Pillow love

Do you have any idea how much a ring bearer pillow costs these days? For anything remotely interesting, it's upwards of $60! Absurd, I know. And clearly I am not willing to pay a dime for something that I think I can do myself. So I whipped up this little cutie this weekend for a total cost of about $3.

Ruffles, as delicious and intricate that they appear, are super easy to make. There are a hundred tutorials about how to do them, so I'll assume you all know how to Google & be brief. But basically you sew a single stitch down a long piece of fabric. Then, holding one end of the thread (only the top stitch side, not both) you scrunch down the fabric.

I whipped up 5 rows of ruffles & pinned them onto my pillow fabric.

Then, sew your ruffles on. I love little details, so I decided to use contrasting thread (navy thread, pink fabric) This made it nearly impossible to sew them on with the machine without two lines of thread showing; so I sewed mine on by hand. If you use the same color thread as the fabric, I think machine sewing would look fine. Then, just sew together, stuff, done. I also tacked a ribbon on the top of mine, you know...to tie those ever important fake rings to. (2 year olds should never be in charge of fine jewelry.)

My cutie pitutie nephew-to-be Brycie will be carrying this down the aisle...lets hope he's feeling in touch with his feminine side that day!

Good finds

So today I found two great cooking related finds, that made me happy enough that I had to share them with my web followers...
1. Homemade taco seasoning mix. I am a big fan of anytime I can make dinner without the help of processed foods. I guess I just like the thought that I know exactly every ingredient that goes into my food. Anyway, I found this great recipe tonight to make homemade taco seasoning, to use instead of those store bought packets. I made some up tonight & got rave reviews from G...score! I had to agree. here's the link.

2. My fellow female coworkers & I like to refer to our crock pots as our "wives." You know, because they cook dinner for us while we're at work! We'll say to each other, "So Jessi...what is your wife cooking for you tonight?" Clever, no? Anyway, today I found this blog with a new crockpot recipe posted for every day of the year! Need I say more?

No turning back now!

The moment I have been waiting for has arrived. The three magical words every DIY bride wants to hear. After weeks of research, designing, printing, cuting, gluing, stamping (& of course, bedazzling), the invitations are...wait for it...IN THE MAIL!

I have to say that even though I significantly underestimated the time it took to me to put 80 invitations together from scratch, I loved that I handmade each one. As cheesy as it sounds, as I did my final "quality control check" (as G called it) & placed each one in its envelope, I couldn't help but feel like I was sending something extra to all of our guests. Something you can't buy in a store. And that's what I hope our wedding turns out to be; handmade, and something that couldn't possibly be bought in a store.

On a lighter note: Nothing says "there's no turning back now" than inviting 150 people to watch you get married. (Grin)

Wedding Inspiration

I made this the other day for our wedding website and just love it...just random pictures I have found along the way that represent what I love and hope for our wedding to be.

I can't wait to see how close I come to all my "inspirations" when all is said and done.

Paper Shout Out

So tonight I was chatting with a friend about all my wedding crafts to date, and we got on the topic of wedding invitations. She had made her own invitations for her wedding, and I was reminded what a hassle she went through to find the right paper products for the job. So for what it's worth, I'd like to use my little piece of the world wide web to commend a couple great paper & craft vendors on a job well done.

I had originally decided to take the easy way out and buy my invitations, and scoured the internet for exactly what I wanted. Nothing was good enough. (Come on! You only get married once.) Not to mention, I wasn't willing to pay over $5 per invite for an invitation that did not live up to my standards. Who would? So began my quest to make the perfect invitation.

The design I came up with was fairly simple, or so I thought. My vision included a tri-fold square invitation which I would need to make out of 6 by 18 inch cardstock. In navy. So again I googled and googled for 18 inch cardstock. And let me tell you, I logged some serious hours into this search. I had almost given up hope and resulted to gluing together two smaller pieces, which for the record gave me nightmares of the glue coming unstuck en route and anxious guests turned horrified after opening up the envelope to see an invitation in pieces. (Sorry, the bride nightmares have seriously kicked in...)

Anyway, my paper prayers were answered one night when I came across a post on The Knot which recommended Anchor Paper & Cards & Pockets. To make a long story short, I ended up using them both with excellent results. Through Anchor, I was able to order all the cardstock I needed cut exactly to the size that I needed for an incredibly reasonable price... $25 for all 90 pieces, including shipping! And they even mailed me the scraps that they ended up with after cutting. Very green of them, those Minnesotans. You have to email them through the website to place your order but I worked with Emily and she was fantastic. Through Cards & Pockets I was able to order all my envelopes for only 10 cents each! As well as some custom colored & patterned accent paper. They have every color you could ever want & offer samples too.

Speaking of samples...I am a sucker for surprises and don't want to take that away from you when you see a square envelope in the perfect shade of navy blue sitting in your mailbox...so here is just a taste of what I'm working on:

So here I sit with my fabulously inexpensive paper and a guest list of 150 people to invite staring me in the face. Wish me luck!

Flower Tees

Boy do I have some spoiled flower girls. :) So I love the image of our four little adorable nieces getting ready the morning of the wedding wearing matching tees. So I made them some.

First, I made these adorable "no sew fabric flowers" from a tutorial I got from this post over on a great craft blog, Samster Mommy. I followed the instructions pretty much exactly, except adding more tulle! (Can you really ever have too much tulle?) The materials to make all 4 (with lots left over) cost me about $2, and I love how they came out:

Second, I picked up some Old Navy Tee's I snagged on sale for $4 each. I also picked up some rhinestone iron on "flower girl" letters for $1 each at AC Moore. As good as the deal was, I realized quickly why they were so cheap. I basically had to glue each rhinestone individually onto the shirts because the adhesive wasn't sticking. So it took me longer than I thought, but for about $5.50 per shirt, I rather like the result...

First Day of Spring with a taste of Summer

Granted it was in direct sunlight all day, but I couldn't believe my eyes when I checked our thermometer Saturday! It was an absolutely beautiful day, and Greg and I took advantage of our first real warm day to do some work outside...raking, cleaning out the flower beds, and painting. The weather is back down to high 40's today, but in New England, even a taste of summer is oh so sweet.

Don't worry...we didn't work ourselves too hard.

Wedding shoe perfection...almost

So I have had a vision of my wedding shoes since before G proposed (I had high hopes for you babe..wink). I mean, the shoes have always been more important to me than the dress. Seriously.  My perfection shoe vision has always included hot pink, which I perhaps not-so-coincidentally chose as one of our colors. My vision was working out quite nicely. Until I my first google search, after which I realized quite quickly that it was going to be more than an afternoon with the laptap to find a pair other than something resembling stripper shoes. But tonight I found these beauties (here):

The heavens opened up and I think I actually heard a little chorus of hallelujah playing over my head. They fit my vision to a T! (T strap? Ok..terrible pun.) If only I wasn't an amazon. (FYI, in Dani lingo amazon = being 5foot9inches tall). However, it is now my new quest to craft myself a pair similar out of less high strappy heals. Wish me luck, blog followers! And if you get any leads on pink strappy sub 3 inch heels, please send them my way.

Buttons, beads and bows

So all my blog stalking lately has got me inspired to get in touch with my crafty side. And with a wedding in July (basically the only thing on my mind) it was a no brainer. Between G and I we have 4 adorable nieces as our flower girls, and I wanted to give them some jewelry to wear in the wedding. I am mildly obsessed with the JCrew Pearl & Ribbon necklaces and decided to use it as my inspiration. (I saw a grown up version done on a blog last night, but in my sleepy late night state, I can't remember where...)

Anyway, after an attempted-quick-but-turned into not-so-quick stop at the craft store, this is what I came up with...

They were actually pretty easy to make, and at about $3, cheap! And every bride to be can appreciate that. I wanted to personalize each one, and initials were out (they all have names starting with A), so I settled on the name beads, which I loved in the end. The buttons were my craft store "eureka!" moment, but I love how they add a little whimsy. I also like the ribbon tie instead of a clasp...adjustable to a perfect fit, and soft and less scratchy on little ones skin. One down, three more to go!

Where has the time gone?

Time is a funny thing isn't it? For instance, I'll share a funny story from my day.

I got out of work today a bit earlier than usual, and my drive home was filled with excitement of thoughts of all I could get done with my "extra" time in my day. However, this was squashed when I pulled into the driveway and realized both my house keys and wallet were nestled inside the house in my gym bag, not in my purse. I spent the next hour and a half on the phone with G (who is not-so-conveniently out of town) devising a plan of how to get into our house which I have so affluently demanded be more secure than the white house. The credit card swipe didn't work (thankfully for my own sanity), the idea of breaking the window was ruled out (as it's winter and replacing a window is not in my skillbook) so we settled on a locksmith. Ok, necessary digression...to sum it up, my "extra" time was shot, and when I finally got into the house, it was almost 7. Not that this was all that late, but my motivation went out the door with my $100 and the locksmith.

But I guess it wasn't a total loss. I spent the night planted comfortably on my couch, catching up on my girly DVR'd shows, and reading up on friends fabulous blogs (new favorite is A's craft central, here); which made me realize that I have my own blog which I've been neglecting. And this made me realize (yes, this strange string of events really is how my brain works...ha) that sometimes we get so caught up in "time" and using it wisely, that we neglect the lighter side of life.

So the moral of my story? Well I guess my point is, is that I need to hold myself accountable to spend more time "wasting" time. You may think that's easy to do, but for someone who has spent the last 3 months moving, packing, unpacking, renovating, planning, cleaning, there hasn't been much time left over to "waste". Whatever that may be...blogging, crafting, sewing...we'll see. But here I am! Stay tuned for more....