More wedding

So again I have been failing to post, I don't have much of an excuse because it really doesn't take up much time I just forget or I don't feel like writing. *sigh* Horrible reasons, I know.

I think I will continue to blog about the wedding progress and planning since I think it will help me clear my head and organize ideas and what not. I probably will post a bit about my crafting and baking, but it it will mostly be wedding. Ooh fun! :-)

As of right now I am trying to get my save the dates done so they can go out in the mail tomorrow. I am cutting it a bit close with those since it is now past our 6 month date, but I just wanted to do them! In a way, at least to me and in my mind, they are setting the tone and theme of our wedding and now that I have them almost done I am really excited about them. They aren't as eco-friendly as a wanted, but they are completely handmade and they should still be recycle-able. I wanted to put bookmarks in them using the stamp I made that has our names and date, but they just won't happen. Maybe I'll save those for the wedding or even the invitations. We will see, so many decisions!

OH and I found my hat/veil! Yay! I found it at an antique mall, it wasn't too expensive and it is darling! It matches my shoes pretty well and will go great with my dress. Of course the best thing is that it is vintage (eco-friendly) and 50's style. :-) Love it! In fact....I'll post a picture of it. Joe has seen it already anyway. I can't keep things from him! Ha ha!




My fabulous shoes! :-)

Happy Easter

Title says it all. Happy (late) Easter! I hope you all enjoyed your day, family and some ham!

God Bless!

Wordless Wednesday

To do List

I have been making a To Do list for each month until the wedding. This month I had on there to call the caterer, done; check out organic flower options, doing that right now; make and decorate a mock/practice cake, not done; start making music list, not started. Now I also added onto that a project not related to the wedding. I am now making two Easter dresses for my friends' daughters. We picked up all the fabric the other day and I have started cutting out the pattern pieces. They shouldn't be too hard so we will see how they turn out! I'm sure they will be cute and if they aren't too frustrating, then I feel I should be able to make the flower girl dresses for my nieces for the wedding. I just can't seem to find what I want, so making them may be the only option. Hey, when I say I am having a handmade wedding, I really mean it! Ha! We will see if I have any hair left by the wedding. I may have to get a wig made for me...I wonder if anyone on Etsy makes them...

That is all for my post today. I've got a lot to do and those dresses are at the top of my list right now. Less than 2 weeks until Easter now! I can do it!

Happy Creating! :-)

Wedding Planning Inspiration

Since this is the year of the big day, MY big day to more specific, there is a lot of wedding planning to be done. I am also planning a DIY wedding to save money and it is much more fun! I am going to start posting my pictures and ideas on here so I can keep track of what is going through my head. I seriously have hundreds of ideas swimming around in my head and everyday I get more and more ideas. It is a bit overwhelming. So for the next 7 months you will get to follow along with my wedding planning for my vintage, handmade eco-chic wedding! Yay! Fun for you! I will still post about my other crafting and baking, but be prepared for some wedding crafting craziness!

How's this for inspiration?



This is mostly my color and "theme" inspiration. I love the 50's, so you could say we are going to have a 50's theme, even though we aren't going to go all out on that. Since I want to be eco-friendly, buying vintage is a good way to be green and it will also tie in with the 50's theme or feel of the wedding. We are going to use Chrysanthemums as our flowers since they are autumn flowers and grow in autumn colors. The color theme is going to be autumn colors with dark teal (or peacock teal/blue) as a contrast color because I am in love with that color!

More autumn color inspiration:

Best Deal Ever

One of the items from last weekend I am soooo glad I bought because it turned out to be one of the best deals ever (so far.)

Remember this picture?


Well, they are these amazing little floating disks that you stick a wick in. Then you pick any glass container, usually some sort of wine glass or goblet. Pour mostly water in the glass, then a nice layer of cooking oil (veg., olive, sunflower, etc.) and float the disk on top, light it and you have a nice oil candle. Amazing! I found some of a these over a year ago at a Christmas craft bazaar, but they are a new company. The Flam-Buoyants company sadly does not exist anymore, yes, I searched for it online. However during my searches I found some on Amazon.

Their price on Amazon: $41.85
What I paid at garage sale: $0.10
Savings: $41.75

Best deal ever! I am so exited! I haven't tested them yet, but they should work. This is exactly why you should go to garage sales, you never know what you might find and what amazing deal you may get. :-)

Happy thrifting! (and creating)

Thrifting Pictures

I said I would post some pictures of what I bought this last weekend, so here they are. :-)

Thrifty Weekend

This last weekend I did a little bit of thrifting and oh how I missed it so! The weather was beautiful so Friday I decided to see if anyone was having garage sales. There were a few around town but I found a church one which was indoors, I know defeating the purpose of enjoying the sun, but oh well. They had a lot of stuff (some of the marked stuff, especially the glasswares, were a bit overpriced for a garage sale.) After finding some sets of cloth napkins in the kitchen room for $.25 a set, I ventured into the other rooms. I found some fabric (2 yards, plus a remnant of another print) for $.50 and an old plastic thread case for $.50! I have been needing a thread case for all my spools of thread. Then I found the Christmas room, unfortunately did not find much, just a couple little things and the book room, where I found my best treasures! I found a really old baking book from the 1920's! It is a little bit musty, but otherwise in great condition! I also found a couple other cookbooks from the 50's/60's and a poetry book from the 60's. I paid $2 for all four. :-)

Then on Sunday, Joe's mom and I went to an antique show in Portland. It was huge and we didn't even get halfway through. I had a small list of what I was looking for and of course didn't find any of it. Isn't that how it always goes? I did find a GREAT book illustrated by Eric Carle from the 60's and in amazing condition. It is like new! I also got a pattern and a cute little German clock. We are pretty sure the clock doesn't work but I think it is a cute little decorative item. I was pleased with my purchases and of course had fun antiqueing with my soon-to-be mother in-law.

Over all it was a fun weekend and I will post pictures of my finds later!

Happy creating! :-)

Free Time

I haven't been posting again, sorry about that. Last week was eventful to say the least. After we got back from Wisconsin I had a couple days off, then Wednesday when I went to work at the kitchen shop I found out that it was closing. I'm not normally one to point fingers, but the mall just wouldn't work out a deal on the rent so the store had to close. Very sad, because I love the great kitchen stuff we sell and the amazing people I work with. Thank goodness for Facebook so I can stay in touch with the friends I made there. So last week I work about every day and Sunday was our last day. Yesterday we went in and packed up the store and now no more kitchen shop. :-(

During all that I was trying to decorate cookies, count my calories and offered to babysit my friend's kids so they could have a date night. Sadly I did not get any exercise in that mix. Hopefully I still have some loss this week. I did finally get the cookies decorated however and they turned out pretty cute, even if the cookie recipe was not my friend.







On another note, last month I had finally ordered some Lunapads and have gotten to use them once already. Actually when I got them in the mail I was so excited I even said I couldn't wait for my period to start so I could use them! Ha ha....there is a first time for everything I guess! So for any of you ladies out there interested in an eco-friendly option for pads and other period supplies, check them out! They may seem a little spendy, but in the long run you will end up saving money and you won't be filling up the landfills with pads that won't biodegrade for hundreds of years. There are tons of options for cloth pads, start looking online and you may be surprised at how fun it is! You can also find patterns and how-to's to make your own. I am already planning on ordering more and making some of my own and I hope you will too!

Happy crafting!

Gum Paste Flowers

I know it has been awhile, again, and my last post was pretty brief. As you know, my grandma passed away, so we were in Wisconsin for the weekend. It was a sad and not so fun trip, but I got to see my family again, even if it was under those circumstances. Joe went with me for support because he is an amazing fiance and I love him more because of that. Now we are home, missing Grandma, but happy I went to say goodbye.

On a brighter note, I finally got to try out my Wilton gum paste flower kit I bought with a Christmas gift card. Yay! I have been wanting to try it, but the events I did not get to last week. SO that is what I did today and it was pretty fun and not very hard at all. Of course, I just did the easy flowers, the apple blossom and the daisies. I tried to do the wild rose, but it would not cooperate so I gave up on that one for now. Making flowers takes patience and can be messy, but really is not that hard. And they look pretty in the end. Since in nature no two flowers grow to be exactly alike, you don't have to be perfect and try to make all flowers look identical. Here are some pictures of my finished flowers.

In Honor and Memory of Her

My grandmother passed away today. She left to be with my Grandpa. I know she has been wanting to be with him since he passed, but she knew we needed her here too, so she stayed with us until today. She is no longer in pain and now they can be together again.

Some people say knowing it was coming makes it easier, but it really doesn't because it is still extremely hard. She was my last living grandparent and I was blessed to have her here for 24 years of my life. Even when we had our differences, she always was a wonderful Grandma and we always knew she loved us. I will cherish all of our memories from throughout the years.



I love you Grandma! I miss you already.

Time for a new Post

I have been neglecting my poor blog and I promise I'll get better at it! I think that part of the reason I neglect to post is partly because I feel like I am writing but no one is reading. I am trying to get my blog out there more so I can hopefully get more readers and followers. Sadly I only have one (Thank you Kristin!)

Enough of my moping and on to more interesting topics. Since Christmas I have actually done some crafting and baking! Earlier in January I made a red velvet cake (my very first one ever!) for my friend Andrea's birthday since it is her favorite. Sadly, I did not take any pictures, however it was delicious! I used the recipe from my new favorite book ever, Organic and Chic by Sarah Magid. All her recipes look gorgeous and delicious (from the ones I've made they taste as great as they look.) The whipped vanilla buttercream frosting was amazing especially with substituting vanilla extract with vanilla bean paste. I can't wait to make it again for many more cakes! Besides that I sewed up another art smock for my friend's little girl and gave that to her for a late Christmas present along with a stuffed turtle and dress-up smock I made for her other two kiddos. I only have pictures of the dress up smock right now which is really cute with some sort of vintage (probably from the 90's) fabric. My friend loved it, in fact I think she got more excited about all the gifts than any of the kids did!





That's about all I've got for now. Please keep reading and join me as I continue to try to get my own business up and going. It will happen one of these days!

Happy Creating!

Long Hiatus

So it really has been a very long time since I have written in here a lot has happened but no worries, nothing bad. The Thanksgiving/Christmas season had me quite busy! Between working, making/finishing Christmas presents, baking (only a little) and seeing people I barely got on the computer. We even got a Wii a few weeks before Christmas so that took some of my time, but I didn't even get to use it that much either! Unfortunately I am not in much of a typing mood so maybe I'll just post a few pictures that can tell you how my holiday season went! :-)