Aaaaaaaaaaaah..................

Long weekends are so hard-core-crazy-rock-n-roll. I love them, LOVE THEM! It was such a wonderful weekend on so many levels.

On Saturday, The Candyman and I went to our reception venue, Mere Bulles, and met with Carlin regarding a lot of little details for the reception. Since I'm bringing in a ton of stuff, I wanted to make sure it gets put where I want it all to go!

I took a few things into Mere Bulles with me and had asked Carlin to have our linens set up for me to play with. I did and it just looks so super-fab, I can't even tell you. I took in my chargers, my bud vases and a mock-up of my favor box. We even swung by the Harris Teeter and picked up some ivory flowers to put in the bud vases, just to get a good visual! I'd share pics, but you know what? I want to keep this one secret! You're just going to have to wait until I do recaps to see it all! ;) I will show you this picture of the flowers though. I put them all in an arrangement when we got home. They looked so pretty in the morning sunshine, I snapped a quick picture!

Saturday night The Candyman and I had a date night out at PM on Belmont. It's a happy medium for us - I can get sushi and he can get a burger! Yum! It was great because we had one of those kinds of really meaningful discussions that make you a better, stronger couple. You know what I mean?

Sunday we did nothing. And I mean nothing. I think the most productive part of our day was the nap we took all snuggled up on the couch. Well, I guess that's not totally true. We did wander out for sustenance and I did put all the favor boxes together. Let me tell you how much I hated doing this. Why? Because it involves tying bows. I hate tying bows. Hate. I just can't get bows to look right - ever. I have a feeling it might have something to do with the fact that I'm left-handed and learned to tie my shoes from another left-handed person who was taught by a right-handed person. My bows always look like crap. So, I spent way too long tying and retying the stupid bows.

Here are all the boxes I put together a long time ago- back around Easter. They have been sitting in the attic, waiting....

Remember all the thank you tags I printed and punched out? No? You can read about it here. I took all of those and punched a hole in them to thread the ribbon through.

Then I set to tying, retying, tying, retying all the damn bows. Why? Because I am a freaky, OCD perfectionist, that's why! Don't judge. So, you might be wondering to yourself, "Why is The Thirty-Something Bride tying all these bows around boxes with nothing in them?" Well, I'll tell you why. Because when it comes time to pack these suckers, all we'll have to do is slide the ribbon off, stuff the boxes and slide the ribbon back on. I think that would be much easier then trying to tie a bazillion bows the way I want them the day before the wedding, no? That way we can get a nice assembly line going of moms and cousins and aunts and stuff a bunch of boxes and be done!! I really do not want to stress about stuff like bows two days before the wedding. That would be mega-lame of me.

It's a sea of boxes!

It's a sea of bows!

I can't believe that The Big Show is only 33 days away! I've got most of the tasks and projects done, I just need to finish things up - like place cards (can't do it until all the RSVP's come in) and table numbers (again, RSVP's for the final numbers). I feel like I'm just humming along. Stress is at a minimum right now. Although, I did dream I was fired last night. Maybe that was the sign for me NOT to buy the expensive dress from RueLaLa. Hmmm.....

P.S. As I was finishing this post up on my lunch break, the office manager came in and asked me if I was available to go to Minnesota the week of October 5th. Um, hello? Getting married that weekend folks, no can do. Keep your fingers crossed that the sadistic powers that be don't actually make me do this.

Ceremony Programs? Check!

I'm done with the ceremony programs! Yeehaw! The Candyman and I actually finished these up together last weekend. One more thing crossed off the list!

I really can't rave enough about the Brides brand of invitations and matching everything I got at Michael's. While I did have to monkey around with the formatting a bit, it's all worth it. I've done a few things to make it my own and that's what's nice. It's kinds of like that show on The Food Network, Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. I didn't make my own invitations per se, but I took pre-made stuff and have tweaked it just a little to make it all work.

The first ceremony programs I had were tiered with a card stock backing. These were impossible to print. Even using their assigned format and font, it wouldn't work. There was a mini-WPM (Wedding Planning Meltdown) during this process. I took them back to Michael's and bought regular booklet style programs and they were a total snap.

Here's the outside of the booklet.

Here's the inside.

I printed the version of The Lord's Prayer we like. Did you know there are three different versions? We prefer the 1928 version from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

The Candyman folded all the pages for me while I assembled and tied the ribbons into pretty knots. Can I tell you what pain in the ass that was? Who knew tying knots would be so difficult.?

Remember all the little flowers I used on my invitations? Well, I have a bunch left over, so I decided to use them on the outside of the programs, just for fun.

God love The Candyman for glue-dotting tiny little flowers on our programs. Definitely not his thing.

And voila! Our ceremony programs!

While I wish that I had a Gocco printer, time to DIY everything and a little bit more creativity, I am really happy with how all my printed materials came out. I'm happy I haven't spent a fortune on all of it. I bought all my invitations (pocket fold with response cards), table cards, menus, thank you cards, place cards, ceremony programs, glue dots, mini flowers, double sided sticky tape, favor boxes, extra card stock for favor stuff (as well as guest book fun), extra ribbon, heart and round hole punchers, favor bags for inside the box (yes, I'm anal retentive), DIY personalized labels for the invites and all postage for about $350! I took advantage of every sale and coupon from JoAnn's and Michael's as I could! The one thing I did not include in this total is the ink to print all this. I've purchase 3 sets of ink cartridges as $35 a pop. I think I would have only needed 2 if it hadn't been for my OOT bags. The iron-on transfer I'm using for those used a TON of ink per page! Still, I think I'm doing pretty good since all the stuff is personalized by moi! Thus far, I don't think I would have wanted to do this any other way.

I have what I hope is my LAST dress fitting this afternoon. I can't believe that our wedding is only 43 days away! Crazy!

So tell me, those of you going the DIY route - are you enjoying it? Do you think it's worth it?

DIY Hair Toys

Hair toys and a tomatillo.

OK, so you all know the drastic fate of my hair toy from DonnaElla. It committed floral suicide on I-65 North. A moment of silence please for the dearly departed. *sniff*

Since I simply couldn't face more time on Etsy in a seemingly desperate search for a new hair toy, I decided to DIY my hair toy. It's actually turning out OK! I started the process by refusing to use hot glue and sewing only. However, the thickness of some of the layers was not allowing me to pull the thread tight enough to keep the little pearls from rolling around.

You can see in these pictures how they look a little sad. I put the center pearl on top of a sequin and that just wasn't helping the situation either. I cut it all off and went and bought some "bling" glue from JoAnn's. It worked like a charm. I still hate hot glue.

I decided to make my MOH a matching hair toy since this wasn't so hard. When I was out buying bling glue, I figured I could get some black flowers to match my MOH's black dress. Black flowers. Yeah, I said it and no, they do not exist - at least not at happy-happy JoAnn's. I really didn't think that through now, did I? What to do? Buy some cheap-ass fabric dye and dye the petals. Yes, that is what I did and it was easy-peasy-japoneasy. I bought fabric dye for synthetic material for like $3.99 (of course I had a coupon - duh) and the job was done in a little over an hour. You have to put the dye in an enamel or stainless steel pot and simmer the fabric for an hour. You also have to be really careful with the dye because that crap will get everywhere if you're not careful. I was super careful and still managed to spill.

Once I dumped all the dye out, I put the petals on top of one of those mesh metal splash guard kitchen thingies to dry over the sink.

I let the petals dry all day and then just played with them a little to get them stacked right.

I've got the same center icon of silver and pearls to sew in the middle of this flower. Once I get that done, I'll share the final results. I'm making a second smaller flowers for myself (because one just isn't enough) and I need to figure out the best way to add the alligator clip to the back. I have a couple of these kinds of flowers already (store bought) and I'm referencing them for the best method. Stay tuned for the final results!

A Forgetful Bride and DIY Hair Toys

I forgot my "I Wish Wednesday" post. Dammit. I'm just now realizing it.

I've decided to DIY my hair toy. It's work in progress and I've written about it on Weddzilla. I should have it finished this weekend! Keep your fingers crossed that it turns out the way I want it to!

Teaser. Read more about it here.

"I Wish" Wednesday

Oh, the wish is easy today! It's for TIME! The tick is tocking, and I do not mean the one associated with babies!

I had abandoned the idea of DIY personalized match boxes, but I'm rethinking the idea and I'm placing that blame on The Graphics Fairy. If you aren't familiar, you should be!

She has awesome FREE graphics for personal use. There are limitations, so just know her rules before you download, etc.

I found this super-cute antique style frame that I added my own text to. I dropped the image into a template I made in Word that will fit and cover the match boxes. I'm not totally loving it, but it's close. The font needs to be bigger and I might rotate the whole thing. The date falls on the spine of the match box and then the other text on top and bottom of the box.

Source

She also has this vintage Marriages list that I simply love! Go get lost on her blog. It's worth the time sucker.

Source

Thoughts? I could really go to town on this if I just had some more TIME!!! Anyone know where I can get some more?

P.S. Don't forget to enter my contest for 100 FREE Save the Date Cards from Rachel Jasper Designs! Enter here.

Update on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 12:06PM by Louise

Here's the final result from my match box project!

I took the original art from The Graphics Fairy and resized it, cleaned out some of the water marks and added my verbiage!

Update on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 5:39PM by Louise

For the full tutorial, click here.