I got married recently -- two month anniversary (monthiversary? mensiversary?) today! woooo!
I figured I'd post some of our super awesome (read: frugal) decorations. What I never really considered before creating our wedding was that while individual items might not be expensive, once you need 12 (one for each table) or 100 (one for each guest), the costs really add up! So there was a lot of DIY and taking advantage of sales/cheap stores. Our goal was to spend just enough to create a festive atmosphere and make sure everyone had fun. I think goal was accomplished.
Top view of the red table center piece. Our caterer did a great job of combing our decorations with their materials. For the centerpieces we bought large glass bowls and battery powered candles each for ~$2 from Ikea, batteries at $11 for 48 (Maxwell brand), scarlet tissue paper
, and a huge $4 bag of marble chips from Lowes to add volume and hold the candle in place. Apples were bought from Aldi for less than 25cents each, and origami flowers were created from silver foil origami paper
and a lot of double sided tape. I bought 6" and 4" but ended up going with 6" cut into forths for each "petal". The 4" paper was much too thin. That was by far the most labor intensive part of decorating. There was lots of watching of HGTV while folding. The tissue paper was going to be made into puffy flowers, but I ran out of time so it just got crumpled up under the apples. Centerpieces were placed on silver doilies
and then on the caterer's napkin.
Here is a picture of the purple version with the candle lit. The candles turn on and off by a quick shake, which was pretty cool.
Easter time!
Including egg and chick cookies and pear bunnies.
Bunnies were made with love by Luke (been doing it since the 3rd grade!) from pears, raisins, cashews (should be almonds), dyed coconut, and cottage cheese for the fluffy tail.
Dyed eggs
Done with food coloring. Results turned out mixed.
I should probably just concede that my posts will consist mostly of crafts and baking.
Football party brownies:
It probably would have been nice to make the stripes prettier (made from melted white chocolate chips), but I ran out of time. I also didn't have a football shaped cookie cutter, so I made one from a soda can (similar to my mario kart cookies). However, brownies are tricky to cut, especially around the edges, and the aluminum wasn't quite up to the task.
I also made chocolate covered peanut butter balls shaped into footballs. Those weren't very pretty, since I was still putting them together when people arrived. But at least they were tasty.
Valentine's Hearts:
These are the usual cutout cookies I make, as explained in this post. I think valentine hearts are my favorites.
I found some purple sprinkles from a Halloween pack, so that was nice to have some variety from the pink and red. I suppose I could make purple icing, but I have trouble getting the proportions right.
A couple interesting cartoons vaguely related to work I do.
Functional imaging is tricky to say the least:
So many assumptions go into the scans, and then the statistical tests needed to make sense of them....
At least FMRI usually detects changes in signal (usually just local blood flow).
Radiation therapy is impressive.
Is it ironic (or perhaps natural) that two of the methods of detecting cancer -- Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and x-ray computed tomography (CT) -- and two of the methods of killing cancer -- radiation therapy and chemotherapy -- also have the potential to cause cancer?
And one for the physicists:
I've been looking for ways to (cheaply) decorate my apartment for the holidays. Right now it is covered with colored lights from walmart and dollar store tinsel garlands. I have two paper-based wreaths that have miraculously survived (with just a little touch up) to be displayed for their 3rd Christmas. Both I got from pinterest links:
Toilet paper roll wreath and Tissue paper wreath
So much hot glue.
This year so far all I've made is a little snow man coffee cup:
Back to pinteresting!
UPDATE!
After a trip to Michael's craft store, and the purchase of some clear plastic balls, I have more crafts:
