how I spent my christmas vacation

Instead of cleaning up the craft room/guest bedroom like I SHOULD be doing (it's still a disaster area from our STDs which went out over a month ago - eek!), I decided to crack open some of my Christmas gifts and practice calligraphy. It's not really procrastination if I'm doing something wedding related, right??

(Handmade Weddings)

(Calligraphy Kit from Emilie Friday)

One serious hand cramp later and not much to show for it:


I had fun though! I'm still undecided about whether I want to tackle hand calligraphing our invitation envelopes. I would need to put in a lot of practice time, not to mention all the time it will take to hand address each envelope. Although....printing our envelopes for our save the dates didn't exactly save me much time.

Would you or have you considered DIY calligraphy?

white christmas and splitting the holidays

I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday! It was a white Christmas in the mountains - truly a winter wonderland. We actually ended up spending an extra day because of the 5+ inches.


This Christmas was my first away from my family. Definitely strange, but still wonderful to be surrounded by my new family and experience new traditions. The future mister and I lucked out in that we didn't have to really hash out how to handle the holidays. We just followed in the footsteps of his older sister and her husband by alternating Thanksgiving and Christmas. So this year my family got us for Thanksgiving and his for Christmas. Thanks to technology, we were still able to have a pseudo Christmas with my family early last week via video chat. Video chat also allowed me to continue my Christmas Eve tradition of watching A Christmas Story with my little brother. I might have been hundreds of miles away on my future in-laws couch watching a different television, but my brother was right next to me, on the computer, laughing with me at all our favorite parts.

"I can't put my arms down!"

How do you split up the holidays with your significant other?

merry, merry

The future mister and I are off to the mountains for a few days where I'll experience my very first Christmas away from my family. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

(source)

a-tisket, a-tasket...

a green and yellow basket (please tell me I'm not the only one who remembers this nursery rhyme)

After some thought, I decided to go with a basket and flower petals for our flower girl instead of the bouquet I made a few weeks ago. After scouring the aisles at Michael's, I purchased this gold basket at 50% off - score! I already had a few cans of white spray paint lying around, so it was a pretty quick fix.



And with the addition of some pretty ribbon and flower petals, my project was complete.



I hope she likes it and has fun "practicing" with her little brother for the big day! When I was little I always wanted to be a flower girl and would have loved receiving something like this. What about you?

table mock-up

So here are the photos from the lunch my parents had with Nancy, the hankie lady, and her husband last week.




I wish I had more to show you, but unfortunately my dad is not a blogger and only took two photos. Just imagine the table without all of the china, glassware and utensils. Our tables won't be preset since we're having a cocktail buffet. So they will just have the burlap with crocheted doilies in the center, blue mason jars filled with flowers, and possibly some votives.

I'm really glad that Nancy suggested the doilies - they add more dimension and texture to the table. Slowly but surely my inspiration is coming together in tangible form.

Did you do any mock-ups to see what your reception decorations would look like before the wedding?

card "box"

Nancy "the hankie lady" has turned into a true friendor. Yesterday she and her husband had my parents over for lunch so she and my mom could brainstorm table decor and centerpieces. I'll touch on all that a bit later, but first let me introduce you to our card "box", or rather, birdcage.


It's kind of funny. To my knowledge, Nancy doesn't read wedding blogs or look at wedding magazines, yet all of her ideas so far seem so in tune with much of what I've seen floating around wedding land lately. It was she who suggested using lace doilies underneath the mason jars on our tables - and now I'm seeing photos of similar centerpieces all over the blogosphere!

Anyways, back to the topic...My first impression of the birdcage was that it was rather large - perhaps too large to be used as a card box. My mom agreed that it was pretty big for a birdcage, but that it would look great outside at our reception and wouldn't overwhelm the space. I trust her judgment. So Nancy and her husband are going to clean it up, repaint it and decorate it with some ribbon.

What are you using/did you use as a card box?

'tis the season

I cannot believe that we are already almost half way through December! For the past few weeks I have been going back and forth about Christmas cards. Last year, I got super crafty and made these....and well, after the save the dates, I just didn't have it in me to DIY this year. So I wasn't going to send any out at all. But now cards are arriving in our mailbox everyday from friends and family and the thought of not sending out a Christmas card annoys me. Another plus - they are a great excuse to use some more of our engagement photos! Now I could have just gone to TJMaxx and picked up those cards with the photo slot (we've done that in years past). But then I would have had to worry about printing our own photos and, again, I just don't have the time or energy. Enter shutterfly.com - super cute designs and minimal effort. Yes! They have flat photo cards, flat stationery cards and folded greeting cards with hundreds of designs to choose from. Here are some of my favorites:

Christmas 2010

Air Mail Wishes

Dazzle and Sparkle

Snow Globe

Simply Peace

Starlight Joy

Full of Love

Holiday Love Sketch

I love the hand lettering of the last design, but the future mister isn't a huge fan. So we're probably going to go with the first design. It's simple and will let whichever engagement photo we choose take center stage.

Are you sending out holiday cards this year? DIY, store bought or photo cards?

*The opinions above are my own, but I am receiving 50 free holiday cards from shutterfly.com for writing this post.

invitation inspiration

Now that the save the dates are over and done with (believe it or not, I still haven't fully cleaned up the craft explosion they left behind), it's time to start looking at invitation inspiration! With my track record, I'll probably pick something overly ambitious, so I better get started soon. Like our save the dates, we would like our invites to have a vintage feel to them. I also want to include a wax seal - per the future mister's request and maybe some fabric details. Right now, I'm practically overflowing with ideas, so it might be hard to narrow them down.

Ice Cream Social via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Linda & Harriet via Style Me Pretty

Mrs. Gloss on Weddingbee

Two Brunettes via mint

100 Layer Cake

String Calligraphy - Bella Figura

Florentine - Minted

Love Letter Inspired Invitations - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vintage Airmail Inspired Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vellum Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Which do you like best? Where did you go to look for invitation inspiration?

felt flower tutorial

I forgot to include the tutorial I used in my post on Tuesday, so here it is if anyone is interested in making something similar.

I followed this tutorial that I saw on The Bride's Cafe. It was very clear, except I wish there was more photo documentation of the different steps. The included template wasn't to size when I printed it out, either, but that was easily fixable with a ruler.

A finished bouquet - I might add leaves to mine eventually, like this one, to fill it out more

All of my materials, minus my sewing kit

All of the "petals" cut out for the gardenia

Cutting fringe for the mums

Attaching the floral wire stems

Reinforcing the stems to make them sturdier

Everything wrapped with floral tape

If anyone decides to tackle this particular project, I would suggest carving out a good chunk of time to do so. If I had known how long it would take (the directions made it sound so quick and easy!), I would have found a different tutorial that used the glue gun instead of a needle and thread. But overall, I'm still extremely happy with how it turned out.

Did any of your "quick and easy" projects turn into something more involved and time consuming?

and some flowers for our flower girl

Meet M, my soon-to-be niece and big sister to E:


Like I did for E, I purchased M a book - The Little Flower Girl:

(source)

And made her something she can practice with, too:


As much as I LOVE this bouquet, I have a few issues.

1. I'm a bit nervous about it's kid friendly-ness. The flowers are attached to floral wire, which could come loose and poke out if the bouquet takes a beating. Also, the floral tape I wrapped the wires with is extremely sticky. Unless you only touch the bouquet where the hankie is, it will get allll over your hands.

2. Sorry, this reason is purely selfish. This bouquet took so much more time and energy (and needle pokes in my fingers) than I anticipated, whereas the ring bearer pillow was a 10 minute job. Is it wrong that I would rather keep this one for myself (perhaps to use as a rehearsal bouquet) and make something else for M?

Right now, I'm leaning towards making a new bouquet (using my glue gun instead of a needle and thread) with the easier to make mums (the pink pom pom flowers) attached to either wooden dowels/skewers or green pipe cleaners. Or I could just make, or buy, some fake flower petals and put them into a little basket. My mom made a good point that petals might be more fun for M anyway because she could practice scattering them "down the aisle".

What are your thoughts? Should I just give her the bouquet I already made or make something more kid-friendly?

a pillow for our ring bearer

I don't think I have introduced you all to our ring bearer yet.

Meet E, the future mister's nephew:




Adorable. Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks?

Anyway, since we've had a super long engagement, we haven't yet officially asked E or his sister, M, to be in our wedding party. But we're now past the six month mark (!) and will be seeing them for Christmas. The future mister and I have set quite the precedent with asking the rest of our wedding party, so I thought it only appropriate to put on my creative thinking cap and come up with something cute for the little ones, too.

For E, I purchased The Best Ever Ring Bearer book:


And this weekend, I made him something he can practice with:


For the pillow, I used my hot glue gun to adhere two pieces of felt, left a little opening so I could stuff some polyfill inside, and glued on some felt leaves, a flower, and a piece of twine. I think I might check at Michael's or the Dollar Store to see if they have some plastic rings to complete the look.

Did you do anything special for the little ones in your wedding party?