the lowdown on the hoedown: part one

so....its come + gone!  the little man's big day.  and in honor of his year of growing from nine to twenty-two pounds, from a small seed to a certified sprout, from a dark-skinned dark-haired babe to a mini man with flowing fair locks.... well.... a good old-fashioned [yet modern] cowboy + indian party was in order. clearly!

and you must know i've been planning it for a while.  would you expect any less of me?  the hubs uses the word 'obsessing' but i find that really harsh and all too accurate.  so let's just say planning.  ok?  ok.

i'll start with my inspiration for the whole shindig.  these arrows.

totally cute, right? vintage-inspired arrows that were DIYed by danielle thompson + posted on her blog.  i loved the concept and decided then + there that my own homemade arrows had to be made and shebang! a cowboy 'n indian theme was in the works.

so i eventually made my way to hobby lobby and started on a color story of my own....since i wanted to be able to re-use as many decorations/materials as possible [YES: STILL DUTCH], i thought back to the colors i had been picturing for hart's eventual big boy room.  and from there i settled on mainly grays, blues, reds and some natural brown tones.

i also decided pretty early on to scrap the extra fuss of using washi tape + fabric for the arrow-making, and instead settled on paint alone.  its cheap, its easy, its forgiving.

and here's how they turned out!

the secret [shhh!] is that i really only finished two of the arrows.  in the end, i decided that i really loved the look of the arrows shooting up out of vases and that to clutter up the ends with feathers + felt wouldn't have worked as well.  plus, it saved time.

and those pebble-y vase fillers?  [free] navy beans from the pantry.

i used painter's tape for the stripes which worked beautifully, especially when the tape was pressed down really well [you can see some of the stripes have a little imperfection which probably bothers only me].  i wanted a mixture of colors + striping effects so i painted some of the arrows solid grey or white first, then started in with the stripes using two shades of blue, as well as bright red, dark red + grey.  the ends are actually eraser tips in blue, light grey + teal.

the teal was a happy accident.  i LOVE the contrast of the teal with the grey, blue, red + white color scheme.  www.love.org.

here they are in action the morning of the party.  can you see how they became my jumping-off point for everything else?  i'm so happy with the vintage-athletic vibe of all the various stripes.

after making up these ten arrows, using ten dowels from a pack, i still had five eraser ends left over.  they happened to be bright green + purple....but like the third arrowhead from the left, i just painted them!  presto change-o, grey + blue arrowheads.

then i bought five long dowels, painted 'em up and i instantly had an arrangement by my sink that only cost $3 more [the long dowels were $.59 each].

and quiver me timbers!  doesn't that vase look like an arrow quiver?!  uh huh.  that's exactly what i thought.  

after i looked up the word quiver, which my parents taught me this weekend.

i thought the tomatoes were a fun addition too.  natural decor is the best!  so sayeth mr. berkus, anyway.

as i chose my paint + felt colors for the arrows, i also picked out paper colors to use for various decorations around the house.  first up: a paper banner for the fireplace.

i really wanted an eclectic yet complimentary mixture of patterns, for that modern country feel.  so from the hordes of hobblobb paper options, i chose deep blue with stars, solid dark red, blue + red gingham, red polka-dot, and a faded denim looking pattern.  oh!  and of course that siouxper cool paper in the middle [did i really just say SIOUXper?! worst pun ever?]....the painted looking tan sheet.  the blue, red and black 'brushstrokes' added that perfect native american feel.

once that was accomplished, i started using scraps of leftover paper for other projects.  next up on stage?  a modern pair of silhouettes....some teeny tiny arrow toppers....and some sail-like scraps for the chandy.  stay tuned!