celebrating haven

this past weekend, hannah and i had a baby "sprinkle" for our friend, rachel, at the cheesecake factory. rachel is due in january and is having a baby girl! Haven Joy Vivian Sweerin will be making her appearance before we know it and we needed to celebrate her mama!

the three of us

and just for fun, here's a little walk down memory lane:)

rachel's shower when she was pregnant with judah. january 2010.

the three of us at one of my showers while i was pregnant with peyton. august 2009.

i'm sure there will be a few more of these picture traditions in the future:) apparently i have a thing for scarfs. whether it's in january, november or august(?!)

back to the shower....like hannah mentioned in her post, we were snuggled into one of the cheesecake factory's booths, which made for a great space to chat and talk about all things baby. here was the set up:

this was one of the gifts hannah and i made for rach. a sweet, little frame to store all a few of haven's girly bows. i have a feeling she is going to have tons of hair accessories! we are working on many more varieties of these types of frames to sell. so be on the lookout! this frame was especially fun because it's in our signature jade color!

these handmade blocks were a gift from hannah. she found these at the craft show she went to last weekend. 

this next gift was a special surprise from both hannah and i. rachel had emailed me a few weeks before the shower and sent me a picture of this exact wooden carrier on etsy. she was hoping to find something similar to use as a diaper caddy on haven's changing table and asked us to keep out eyes out for something like this. we ordered it that night and stuffed it full of diapers the night before the shower. it will look so cute in haven's nursery!

this was a gift i made for rach. as i said in the card to her, every fashionable mama needs a wipe clutch! excuse the poor lighting. as always, i took this in the 11th hour (literally, at 1am the night before) and my kitchen doesn't provide the best lighting at night. 

this was a fun and inexpensive project to make! i had purchased this fabric years ago and was still waiting for the perfect occasion to create something with it. 

these fabric flowers are always cute and were the perfect touch. you may recognize this left over fabric from my pillow project back during our wonder woman days. i had some leftover scraps that were waiting to be used for something amazing. fabric flowers it was. 

a close up of the ric rac detail along the edge.

overall, it was a fab shower:) we are so excited to meet haven and couldn't be happier that God gave rachel a little girl. love you, rach!!

xoxo,
maggie

sweet dreams

check out what i have been working on for the past few weeks:

this is the 'before' (yay for remembering to take this picture!):

and this is the 'after':

i couldn't be happier with the outcome of this bed.  the moment i bought it, i envisioned painting it yellow and the color came out perfect. i "staged" my dining room (thanks rach, for letting me use your throw pillow and blow up mattress!) to get the full effect of how the bed would looked completely finished. i loved the yellow against my deep brown wall!

i think this bed could work for any room. pair with some navy and grey for a little boy's room, or with coral pink for a sweet, little girl's room (i definitely contemplated this for P, but i've got other plans on the horizon for her new bed). but my favorite option is doing it up using greys and whites for a chic master or guest room. that color combo is all the rage right now and i have jumped on the bandwagon! i don't have much yellow in my house, but that may be changing soon:)

i love it so much, that i hate to part with it, but there is just no room for a full size bed in my house at this time.so here is your chance to make this amazing transformation of a bed YOURS! yep, i'm selling it:)

here is the link to my craigslist ad:
http://desmoines.craigslist.org/fuo/2663015362.html

and you can also check it out under our 'rustics for sale' tab at the top of our blog. just email either hannah or me at therusticjade@gmail.com if you would like more info.

xo,
maggie

nifty, thrifty birthday party

my little person turned two last month. it still feels like yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital:( isn't that every parent's feeling about their kids?? time flies when you become a mama. i definitely miss my little baby, but i LOVE the sweet, little girl that she has turned into. she makes me laugh every day with her new words and ideas.

a few months before the big birthday, i started getting ideas on how we should celebrate peyton on her special day. i headed over to pinterest to get some ideas. i'm telling you...if you don't have a pinterest account, get one! it's where 100% of my party planning came from. from the color scheme and the DIY decorations to the food!

other than a color scheme, i really didn't have a theme. i figured i would just do a little thrifting and see what i could find. i hit up a few goodwill and salvation army stores and found some great finds!. i always love a good bargain, especially when there's a party to plan! on the day of the party, after putting on the finishing touches, the end result could be described as 'thrifty chic'. a little vintage inspired, mixed with some bold, fun colors and patterns. and tons of DIY projects. it turned out super cute, and i was happy that i could re-use all the decorations. 

i had my fellow blog BFF as my photographer for the day. hannah as always loved being behind the camera, so i took advantage of her talent and asked her to be in charge of capturing all the necessary birthday pictures. i learned the hard way during peyton's first birthday, while i was trying to juggle being a good hostess, wife, friend and mommy. remembering to take pictures does not fit well into that equation. so i delegated that task to han. and the pictures turned out better than if i had taken them! here are some she took of the decor that went throughout the house:

these are some old bottles i found at a hole in the wall antique store on the north east side. i added a few faux flowers and arranged them all on top of a tray i already had. so shabby birthday!

here's a wider shot of the console table.  i added a few other smaller DIY pieces (one, courtesy of my friend, Meg...thanks, lady!) and some fabric that was on sale at Hankcock. but my favorite part of this table is those old shutters. they were a last minute addition, but i L-O-V-E them. they add height to that corner of the room and are the perfect backdrop for any type of decoration.

in fact, this is how they look right now....

i am a freak about Fall, people. i eat this season up. literally.  i can't get enough pumpkin bars, chai lattes, and mulled apple cider. but i also love crunchy leaves and cooler temps. this time of year i always miss my high school days. friday night valley football games were the highlight of fall. i can't wait for the day when my own kids are old enough, so i can go back to the valley stadium. although i don't think it would be the same:( besides, i think i would embarrass the heck out of peyton if i showed up in my glittery, orange bandana and homemade puff paint shirt, shakin' my keys like crazy at kickoff. not cool, mom...not cool.

side tangent over. back to the birthday party....

this is another little DIY project of mine. i was inspired by young house love's creation with clothes pins and had pinned (haha, pun intended) a project like this on one of my pinterest boards. i hand painted all of these clothes pins one night, while watching project runway, and then hot glued them on a plain, cheap mirror from Michael's. i already owned the craft paint and ribbon to hang it with, so i only had to buy the mirror and an extra pack of clothes pins. it was a pretty inexpensive project and i can't wait to hang it in peyton's room!

yes! my chairs have made a comeback!

another free project (that i most likely completed in front of the t.v. one night) was my paint chip garland. i snagged a few paint chips from the hardware store in the palate of my color scheme and found some twine in my drawer. i used a circle cutter (that i had from a previous project) to save hours of cutting out circles, hole punched the top and then strung them on the twine. and voila, homemade garland!

 

many of you know that i have an affinity for wreaths. especially homemade wreaths! all of the supplies for this one i happened to have on hand. but if you don't have quite the ridiculously extensive craft closet that i do, yarn, felt and a wreath form are pretty cheap. and the possibilities are endless!

the frame wall was a summer project that happened to match the colors of the party (can you tell turquoise is my favorite family of colors?!).  i had dozens of frames sitting in boxes that weren't being used, so i gave them a coat of paint and a new home! that corner of the room seemed to be forgotten before, and now it's one of my favorite walls of the house. i found more sale fabric to dress the table and incorporated the color theme every chance i got. the candelabras, candle holders, glass dish and cafeteria trays were all thrift store finds. and the turquoise candles were one of my first thrifty finds. the color was meant to be!

double almond cupcakes. delish!

rainbow fruit kabobs

hubby makes some good homemade maid rites!

hannah's mom makes some killer punch. she gave me the recipe and i lovingly named it 'grannie annie's famous punch'...it was the perfect color and delicious, of course! this is a vintage punch bowl that i purchased at one of my very first estate sales. it came in it's original box and i knew i had to have it. having a punch bowl is an excuse to have a party!

the decor outside was simple. we set up tables and i taped some white, plastic table clothes over them. i sat some ball jars on top and lit some tea lights inside the jars. it was definitely minimalistic, but still cute. i do love me some ball jars:)

here we are. the rustic jade bloggers, in the flesh! if you look behind my shoulder, you'll see a key and a mirror that i scored (with hannah) at an estate sale back in june. two true gems from that day!

overall, the party was a success. i had so much fun planning, thrifting and decorating. and i know that our sweet P had a blast (not so much with the decorations, but definitely with her friends and her gazillion new toys).  although i am sad to know that my little baby is getting older, i am so excited for all the years to come that i get to plan a party. i better do it while i can, before she's totally embarrassed by her dorky mom:)

thanks so much for reading! hannah and i are so excited about our new blog adventure. we would love any feedback and comments from our readers.

xoxo, 

maggie