a bouquet for him // cook

Now that Valentine's Day is over and Tim has received his gift, I can post about it! 

Okay seriously, this was the easiest gift ever, and it was received VERY well. I mean, who doesn't love bacon? Not Tim, that's for sure.

 

Coil the bacon up in a roll and place on a foil-lined cookie sheet, fatty side down. I put mine on top of a cooling rack, so the bacon wasn't sitting in its own fat. Your choice.

Place in a 400* oven and bake for 25 minutes.

{make sure all windows are open and the fans are running. You'll set off the smoke alarms otherwise. Trust me}

You will also need a bouquet of fake flowers. While the bacon is baking, remove the heads from your flowers. You want them to look like this:

 

You'll want the stems sticking up out of the "base" pretty far, to support the weight of the bacon buds.

Once the bacon is cooked and cooled, stick them on as far as they'll go. Arrange them in a pretty vase {even though he won't notice it to save his life} and that's it!

I was so happy this turned out so well. I'm glad I didn't decide to do a dozen of these because they were gone right away. {I helped, of course; it was only fair. YUM!}. Tim was so excited I forgot to give him the card that was supposed to go with it:

What do you think? 
Would the man in your life like something like this?

birthday photobomb

Tim heads off for work hours before I get up, but I still wanted his birthday morning to be special. Pinterest friends may already have a suspicion of what greeted my dear husband Monday morning, but in case you wanted a confirmation:

Happy birthday wishes. From twenty or thirty mini-me's.Everywhere.

I'm still finding them all over the house. He just discovered the one in the freezer last night.

Best. Idea. EVER.
Shared here, here, here, here, here, and here.

baby, you like a fine wine

You know, like the kind that gets better with age.

Not like that stuff we had last year, that was nasty. 

Not everything from your birth year is as awesome as you.

Happy 26th, husband 'o mine.

He had quite the silly surprise waiting for him when he woke up this morning... 

tell you more about it later!

all tied up // diy

We're back! And oh mah golly, what a great wedding. The bride was beautiful, the groom was dashing, the view was spectacular! And it was a fabulous celebration of a Christ-filled relationship.

Oh, and as promised: the easiest DIY fashion project ever. But first! Cutsey-but-blurry snap of the "guestbook" Polaroid picture we took:

Now, let me draw your attention to Tim's fabulous neckwear.

...Yup. That is the project I'm talking about. Seriously easy.

Here are the deets. Tim had free-reign on most of his attire for this wedding, and among other things, he wanted a non-solid black skinny tie. DONE.

Like this one from Kohls, only patterned.

Originally, the plan was to use my fledgling sewing "skillz" to whip one up, since a tie was just a couple straight seams and a few layers of fabric. Plus, I thought it'd be fun.

I found a free skinny-tie pattern online (since I'm an expert at pattern-following now, of course) and started looking for the right fabric. Thing is, though, I had the hardest time finding fabric that I thought was perfect (I'm sure what I found was fine, but the final product would be displayed on Tim at a wedding. I was really picky).

All RIGHT all right! I was totally chicken.

(if you're braver than I am and want to make a tie from scratch, go over to see Kate sew for a great skinny-tie pattern)

I had studied that pattern for EVER, though, and my wheels started a'turning.

1) Tim already owned at least two black (or black-patterned) "regular" ties
2) A skinny tie was really just a thinner version of a regular tie.
3) (does he REALLY need two nearly-identical ties?)

Ya see where I'm goin' with this?

With his permission, I borrowed one of my sweet husband's solid black ties on which I could practice surgery (he wouldn't let me use his favorite patterned one until I proved myself, smart guy). Check it out!

A little crooked, but not too shabby! The one on the right was the tie he wanted to wear for the actual wedding.

 It really wasn't so scary! See, at most, all that makes up a tie are the lining fabric, the tie fabric, and some interlining (that's sewing talk for "stuff that makes your tie hold its shape".). All I had to do was open it up, trim the interlining until it was the right shape, tuck it back into place, iron, stitch, and Tadaaaaaa! A "brand-new" skinny tie!

Okay, so hand-stitching a bunch of fabric that's miles and miles long was a pain-in-the-you-know-what, but it wasn't difficult. HOWEVER, seeing the "practice" tie turn out okay made Tim more comfortable handing over his precious wedding tie.

YAHOO!! And on the map of Yosemite, no less. Winning! haha.

The first tie took about an hour (although I was watching the Bachelorette while working, so I kept getting distracted), and the second took about 30 minutes, since I had a ruler to help me iron (ironing's the WORST) and I had a little more confidence. And it looks waaaay better.

This time, rather than eyeballing it, I cut one side first, then used that trimmed part as the template for the second side. This tie was made with a LOT nicer material than the first, which helped.

 

Plus, the center seam was a lot more centered! (You should have seen the other one, sheesh!)

After the tie was finished, I frantically lengthened the pants Tim bought for the wedding, because he somehow selected a size two inches shorter than he normally wears. What the heck. Normally we would have just returned the pants, but it was like days before the wedding and we only have a women's Jcrew nearby. So, I learned how to hem dress pants. In five minutes. The day before we left. (It wasn't pretty). Haha.

But he looked purty ;) Sorry. Couldn't resist. But they did stick him with two ladies, so......
What do you think? Would you ever undertake something like this? Would your man have trusted you? Mine totally didn't.