Flower Files: White Spring Wedding

Growing up my mom used to take me around her yard, quizzing me on what types of flowers were in her garden.  Although I have living houseplant for more than a few months, her love of gardening had to rub off on me somehow.  Due to my love (or rather, my mom's love) for flowers, I have developed a hobby of arranging wedding flowers.

Kari, the sister of a friend of mine, had a beautiful but simple wedding and the flowers she chose certainly reflected that!  She got married at the beautiful Shade Tree and Evergreen in Frederick, MD.  Her bridesmaids carried small white tulip bouquets and she had a mix of white tulips, rananculus, and calla lilies.  They were beautifully captured by Kristen Thomas Photography.  Kari reminds me of my own younger sister in some ways so it was an extra joy to be part of their special day!

Lessons Learned while Marathon Training

Due to a series of fortunate and unfortunate events, I am running my first marathon in less than two weeks.  It's the Marine Corp Marathon, which is supposed to be a good one for beginners.  For all the other beginners out there, here are some tips I have learned along the way:

• Don't run a marathon unless you want to spend your entire weekend running, or thinking about how you have to spend so much time running.  I lazily put off my "long runs" (such a relative term), for Sunday mornings, which inevitably means I spend the entire day Saturday dreading the run, and then the entire day Sunday actually running.  "Alright honey, I'll see you IN FOUR HOURS.  What's that? My mom wants to take me out for lunch? I can't because even if I leave at 8 am, I won't be able to meet mom until dinner time."  Obviously, your significant other needs to be on board since you will no longer be available for golfing, brunch, or anything else more fun and relaxing.

• Don't run a marathon if you want to look good.  I know other people can do it, but seriously, I do not look good while running.  It's not that I can't also wear cute, matchy running outfits, but I really don't see a point in buying matching stuff when the non-matching stuff I already have will do.  Also, in order to keep my hair out of my face, my body running on proper nutrition and hydration, I wear a bright blue sweat band to hold my hair back and my navy blue shorts with bulging pockets filled with snacks, holding a water bottle in one hand and ipod in the other, hair going crazy despite my sweatband.  Add leggings under my shorts for cold days and the fact that sometimes I trip and you get the picture.

• Don't run a marathon if you want to lose weight.  I was a little excited when I started training at the though of getting in what I though would be the best shape ever of my life.  Turns out that all that running makes me really hungry - as in I am hungry all the time for the next THREE DAYS after my longer runs.  Another pitfall for me is that for some reason when I have 2-3 miles left to go, I start thinking about how good a donut would taste.  I blame it on the fact that my body actually does need to have refined carbs and sugars at that point (so I've heard).  However, because of this, I have actually ended one of my runs by going straight to the cupcake bakery by our house.  Needless to say, I have not lost noticeable weight and potentially have been gaining.

• Do have a good playlist. I am telling you this because I do not.  Since it's a little hard to always be shuffling through songs on the go, I end up listening to either the Beastie Boys or TobyMac every weekend for hours because I need something with a beat and they are the only "rap" music I have.  They were good choices for a few weeks, but they are also now in my top most played itunes list.  I am kind of wishing I had thought to load an audio book onto my ipod as I could have learned a new language by now.

I often wonder to myself how this became a hobby for so many thousands of people when the event is named after the legendary Greek runner who ran so hard to deliver the message that the Battle of Marathon was won that he died.  I also often wonder why this is a hobby for me in particular when my goal for finishing is simply not to die.  Well, that and to beat that girl whose matching outfit is so my  cuter than mine.

Bed Head(board)

Do you ever find that one not-too-well-planned project just leads to another and by the end, all this DIY-ing isn’t worth it?  Happens to me more often than not.  This was one of the few attempted projects that actually was relatively easy from start to finish and didn’t involve more work than bargained for.

It all started when Jason and I went up to Baltimore to clean out a storage unit of his that he had from before we were married.  We both moved a ton in the year leading up to our wedding so now that we’re relatively settled (as in we’ll stay at least 6 months), it was time to clear it out.  We stuffed a U-haul and the jeep full of everything and just had a few things to drop off at the dump before heading out.  Ironically, as he was dropping stuff off at the dump, I noticed we had parked next to a warehouse called “Overstock Outlet.”  It looked like the perfect place to get my craft on, so we browsed a bit.  It’s like the law of the conservation of energy, you know? (Do you know? Or am I revealing my nerdiness too soon?)  As soon as we get rid of something, we just pick up something else so it’s always at a constant level.

Anyways, Overstock Outlet seemed mostly full of stuff out of old hotels: mirrors, tables, frames and headboards.  The last two of which I thought I might actually be able to use!  Neither I nor Jason has really had a proper bed for the last ten years.  We've just had the mattress frame and mattresses, but being married now made us grown-ups, so it was about time to have a proper headboard (or maybe the implication goes the other way? Having a headboard makes us real grown-ups?).  Unfortunately, they only had full size and king size headboards. Our bed is a queen, but the guy working there convinced us the king would only stick out a couple inches.  I figured it was cheap enough that if we really hated it or just didn’t want to keep it forever, I wouldn’t have any regrets, so I think we walked away with a headboard for something like $20 and 6 frames for another $20.  Good thing we had a U-haul.

Because the back was just held together by a few screws/clamps, it didn’t look like it be too hard to unscrew the padded parts, repaint and reupholster.  I think because I planned on using a staple gun, I can use the word “reupholster,” which makes it sound fancy, but honestly, it wasn’t.  If I can do this, I think anyone can.  

The hardest part really was choosing fabric I liked. The one I really liked was also (of course) the most expensive, but I went for it since I really only needed a yard.  I got it from Joanne’s and since it’s impossible to get to a convenient fabric store in the city, just had it shipped, which was a little scary not to be able to test it!

I followed these basic steps:

-Measure as best as you can how much fabric you will need (erring on the side of a few extra inches). I’d recommend a relatively sturdy fabric such as “upholstery fabric.”

-I washed, dried and ironed the fabric just to be sure any shrinkage, ink bleeding, etc. happened before it was forever stapled.

-Unscrew padded parts from the back of the headboard.  (Or if you are lucky, have your husband/man do it.  Not that girls can’t.)

-Stretch tightly and staple along edges.  Be sure to staple far enough to the side so staples don’t show when you put that part back.

-Sand and paint frame.  Let dry 24 hours.

-Screw the upholstered panels back in.

Here is the before picture:

 

There were actually a ton of layers of fabric underneath when we unscrewed it. I tried to remove the staples and layers of fabric, but it was actually really hard, actually impossible for me to do.

So I just had to try to staple far enough in to not be on the old staples, but not so far in they would show when it was reattached.

 

When working with a geometric pattern you may need to pay more attention than with solids to ensure that the fabric is straight and you won’t have a skewed pattern (though it may not bother you as much as it would me).  Once I was done, I kind of wished I’d lined up the two pieces of fabric so that the pattern started at the same place on both sides.  Oh well.. next time.

This brings us to the frame, which basically the only thing we did to it was paint it with some sample paint that I bought when trying to decide on wall colors.  It’s Behr’s “Subtle Touch” which is really really light grey, but was close enough to white for me.  It took two coats. I wish we had sanded the frame before painting to smooth it out and help the paint to be sure to stick, but it hasn’t chipped yet.

Because the frame is actually a bit bigger than the bed, Hubs had to drill a couple holes to be able to attach it to the bed frame. After 24 hours of drying, we reattached the upholstered parts.  And the final product!

Overall, I am thrilled with how it turned out.  We just need a bigger bed to fit it now.  Oh well, at least we have room for our side tables.