Wedding Creations & Other Crafts

Only 4 days left!

2009-07-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry that it has been so long since I've updated! I wish I was exaggerating when I say that wedding planning has taken over my life (and the products of it, my apartment!) but alas, there's no exaggeration in that statement. Right now I literally have ribbons, a hot glue gun, numerous list, flower girl baskets, advice envelopes, RSVP cards, announcements and many other wedding items, all within 5 feet of my bed. Why the bed? I know it sounds strange but it's where I tend to do the majority of my crafting. Those boutonnieres I posted on here a few months ago? Entirely constructed on the bed. Maybe one day I'll move to a table like a normal person. :P

As the day has gotten closer and closer I've actually become somewhat more relaxed because at this point I know that the whole thing almost just has a life of its own. There is only so much I can do to drive this thing now. Andy and I will inevitably forget something at home; we're just hoping that the item we forget isn't the wedding certificate or our rings.

I do have a ton of photos to upload at some point, so expect some huge postings once the wedding is over and we get some of the photos from the photographer!

After the wedding, my next goal is going to be to attain a design internship position with Anthropologie in the winter. It's going to be a challenge because I'm not majoring in any art program, but I'm hoping I'll be able to win them over with some of my wedding crafts. Wish me luck!

38 days to go

2009-06-10T02:27:00.000-07:00

We only have 38 days to go and I'm still trying to get through finals. This is the longest I've ever had to stay on campus for finals and I can't wait to be done.

I recently entered in a competition on Project Wedding to win a gift certificate from Amazon. Here's my entry: http://www.projectwedding.com/wiki/show/budget-savvy-barn-wedding
It's pretty similar to the post I did a few months ago about cost-saving ideas, but I'll post a link anyway. Hopefully I'll win!

I still have a while to go until I get my wedding dress, since it won't be in until around two weeks before the wedding. Let's see... not too much is new, but I will definitely keep updating as the big day arrives!

Pictures!

2009-06-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

First up: Straw Flowers! Andy and I spent a lot of time watching his dad, Albert, grow these and then affix them to wire stems, and now we're loving the idea of having them in the wedding. Here's what we're going to do with them:

Next up: Boutonnieres
Here are the first three for the groomsmen:
The second two for the groomsmen:
The boutonnieres for my dad and Andy's dad:
And last but not least, Andy's!
I considered purchasing the bouts on etsy, but the average price was around $15 each. Instead, I purchased $28 (with shipping) worth of flowers from Papier Valise, and voila! Well, no, it wasn't nearly that easy! It took me an evening but it was definitely worth it. They ended up being around $3.50 each and I had plenty of left over leaves, flowers and feathers. The hardest part was definnitely wrapping the dang ribbon around the stems. Ugh.

This is a picture of the backside of our thank you letters. I won't say more than that but these thank yous are pretty neat!

This is one of 11 designs Andy and I had made for us by a wonderful seller on etsy. I designed them on PhotoShop (this one is a photo of mine, taken of one of the birds on a postcard) and then I emailed them to a woman who made 200 of them for us for only $35 with shipping, and got them to us within a week! If anyone is looking for her name just email me and I'll send you her info.

Lastly I'm going to leave you all with this photo of little tiny chicks that my sister bought Andy and I around Easter. They all fit in one little Easter egg and they're the most adorable things. I got them out recently to play around and they're quite fun and hilarious to pose.

For pictures of our recent trip to Mt. Rainier check out my flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaime_barker/
We had quite a bit of fun looking at the springs up there, and now we're dreaming about possibly camping sometime this summer. Fun! Does anyone have fun plans for the summer?

Newspaper Planters

2009-05-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

Hey all. I have been hard at work recently with wedding stuff and I promise I have photos, but I'm not going to post them quite yet. Instead, I'm going to start sharing a few of the awesome links I find in my quest through blog-land.

Here's the first:
Isn't it clever? There is an old Seattle P.I. box in front of my apartment and I'm bummed that I don't have the necessary tools to make the plywood insert, otherwise one of these would be out on 15th!

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/05/flyer_box_planters.html

May 9th - Pic Heavy!

2009-05-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

Andy and I had our engagement photos taken yesterday by our wonderful photographer, Brandon Patoc. He was great to work with and he took our photos for over two hours! We walked around different areas on campus, and we're both really excited to see what they turn out like.

The weather is finally starting to heat up, and today I went to the Volunteer Park's Annual Plant Sale. I went last year with Jackie, and we found out we had to take two buses to get there. I ended up hauling the plants I bought back in a suitcase which was interesting to say the least. This year I was able to borrow a car though which made for much happier times! A and I have been touring through a few thrift stores recently and we've found quite a few wonderful things. On the island we used to frequent the Senior Thrift Store, and when we moved out here we discovered that while we were in a larger city, the thrift stores were lacking in comparison to the island's. However, now we've become bi-weekly visitors to the Dearborn Goodwill in the International District. It has to be the largest thrift store I've ever been to and it's full of wonderful things all at *great* prices.

These two cups were just .50 each!

This suitcase is in great shape and is the perfect carry-on size. At $5 we couldn't resist.There were two of these tins, one for coffee and the other labeled "tea". $2 each!

Andy has been wanting a martini shaker, and we found this one at the Dearborn Goodwill. It was only $4 and is from Pottery Barn. It turns out P.B. still sells them... at $40 each. Ouch! You can twist the outside cylinder to show different drink recipes which I think is pretty sweet. Now we just have to collect the rest of the drinkware!

These salt and pepper shakers came from what I believe was my first garage sale in Seattle. Only $1!

Recently, Andy and I have been working on the thank you cards and the announcements. We were going to line the envelopes for the announcements with the same paper as the invites, but then we were informed that the paper is no longer being made. A few people ended up with invites that were lacking the liners as well because of this. Luckily were were able to find some paper that is the same as the original paper, just in brown. It wasn't our first choice but it works quite well.

Here are some photos of the plants I got at the sale, and the glass containers I found at the thrift store for a few of them. I always look longingly at some of the glasses and votive holders, etc, at the thrift store but I never knew what to do with them. However, now I'm just going to pot a few plants in them!

We've gathered a few more things for the wedding too. Here are a few:

The birds! We were able to find feathered birds for a great price: 12 for $6.50.

The pins- the glass container we found at the thrift store for just .50.

And last but not least, the promised picture of the finished cupcake garland in our kitchen:
Tada!

Countdown: 3 months

2009-04-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

This is how often Andy and I eat onions. Except, we actually do eat onions pretty often, apparently the problem was just that we had too many and this one decided to sprout.

I can't believe that Andy and I only have three months until the wedding. We finally got (almost) the invitations out, but now we're gearing up for working on the announcements and thank you cards. We traveled back to Paper Source and its wonderful papers, and now we just have to get down to making them.

I bought my dress! Due to the lack of time (wedding dresses usually take 5-6 months to arrive) I had to order it with rush shipping, etc, etc, but it's expected to arrive around June 30th! I need to make an appointment with a seamstress soon before they all book up. I ended up actually ordering a bridesmaids dress in white rather than a wedding dress. The style of the dress is more informal (and the price more reasonable) than the wedding dresses I was encountering.

Andy and I booked our honeymoon to Hawaii for the beginning of September, and we're getting really excited just reading about all the neat things there are to do there. Plus, I've been on a diet recently and I read that snorkeling burns 500 calories an hour! I guess I'll just have to snorkel for a while each day to burn off the calories from all the wonderful food. :)

Over Easter weekend we went back to the island which was so incredibly enjoyable. We were able to go on Friday after getting my dress and then we stayed until Monday morning since we didn't have class until 2:30. The thrift store on the island is packed full of great finds, and we've only managed to find two in Seattle that come close to competing with it. Here are some of the things we found:

These are a bunch of old laces that I found. The most expensive one cost me $2.25 for what looks like 10 yards, and I think I'm going to use them with my bouquet and the bridesmaids' bouquets. Our colors too!

This is a beautiful scarf that I think I'm going to use as a table linen. It was only $1!

These napkins were just too cute for me to pass up and they only put me back by $1.25.

I finally got my order from BakeitPretty (I'm not sure why the shipping took two, almost three, weeks) and these are some of the cupcake liners I purchased:
I used some of the other liners I bought from them to use to make a cupcake liner garland. I also used some of the usual blue, pink and yellow ones found in the grocery store, and some from a 1000 pack of white liners that I bought at Cash n' Carry. The 1000 pack only cost $2.38! I hung the garland over our stove, but I couldn't get a good picture of it so here's Andy holding the finished product (Also, Andy isn't this pale in person, the color levels just appear to be skewed in this picture. ;) ) :
I thought a decoration made from kitchen materials was appropriate in the kitchen! I'll try to take a (successful) picture of it hanging in the kitchen soon to share with you all.

And last but not least, some pictures of the cherry trees in the UW's Quad:

Easter Eggs - Picture Heavy

2009-04-19T18:37:00.001-07:00

Kaeli's seismograph egg.

Lucas' Bender egg (the character from Futurama)

I think this one is mom's, and it reminds me of a paint chip.

Kaeli's Poop Egg

Dad's campfire egg

Andy's argyle egg

Our (Andy and I) gross attempt to make a tie-dye egg

My eggs and bacon egg!

Andy's camping/hiking/outdoors egg

And my boat egg!

It's been a while!

2009-04-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

I spent a half an hour today trying to remember my log-in info for this blog, which tells me that it's been too long since I've updated! I have a ton of photos, so I'll try to post them later today. Yay!

Rainbow Cake, Terrariums, Poufs & others

2009-03-26T23:30:00.001-07:00

Since winter quarter came to an end I've been busy with many crafty things. Andy and I did a bit of spring cleaning today, but it's far from finished. All of the miscellaneous things we didn't know what to do with are still hanging out on our living room floor... and the hallway... and of course in the undetermined-use closet.

First Thing: Rainbow Cake
Jackie came over before she headed home for break, and we made a rainbow cake, like I discussed in a previous post. Andy and I have decided that we want our wedding cake to be exactly like this cake, but we're still debating on whether or not it needs to also have the rainbow chip frosting. Either way, our wedding cake is going to be quite colorful!

The bowls almost matched each of the colors of cake
Jackie pouring the yellow...

Me pouring the blue...

Jackie with one of the pre-baked cakes!

Finished cake! Complete with rainbow chip frosting (which is also my favorite!).

Second Thing: Terrariums
Since I saw the article on Craft Make I knew I had to try my hand at this terrarium thing. So I bought my cupcake toppers from BakeItPretty and set to work. I bought one little glass container many months ago at one of our favorite thrift stores, Deserete Industries on Aurora. It came with this ugly candle and fake vine:

I put my pebbles, charcoal, potting soil, plants and gnomes in there and voila!

I also made small terrariums for the concierge desk and gift/husky desk at the bookstore, but I quickly realized that the jars were too short, and it was hard to see the small deer and gnomes inside. I'm going to work on making new ones for them soon!

Third Thing: Deli/Sandwich Paper Poufs
I saw this on Scissor Variations a couple of weeks ago, and I knew right away that it was the answer to the problems I had been having with the Martha Stewart-suggested poufs. The deli paper can be hard to find, but when you do it's cheap (1000 sheets for $12). Use 6 sheets and a bunch of twine and you get these:

Fourth Thing: Invite Envelope Liners
Andy and I finally purchased the necessary stationary for our invites this past week, and I am so glad we did. We bought the kit to make envelope liners, and we decided (per my request) to use the same paper (purchased at the bookstore with our discounts, yeah!) that I used to line our kitchen cabinets (seen in first picture of this post). After a few hours of tracing, cutting, folding and taping, this is one of the 50 results:

Fifth Thing: Shelf Liner
Andy and I had this very utilitarian-looking (well, actually it was utilitarian) bookcase which we weren't really using in the living room. We had to move it for the new 'tabe' so we moved it to the kitchen. Before we did though, we lined the shelves with the same paper as the cabinets and the envelope liners, but in brown.

Sixth Thing: Bird Garland
Another thing I saw on Scissor Variations. It's a Martha Stewart sparrow punch, and I was happy making a garland, which is now on the 'tabe', using various papers and stickers from the bookstore, along with some baker's twine.

When Andy and I went to IKEA we found the perfect straws for the wedding:

I found a great headband at the bookstore which is somewhat like what I'm looking for for my veil:

And for the last picture of a very picture-heavy post, I wanted to share a picture of a great flower I found at QFC. They come in a wide variety of flowers, and I definitely want to incorporate them into the wedding somehow!

How is everyone else's spring break going?

New table and dress shopping

2009-03-24T20:31:00.001-07:00

Andy and I have a new table for the living room now. We're using it to work on all of the crafty elements for the wedding. Someone in our apartment building was selling it for $35 with the three chairs! In the ad, there was a typo though, and it was labeled as a 'tabe with three chairs', which Andy and I get a laugh out of. Great deal. It's also perfect because it is now located in an area of the room which was empty and wasn't being used for anything. I had told Andy many times before that "I never walk to that area of the room, ever." But now I do! Picture of craftings on the new 'tabe'.

We also received our first wedding gift which was very exciting. Our great family friend Lynn made a granny square blanket for us and the amount of time she put into making it is amazing. All of the edges are scalloped and the crocheting is perfect on it. I get impatient just knitting scarves, so I have an amazing amount of appreciation for the work she did! The colors she picked are perfect for our apartment.

I went dress shopping on Monday. My mom and I went to David's Bridal and I realized just how hard it is going to be to find the dress I'm looking for. I'm going with my mom and sister again on Sunday, so hopefully we'll have better luck then! Right now I'm frustrated just thinking about how much time it is going to take to find the right dress for me.

Guests as Photographers?

2009-03-18T20:47:00.001-07:00

Andy and I have been debating over whether or not we should pay $1500 and upwards for a photographer to cover our wedding. We have one friend (who is a wonderful photographer!) who took photos of Andy and I when we had only been dating for two weeks, and we've asked her to photograph the wedding for us instead of paying an unknown person. However, if she can't do it (or even if she can) we've thought about making our wedding a BYOC wedding. That is, a Bring Your Own Camera wedding. I think we're going to go ahead with this plan even if our friend can photograph our wedding, but we're going to purchase a pro Flickr account, and give all of our guests business cards with the log-in information on it so our guests can share their photos with us. I've heard people describe their varying degrees of success with this, so I wanted to ask our readers here if they've ever experienced this, and since most of our readers are also guests, if they would want to participate in something like this. That way we can get a feel for how well this would work out!

Thanks!

Beautiful Things

2009-03-18T20:12:00.001-07:00

I have ordered some beautiful things recently.

Here are a few!

These (above and below) are pins I've ordered from Papier Valise which is one of the best online stores (or any store, really) that I've come across in a long time. She's in Canada (which is always nice because of the exchange rate!) and she stocks the coolest stuff in her store. I made my second order from her today!

I ordered the pins so that our guests could have their own flowers and neat pins to go along with them. We're going to put out a bowl of single blooms for people to pin to their dresses/shirts/clothing item and I thought these pins were beautiful and perfect for it. I just hope that I've ordered enough!

Here's another item I've purchased from Papier Valise- blue baker's twine. I haven't entirely decided on how I want to incorporate it into the wedding, but I know that it will definitely be there in one form or another! I've also found a store online which sells it in green, which makes it perfect!

I've been a bit obsessed with this doily idea I've been turning over in my mind... It seems as though tonight I have found the perfect stamps to go with them too! Finding a large set of stamps with letters, numbers, and the "&" sign has proved harder than I had originally thought, but I think I've finally found them:
They're not from Papier Valise, but from Ornamentea. The stamps are magnetic, and the set comes with the magnetic block too. I've seen other sets of these in other places on the web, but none of them were for this great of price and with the magnetic block too. I plan on ordering these soon!

The two last things I'm going to post about are not really wedding related, but are so neat I feel the need to share them anyhow. Firstly, I've set out acquiring the goodies necessary to make one of these:
... which I just realized isn't very clear in the small picture, but if you click on it you can see the terrarium more clearly, found via Craftzine (Mason Jar Terrarium). I set out buying the necessary items (not really necessary but cute as hell!) on Bake it Pretty. I bought the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs set, the Flamingos, Deer, and a variety of the flower sets. I'm playing with the idea of not only making terrariums, but also making mini snow globes from baby food jars or other small jars. Like I said, not really linked to the wedding, but cool nonetheless!

Lastly... on Friday once I am finished with my finals I am going to bake one of these with Andy and Jackie (my maid of honor!):
I'll try remember to take some pictures and post them! Also, recipe and photos found here: Rainbow Cake!

Favorite Links

2009-03-07T17:11:00.001-08:00

I wasn't all that excited to plan the wedding until I found a few of these links. Once I found the wide-range of weddings that were possible I started to get a bit more excited, envisioning the possibilities that were possible. Here are a few of my favorites:

Once Wed- www.oncewed.com
This website is awesome. The blogger regularly showcases real weddings and you can also search for used wedding dresses via her site.

Snippet & Ink- www.snippetandink.blogspot.com
Like OnceWed, this blogger also shows real weddings. She also includes discount codes and tips on sales at particular wedding-related websites!

Craft Zine Blog- http://blog.craftzine.com/2.html
This website isn't wedding-related but the blog often includes tips on ways to make things that Andy and I are going to be creating for our own wedding decor, etc. Last week there was even a blog entry on Ikebana which I would love to somewhat incorporate into our flower arrangements.

Money Savers

2009-03-07T15:27:00.001-08:00

I wanted to make a list of the ways that Andy and I have managed to save some money just in case someone is reading this blog in search of some ways to cut costs. After all, the average wedding costs between $24,000 and $30,000 and the economy is poor, no pun intended. As semi-unemployed college students, Andy and I are aiming to spend under $7,500.

1. We rented a park venue- this is great because parks are usually MUCH cheaper than typical wedding venues. The cheapest venue we could find in the Seattle area was around $2000 but we ended up getting the Tolt Barn for a full day, along with all of the park's yurts and campsites for a total of $600. Saved: $1400

2. No alcohol- we knew that most people look forward to the open bar portion of weddings, but it's extremely expensive to buy and serve alcohol, and we would have needed to acquire an alcohol license ($125) and insurance ($200+). So instead our guests will get to look forward to iced tea, lemonade and a few other non-alcoholic drinks. Saved: at least $500

3. We're hand-making a lot of our own decorations- those paper lanterns you see at just about every wedding really add up. Cheap ones run around $1 each, but on average they cost around $1.50. When you want to hang 40 of those it really adds up. Instead, we've been hitting up stores like Anthropologie for some of their wrapping tissue to make our own tissue paper poofs. There are other things we're making ourselves instead of buying which is also going to help us save some money. Saved: by the end, approximately $300

4. Non-traditional "caterer"- this took a lot of Google-fu searching for me to find, but when we found Larry's Smokehouse we knew we had to go with them for the food portion of our wedding. Larry will come out with one of their catering trucks and smoker attachments, and will serve all of our guests with the goal of 'having everyone sitting down eating together'. Larry has catered events for 26 years. By choosing Larry we are getting great food (smoked salmon? yes please!) and since they bring their own plates and silverware, we're saving a lot of money by not having to rent those items, which can be an extremely pricey thing. Around the same time that we found Larry we were contacted by TwelveBaskets, who gave us a price quote of $3200. They wanted to charge us .32 per paper plate, plus $60 for iced water, among other charges. With Larry the cost (with tax, and 30% gratuity) came to $1501. Saved: $1699 (at least)

5. Picnic Tables- the barn we've rented comes with around 10-12 picnic benches already. By not having to rent tables or chairs for the reception (except for three for the cake, presents, etc) we've saved around $123 in tables and another $100 in chairs. For the guests who don't want to try to swing their legs over the bench portion of the tables, we're placing chairs at either end which will be some of the same ones we'll bring from the ceremony site. By using the picnic tables already there we're also saving money in delivery costs and the time it would take to move the picnic tables out of the barn only to replace them with our own, rented tables. Saved: $223 plus labor

6. Paper Linens- Costco offers some great thick paper tablecloths at 6 for $11. Rented linen tablecloths cost closer to around $15 each. Also, if any of our guests accidentally spills some of their BBQ sauce on the linen tablecloths we may have to pay an additional cost for stains to the rental company. However, since we're using paper we can just toss the tablecloths at the end (stains and all), having spent $30 or less, rather than $180 on the rented linens. We didn't want to use plastic tablecloths because they're not as eco-friendly (non-compostable) and because they're just generally less attractive than paper. Saved: $150 (plus possible spill fees)

7. Thrift Store Vases- not only can you find amazingly unique glass vases at thrift stores, but they're extremely cheap too. I used to work for a florist which charged around $6+ per generic flower vase, and instead we're finding vases which are $2 maximum (for blue and green glass) at thrift stores. They'll serve as great gifts to some of our guests, and Andy and I have a lot of fun finding unique vases. Saved: at least $96

8. Costco Cake: we're going to have one small presentation cake for Andy and I to cut, and then Costco sheet cakes for everyone to eat. I personally think that Costco cakes are really delicious, and it's definitely a plus that they're on the cheap side at only $17 each. We looked into getting cupcakes for our guests from either Trophy Cupcakes or Cupcake Royale, but at $3 each before delivery it was too expensive. Macrina Bakery cakes are $5.50 per person. Our presentation cake is also going to be made by the mother of Andy's best man, Nathan. She used to cook wedding cakes regularly, and she offered to make the cake for us if we pay for the ingrediants. Saved: around $430

9. Arranging our own flowers: Andy's dad Albert used to work for a florist, and he's going to arrange the table flowers and bouquets for us. By finding someone in the family who had some experience with flowers, we've saved a huge amount of money. In the average wedding, flowers cost around $2000. Albert is probably going to purchase flowers from either the Pike Place Market or from a woman on the island. We've estimated this will cost around $500. We also want to use some non-traditional floral aspects in our arrangements, such as ferns, and some herbs like rosemary. If no one in your family has any experience with flowers, consider talking to someone at a local farmer's market about having them arrange bouquets for you. At Pike Place you can find beautiful $5 bouquets that would cost around $30 and up from a florist. That way the only thing you need to have a florist create is the bouquets. Saved: $1500 +

10. Postcard RSVPS: The postage on postcards is much less at .27 rather than .42. Andy and I found someone's collection of bird postcards (fits our theme too!) on ebay for a total of $20 with shipping (for 137 postcards, which is way more than we need). They're all unique and once we create stickers for the guests to fill out the RSVPs are done. When you order regular invites, the RSVP cards and envelopes usually cost around $1.50 before postage. Ours, with postage, will be around $20.50. Saved: $75.50

11. We registered for our honeymoon: Andy and I have already been living together for two years. We have a toaster, pots and pans, spatulas, etc. The last thing we want to do is have our guests buy us things that we don't really need. Instead, we've decided to register our honeymoon through travelersjoy.com. This way, we can have our guests help us pay for things like zoo and aquarium admissions and romantic dinners when we honeymoon in Hawaii. We're looking forward to taking pictures and sending thank you letters with photos included. How many thank you notes have you seen where the bride and groom are showing off how they're using their new wisk? For the family members who feel less comfortable gifting us portions of our honeymoon we are going to set up a registry at one of our favorite stores, Target, for the kitchen items we've been longing to upgrade. Saved: $2500

12. Cutting back on the guest list: This was an extremely painful thing for me to do. My side of the family is huge, as my dad is the youngest of eight, and all of his siblings have children who have their own children, etc. I have five grandparents while Andy has one. We had the choice of either inviting all of our aunts and uncles and cousins and their children and none of our friends outside of the wedding party, or striking the balance between family and friends. We ended up cutting our guest list from 265 to 96 by inviting aunts and uncles, grandparents, wedding party, and a few close friends. While I love my cousins and wish everyone could be at my wedding, Andy and I simply can't afford it. The number of extra tables, chairs, invitations, favors, and food per person it would require to invite everyone is a big chunk of change. Plus, 260 people would require a lot of organization and time, not just money. To everyone who we won't be able to invite to the ceremony and reception, we plan on sending wedding announcements instead. Saved: approximately $2800

Total Saved (approximately): $11,673

Time for a new post!

2009-03-07T15:12:00.001-08:00

I thought that it might be time for a new post. I'm almost into finals week and once I'm done with finals I'm going to try to get into the habit of updating almost every day. I'm also going to try to get Andy to participate a little...

Yesterday Andy and I went shopping for a few things. We picked up biodegradable paper plates and silverware at a party store in Woodinville, and then Andy found a white shirt to go with his suit at Nordstroms Rack. After a quick stop at a Cost Plus we headed to the thrift stores where we made the majority of our finds. We've discovered that it will save us $13 in rentals if we hand-pick some of our favorite coffee cups rather than renting them for .76 each. At two of our favorite thrift stores we were able to find 30 of the 50 cups, and all of them were either .49 or .50 each. We figure that we could let people take them home with them at the end as a sort of favor, and that whichever ones are left we'll just redonate to the stores.

At Cost Plus they had the favors that Andy and I were thinking about getting for people. We had cut them out and switched to something else because of the cost, but after seeing them at the store yesterday firsthand we might change our minds. I don't want to let everyone know on here what the favors are since most of you will be in attendance!

I still haven't shopped for a wedding dress of any sort. I'm not horrendously worried about it. I know that for some people the dress is their main concern, but I don't think that my dress is going to be the thing that enables everyone to have a good time, like the coffee and favors will. :P Eventually I'll try something on and maybe even buy it! I think I found the shoes I want to wear with my dress though. They were $30 at the Rack yesterday and they're just simple flats. That's one thing out of the way.

The bridesmaid's gifts are being made! I found them on etsy and I'm working with one of the sellers on custom-making their gifts. I was glad I found this particular seller since her items are almost exactly what I was looking for! She's going to send me photos soon of the finalized products, and I'm really excited for that.

Here's a picture of the barn! I've been a bit slow on uploading it, but here it is:

I didn't take it, someone on flickr did. There are only around 3 photos of the actual barn when one searches for "Tolt Barn" on flickr, and this was the first one that came up! I also found a video someone uploaded to YouTube that shows what the inside of the barn looks like. It's much smaller than I remember it being from when I was there!

Centerpieces...

2009-02-28T17:15:00.001-08:00

I want to achieve something that looks more similar to the first photo, but the second photo really shows the birds. There are birds in the first photo too but it's a bit hard to see them. I've found where I can order the little silk birds with the wired feet so they'll stay on the branches, and I've found the tutorial on how to make the little flowers to put on the sticks too!

We'll want flowers on the table in some way too, but I think that this stick thing fits perfectly with our color palette (blue, green, brown and white) and we can make them ahead of time before the wedding. Score!

I should be working on a paper that is due tomorrow, but...

2009-02-25T20:36:00.001-08:00

Here is a photo that I found that gave me an idea... (upper right portion of the photo that is- I was too impatient to wait for PhotoShop to open so I could crop it correctly). By the way, all of these photos can be clicked on so you can see them in their full-format glory, if you haven't already figured that out.
Well I think those "placemats" look a bit like these dishtowels from IKEA:
They're only $2.50 for four of them. They're blue and therefore match our colors, and I think they might be cool draped across the table like the French do in their cafes. Sure, the French usually do it with an actual placemat, but maybe people won't really realize these are actually dish towels. Maybe? I think they're very 'wedding reception held in a barn with BBQ"-looking.

New Post! (and pics)

2009-02-24T16:22:00.001-08:00

Edited to add above photo- See what the poofs Martha Stewart made look like? Where the heck do I find tissue paper in those colors?

So here is the first photo. We wanted to hang something from the rafters of the barn, but those paper lanterns that everyone seems to use are quite pricey. Well, more expensive than I would have thought. So I found out how to make these tissue paper poofs, and it's really easy, and should be quite cheap! Plus, there are a ton of neat tissue papers. I really want to use some of the paper Anthropologie gives you to wrap glasses, etc. Maybe if they have some in our colors I could find a way to buy it from them in bulk...

This little guy is one of six little photo holders that Andy and I found at the Bookstore. They were 60% off before our employee discount too!

Below: RSVP Cards!

These are postcards that I got on Ebay. We got 137 of them, and 37 are used but the others we're going to use as RSVP cards. They all have birds on them, in a million different styles. Andy and I really liked reading through the messages on the 37 used ones... our favorite is the postcard in the second picture. The card in the first photo is from 1911, and we've discovered that most of the 37 were sent before zip codes existed. Two of the styles, one with a seagull the other with a pelican, both have clever "poems" on them. The seagull one is in the third photo.

I'm going to begin to try to post more regularly on here, and I'm going to try to start sharing some of the links we've been enjoying when it comes to planning this whole shindig!

Friday Morning Goodwill Goodies

2009-02-07T19:57:00.001-08:00

So here's what we got at Goodwill on Friday! Above is the $5 picnic basket which we think we're going to use to organize the programs. We could definitely use it after the wedding too!

We also started to collect vases for the table centerpieces. Maybe you can already tell, but one of our colors is green... The two larger vases were $2 a piece and the smaller cup was $1.

Here's the larger collection of our finds. There are still a few things missing though. I don't want to let everyone know all of the wedding secrets! The enamel vase on the top cost us a measly $3, the blue vase on the left was $2, and the one on the right was half off, for only $1!

On Friday Andy and I also visited the wedding venue with our parents. The barn was recently flooded from the insane flooding in the valley in mid-January. There was a lot of clean-up action going on which put us off at first, but then we found out that the park host knows my family, and works at the tribe's food bank! Through the food bank he knows my aunt, uncle, and grandpa. The flood water line in the barn was about 4.5 feet up the wall!

Walking across the park's suspension bridge was an interesting experience too. My mom and Sandy (Andy's mom) kept insisting that Andy and his dad (Albert) were making the bridge sway, but they swear they weren't. The yurts were cute- they all have their own little decks and porch lights. When we were there I think I spotted the sight for the ceremony but I want to go back for another look in about a month or so. Something about the valley area feels very homey to me. It's beautiful, and I can't wait to have our wedding there!

-jaime

First Post

2009-02-07T15:27:00.001-08:00

Hello to all who are reading this:
This is going to be where Andy and I blog about our wedding-planning journey. Hopefully there are going to be a ton of pictures, links, etc. Be sure to comment on our posts so we know who's listening in!

-jaime