Inspiration Board Inspiration

I designed an inspiration board for a contest over at Style Me Pretty featuring a Little Black Dress for bridesmaids. Below is my expanded version (original entry found here). I do not have bridesmaids for our wedding, but if I did I would definitely choose a LBD or something that could be worn for other occasions (i.e. NOT Halloween). I had a friend do this and they looked fabulous. Check out all of the entries at Style me Pretty because there are some great inspirations. Especially my favorite "Fiesta-Chic" board.

In making this board I took the black from the LBD and paired with my favorite color turquoise. The New Mexico/Mexican inspiration went from there. While this board does not capture the full range color for our wedding it could be our wedding in an alternative life.

Row 1: Hairpiece is from K. Autumn / church is from here / photo by Jessamyn Harris via Snippet and Ink Row 2: dress from j. Crew /invitation from Wedding Paper Divas / jewelry from Magnetic Moments Jewelry /mantilla veil via ebay Row 3: bouquet via Martha Stewart Weddings/ favor boxes from Wedding Style/ cake from April Reed Cake Design/ papel picado/ Row 4: unknown/ bouquet via Bride's Cafe/ margaritas from Kuta Sea View Hotel/ photo via Aldea Reception Center, Phoenix/

Cool Find of the Week

Check out this amazing wrap dress from Butter by Nadia. It is one dress that can be worn over 20 different ways. Now that is a bargain! They have over a dozen bright color choices that would be supper cute for bridesmaids. There is even a longer ivory version for a bride.

Wrapping the dress is so many ways sounds difficult but they have fun video clips on the website to teach you how.

STD How To Guide

The Save the Dates for our Tempe Fiesta are finally done and in the mail (or waiting to be hand delivered). Here is a short tutorial on how I did it.

Materials:
4x6 cards and envelopes
Laser Printer
stamp (used Wedding Cake stamp from Martha Stewart line at Michael's)
Embossing Stamp Pad-Clear
Embossing Powder - Black
Toaster
Tissue Paper

Step 1: Print card. This is definitely the easy part. Printing our own invitations just look sort of flat and uninteresting. To add texture I did an embossing technique which is really the only "hard" part.

Step 2: Emboss card. Use the clear embossing pad to ink the stamp. Stamp the card pressing down evenly. With the particular stamp I used I noticed that pressing down to hard made the lines run together which didn't result in a nice design. This is because the particular stamp I chose was relatively intricate. Simple bold stamps work best with this technique.


Step 3: Immediately after stamping before the ink is dry, dust the ink with the embossing powder to evenly coat. Tap off all excess powder. Be sure to get off all of the excess that is not on the inked portion as these will also be embossed when heat is applied. If the loose powder is not removed the final product will look sort of dirty or dusty.

Step 4: Place the card over a heat source. In craft stores you can find fancy smancy heat guns. But these are really overkill. I have found placing the embossed card over the heat of a toaster works just as well. Do not place the card in direct contact with the toaster just hold over the heat and wait for the powder to melt. This will happen within 20-30 seconds. It will create a raised shinny surface. Once all of the powder is melted remove and let dry which will only take about a 45 seconds. If you hold the card over the heat for too long the powder will completely burn into the paper and no longer be raised. It will also start to smoke!

Step 5: Included on the back of the STD were instructions on how to make a Mexican paper flower for a little hint on our theme. I cut 3 6 x 6 pieces of tissue paper in either yellow or blue and included in the card by folding the tissue around the card. Also included was a piece of string for making the flower. Hopefully everyone will make the flower and put it on their fridge or something to keep our wedding in mind.

I think they turned out pretty well and look like the inspiration card from Bird and Banner that I blogged about a few months ago. Even more excitting is that one major wedding project is DONE! Now on to the other DIY projects on the list...

Inspiration Board Inspiration

I love this inspiration board!

Photo credits found here.

The cake is amazing and the papel picado is so cool. This board is definitely the look we are going for.

Cool Find of the Week

I am always looking for ways to make myself some of the neat wedding ideas that inspire me or more budget friendly options. I found this great idea for lollipops today. I think doing some hear shaped pops would be great for the candy buffet and would be easy to personalize in our colors. I thin

Stained Glass Lollipops

• 8 Reynolds® FunShapes™ Stars Baking Cups
• 8 (6-inch) Lollipop sticks
• 40 Hard candies*

PREHEAT oven to 300°F. Place Reynolds FunShapes Stars and/or Hearts Baking Cups on a cookie sheet with sides.

MAKE a hole in one side of each of the baking cups near the bottom of the cups with a toothpick. Insert the lollipop sticks from the inside of the cup through the hole made with the toothpick and push it to the outside leaving at least 1 inch inside the cup.**

ARRANGE 5 candies in each baking cup, placing one candy over the lollipop stick. (It does not need to lay flat, it will melt around the stick.)

BAKE 5 to 6 minutes or until candy is melted. Carefully remove baking cups from cookie sheet onto a tray to cool; immediately twirl stick to completely coat with candy. Prop sticks with handle of a wooden spoon if necessary to keep the sticks straight in baking cup while lollipop cools.

REMOVE lollipops from baking cups by tearing foil and peeling away from lollipops.

*REYNOLDS KITCHENS TIP: We used Jolly Rancher® Hard Candy for our testing.

**The lollipop sticks must be inserted from the inside out to avoid getting the pierced foil edges in the melted candy.

Number of Servings:8

They could look very similar to some cute lollipops I was thinking about ordering from Candy Warehouse. But not sure we could use 120. Making fewer with the recipe above may be a better option.

Save the Date Sneak Peak

Here is a little sneak peak at our Save the Date cards for the Fiesta in Tempe. I am making all of our invitations not just to go easy on the budget because I love being crafty. Later in the week I will post about we put them all together. We printed them on our laser printer and I used an embossing method using supplies I already owned to save on the budget. We also have plans to hand deliver to everyone we can to save on postage. They have a fun crafty component that I hope our guests will love!

Hey, look at me!

I absolutely love the Style Me Pretty blog. They are currently featuring some great DIY wedding projects including mine about our Papel Picado Banners! Check it out here. I love entering blog contests. It keeps me motivated to finish all of these wedding projects. However they also give me so much inspiration my list keeps getting longer.

Here are some additional photos. My plan was to hang them up outside to take the photos. But when I did the project it was one of the few days it rained in Phoenix. I am making dozens of these banners and they will be hung within the tent at our reception.

Inspiration Board Inspiration

I am getting inspired by this Inspiration Board found via the Polka Dot Bride blog. I love the dress and of course the fuchsia shoes! I have even used one of the flower pics in a previous post. Not sure the Matt would go for the tie...

Photo credits can be found here.

Cool Find of the Week

How cool would these look

as one of these cake toppers?
The cake topper are custom made from Wii Nintendo Mii characters by Paul Pape Designs. Matt and I love video games and were even thinking about having video games set up at the Fiesta celebration in Arizona. This might be a logistical problem but having Mii cake toppers would also be a great idea to bring in some of our personality to our wedding reception.

Registry Fun

I am a walking ad for Target. Many of my clothes are from the store and usually once a week I pop in just to see what its new. So it was only natural that we register here. One drawback is that there is no Target in my hometown. It is probably one of the last places in America with over 40,000 people that has no Target. Just another reason GI is behind the times.














Whenever I am in the store and see people with the scanner guns I am always jealous and was really looking forward to the day we would run around the store scanning things to our hearts content. I always sort of imagined it would almost have the same excitement as participating in a shopping spree. The kind that Toys R Us has when we were kids where kids got to run around the store for 10 to 30 minutes throw whatever they could into a basket twice their size. Registering at Target wasn't nearly as fun as a shopping spree, after all we aren't really getting the stuff - just making a list of stuff that we might get. But we did have a good time and Matt got to register for "man" stuff.

I also registered for my idol's latest cookbook and plenty of stuff for the kitchen. When we were registering it got us thinking that we don't actually even need more stuff. We have lived on our own for awhile so we have accumulated enough stuff. We are also in a position that if we want something we usually go out and get it. This process is making us think of alternative registries like a charity registry.

Another perk (other than just being able to use the scanner gun) was that we got a whole packet of info from Target including a pouch to keep receipts, lists, etc. I sent off for this a few months back. (FYI - when getting married you can get all sorts of free stuff that turns our really to be unnecessary but fun.) Really it is just a ploy to get you to register for more stuff and I now get a Target catalog in the mail about once a month. What is with the wedding industry? It is really making me think less is more.

DIY List

We are going cake tasting in a couple of weeks so I am all about cakes lately. Or should it be cupcakes?? I found a great DIY tutorial for the cupcake stand pictured below from here that is inspiring me to think cupcakes, at least for the hometown dessert reception. The Cake Journal is a great site and has tutorials, recipes, and amazing cakes.


This stand is a similar shape to expensive ones I have seen in the cake decorating isles at the craft store. But this is so much cuter and can be personalized with the wedding colors and reinvisioned for other parties like showers or even Christmas. I have also seen the design below from the Cupcake Tree. It can be ordered in 2 sizes and can be painted or personalized with ribbon.

I think the Cake Journal stand may be less expensive to recreate and looks a little sturdier and easier to personalize.

Another DIY project to add to the list!

Cheesy Photos

Why do engagement photos have to look cheesy? Couples staring lovingly into each others eyes, stealing kisses, and holding hands. Okay, so maybe in the end they don't all look cheesy but certainly doing it is completely awkward and unnatural. At least in front of strangers with a camera at least. Matt and I recently got our engagement photos and couldn't be happier with the end results. But I am wondering about all of those cheesy poses. What were we doing?. I have already posted some of our favorites but will use this opportunity to share the cheese. I blogged earlier about the session with Bride's for Brides Photography in Phoenix. They were great and even though we went in with a game plan of strictly no cheese, we should of discussed this with the photographer first. Once we got to the session our game plan went out the window. It was like we were on America's next top model with Tyra telling us every move. And sure enough we fell right into it - the staring, the kissing, the CHEESE!

Cheesy Shot #1: This is the begining and took us a while to warm up. It looks like we hardly know each other.


Cheesy Shot #2: Seriously. This was the most unatural pose. I am laying on top of Matt, in a dress no less. See the look on his face. He is saying get your elbow out of my back please.

Cheesy Shot #3: Matt looking like Joey from Friends. How you doing?

Cheesy Shot #4: Awkward kissing alert.


Cheesy Shot #5: The cliche down on one knee shot. Not at all how Matt proposed, but I will share that another time. I actually kinda like this one and think it is really cute.

Cheesy Shot #6: Super cheesy, no? To tell you the truth I kinda like this one as well.

So even though some of these weren't our favorites there are plenty more that we love. In hindsight I just wish we would have thought about what types of photos we wanted out of the session instead of just putting it on the photographer to tell us what to do and how to stand. Just "relaxing and acting natural" is sort of hard to do. The photographer was totally open to our ideas. For the wedding I want to think about it a little more and make sure we get the shots we want. A couple things I think we did do right were:

1: Booked a great photographer at a great deal. I loved working with Sara at Brides for Brides. One of the best parts is that we own the jpegs and can make our own prints and books.
2: Color cordinated our ourfits with the location. I knew that the location would have tan stucco so wanted to wear color that would pop.
3: Did't force Matt to wear fancy clothes. I fell for a t-shirt and jeans guy so I want to see him in a t-shirt and jeans. Actually before I met Matt he only wore cargo shorts, not jeans. But that is another story.
4: Got engagement photos at all. We thought this wasn't going to be in our budget but am really glad we did it. It is nice to have some really great photos of us in more normal situation, not just from our wedding day. I highly reccomend it.

Cool Find of the Week

Searching the web for pretty, interesting things is one of my all time favorite activities. Since all things weddings are my current obsession I am starting the "Cool Find of the Week" post to share my favorite wedding related find. Although this may turn into "Cool Find of the Day" given how many pretty things I come across.

So for this week I will share this blog which I love, A Lucky Orchid Wedding. The author, Laura Hooper, creates absolutely gorgeous maps and calligraphy. Check out this map for a wedding and reception for a couple getting married in AZ. So Cool!

(click to enlarge)

I wish I could write and draw like her. I think I would forbid myself to use a computer and write all of the time just so I could admire it. I wonder where I can take a calligraphy class...

Why doesn't it come in white?

So I have spent another weekend on my quest to find the perfect dress. I actually already have a dress but decided a few weeks ago that I wanted something a little fancier. Since I plan on wearing my dress for all 3 events and will have oodles of photos in it I want something I just adore, is flattering, and is good quality. The dress I have is really simple and since it was from Isaac Mizrahi's party dress line at Target didn't cost me that much and was sort of bought on a whim. Even though it is ivory it isn't too "bridal" so I could wear it for other things. Anyway this leads me to my current quest with just a few simple criteria. Or so I thought. Why is it so hard to find something?!!?

My major criteria are:
1) Tea length (which doubles my selection since most bridesmaid dresses come ivory and white, and bridal gowns can always be altered)
2) Flowy skirt (not sure if that is the design term but is the major drawback of my current dress)
3) Flutter or flouncy sleeves (again probably not the right term?, but hello is there anything that is not strapless?!)
4) Empire waistline (think looks the most flattering for me and has the comfy factor)

My minor criteria is:
5) Lace incorporated somewhere (perhaps this can always come in with a mantilla style veil?)

I never really thought of myself as a picky person but seriously there is nothing out there. One problem is that in bridal salons the sample dresses are usually a size 8 or 10. For a curvy girl like me it is impossible to visualize what a dress would look like when you can't even zip it up or necessarily put it over my head. And even if I could visualize what it would look like in my size, most dresses are designed to look good on girls from 90210. The other major problem is that nearly everything out there is strapless or has spaghetti straps. I hate wearing clothes that are sleeveless. I have been working at the gym to buff up my arms (to no avail btw) but am still self conscious about showing them. I think it is more the the thought of exposing the armpit cleavage. Anyway, most stores there is a "modest" section (seriously that is what they call it) but these dresses are straight out of the 80's and I might as well feather my bangs for the full effect.

At this point it is more of a mission to find the right dress and I refuse to settle. I have sort of been exaggerating, there are some really pretty dresses out there and several that fit most of my criteria. But hey, it is my wedding. Shouldn't I get what I want? So next weekend will continue my quest and check out a few more alternatives.

In the meantime I am looking into hiring a talented someone to make my dress so it will be exactly like I want. Oh how I wish I could do this myself but this is the girl that gave an award winning speech in grade school titled "Why I am not meant for sewing." This dress from Kiyonna is getting really close to my ideal. But why do the pretty things seem to never come in white? I think going for black isn't exactly the tone we want to set...

Sorry Fiesta, I have a new favorite.

Sorry fiestaware. I have a new favorite. Similar bright colors, but amazing modern shapes. Bauer Pottery out of LA is my new find of the week. I would love a cake stand or set of spice jars. Oh, so pretty. The vases would make beautiful centerpieces for reception tables.