Giveaway Winner and a Guest Post

Good Morning everyone! It's Wednesday-we finally made it to hump day and the wedding is a week from today! We're soooo close....


Alright-I know you guys aren't here to hear more about my wedding it's time to announce the Pampered Chef Giveaway winner! This is such a great giveaway and I'm so grateful to Hollie for the awesome prizes she hooked Newlyweds on a Budget up with. If you missed the chance to enter this giveaway don't worry-we'll be having another giveaway next week!


Drum Roll Please....

Congratulations to Gin! Our guest blogger is also the winner of the pampered chef gift basket! Email me at kari@morganandkari.com with your address so I can send you your fun new Pampered Chef items!


Today's lucky winner is also my FIRST guest blogger. She is none other then Gin from Life as Topher's Mama! Gin is one of my favorite bloggy friends-I gravitated to her from the very beginning of my blogging experience. I love how honest she is-she just tells it how it is. She's got an AWESOME craft for us today so  take it away Gin!

Hi!

I'm gin and I write a little blog called Life as Topher's Mama  I write about anything and everything that strikes my fancy; most recently my newfound interest in crafting. 

I started my blog as a newlywed back in 2008.  For this reason, Ms. (soon to be Mrs.) Kari has a special place in my heart.  My wedding was a dream; it was small, intimate and largely DIY.  Just like her!
I loved everything about my wedding day and I'm not going to mince words here; I also LOVED getting presents.  From our Kitchenaid mixer to our new luggage, our generous family and friends took care of us.
There were some gifts however, that were not exactly our style.

What you see are green plastic margarita glasses.  These are not "us" for a number of reasons: one, this shade of green isn't great.  Two, we don't drink margaritas.  However, I have held onto these for almost three years now.  We found them in the top of our most unused cabinet languishing and full of dust.  The husband pulled them down a couple of weeks ago and tried to toss them in our garage sale pile.  To his dismay, I reacted overly offended and told him I would "upcycle" them and give them new life.  He was appalled that I used the word "upcycle."  But upcycle I did {into a gorgeous center piece} and I want to show you how you can too!

First, you arrange your glasses according to how you'd like to arrange your glasses.  I decided on a three glass base with one on top.

Now, gather your materials.

What you see here is spray paint (I chose red), coffee beans (I'll explain) and the glasses.  What you don't see are tea candles and a hot glue gun (more on that later).  For now, you need to spray paint your glasses.

I had never spray painted before and learned a few lessons, so bear with me.  First of all, even though you're pointing the nozzle down, if the hole is pointing up, you will get sprayed in the face.  Second of all, put newspaper down on the driveway before you spray.  My driveway now looks like a crime scene.  Lastly, when spray painting an item with a lot of curves, I found it's best to turn them upside down.  The paint pooled at the base of the glass, again giving the effect of a crime scene.
I sprayed about two coats on these glasses and let them dry.

Next, I brought them inside and hot glued the edges that would touch together.

Next is the fun part.  Remember those coffee beans?  They're French Vanilla and smelled divine.  I took those and poured them equally into each redone glass.  I added tea candles in each one and nestled cream colored flowers around the middle of the center piece.

I cleared our perpetually messy table just for y'all, so you could see this beauty by herself.

I hope y'all like my margarita glass upcycle!  When the candles are lit, the French vanilla smell wafts around our house and makes me feel so good.

Kari, congratulations!  I know you're wedding will be beautiful and will be the perfect start to a beautiful marriage. And, now you know if you get any gifts that maybe aren't your style, you can turn them into something that is! If this is the first you've ever heard from Topher's Mama, stop by the old blog and say hi.

Thanks so much for stopping by Gin! This craft is absolutely adorable and kind of makes me excited for the potentially crappy gifts I might get. Be sure to head over to Tutorial Tuesday #5 to enter your crafts into the linky so we can all share in your craftiness.