MAKES | Cloth Napkins

When we first got married I realized I was quickly being thrown into the grown-up world. You know, the time when you suddenly get your life together & own real plates.

In the beginning we owned next to nothing. I had some hand-me-down & abandoned kitchen supplies from my various college roommates, Nick had a TV & a dresser. We were high rollin’ folks.

In an effort to create the illusion of us being adults I decided we needed real napkins for fancy dinners. I was inspired by the ladies of A Beautiful Mess, they used various vintage fabrics which they ordered online to make their napkins. But I don’t have the patience to wait for mail ordered fabric & I don’t like cutting fabric into perfect squares if I don’t have to.

I’m lazy & cheap. Crafting is no exception to that rule.

So in one of my million wedding planning trips to Jo-Ann’s I realized “fabric quarters” are the perfect napkin size & cost $1. No cutting involved!

MAKES | Easy Chalkboard Lettering

I mostly hated wedding planning.

There were just too many things I had to force myself to have an opinion about, or worse, too many things I knew I didn’t like but couldn’t articulate what I did like. But Nick & I realized early in the planning process that this was our wedding & we made the rules. So, when the thought of making the biggest commitment of our lives & immediately rushing to the biggest party of our lives continued to stress us out we knew we had to bag it.

We considered eloping — in Spain.

We considered eloping — in the US.

But not having our family there felt incomplete. And with us having so many friends who feel like family, we knew we had to have an actual ceremony with actual people.

So we decided on sunrise at the top of a peak in the Willamette Valley, which was followed by a big ol’ party a month later. For us, it was perfect.

But when you’re going to tell your family they have to wake up at 3am & drive to the top of a mountain to see you get married you better have something to sweeten the deal.

Solution: coffee & pancakes.

And the only thing I really enjoyed about wedding planning was getting to craft my summer days away.

One of my favorite crafts was making chalkboard signs to tell people about food, coffee & blankets. I made dozens & they looked awesome without me having to freehand a single thing.

MAKES | Cheap Lampshade Recover

One of the first things I noticed about being an adult is that lamps are expensive. Because of this the entire year I lived in Spain I never bought a shade for my night stand light. I just let a bulb light my room & told myself it was an “industrial” look.

When we needed lamps for our bed side tables (two lamps guys!) I went to ReStore & bought some brass beauties for $5 each. A little silver spray paint later & they look like big kid fancy lamps. But lamp shades are harder to spray paint & call “good,” trust me, I’ve tried & it doesn’t end well.

So I thrifted some cheap drum shades & covered them in matching fabric.

On one of these thrifting trips I also bought a cute, bubbly, little lamp for my desk. It’s boring white shade has sat on it for months now as I’ve avoided recovering it. But now that I’m starting school again soon I’m trying to clean & refresh my desk space (a monumental task). The first project on my list was my little lamp & on one of my many trips to Goodwill recently I found the perfect fabric for the job… an old bed sheet. It only cost me $2.99!