I'm gonna pop some tags. Only got $20 in my pocket.

Since I love me some Goodwill shopping, I decided to take part in Young House Love's Thrift Shop Challenge this week. 

The rules were simple.

1. Go to the thrift shop with only $20 to spend. You're supposed to take a picture of this, but I was alone and I didn't actually have a $20 bill. I just had my check card and I probably don't want that photographed.

2. Find some goodies totaling no more than $20 and share what you found.

3. BONUS! Take a picture with something referenced in the song.

So, I headed over to my second favorite Goodwill; the one in Eagan. (Minnetonka is my favorite one because it has the BEST stuff! All of the richie riches from Minnetonka drop off their name brand stuff with tags still on it!)

I browsed around and saw a few things that sparked my interest.

I thought these mirrors for $9.99 each would have been cool with a little bit of a makeover. I've been looking for a set of mirrors to put above our bed, but haven't had luck yet. If there would have been 4 of these, I may have blown my budget and bought them all. 

This pillow from Target was cute and I thought it would have looked nice as an accent on our bed, but then I remembered that any pillow that we don't sleep on is never actually on the bed unless we have people over and the might see our room. So, I decided to pass on spending the $6.99. 

(PS- Since Target is HQd in Minnesota, the Goodwills around here are chock full of brand new Target items from past seasons. Some Goodwills, like the one in Minnetonka, have entire sections of Target stuff! The downside is that it all has red tags and red tags are never included in the 50% off tag sale on Sundays and Mondays. I personally think most of the Target stuff is overpriced for Goodwill, but it's still cheaper than full price!)

Then I came across this guy...

It was hard to resist at just $2.99, but for some reason I couldn't think of anywhere it would go in our house. (Totally joking on wanting this!)

So what did I actually buy?! 

Shockingly, I only spent $2.13 on the thrift store challenge!

It was on this little guy here. It's actually an old cologne bottle (that still smells like cologne inside), but I thought it was really cute with the gold accents. I haven't decided if I'll paint it yet because the greenish glass is cool, but I can also picture it in crisp white with the gold accents. I thought he was worth the $1.99 plus tax. 

And as for the BONUS step, you're dang tootin' that I stepped up to that challenge. My take on it?

Just rockin' that Cosby sweater over my green dress. 

If I would have planned ahead a little more, I definitely would have hit up the Minnetonka Goodwill to what kind of goodies they had there! 

Check out my Goodwill shopping guide for crafting, too! 

DIY: My sister's wedding

My sister got married on New Year's Eve! I'm so happy for the adorable couple. My sister looked absolutely amazing and her groom looked so handsome in his tux and bow tie.

Me with my sissies.

Since it was on New Year's Eve, they went with that theme and had so many cute touches throughout the day like champagne with little tinsel skewers in it during cocktail hour, mini champagnes as the favors and meal indicators and of course, as midnight approached, they handed out all sorts of fun new years props like hats, noisemakers, leis, glasses and crowns.

They brought in McDonald's cheeseburgers and fries as a late night snack! 

I helped throughout the planning process by making the save the dates, invites and most of the signage that they used throughout the day, so I thought I would share some of the goodies.

Save the date:

This is just the back side, but the front is just a photo of the couple. It was an oversized postcard in an envelope. 

Invitations:

My sister wanted something very clean and simple for the invite. They had a calligrapher do their names and then we worked with a variety of fonts on the invitation. Everything was printed on a bright white card stock.

Information card:

RSVP:

They circled the number of people the invitation was for. 

I also made a few other things:

They had a wish tree for their guest book so this told people what they should do. My sister put one of the actual tags in the empty space on the page and framed it. 

A fun sign! 

I also did some other stuff like table numbers, beverage signs for the bar, one for the Oreo cookie groom's cake, etc. Simple stuff that just let people know what they should be doing :) 

It was a truly magical day and a great way to spend New Year's Eve! Now if only I could have such an amazing New Year's Eve celebration every year! 

My own groom and my devil eyes. 

DIY: Ornament Window Decor

We have huge awesome windows on the front side of our house and I wanted to dress them up a bit for the holidays this year. I pinned this idea a long time ago and as soon as Thanksgiving rolled around, I was decorating the house for the holidays. 

I bought two tension rods at Menards for about $4 each and put them up made my husband figure out how a tension rod works. He put them up and I couldn't even see where they were, so that's a win in my book. 

Then I used clear fishing wire type string to hang the balls at varying heights. I used 6 balls per window and tried to alternate the colors. Last year after Christmas I bought a pack of 50 plastic ornaments at Target for like $2 or something ridiculous like that so that's what I used for this project. 

So, other than the new tension rods, this project was free! 

Don't be alarmed, but I actually used PhotoShop on these next two pictures because they were too dark. I know, I'm surprised at my lack of laziness as well. 

Unfortunately, that was pretty much my only DIY project for the holidays because I was wrapping up my Master's degree and really didn't have time to make anything new for the holidays this year. BUT, now I'm done with school and will have so much time on my hands!

DIY: Bachelorette Party Game

I hosted my sister's bachelorette party a few weeks ago and didn't really do much DIY stuff for it, but did play one game that I thought was fun. 

First, everyone was greeted with this message when they came over:

(Yes, I still have that there 3 weeks later. It's totally an appropriate greeting for my guests)

At my bachelorette party, my sister printed a giant photo of my husband and had us play Pin the Penis on Marty, so I wanted to change it up a little bit for her party.

I printed an 11 X 17 photo of her fiance's head and then put some brown paper behind it so we could play a kissing version of Pin the Whatever on the Fiance.

I made everyone put on lipstick and then put a sleeping mask on them. I spun them around a few times and made them try to kiss George's lips without using their hands. 

Then I put the person's initials next to their lip mark so we could see who got the closest. 

The bride didn't even get close, and my other sister ended up planting one right on George's  lips! 

I put together these little favors for the game winners.

We also took photos of everyone when we went to dinner as 'before' photos and then the next morning as 'after' pictures. I'm working on a little project with those, too. 

My sister, the bachelorette. 18 days until the wedding! 

DIY: Painted Bathrooms

Over the summer, I painted our master bathroom (hard to call it that when it's about 6' wide by 7' long) and over Thanksgiving weekend I painted our guest bathroom. So now I have two bathrooms, a front door and our shutters that are the same color but I don't care. I love the color! 

It's called Impetuous Sea by Dutch Boy. I still have 1/3 gallon after painting two rooms with two coats each, our front door and our shutters. This stuff is super thick because it's primer + paint and it covers really well. A little spendy (about $35 for a gallon), but I think it was worth it. I wonder what will get painted navy next? 

Guest bathroom before:

Ignore the hideous countertops..

And after:

 

So in love with my new shower curtain from Target.

The only before and after photo I have of our 'master' bathroom is this Instagram picture, so it'll have to do.

The nice thing about having two bathrooms with the same paint is that I can use the same gray hand towels in each instead of having two different sets. Gray and navy were our wedding colors, so I obviously like the combo.

We still have one more half bath that could use some new paint, but it's in the basement and is usually only used by me and the Mr. so it will probably wait.

Oh, and since I mentioned the front door, I have a new winter wreath that I made!

Digging it.

DIY: Bridal Shower

This past weekend was my younger sister's bridal shower, and as the Matron of Honor (why does it have to be Matron of Honor for married women? I hate the word Matron.) I planned the shower and one of the other bridesmaids hosted it at her house. This type of thing is right up my alley; I used to plan events at a previous job, so I get excited when I get to put those skills to use again.

Since the wedding is on New Year's Eve and the colors are black, silver/pewter and ivory, I wanted to play off that a bit. We decided to make the shower a cocktail hour theme and asked all of the guests to dress in cocktail attire. I thought it would be fun to give people an excuse to dress up and attend an evening shower.

Thanks to Pinterest, I found some appetizers that I thought would be more unique than the typical appetizers people find at parties. 

For the food, we had the following:
Caprese skewers
Italian skewers
Pear prosciutto crisps
Guacamole bruschetta
Pasta salad
Fruit kabobs
Artichoke dip
Veggie tray
Cheese tray
Lemon Raspberry Cake
Pumpkin Bars

We also made a signature drink, The Frenchy, and had white and red wine, Mimosas, Cranberry juice with champagne and sparkling water.

 These were so good! They were the hit of the party!

 

The cute silver trays are from Dollar Tree and the silver chargers are from Michael's and were also a dollar. 

I didn't have any hand in actually making the desserts, and I only tasted the lemon raspberry cake, but it was delicious! The one thing I did do for the  dessert table was make this adorable heart garland.

I got the idea from this post on Pinterest

Source: honeybeevintage.com via Malisa on Pinterest

The woman who made that one sewed hers, but I don't sew, so I just taped the string to the hearts. I bought black and silver glittery paper and some shimmery white and nearly black paper. I failed to figure out that as the hearts spun, the back of the paper would show and I had only used single-sided paper. Oh well. It was still cute!

 

Sorry for the bad lighting. 

The beautiful bride cutting her cake!

The rest of the decor was kept pretty simple. I got a few vases from Dollar Tree and covered them in black glitter and then got a cute 'D' vase from Michael's for about a dollar. I used red roses for contrast and simplicity. I also printed some engagement pictures and placed them around the room.

Everything turned out really well and my sister loved it, so that's all that matters! Next up, Bachelorette party!

Bride, sisters and mom.

Meeting Young House Love

I was so excited to find out that John and Sherry from Young House Love would be stopping in the Twin Cities for their book tour. I read their blog religiously and really admire all they have accomplished, not only in what they've done to their homes, but in how they've become professional bloggers with a huge following all while staying down to Earth and humble.

The book signing was held at West Elm, a store I'd never even been to. I wanted to buy every thing in the store because it was all so adorable, but alas, my pockets aren't that deep. A friend, her baby and I got in line at about 4:30 and it really wasn't that long at that point. They hadn't let YHL fans into the store to line up since it was technically still open to the public, so we waited outside for about an hour and a half. I hadn't really thought that we'd be waiting outside, so I neglected to wear a jacket or bring a hat or mittens. Even though it was a nice day in MN (50 degrees in the middle of November is nice!), it was a chilly wait.

6:00 finally rolled around and we were let into the store. Then, magical fairies (aka servers) started handing out the most delicious cookies in the world (Gingerbread, Cranberry Oatmeal and Chocolate Chip Sea Salt) and hot chocolate with marshmallows. I'd stand in line for 3 hours for those cookies again. Once we were in the store, it took us about an hour and a half to get to the front of the line to see John and $herdog. It really wasn't a bad wait since we wound through the whole store and got to view all of the merchandise (well played, West Elm) and I got to coo over my friend's adorable baby the whole time.

I must say, West Elm totally had their act together. It was organized and I didn't feel on guard about all of the people around me. Usually in a crowd that big, I get a little anxious, especially if people are breathing down my neck. But, I felt I had enough personal space around me the whole time. Everyone in line was patient and non-jerk like, which made it even better.

Finally, we got to the front of the line. I went up first, handed my camera to a West Elm employee who was taking pictures for everyone and awkwardly introduced myself to John and Sherry. I thought about what I would say the whole time I was in line and really didn't come up with anything good. Normally, when I'm nervous, I just start blabbing, and that's exactly what I did. Oh, but first, Sherry complimented me on my glasses. So sweet.

When I started talking, I think I mentioned that I was a loyal follower on Twitter (@malisaann) and Instagram (malieser) and that we'd tweeted each other a few times. John mentioned how he was really bad at Twitter, but was thankful for a system that helped him stay organized (Tweetdeck maybe?).

I quickly asked if I could get a photo and of course, they said yes. They must have taken 800 photos with fans last night.

 

 When my friend went up, they cooed over the baby and when they got a picture, the baby was fascinated with Sherry's ponytail. She wouldn't look at the camera, only Sherry's ponytail. It was amusing.

Even though it was a long wait for such a brief encounter, it was totally worth it. We left the store at about 8:00, which is when the event was supposed to end, but the line was still out the door of the store. My bet is that Sherry and John stayed until every fan had their book signed. They seem so genuinely thankful for their fans, which makes them even more lovable! I'm looking forward to digging into the book and finding some new projects for the house! 

Edited to add: John tweeted me after reading my post and clarified that they use Hootsuite to stay organized, not Tweetdeck!