and shutters. :)  Now I just need someone to come pressure wash my gutters!

It’s such an improvement over our old roof, which was really looking rough.  See?

Yay!  Thanks Josh and your team for your very hard work!

Disclaimer:  If I inadvertently forgot any steps or used incorrect roofing lingo, it is because I am not a professional roofer.  And I was in the house playing matchbox cars with Ruger for most of the morning, so my note-taking may have suffered.  If you are in the market for a metal roof and you live in the NC Piedmont, contact Classic Metals at (336) 248-2474.  They know how it’s done!

Forest Art for the Den

In the last issue of Lowes Creative Ideas magazine, there was a living room that caught my attention.  It was called Be a Little Bold:

The teal walls and fresh green accents were calling my name!  But it was the art over the mantel that I really wanted.  After a little research on their site, I discovered the art is called “Forest Study I Crop”.  And it just so happened that the day of my discovery, the 24” x 36” print was on sale for 50% off!  Score!  So I bought it with plans to build my own frame and hang it over the mantel in the den.
When it arrived, I realized that 24” x 36” is pretty large!  Unfortunately that wasn’t going to fit nicely over the mantel.  Then I realized I could hang it on the opposite wall where my secondhand prints turned fabric art were hanging, over the turquoise cabinet.
I decided to frame it with a simple thin wood frame and a 1 1/2” mat, similar to the inspiration photo.  After pricing some custom mats for a print this large, I thought perhaps I could make something myself and save some money.  That’s when I landed on an idea:  a wooden mat!  I went to Lowe’s and checked out the decorative trim aisle and found 1 1/2” lattice strips.  When mitered at the corners, they could substitute for a mat and layer like a frame within a frame over the art!  I bought a couple pieces of oak 1” x 2” for the actual frame. I also picked up a piece of clear acrylic to cover the art.  Glass is cheaper, but it’s also heavier and harder to work with since it can easily chip or break.  I will spend the extra to get plastic that way I don’t have to worry.  And you can easily cut it with a table saw (or you can get your Papa to do it for you!) :)
Once we had all our components, Papa helped me with the building process.  We cut our mat pieces first to fit the art.  Then we measured the thickness of the mat and the glass and cut a 3/8” wide channel in the back of the frame pieces for the mat/glass to fit into.  That way the mat and glass would sit flush with the back of the frame, just like a commercially-made frame.  Then we carefully marked our measurements in the outer edge of the channel and cut mitered corners to fit our mat/glass.  Next, I sanded all the frame pieces and rounded over the edges so they would be smooth.  We carefully glued our corners together and shot a few brads in each end to keep it all together.  Since the mitered corners of the mat were only 1/4” thick and I didn’t think glue would hold it all together, I decided to paint the mat before assembling it.  I stained the frame Bombay Mahogany (what else?) and painted the frame a soft muted turquoise color to match the art.  I used watered down acrylic paint for the mat so you could still see the wood grain through it.  After everything was dry, I laid out the mat and taped the corners together on the back.  Masking tape held the whole thing together nicely!  The weight of the art and acrylic sheet will keep it from falling apart later. 
Then came the frame assembly!  I decided to put the mat on the outside of the glass (rebel, I know!) to highlight the wood grain and also because my art was so big, I didn’t want to leave any air space between the art and acrylic.  The weight of the acrylic sheet keeps the paper from wrinkling and sagging.  If you are using fine art I wouldn’t recommend putting the glass right on top of the artwork, but mine is just a poster print. 

Assemble it upside down:  frame, mat, then acrylic, followed by the artwork which I taped to the frame with painter’s tape.  Hopefully that will keep it from wrinkling and sagging in our humidity, we’ll see.  Then I taped a piece of brown kraft paper on the back with masking tape to seal it all up.  Add a hanger and some wire to the back and you are done!



I think it looks great in here with all the blues and greens!  And I spent around $75 for the whole thing, which is pretty good for such a big piece of art.  Now we can finally get rid of those hand-me-down frames! :)

Yay! :)