Trip Home: Graduation and Wedding Prep

I was home last week for Emma's graduation. She was Valedictorian of her class and gave an amazing speech. I have been watching the recording now and again for some continued inspiration to get me through my final summer of grad school. :)

I am so proud of her. 

I also wanted to share a couple of the great wedding finds my mom and I had while I was home. We went yardsaling, hoping to find wooden picture frames (hoping to paint them white, sand the edges for a distressed look, and hang with ribbons to make something like this). Anyway, we scored pretty big. We landed at the yardsale of an elementary school art teacher (who my mom happens to know), and not only did we find about 20 good frames for painting, we found an adorable old step ladder, some old window panes (for hanging pictures, as well), and an awesome vintage door, pictured below. Perfect little shelf there for setting the guestbook on. $30 for ALL OF THAT.  

Mom and I also worked on staining some old canning jars green...to make them look antique. Food coloring and mod podge does the trick. These look really cute with the pink daisies and colored ribbon and we'll use them for centerpieces.

I should have taken more pictures, really. But I will mention that we also found several lace curtains (they'll work for tablecloths to go over the colored tablecloths we've got) and a great easel on which to set the framed chalkboard I got at another yardsale. $3 for the tablecloths/easel.

Anyway, things are coming together and it's been so fun to have these little projects. I've spent some time hand-addressing my adorable kraft envelopes (brown-paper-bag style) for the announcements. A lot of people told me I was crazy for doing it by hand, but they're turning out so cute. 

Sigh. Most of all, the wedding is coming right up and I'm so excited. Sure, it is fun (okay, really fun) to have an excuse to execute all of my dream crafts. But take away all the crafts, all the projects, all the yardsaling. We could elope, and I'd still be elated. 68 more days!!