DIY – Page 7 – Dust Bunnies and Dog Toys

Hiding Those Ugly Septic Pipes

Published on July 13, 2016January 5, 2017 by Jenna3 Comments

It’s been another crazy busy week here at the DB&DT household. Tequila went in for surgery on her torn ACL yesterday so we’ve been out of our normal routines to make arrangements for that which hasn’t left much time for editing photos. So although I planned to share my experience at this weekend’s Palmer Garden & Art Faire today, I haven’t had a chance to prep all the photos. Don’t worry the Garden Faire recap will still be coming, along with all the fun art I found, so stay tuned for that but today I’m sharing a quick project we did in the yard this weekend!

Remember those two ugly septic tank pipes near the chicken run? Well, they’re looking much better now. Check out how we disguised them!

We started with some reclaimed bricks that we got for free on a local buy/sell page. I leveled the ground around the pipe and stacked the bricks to create a column.

Here’s how it was looking once I got them stacked all the way to the top. That huge rock in front of the bricks is one I discovered while leveling the ground and had to take out!

I originally planned to have a stack of bricks around one pipe topped with a large paver stone and a pretty bird house, the place a faux rock shell over the other pipe, but when the plastic rock arrived I didn’t love it. It works fine from a distance but since this is an area that we are IN daily and is near the deck it wasn’t realistic enough. That’s when the hubs suggested we stack bricks around the second pipe as well and create an arch from the two bases then place a bench below!

I was definitely on board with that idea, but wanted to make sure we could have something that looked good but was still easy to remove for when we do need to service the tank. He assures me his plan will work, so I’m now on the hunt for a bench.

He removed the existing caps and replaced them with these removable ones. They tighten on with a metal clamp band. I placed the bricks on the edge of the pipe so we could get the widest area possible between the two stacks for the bench.

The hubs also had the brilliant idea to use a board across the entire space while stacking to make sure we had the two stacks parallel to each other so things will line up when we build the arch.

And here’s how the spot is looking today! Since the bricks and wheelbarrow were all free the only cost so far is the new pipe caps, two top pavers, flowers in the wheelbarrow and my fun new garden art sticking up out of them. But we’re still less than $50 for everything so far.

I’ll find a new spot for the wheelbarrow once we have a bench, but for now it brings much needed color to this corner of the yard. I plan to relocate two lilac bushes to the wheel bed next season so when they bloom this will be a fabulous spot to sit and enjoy their fragrance, while visiting the chickens. Plus it will be just off the gravel pathway we plan to put around the chicken yard next season so it flows nicely too.

Since everything is dry stacked, it’s easy to move out of the way when we need to access the tank pipes and it can then be reassembled quickly when we’re done. I’ll share how we create the arch over top when we get that part done. Even if it takes a while I’d be happy to put some pretty lanterns or potted plants on top of the pillars once we get a bench and call it good for this season!

I’d love to hear what you think about our septic tank pipe disguise, so please leave a comment below.

Shared on Knick of Time’s Talk of the Town #29.

Shared on Stone Gable’s Scoop.

Appreciating Progress

Published on July 8, 2016July 13, 2016 by JennaLeave a comment

Summer is flying by and my list of projects is still pretty long. I’ve been super busy with photography clients recently thanks to wedding season, which is a good thing but it doesn’t leave much time to work on my gardens and I was getting frustrated by the slow progress of things. But then I realized I need to remember we’ve only been in the house three years and have made some big improvements in that time. So today I thought we’d take a look back at just how far we’ve come!

The biggest change is the back yard. This is what it looked like during the final stages of construction before we moved in after winter had hit. It was a completely blank slate.

And here’s what it was looking like about a week ago. Some of this is just temporary as we add other features in stages, but it’s filled in pretty well for our weekend and evening DIY efforts.

This was the main area of the back yard the first spring we were in the house. A big field of bare dirt and gravel with the hideous chain link dog run we patched together until we could get the fence in and the yard hydroseeded.

Now it’s functional and pretty. Eventually the grass will grow back in where we tilled to do the rock garden, and it will look seamless.

And just look at how many of the projects I had planned that have already been done! The gravel patio, fire pit, egg table, raised garden box and deck landscaping are all done or in progress. And a few of these ideas ended up being changed in favor of a better idea, like putting the strawberries in the gutters around the corner and switching the sectional seating on the deck for a dining table. There’s definitely some fine tuning and clean up to do, but it’s a space we can enjoy now rather than a bare patch of dirt.

The raised garden box used to be surrounded by dirt and had a few measly little plants in it that eventually drowned from the rain off the roof. Now it’s surrounded by pea gravel for a finished look and has a healthy crop growing thanks to the new gutter we had installed.

The biggest change is the landscaping around the deck. It looked like a wild patch of weeds at the beginning of this season. Now its something you actually want to look at! And it will only get better and better as the seasons continue and the plants fill in more.

Last season we had the new sectional seating on the deck which was nice, but the change to a dining table works so much better for this spot and has gotten a lot more use. Plus the dogs appreciate being able to “look out” from the edge of the deck this season and the Hubs and I enjoy the shorter walk to the chicken coop from that side of the deck thanks to the stairs he put in.

I had planted these two bushes on the side of the deck at the end of last season and was extremely frustrated when the dogs ripped out the bush on the right before it could establish new roots. But it ended up being a blessing in disguise because it made a spot for the new steps and rain barrel for the gutter.

Around the corner we’ve gone from an awkward cubby to a defined planting space and chicken run. I had planned for a large garden in this space but soon realized that the exposure wasn’t right for that plan so it became the chicken space instead and it’s perfect for that.

The revised plan for this side cubby has mostly come to pass. We did add a storage shed, although it’s more for the chicken equipment than the yard tools I’d imagined but again it works for our needs. And I’ve decided that I won’t ever use a potting bench so I don’t need one, although I’m sure the Hubs would still love to find a spot to install a smoker! I’ve started on a plan to disguise those not so lovely septic pipes which are inconveniently in the middle of this space so watch for that update soon.

Even the chicken space itself has seen improvement. Going from the original run to a full on chicken yard that’s super secure. Plus it gave me another little spot to plant. The lobelia I planted along the side met destruction thanks to Brinley’s rapt interest in the chickens so I pulled them out and put in grass seed so I can pull up the curtains and let the chickens enjoy sections a little at a time.

The new strawberry gutters are doing well too. It seemed like the strawberries had a slow start, but pretty much all of them now have buds, which should soon be yummy desserts or garnishes for my sangrias!

Along the fence the giant wheel the Hubs brought home for me has finally found a purpose with the new planting bed. I think next year I’ll just have flowers in this spot so I’m not worrying about the dogs getting into edible crops, which will all be raised and together over by the garden box. I’ll probably need to do some weed control in this spot come fall since I was in a hurry to install the bed and didn’t kill the grass underneath before hand, but some newspaper and another layer of dirt should do the trick.

On the other side of the house the gifted garden is starting to fill in. It looked pretty full when we put it in that first summer, but adding the grass next to the rock border became tedious to maintain so I’ve appropriated all of those rocks for the deck landscaping and have begun the switch to the same block edgers we used over by the wheel bed. I need to figure out what I’ll do around the deck we plan to add on the back corner of the house next year since I’ll need to tie that into this bed somehow so I’m moving slowly on changes over here for now.

This is how the bed looked at the beginning of last season. Just a few things coming back and lots of holes to fill in. Now I’ve got a good base of plants to create the cottage style garden I want over here.

Out front we’ve went from construction city to looking like a home. It still isn’t where I want it to be but at least there’s landscaping to welcome guests and dirt isn’t splattered against the house every time it rains. I’m working through several ideas to change things up out here next season so I can decide on one and start some of the prep work this fall.

The front bed was the first space I planted around the house and I was so excited to have any kind of landscaping that I didn’t plan much ahead when selecting or placing the plants. Several didn’t survive the first winter, and those that did took a while to come back in the second season. This season I’ve fill in some of the holes and am starting to figure out what works best out here. I’m planning to revamp this whole area next season but need to finalize the plan before I do anything else. For now I’m just enjoying the colors the different flowers bring.

This little cubby in the front has been an awkward spot since the beginning. It at least gave the house a bit of finishing when we first set up the space, but it had the same issue as the other side where several of the plants didn’t survive the first winter and the rest didn’t show much last season. This season I’ve filled in a few spots and called it good until I can figure out the best way to make this spot function better.

Our freebie raspberries looked quite spindly when they first went in last year, but produced a fantastic harvest well into the fall. This year they’ve come back even fuller and are budding like crazy. We added a haskap bush in front of them and moved the water tank over by the shed so the hose can gravity feed when we need to water.

Even the view from the driveway has improved. The Hubs massive shed hides the ugly meters on the side of the house and the rain garden has become a nice focal point as you approach. I’m still waiting for my clematis to grow in over the tire wall but when it does I will be amazing. I’m hoping to get fireweed to fill in behind the tires and dwarf dogwood to cover the ground in front, but those are both low priority projects.

This garden has become my home for “lost” plants who need to winter over or no longer have a spot when I change things elsewhere. This casual approach has created a nice variety and the foundation of what will one day be a very lush space.

And lastly, the spirea bush I planted just outside the fence when I got the ones on the side of the deck was looking quite dead earlier this season. I was planning to tear it out, but luckily hadn’t gotten around to doing it because a few weeks ago I noticed green on it’s branches. I pruned it back to encourage the new growth and that seemed to work because now it has one stalk of blooms! Hopefully next season it comes in even more full and completely fills this spot, blocking the view of the leech field pipe just out of the photo from the laundry room window.

As you can see there’s been some pretty good progress since we started this little adventure. I’m trying my best to appreciate how things are now and enjoy the little bits of joy I find when out in the yard. If I hadn’t been so busy I would have ripped that spirea out weeks ago and wouldn’t be blessed with these pretty little blooms now. So I’ll continue to tinker and tweak, which is what every gardener will tell you they are always doing. 🙂

The Growing Season

Published on June 22, 2016June 22, 2016 by Jenna3 Comments

Today I thought I’d share how the front flower bed and rain gardens are looking this season. The perennials from previous plantings have slowly been coming in and I’ve added a few new items as well to get the front beds going for the season, although like most other things around here, it’s a work in progress. (On that note, pretend you don’t see that crazy hose situation going on in the foreground there. Our expandable hose bit the dust last season and unfortunately we haven’t figured out a good system for storing the long hoses we replaced it with just yet so they stay coiled in this pile for daily use for now.)

The first thing that showed up was this amazing allium, which sprouted and then produced a long stalk with a odd shaped bud at the top. At first I thought an alien had taken up residence in my flower bed, but thanks to the local garden group I was able to identify it and enjoy watching it blossom.

We moved the rain barrel out of the small corner next to the garage so it can be used in the backyard with a gutter so the space needed a bit of rearranging. I filled the void from the rain barrel with white iris from my mother-in-law’s garden that I brought back when we picked up Brinley and added some phlox between that and the hosta that has come back much better than it did last year. The phlox is doing quite well and has doubled in size since I planted it, so I’m pretty sure it’s happy there. I’m also loving the metal hearts I added on the wall, which will look even better when the plants grow up and fill some of the empty space below them.

None of the previous plantings on the other side of the walkway came back so I took the opportunity to try something new – an anemone and a sea pink armeria. The armeria reminds me of a Dr. Seuss plant, but hasn’t rebloomed since I deadheaded spent blooms, so I might need to find a better spot for it.

The anemone is doing very well, although upon closer inspection last night I noticed aphids so I’ll have to address that. It’s been a horrible season for pests so I’m checking out every DIY remedy available online.

I moved our little wooden moose statute into the corner to hide a cable that comes out of the garage wall until the plants grow in and do that on their own. In the opposite corner next to the porch, I paired this metal sphere and piece of driftwood for a fun little garden vignette.

There are more spheres on the far end of the bed on the other side of the porch. This space got several new plants including daisies, lupine, yarrow and day lilies transplanted from my mother-in-law’s garden.

The daisies got a little wild as they started to grow in so I used some of rusty cement stakes to create a little support system for them. I’m hoping they go to seed at the end of the season and self-sow an even bigger crop next year.

Mr. Frog found a nice little resting spot next to a big piece of driftwood in the back of the bed. He’s sorely in need of a paint job but I think I’ll let him be this season and address that next year since I love his colors in this spot.

I filled the whiskey barrels on the stoop with dusty miller and purple alyssum, which has been slowly growing in. Beyond that there is white alyssum in wire and burlap pots on each side on the first step, with purple daisies in rustic metal pails on the top step. Those extra pots you spot hanging out on the porch are awaiting new homes in the gifted garden along the side of the house. Before that can happen I need to weed that bed and make a bit of room for them.

The rain garden is coming along quite well, and without much effort on my part, which is my kind of garden. I moved the tall obelisk we got at the Great Junk Hunt last year to this space for some height at the back of the garden and really like it here. I plan to transplant a lilac in the gifted garden to that same spot at the end of the season so it has more room to spread out, which will hide a large section of the tire wall. 🙂

The clematis on either side of the garden weren’t growing in to cover the tire wall as I’d hoped so I decided to give them a bit of guidance with temporary tape. One side is looking fairly lush and seems to have adapted well, but the other side is still a bit sparse. I may add a third and forth clematis along the back wall next year if I don’t see much growth by then.

The chives I planted out here at the end of last season when cleaning out the garden box are doing well and have actually bloomed.

The mint from our herb planter last year is also coming in quickly.

This mystery plant in the front of the garden is growing quite rapidly, but I haven’t been able to confirm what it is just yet.

I was surprised to discover the vinca vine I planted when we first did the rain garden had come back in after it showed little signs of life last summer. Next to it the spikewell is quite lush although it hasn’t shown any buds yet.

The water iris are slowly growing, but I’m thinking they may not bloom again this year.

But the large clumps of iris that came from our friend’s yard in Seward have finally started blooming! In fact almost every plant has several blooms opening on it!

The other two lilacs that were at the back of the garden have been relocated to either side of the garden so they have room to establish and spread out without crowding each other. I still need to clean up the areas around them but at least they have their own space now.

The lambs ear from my mother-in-law’s garden survived the winter after transplant and has grown taller, so I’m hopeful it will continue to grow and create more shoots.

Here’s the view from the driveway of the whole scene. The pile of rocks in the foreground are headed for our new rock garden and there are small batches of ground cover along the front that will eventually grow in to cover the slope.

Between the house and the rain garden lies the raspberry patch, which is coming along nicely. I pruned back the dead branches to encourage the new branches to produce which worked well since we have lush growth on the stalks and numerous white buds on each plant so we’re on track for a bountiful harvest.

We also added a haskap bush in front of the raspberries. Haskaps are similar to blue berries, but are better suited for our climate. Hopefully we’ll harvest those to accompany the raspberries in our summer time desserts.

The hubs also rigged up the big water tank you see in the background to gravity feed the soaker hose in the raspberry patch, which has been super convenient on the occasional hot sunny day. I’ve decided to let the fireweed that’s encroaching on the raspberry patch be for now since both are fairly dominant and should fight each other out. Plus it blocks out the ferns and other undergrowth that would like to spread out from the woods just beyond and if something going to spread I’d rather have fireweed than a thorny Nuka Rose!

Hopefully I’ll get the gifted garden in shape soon and can share that as well, along with the finished rock garden around the back deck. Stay tuned for those updates and a few other little projects in between. 🙂

Our New Rock Garden

Published on June 17, 2016June 18, 2016 by Jenna1 Comment

We’ve been working on one of my big projects for the summer over the past several weeks and although it’s still a ways away from being completely done, it’s finally at a point where I can share the progress. Check out the new landscaping around our back deck! It’s been an intensive project, especially since we’re sourcing all of the rock from else where around our property, but that keeps cost low. Here’s how the space looked just after the Hubs tilled it right before Memorial Day weekend.

Talk about a blank slate! But I had a vision and have evolved the plan as we’ve put it together. The biggest break in this project came when I spotted some boxes on the side of the road with some green sprouts sticking out of them. We were on a schedule to get somewhere so I didn’t dare ask the Hubs to stop to investigate and when we came home later that day we used an alternate route so I was sure they had likely been claimed. Luckily, the next day we drove by again and they were still there so this time I made the Hubs pull over and quickly stashed this amazing haul in the truck!

Big beautiful columbine plants! And there were lots of them too! I could have filled this whole bed with them, but I didn’t want this area to be all about one thing, so a few of the larger ones went in this bed and the rest found homes in the gifted garden and the rain garden. Here’s how things were looking mid-way through after I’d planted the columbines and a few other plants, including a spirea I weathered over in the pot from the end of last season and a couple new plants from a local charity plant sale.

And here’s how things are looking these days. I’ve still got a lot to fill in along the edge of the deck and plan to put more rock a bit under the deck to complete the look, but I’m super happy with how it’s looking so far.

Here’s a view of the far side where the Hubs added steps so we no longer have to walk all the way around the deck to go feed the chickens!

I’ll be sure to share the finished project when it’s all done, but until then enjoy this before and after! From a mess of weeds to a defined space. What a difference!

Any guesses what I’ll be working on this weekend? 😉

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DIY Metal Planter & a Peek at the Garden

Published on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Jenna1 Comment

Today I thought I’d share a quick peek of our veggie garden and a quick DIY planter I installed. We had a red and white onion sprout in the pantry so I figured I’d give them a shot in the garden this year. With all the spots in the garden boxes full I decided to add a secondary planter at the end of the box.

I originally envisioned using an antique wash tub and stand, but just wasn’t willing to pay $100+ for a planter. So I used my DIY skills to create something similar starting with this metal stool we’ve had for several years. You originally saw it on our balcony at the rental house. It’s since been painted over and the hubs was using it to position the fan for his big green egg, but now that he has his table he doesn’t use it any more, so it was available to be repurposed.

I added this large metal tub on top of the stand to create a planting space. The Hubs drilled a couple of holes in the bottom of the tub for drainage since this sits just under the edge of the roof.

I used empty pots to add additional drainage space and reduce the amount of garden soil needed to fill the tub. Luckily, I had quite a few to choose from!

And here it is filled and planted. I’m not sure if this little experiment will yield a harvest but it’s interesting to give it a try.

It looks pretty cute next to the main garden box, which I decorated with two lemon cypress trees on either side. I’ve been wanting some of these and finally spotted them at the nursery so I snagged two. They are supposed to be natural mosquito repellants so that’s a nice added bonus, especially since the windows are right there.

In the box we’re growing peppers, lettuce and cherry tomatoes. We’ve already harvested some of the lettuce for salads several times and the tomatoes have tiny buds on them. The peppers are the same as the ones in the burlap planters I shared previously, which sit next to the large whiskey barrels on either side of the slider to our Master Bedroom that hold 4 more tomato plants, although those are a “patio tomato” variety I haven’t tried before.

Between the garden box, onion planter, wheel bed and the strawberry gutters we should have a good crop of fresh produce to use for salads, meals and desserts this summer! 🙂

The Wheel Bed

Published on June 7, 2016 by JennaLeave a comment

I finally put that amazing rusty metal wheel the Hubs dragged home for me forever ago to use! It’s now the centerpiece of our new garden bed where the two metal bed frames I found junking recently also found homes.

The wheel will serve as a support structure for two cucumber plants and the bedframes will be perfect for the peas to grow up and attach to as they climb.

Above all this rusty goodness is a Kokopeli figure, who used to be cloaked in an obnoxious multi-color western pattern. Nothing a coat of spray paint can’t fix! Now he compliments the rest of the metal tones in the bed. And hopefully he works his fertility magic to make these plants grow large and strong to produce a good crop!

I created the bed using some stone edger blocks and backfilling over the grass with dirt left over from the chicken yard install, topped with garden soil. I added a few marigolds and lobelia along the front of the bed and finished it off with two metal ~~pieces~~ sculptures I found when I salvaged the bed frames.

Now I just have to water and wait until everything becomes an amazing lush harvest! Luckily, this is a low spot in the yard so it should get extra watering from runoff. Hopefully that will mean we don’t have to wait quite as long. 🙂

Burlap Pepper Pots

Published on June 3, 2016June 22, 2016 by Jenna8 Comments

Hi everyone! I’m feeling quite a bit better and am back to the usual routine, albeit a bit slower than normal. Today I thought I’d share this quick project I did over the weekend to create planters for some extra pepper plants that didn’t fit in our garden box. I originally saw the idea on Pinterest but it didn’t have a tutorial so I just kinda made it up as I went along. These cute pots are actually 5 gallon buckets.

This is how they started life. Not quite the look I was going for. So I dug out some burlap I’d picked up last season and did a test fit to see how it would work. Since my pieces were fairly large I folded them in half, which worked well to block the blue color and store logo on the bucket.

To finalize the fit I laid out the burlap on the ground and wrapped it around the bucket until I was happy with the placement. Then I cut pieces of twine and tied it around the bucket at the top and bottom to hold the burlap in place.

I fiddled with the burlap on the first bucket, trying it both pulled tight and leaving it loose. I ultimately decided I like the loose option which made them look like old grain sacks just filled with dirt. Here they are tied and ready for plants.

The Hubs drilled a couple of drainage holes in the bottom of each bucket and I filled them with soil. Each got a single pepper plant so that when it grows I can add a support stake or cage.

And here’s the finished line up. The Hubs was actually pretty impressed with how nice they turned out – and I know this because he commented on them unprovoked! Since I took this shot the other day Brinley decided to ‘help’ with the gardening and pulled the pepper plant on the right out of the soil. Luckily, I caught it quickly and was able to put it back in and give it some extra watering to revive it but I’m not sure it will make a full recovery.

But even if it doesn’t I’ve got the two others in buckets and three more in the garden box so hopefully, we’ll get quite a few peppers to enjoy this summer! I’ll be sharing more of our garden starts next week so watch for that. Until then have a fabulous weekend! 🙂

Shared on Knick of Time’s Talk of the Town #24.

DIY Tiki Torches

Published on May 27, 2016 by Jenna1 Comment

As we continue to spruce up the yard and prepare to enjoy it all summer, keeping the bugs at bay was a top priority. If you’ve ever visited Alaska you know that our mosquitos are massive and excessively numerous. We did some DIY tiki torches last year using wine bottles based on this Pinterest idea, but since we wanted them near the deck and didn’t have a spot to hang them from we created some simple stands with a closet rod and tuna cans like this tutorial.

The wine bottles fit perfectly in the tuna can and were certainly pretty, but I was constantly worried that the dogs would break the glass and as the temps cooled in the fall the fluid started to freeze overnight. We took them down when we closed up the deck for the season, but left a few of the stands out over the winter. The stands didn’t fair well with the weather and were looking pretty beat up by the time spring rolled around so I knew we needed a better option.

That’s when I spotted this idea on Pinterest. I showed it to the Hubs and he liked it so we picked up the supplies we needed on our next trip to the hardware store and used the handy cutter from our recent Insulator Garden Art project to cut the pipe as needed. Everything went together very quickly and soon we were ready to add the wicks and fuel.

The Hubs did swap out the clamps we’d used to secure them to the deck since the copper pipe was a much smaller diameter than the closet rods had been. But we were able to reuse the wood blocks he’d attached to the deck to keep them flush with the deck boards.

We both like that the slimmer profile of these torches help keep the view open and there’s no glass to worry about. We have found that the design doesn’t hold much fuel so they do run out every few days, but we keep the tiki fuel on hand in the BBQ table so it’s easy to refill.

We placed several around the perimeter of the deck to create a “no-fly” zone for bugs, which seems to work fairly well. Hint – there’s a sneak peek at two of the projects I’ll be working on finishing up this weekend in the photo below! 🙂

What do you think of our new and improved tiki torch design? They will certainly get plenty of use this weekend!

Our Budget DIY Wedding

Published on May 24, 2016 by Jenna5 Comments

Summer has arrived and along with it come wedding season. Since our wedding was before I started the blog I’ve never shared it here but I thought you’d enjoy seeing our budget-friendly DIY details, so here’s a quick recap.

We chose a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado as our venue because they had a beautiful garden area where we could host the ceremony. Rather than spend money on decorations that would only be seen briefly we kept things simple and let the focus be on us and the lush backdrop.

I ordered bouquets for myself and my sister who was my Matron of Honor from a local grocery store’s floral department and added burlap wraps with ribbon and a rhinestone pin to each. Since the hubs wore his uniform he didn’t need a boutonniere which was an additional cost savings to not having to buy a suit or tux. We requested his best man – who was his brother – wear a navy suit, which was readily available in his finance VP wardrobe. I gave my sister free rein on her dress selection just asking her to pick something navy blue as well, so she found an option she can wear again at a reasonable price. My mom paid for my dress, which we found at David’s Bridal for around $900. I had a local seamstress add a purple sash I bought online to the waist to customize it a bit. I found a rhinestone headband and simple veil online for a good price and bought shoes I could wear again to complete the look.

The reception was held in the restaurant’s upstairs dining room where the tables were arranged in long rows. We placed a simple burlap runner that my mom made down each and sprinkled river rocks from the dollar store (if I remember correctly we cleaned out their inventory! LOL) between the frosted votives provided by the venue. I ordered a bunch of daisies from the same vendor we used for the bouquets and snipped the heads off so they could be added in randomly among the rocks and candles.

The venue provided printed menus customized for us as part of the package price. They were simple but worked well with the tone of everything else we had going on.

Our favors were photo tile coasters I made with modge podge and my own Alaskan photography. The place cards on top were tied with simple jute twine and the symbols notified the wait staff which entrée each guest had pre-selected.

Our guest book was made of pre-cut card stock in our wedding colors where guests could leave a note and slip it into slots in a scrapbook. I later added photos of each guest next to their cards to finish the project. I found the scrapbook on clearance for around $15 and used a coupon to buy the card stock as 12″ x 12″ sheets that I cut down so the total cost with the photo prints came to around $30.

The frame we had nearby held the day’s schedule printed on our wedding stationary – left over stock from a DIY kit I picked up at Michaels with another coupon to make our own invitations and response cards. The frame later became décor in our home and now holds a recipe for a good marriage which I toasted the hubs with at the reception printed on some left over stationary.

The venue was able to make simple cakes so I requested a two tier Chantilly cake with berries for a garnish, which was DELICIOUS! (FYI – We’ve since discovered that Whole Foods has a Chantilly cake that is practically identical so we order one whenever we’re in Portland to celebrate.) The rhinestone monogram topper was another Michaels coupon bargain that ran me around $5. It later became an ornament for our Christmas tree with the addition of a ribbon hanger so now we can enjoy it every year.

My mom picked up these little treat bags on clearance and added some of her favorite candies. We borrowed a basket from the venue and set them out next to the cake with a few extra daisy heads and a votive to dress them up a bit.

We also saved by not hiring a DJ. Instead we put together a playlist of music for both the ceremony and reception. A friend helped make sure the right song was selected for the first dance and other important moments, which only took a few moments away from her enjoying the event.

As a photographer myself, I knew the importance of having a visual memory of the details of our wedding, so we made photography a priority with a chunk of the budget (photography credit for all photos to Nicole Nichols Photography). The other big expense was the food, but it was very good and well worth it.

I don’t have the exact figures anymore but the final total came to around $8,000 thanks to our budget conscious shopping and DIY choices. That didn’t include the rehearsal dinner which was covered by the hub’s family, but that was something that had been saved and planned for in advance.

I encourage couples planning their wedding to prioritize what they want and compromise on the things that aren’t as important or don’t have as much of a lasting impact. It is possible to have a dream wedding on a budget, it just takes planning and determination. 😉

Vintage Insulator Garden Art

Published on May 20, 2016January 5, 2017 by JennaLeave a comment

While we were in Portland to pick up Brinley we stayed with my mother-in-law and since Mother’s Day was the weekend we were there we decided to create some unique garden art for her gift using some of the vintage glass insulators we got from her sister’s ranch in Colorado. You might remember some of them from our kitchen island pendant lights.

The entire project was super simple. We started with various lengths of 1/2″ copper pipe, which the hubs cut right in the store parking lot so it would fit in the truck. He used this nifty little tool we found in the plumbing section.

Back at the house we added some pipe sealant tape to one end so the insulators would have a bit more grip.

Next I chose where I wanted each pipe to be in the garden and pushed it down into the soil. Then you just put an insulator on the top. Repeat a few more times and you’re done!

While the copper and glass combo is quite interesting, we used varying heights on the poles to create additional interest.

And here’s the finished project! Simple and sentimental, that’s my kind of mother’s day gift! I plan to create a similar display in our garden as well, but have a bit more prep to do before we’re ready for that.

And the project took was so easy I had time left over to appreciate the garden including some amazing iris growing nearby! I was able to bring home a few bulbs from both of these plants so hopefully later this season I’ll have blooms like this in my yard!