Tyler and Rachel's Open House in Virginia

The first time Tyler and Rachel could get up to Virginia after their wedding for an open house was on Veteran's Day weekend, which was November 10th.  Adri and Sophia also came, and Rachel's parents, David and Brooke Judd.  It was fun to see everyone, and we put them to work on projects Saturday before the open house. 

The open house was held at a community center about half a mile from our house, and it was an ideal venue for the occasion.

Fortunately we had a good crew of workers to get the lights around the entryway and the banner flags up that I'd made.  There were also rope lights along the front of the planters. It looked just as pretty as I'd hoped it would! 

I made the wreaths with glittered organza, and painted and stenciled the letters to put into the wreaths. Rachel's colors for her reception in Michigan were eggplant and sage, so I used the same colors for the open house in Stafford.

 This is a nice shot with the parents, but I wish we'd taken a picture with Adri and Sophia in it, too.

 A three-generation photo.

 Sophia is a good little eater and liked the fruit kabobs.

Sophia was just starting to walk and she got some practice in at the open house.

 Here I am with Tresha Andrews, Bonnie Jeo and Mylinda Stone. We were all in the Kaiserslautern ward in Germany back in 2004-2007.

A talented sister in our ward, Lisa Harris, made several phenomenal chalkboards for the open house. The one below is my favorite.

I set up a milk and cookies bar for the refreshments.   

 I found the half gallon milk jugs at an Amish store in central Virginia, and used my silhouette machine to make vinyl lettering to identify the jugs.

 There were 13 different kinds of YUMMY cookies!! Many kind friends baked cookies for the open house.

I used washed out Starbucks frappuccino jars to hold the signs for the cookies 

and for the flower arrangements.  That's salt in the jars to look like milk.

Large cookie jars held the take-home favors.

Tyler and Rachel signed each of the favor bags.

I added tulle and flowers to the picture frames with photos from the wedding in Michigan.

I spent many hours looking for ideas and planning and creating the decorations for the open house, but I think it was worth it.  It all turned out pretty much the way I'd envisioned it in my head.  It was fun to see it all come together in reality!