It's Christmas Time!

Lately I have been in the Christmas mood. I just want to drink hot chocolate in front of the fire, watch Christmas movies, and decorate. My last post promised a picture of the old window we are going to use as a decoration for our wedding. I got the Christmas burlap ribbon last night, so I started decorating right away. Here is the window we bought:

Nothing too special about it now, but we will be adding ribbon and lots of pictures to it later. Here it is after I added some holiday cheer to it:

I love how simple it is. I almost added more ribbon down the sides, but decided less is more with this piece. The burlap ribbon is from Ballard Designs. It comes in other colors and you can order it here. The ribbon has wire in it, so it bends nicely and holds its shape. The boxwood wreath is from Target. I have been eyeing it for a while, and once I saw it was reduced for Black Friday, I didn't think twice before putting it in my shopping cart. Target tends to have that effect on me. :)

Dan and I just bought our first Christmas tree. :) Have I mentioned how much I love Christmas? Or Christmas trees? Or Christmas lights? At Christmas, it will be one year since Dan proposed in front Christmas lights. :) We found a great 7 1/2' prelit tree at Home Depot. We had looked there a few weeks ago, but were really glad we waited because the prices were drastically reduced when we went back. Right now, I am enjoying it looking natural, but I will be decorating it soon! If you are in need of a tree, I recommend looking at Home Depot, but do it soon. They were almost sold out by Cyber Monday.

Happy Holidays!

Canton Finds

If you are into vintage, antique, or rustic decor, Canton is the place to go. Since our wedding will have some vintage flair to it, we made the trip down to good ol' Canton to get a few items for the wedding. Our flowers will be in vintage mason jars and eclectic bottles, rather than traditional vases. Luckily, we hit the jackpot on the mason jar supply. We found a booth where they had more cool looking mason jars than we could possibly transport ourselves. At first, I thought it wasn't going to work out since upon finding them I saw that the jars range up to $32 a piece! We need about 60 jars, so there was no way we would pay that price. After flexing my ol' college Negotiation course skills, we ended up getting tons of jars! They range from mid-sized to large and clear to light blue. Since our wedding will be in the spring, the blue will offer a nice hint of color. Here are some Pinterest photos that inspired our plan for our reception flowers:

We also found a nifty antique window. I plan to add ribbon to it to hang pictures on at our wedding. Something similar to this one:



In the meantime, I am going to Christmas it up! I will post a picture as soon as my Christmas burlap arrives!


All of these pictures are from Pinterest and can be found on my Pinterest Wedding folder.

Our Engagement Photos

We got our beautiful engagement pictures back! Our photographer is Bryce Covey, who is very talented! He shoots film, which allows him to capture the emotion of the moment. The lighting in his pictures is amazing. I never get tired of looking at his work. He is also a hard worker and will do anything to get a great shot. His insight and energy makes him fun to work with, too. If you need a photographer, we highly recommend him. Here are just a few of our pictures.

 

 

Halloween Party Success

This post is way late. Better late than never, right? The party went well. I ended up with a lot of extra food and drinks. I was excited to have an excuse to bake, so I made a lot. I was planning on making more. I had a whole Pinterest album of recipes ready to go! (Good thing I ran out of time before making enough food to feed an army). Here are a few pictures of some the goodies.

Veggie Plate:

Witch Oreos:
 

  

Inspired by this Oreo ad:

 

Spider Cupcakes:

 

It was my mom's idea to add the chocolate sprinkles to make them look hairy. :)

My favorite- hot chocolate rice krispie treat mice:

 

 

 

To make these, just add a cup of hot chocolate mix to the rice krispie mixture before stirring. You can add more to darken the color and intensify the chocolate taste, but don't do more than two cups max.

 

And a little bit of decor:

 

 

This chubby guy makes me smile.

 

The winner of our pumpkin carving contest:

 

 

 

Name Those Shoes

Can anyone please name these shoes? Seriously, I want to know what they are so I can wear them on my wedding day. :) 

Even a brand would be helpful...

Bridesmaids Packages

I wanted to come up with a fun way to ask my girls to be my bridesmaids. I had initially planned on sending each girl a sugar cookie decorated with icing like a bridesmaids dress with a cute little card that says "will you be my bridesmaid?" Well, after receiving a bridesmaids package very similar to this, I knew I had to do something different. I got this idea from Pinterest to do a chain of paper dolls. Here are the bridesmaids invitations that can be found on Pinterest.

OnceWed.com via Pinterest

I wanted to put a little more work into the details and make each girl unique- just like they are in real life! Our wedding colors are taupe and champagne, which already made more work for me. These colors are not easy to find! Since my plan for my bridesmaids' dresses is for each girl to wear a different dress, I wanted to make each dress a little different too. My mom and aunt helped with the design of the dresses and the paper used for the dresses. The most challenging part was the hair. I gave each girl the hair style I think of them as having (either their most recent or how it was when I saw them last). I felt like I needed a hair cutting license to do this! It took several attempts before getting a usable pattern of each girl's hair. Here are the dolls before any hair:

...and before any faces:

 I wanted each "doll" to look like each of the girls and would have their names written on them. This way, the girls would know who the other bridesmaids were. (When I am asked to be a bridesmaid, I always wonder who the other girls are- not that it matters, just curiosity. I feel bonded to the other bridesmaids, like a small sorority). :)

Here are some close ups:

Once I finished the "dolls," I made a handwritten card for each girl. I used a dark taupe for the card to provide contrast to the "dolls."

To strap the two pieces together using a piece of twine-like ribbon. I absolutely love this ribbon and want to use it on our wedding invitations. I really wanted to keep the whole look simple, although that kind of went out the window when I decided to make each girl different.

I didn't completely give up on the cookie idea, so I decided to make homemade cookies with no icing. I thought I found the perfect solution when I found these cookie cutters at Williams-Sonoma. Had I known how much work I was going to put into these cookies, I would not have bought this stupid thing. This product is terrible. I ended up spending two straight days baking, just trying to get these cookies to be readable. If you use any recipe other than the one provided in the box, these do not work. If you use the recipe and instructions provided in the box...these still do not work. You pretty much have to be a professional baker or have several days to waste to figure out how to get these cookies to still have a legible message after they are baked. Since I am no professional, it took me two days and reading all the product reviews for advice. Only one review was helpful.

I found food storage bags at Paper Source and made tags for them, punched holes, and used the same ribbon from the cards.

To make a "tea and cookies" feel to the packages (or coffee for Kara and Anjelica), I bought initial mugs from Anthropologie.

via

I found cute little bins at Michael's- my go-to place- to complete the gifts.

Thankfully, I received great feedback on the packages. Everyone seemed to appreciate them, which made it all worth it. :)