salt covered vase centerpieces

so if you haven’t heard of Pinterest you are missing out cause it’s AWESOME!
i have found so many great ideas on there that i can’t wait to try
[and if you do have Pinterest, you should follow me]

this week, i was asked to help decorate for a Relief Society dinner and we needed beautiful/classy/cheap/easy centerpiece ideas

enter Pinterest.

(source)

this very creative lady spray painted wine bottles and rolled them in epsom salt
so cool right???

well me and my friend absolutely loved the idea
and decided to incorporate it into our centerpieces

here’s our version.

because we were on a $20 budget, we changed a few things from the original and came up with a simple, cheap, beautiful centerpiece.

here’s how we did ours:

instead of spray paint/primer we use white acrylic paint and painted these vases we got for 50 cents at the thrift store.

  

**i’ll be honest. the acrylic paint was a lot cheaper than the spray paint but it took A LOT of time because the paint took forever to dry. and it needed 2 coats of paint. but if you  have the time and you are on a tight budget i think it’s worth it.

after we painted the second coat (or Jessica painted the second coat) we then painted a layer of Modge Podge on the vase and poured kosher salt over top to stick. (sorry i didn’t get a picture of that process)

 

we decided to cover the whole base in the salt to give it that add that extra texture to the look. again since we were trying to be cheap we used the kosher salt we had on hand instead of getting epsom salt but i still think it looked great.

then we added our little flower arrangement
[which we were really proud of]
and finished it off with a pretty gold ribbon
and viola

simply pretty centerpiece

 

here is a picture showing you a better closeup of the texture on the vase

 

as you can see the salt did kind of shed so i don’t know if that would be different with the epsom salt or not. maybe if we set them on chargers or something that wouldn’t be as noticeable.

i especially love that we had different styles and sizes of vases for each table. i thought it was a great overall look.

(full effect with the table setting)

so there you go.
that’s my crafty moment that i have every once and a while.
what do you guys think??

it was really fun to do and i can’t wait for the next activity to try something different!

Awful Waffle equals AWESOME Waffle

(photo c/o Awful Waffle’s Facebook page)

last saturday we mr. robinson went running at the Smith Fieldhouse
{while me and E-fatty walked around pretend like we were meant to be there}

we had heard whisperings/shoutings of this new placed called Awful Waffle
so we decided to check it out and pretend we were meant to be there
{with the in-crowd you know}

oh my GOODNESS!
it was divine

i loved it!

i partook in the decadent goodness of a waffle that looked something like this beauty

(Belgium waffle with strawberries, syrup and powdered sugar)

and adam partook in the glory goodness that is a crepe with Nutella

yumyumyum!!

we very thoroughly enjoyed ourselves
[although mr. robinson over here kept spouting business tips that they should’ve considered]
but that aside we will definitely be back again!
[and at such great prices it makes it even more enjoyable!]

favorite part of the experience:
we came when they had just opened for the day so we kind of caught them off guard
they were SOOOOOO ridiculously nice and lovely
even when we were obviously bugging them while they were trying to open
and when we only had a $20 and they only had lots of $1 as change, the girl replied
"sorry go all stripper-style and give you a bunch of 1-dollar bills"

i seriously laughed so hard

and that is why we will definitely be back

read more about them here.

July, July, Julyyyyyyyyyyy

happy july everyone!!

(he knows what “say cheese” means so now we get some good smiley pictures out of him)

i’m so excited july is finally here

july always seems like a magical month to me
mainly because it’s my birthday month and i just lovelovelove birthdays
[especially mine :)]

but really.
july is just the best.

summer is in full swing
bbqs are happening everywhere
swimming
otter pops
independence day
freedom
fireworks
more swimming
more otter pops
+sno cones
and just awesomness all around

so in celebration of the best month ever i have lined up
a giveaway for every week this month

that’s right!
starting on Monday, July 4th we will be having a giveaway each week

i’m beyond excited to share these items and shops with you
and i’m so grateful to those who have agreed to team up with me

so keep checking in to behold all the awesomness!