How to Make a Cupcake Stand for your Grandmother's Wedding

So my 80 year old grandmother got married on Saturday.  Crazy right?   Long story short Lolo (her real name is Lois Lane- seriously.  And she refused to be any variation of grandmother, so she is Lolo.  And she is nuts) and the groom, went to high school together, although he was a few years older.  They reconnected through the internets.  A few visits here, a few visits there, a New Years Day proposal, a few frantic months of planning, and there you have it.  Well, not really, but lets pretend.  So Saturday came, and it was hot, but they said their "I Dos" and everyone had a fine time and nothing major went wrong.  Check out ASB photography over on facebook for a beautiful picture of the bride and groom (fun side note: Amber did Seth's and my wedding too!  I feel like she is quickly becoming out family photographer).  I will certainly share more once I have them.

But really, the wedding isn't the purpose of this little post.  Lolo decided she didn't want anything "wedding-y" (this is funny because she made many choices that were rather traditionally wedding-y, like not seeing the groom before the ceremony), which meant cupcakes instead of cake.  And lets face it, in this day and age of pinterest and crafty ladies, it is unheard of to have cupcakes and not have a fantastic homemade cupcake stand.  So I made a damn cupcake stand.  And it turned out pretty damn good.

 

I don't have pictures of the actual building process, but I promise this is a super easy project.

In trying to figure out how to execute this little project, I came across a lot of stands that were made using cardboard cake thingies.  That just didn't seem stable enough to me, so I opted to go wood.  I ran by Lowes and got a 2'x4' piece of 1//4" plywood.  And then I panicked that 1/4" would be too flimsy (because you know cupcakes are really heavy).  So I measured around and realized that I had enough wood that I could double up each layer, making it a 1/2" thick.  So I cut my pieces  For references, the bottom is 14"x14", the middle is 11"x11" and the top is 8"x8".  This held roughly 40 cupcakes. 

Once my pieces were cut, I sanded them down pretty good.  Then I glued them together using regular old wood clue.  Clamps and heavy objects were used to mush the pieces together.  Once they were nice and secure, I sanded them again, just to make sure they were smooth. 

Each layer got two coats of white paint I had laying around, followed by two coats of polyurethane.  I opted for the coats of poly for shine and easy clean up. 

And the last part was to assemble it all.  The bottom supports are tea light holders from the dollar store.  The middle supports are candle holders, also from the dollar store.  Initially, I tried to hot glue everything, but it just wasn't holding.  So, I went gorilla glue and it held perfectly, even in 90 degree heat. 

So there you have it.  I told you it was simple.  And cheap- I think the total cost was less than $20.  Embellishments could certainly be added, but I like it simple.  And I like that I will be able to reuse this for years to come.  Happy crafting!

20 weeks!

Thursday marked 20 weeks of pregnancy, meaning we are roughly 1/2 way there!

According to babycenter, she is about the length of a banana and weights in at close to 3/4 lb. I feel like I am getting bigger by the day (technically, I am).  I am at the stage where my belly button is getting pretty shallow (great for cleaning out lint!).

We'll keep this one short because it has been a whirlwind weekend (a work party on Thursday, followed by Lolo's rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on Friday, the wedding and after party yesterday and a family breakfast today) and I am exhausted!  I promise I will have wedding project updates and more fun to come soon!

19 Weeks!

The belly is a-growing!  The biggest news this week is that we had our ultrasound.  Baby is healthy and measuring a bit big.  AND baby is a GIRL!  Total surprise- almost everyone thought we would have a boy.  We are beyond thrilled (we would have been either way)!

Which means, I have also started obsessing over the nursery even more.  Seth suggested a safari theme and I'm on board with that.  After some searching around, I found the perfect fabric for curtains, which will also set the tone for the palette we will pull in.

Zoology in Lagoon

I love that is is feminine without being girlie.

Stay tuned as I get continue to get bigger and we make progress on the nursery.

Storms Coming

Storm door that is...  Sorry, I couldn't resist the batman reference (Seth is way too excited about the new one). 
On with the point, if you remember, our house has two front doors and no back door.  Both front doors have storm doors, which is nice because it lets us leave the doors open when we are home (more light and air flow).  The first front door got updated when Oliver broke through it about a year ago.  Long story short, my dad brought his dog, Bishop, over to see if all the puppies could be friends.  It seems Oliver thought he had enough friends and decided that Bishop must die.  Seeing as how we didn't want Bishop to die, we put Oliver inside.  He jumped on the door, smashed through it, cutting his chin in the process.  Much blood and chaos ensued.  The good news is no puppy (or human) was too badly injured and we got a new storm door out of the whole thing.

So this weekend, Seth and I (Seth) really got around to updating the other door.  The old door was in bad shape:

Please note two features:  One the obvious dent in the bottom of the door.  I'm not sure where that came from, but it's not attractive.  Two, if you look right above the dent, you can see where the screen in torn and Seth sewed it back together.  We figured out that Ava could fit through the hole in the screen (there's another fun animal story), so we tried stitching up the screen.  That didn't work so well, so we generally left the screen closed, meaning no air flow. 

So a trip to Lowes and a few hours late, we had this:

Major improvement right?  So much nicer, more secure, and we can open the screen.  AND it matches the other front door...

A major YAY if I do say so myself.  AND a big thank you to my hubby for his work on getting the new door in.

Belly Update

When I found out I was knocked up, I figured that I at least ought to document my changing figure.  After looking around on pinterest a bit, I found this lovely set of photos.  I liked the simplicity of staying in the same dress and watching the belly expand week by week.  Turns out, Katie Bower had the same idea! 

So, Seth and I have been documenting the Belly since week 10 (when we found the heartbeat).  Before I share these photos, two notes.  First, I already had a pretty good gut going.  I was on weight watchers and was working on losing the post-wedding weight when Baby G started growing.   Dieting is a no-no during pregnancy, so the gut only stands to get bigger.  Two, maternity dresses look horrid on me.  As least they have so far and continue to.  Please don't judge too harshly.

Week 10

Week 11

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15

Week 17

Week 18

Just a few updates on what is happening with Baby these days:  S/he is the size of a bell pepper and is definitely moving around.  Kiddo has been having a party in my uterus the last few days.  Seth even felt movement last night.  We go on Monday for our ultrasound, at which point we should know whether we're having a girl or boy!

And I promise a non-baby related post soon!

Making Room for Baby: Part 1

To answer the obvious questions:  Yes, I am only 4 months pregnant and yes, I am freaking out about getting everything done, including setting up the nursery.  I like to call myself a planner, others just say I'm neurotic.  Whatever the label is, the result is still the same: we have started to put together the nursery.

When we moved in, we decided that the computer room (the man room) would become the nursery when a baby came along.  We painted it a nice green that we figured would work well in the future because lets face it, I hate painting.  And yes, this does mean that Seth is losing "his" room.  Don't feel bad for him.  Its not like I have a room just full of my shit and don't say "the whole house is the woman's domain," because Seth has had a hand in every single color/design/decorating decision in that house. 

So back to the point, Seth thought it would be a good idea to start with a dresser since we will eventually  need some place to put all the stuff that comes along with a baby.  So dresser hunting we went!  We were looking for a pretty specific size (about 3" tall, 4" long, and 2" wide), so choices were limited.  Finally, we found a sweet little Ethan Allen piece at my favorite consignment shop, The Red Collection. 

Once home, we went to moving furniture around.

To start, lets take a moment to remember the man room as it was:

Looking in from the hall

Looking back out towards the hall- that room is NARROW

The plan was for the dresser to go where the desk current is, which means first the desk had to move.  We figured that we could move it to the big living space and it would work just fine.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

The verdict: we really like where the desk is.  Side note: Henry (did I ever mention we got another damn cat? Well we did, and he's pretty alright for a cat), who has tummy issues anyway, got really nervous about all the moving around and boy did he stink that room up... Lord, cat farts are bad.

So back to the babies room... In went the dresser:

And it fits perfectly!  There is a closet to the right of the dresser, so we needed room to open those doors.  Plus we plan to use the dresser as a changing table as well, so there is room for a diaper pail to the left of the dresser.  I plan on adding some festive curtains to frame the window and the whole wall.

Want to take a closer look:

This little beauty is solid wood and surprisingly heavy.  It has three awesome drawers.  I do think we need to update the hardware a bit, but that's nothing a little spray paint can't handle.

The first drawer has one divider and isn't terrible deep.  This seems like a good spot for wipes and various baby stuff (socks?  hats?)

The second drawer is much deeper and has three dividers.  We plan to cloth diaper, so this seems like the perfect space to separate prefolds, covers, and workhorse/ AIOs (I sure do hope I got those terms right.  Cloth diapering is complicated)

The last drawer is also pretty deep.  I figure this where the actual clothes have to go. 

So there you have: the first edition of making room for baby.  To finish the room we still need a crib, mattress, bookshelf, and chair of some sort (glider or rocking?).  I also plan to make curtains, a crib skirt, and fashion up some new lighting.  Stay tuned as there will be more baby updates to come (as well as some non-fetus related posts as well- I promise!)

Back Again... and Pregnant

So I pulled a disappearing act again- so sorry.  I know you all have not been able to live with yourselves without my little projects and updates.  But I have a really good excuse this time.

So January, I was moving along on that pantry project.  And then I got really tired, like "OMG, I can't function or get off the couch tired."  That should have been my first sign something was up...  You see we had a little oopsie in the middle of January.  And I was sure we were fine...  but maybe not.  And every time I asked the magic8 ball online if I was pregnant, it always said yes.  Please note that magic8 balls are always right. So after a particularly odd day, I told Seth we needed to take a test.  And before I could even set that bad boy down to start the timer, they yes-you're-pregnant-freak-out-now line popped up.  So I freaked out.  And so did Seth.  This wasn't our plan at all.  But I found a doctor and made an appointment and they did the blood test thing.  So we scheduled more appointments.  And they found a heart beat really early.  And somewhere along the way, we got really excited.  So baby G is on his/her way!

So, here I am in week 17 (the baby is the size of a turnip!).  The nausea and holy hell tiredness have been gone for about a month.  School is over for the semester.  So its time to blog again.  I have energy and time, which equals projects.  Seth and I plan to start shopping for the nursery this weekend (yes, I am a neurotic planner, so nice of you to notice), so you can expect updates on that.  And my grandmother is getting married at the end of the month and I am planning her wedding (that story deserves a post in itself), so you can expect some fun crazy posts about that.  And I have pregnancy updates.  And I have to finish that damn pantry project.  So for now, I am back.  You  may celebrate with non-alcoholic sparkling cider.