inspiration strikes again

First off - I hope you all had a nice weekend! Wedding wise, mine was pretty successful - I've got tons to share this week.

I'm sure you've all probably experienced finding inspiration when you least expect it. Something really great popped out at me in the entrance to Hobby Lobby this weekend. I was there with my mom and she stopped to peruse the craft, hobby and DIY books at the entrance to the store. Books that I would just pass on by. But we were already standing there, so I started browsing and I found the PERFECT option for our flower girl basket. On Friday, I told our florist that we could use whatever he had available. It certainly wasn't something in the forefront of the crafting/DIY section of my mind. Seriously, though. This was too good, and too easy, to pass up.

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A flower girl basket made out of a crocheted lace doily! All you do is take a doily, drench it in fabric stiffener and shape it over the bottom of a bowl. Add a ribbon handle and fill with flower petals and Voila! I bought a cheap-o test doily and some fabric stiffener at Jo-Ann's. If my test is successful then I'll move on to use one of the nice doilies I have. So excited.

Where are some of the places you found inspiration when you weren't expecting it?

happy weekend!

Yay for Fridays! I'll be leaving work early today, which deserves an even bigger YAY! My parents got into town last night and my mom and I have a meeting with Epting Events this afternoon. We'll be meeting with someone from their floral team to discuss bouquets and centerpieces. Hopefully we'll go over timing, set up and some of the other little details, too. I'm especially happy that I was able to schedule this so that my mom can be included. Sometimes she just has an eye for things, or creative suggests that I just don't think of. And because I don't want this to be a completely picture-less (read: boring) post, here's the floral inspiration board I made for Epting this morning:

(all images from Once Wed)

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

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?

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:

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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?

decorating our ceremony space

The future mister and I will be getting married in a brick-walled "sunken garden" surrounded by beautiful foliage. It is a space that is utterly gorgeous on it's own, which is why I hadn't given much thought to decorations or floral arrangements. I figured that we'd hang some mason jars or small vases with wild flowers from a few of the chairs lining the aisle and call it a day.

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My mom, though, wasn't really convinced that this would be enough (and she is much better at seeing the bigger picture). She asked me if I wanted to have an arch. No, thanks. Well, what about urns of flowers perched on top of the wall or on pedestals like so:

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Don't get me wrong, these arrangements are very lovely but just way too big for my tastes.

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And sorry Cupid, you're not invited either.

Then mom suggested something that I think will be the perfect way to add some flowers while at the same time keeping in line with my simple/rustic aesthetic and complementing, instead of taking away from, the natural beauty of the space.

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A simple bouquet, like the one above, hanging upside down from the pillars of the brick wall would add some color and just the right amount of pizazz. Here's my (sad) attempt at Photoshopping what it might look like:

Hey, it's good enough to get my point across. For now, I think I'll just let this marinate a bit until the next time I meet with Epting. They might have some ideas that we haven't even thought of yet.

What was your design aesthetic for your wedding? How did you decorate your ceremony space?

the dreaded phone call

About two weeks ago I received a phone call from our event coordinator at Epting Events - her husband had accepted a job out of the area and she was leaving the company. Definitely not the kind of phone call you ever want to get when planning a wedding!

Since we were still at about a year out, though, nothing much had been done except for the initial meeting, proposal and deposit. Plus, Epting is known for taking care of its clients. Well today we met with our new coordinator, Wendy, her assistant Abby and even Lee Epting himself. It was a great meeting. We were able to hash out our ideas and pare down the initial proposal. No worries here!

So now that that's settled, I'm going to leave you with some eye candy - my attempt at an "inspiration board." I brought this with me today to show our coordinators, but I had to doctor it a bit for the blog so that my gorgeous, top secret wedding gown isn't seen by the wrong eyes (i.e. the future mister's).

repurposing glass jars

Ohhh, I found another project to do! One of these days I'm going to have to start implementing these projects instead of just writing and talking about them.

Anyway, I don't think I've blogged about it yet, but we're planning on collecting blue ball mason jars to use as our flower vases. So far I've collected around 5 or 6 from antique stores and flea markets. What I didn't realize at first was how expensive those jars can be! I think I paid $5 for the most expensive ones, but there were some priced even higher than that. However, I do have lots of the plain, clear glass mason jars because the future mister's parents do a lot of canning (and we get to reap the benefits). I don't really like the look of the clear glass, but they're free(!) and the following project has given me a wonderful idea on how to spruce them up. Behold:

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They're from Martha, of course. All it takes is a bottle (check!) and enamel paint. What do you think?

beautiful blooms

Love this bouquet that I saw on Style Me Pretty last week:

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pretty, pretty peonies

I'm on quite a roll these days with inspiration. So let's move on to flowers. [Sigh] Prior to my eyes being opened by what the future mister calls my wedding p*rn, I was quite content with roses or my particular favorite - gerbera daisies. Then I jumped down the wedding rabbit hole and discovered the beautiful world of peonies. Excuse me while I wipe up my drool.

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Luckily, my spring wedding is right smack-dab in the middle of peony season. Yay! However, they are quite expensive. So maybe I'll have a few in my bridal bouquet and get a similar look by substituting garden roses elsewhere.

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Overall, I think the floral theme will be fluffy and romantic with a just picked garden-y/wildflower look. Did wedding planning open your eyes to different kinds of flowers? I've lucked out, but did you end up falling in love with flowers that won't be in season for your wedding?