My Dress

... yes, my dress. I finally decided on a dress, the deposit is in and there is no turning back! It was a very close tie between my final pick and another beautiful lace mermaid gown, but after much deliberation and some assurance from the ladies at Renfros Bridal Shop, I was able to go with the first dress I found at the first boutique I visited! For those who haven't seen the dress already, here is a sneak peak... yes, this is my bum.



Without describing the dress too much, I will say that it is simple and because of that I can't wait to accesorize! The possibilities are endless with this dress... off to Etsy I go!

DIY Cake Stands

So last weekend James and I went on a mission to find the perfect, mint green cake stand. The picture below was my inspiration but it was online for sale for $98 so that was a no go.

We hit up Denio’s (a huge local swap meet), Goodwill and a large antique mall but we had no luck. I was actually surprised at the little to no variety of cake stands at the antique mall, we did find one off white stand for $10 though, so we went ahead and snagged it. There was one booth at the antique mall that was full of mint green glassware that was similar to what I was going for, but just a little pepper shaker was priced at over $100,  so if they even had a cake stand I doubt it would have been affordable, let alone in my price range. 

So with no luck finding what we were looking for, we stopped at the Goodwill abd scoured the aisles for any parts and pieces we could use to make our own DIY stands. We were looking for decorative plates, stands and candlesticks and Goodwill had hundreds! I was so glad that we decided to stop here because the selection was huge and so, so cheap. We ended up leaving with a porcelain plate, a porcelain candlestick, a clear glass plate, a clear glass cup and I also grabbed a clear glass cup/candy dish/goblet looking thing that I thought would be cute for holding candy or something. Overall, the total bill from the Goodwill haul = $14

the days haul

$10 antique stand

candy dish thing?

"Before" concept

On the way home from our cake stand supply mission, we stopped at Lowes and picked up a peachy colored spray paint as well as some clear lacquer spray paint. At home, I got to gluing.

I started with the two porcelain pieces. I used Gorilla Glue that we already had at home (this stuff glues anything!) and since the candlestick already had a very flat top, I just globbed on a ton of glue and stuck it on the bottom side of the plate.

top of candlestick with glue on it, notice the plate below, I marked the center with a wax pencil

I used a large, heavy book to weigh down the candlestick for about an hour. (those are the instructions on the Gorilla glue bottle). After a few hours of drying, James took the stand to our homemade spray booth in the garage (AKA: cardboard box) and sprayed away. Over two days, he gave the stand 3 coats of the peach color and a coat of the clear gloss. I left this part up to him because I am hopeless when it comes to a god spray paint job… if I had done it it would have ended up in a drippy, uneven mess!

James doing his thing!

first coat on

For the second stand, James suggested only spray the bottom part of the stand (in this case, the cup)  and leaving the top clear plate unpainted (Good idea babe!) So he spray the cup with a robins egg blue spray paint that we already had on hand. This cup took a few more coats than the porcelain stuff did, plain glass doesn’t take to spray paint as easily as most other surfaces. I glued these to pieces together after the painting was finished an dried. 

So here they are, the finished products… overall I spent the $10 dollars on the thrifted stand, and less than $15 on the two DIY stands (goodwill haul minus the cost of the candy dish and plus the cost of spray paint)

 UPDATE: James' mom found this gem at HomeGoods and picked it up for us... not the elusive mint green that we were searching for but a very pretty, light lime green! Score for $17!