Wedding Craft: Gold Polka Dotted Vases

Shortly after getting myself engaged I came across these 9" tall cylinder vases at Crate&Barrel. Sooo I bought ten and they sat in the box in our room until this week. 

I considered wrapping them in some leftover lace with floating candles but I wasn't totally sold on the idea; I'm glad I waited until I found the inspiration for my final product via StyleMePretty.

This process was pretty straightforward, as usual. I used the same gold paint I used on the ring box and "&" and a pack of variable sized round sponge ...brushes? sticks? thingies? that I found at Michael's.  I also grabbed an "artist's palette" (that red bowl there) & a paper towel for when I spilled a bit of the obligatory glass of wine (spoiler alert - I didn't spill any!). And the other obligatory-tool-whilst-crafting: Arrested Development. 

Before:

The After, with romantic-lighting:

I started at the bottom of each vase using my largest round sponge and then polka-dotted about 1/3rd of the way up. Then I used the next two smaller sizes in the same manner, overlapping the sizes slightly. A sweet fade, if you will. Go ahead and click that link, you'll be delighted by it. Also, let me know if you were surprised by the result...

Initially I wasn't digging the texture the sponge left but it kind of reminds me of a lacy zinnia flower and I was ready to be done so I left it as you see it. AND it only took seven episodes of AD to get 10 of them done! 

I grabbed and lit just the two 3x3" candles to see how the light reflected off another vase and I just adore the look! It's just what I imagined - a little bit of vintage, whimsy, and mod!

Hanky Bed for My Preciouses

A couple of weeks ago I finished a wedding project, the box for my precious, but I didn't exactly finishfinish it as I still needed to make two little pillows with a pretty ribbon to tie the rings in. 

I have some scrap lace from some table runners I snagged from another bride (she knows about it, I assure you.) and thought it would be really pretty to do two little ring pillows using that lace. Well, I didn't have any polyfil and after pricing a bag of it at Wal-mart the other day - the price wasn't an issue, it was a quantity thing. You can only buy this stuff in quantities like: Fill the Penthouse or Cover Everest with Fluff. 

Cue impatience. I'm for reals ready to cross another thing off my to-craft list!

I only needed a handful of stuffing so I figured I would just find a sacrificial pillow around the house and steal some from it. It would be an unceremonious event and everyone would be better for it. ...right?

S+J Engagement Photo Shoot

It's only just occurred to me that I haven't shared our favorite engagement photos (yes, I realize there are still a lot here, but I assure you it is INDEED narrowed down). We visited Charles Towne Landing in Late January as we were trying to mimic the landscape of our wedding/reception venue, which is private so we couldn't just go traipse around snapping pics. CTL was the perfect background!

Loren & Bryan of Loren Routhier Photography are a great and easygoing duo and we're really happy that we stumbled upon them to work with during this exciting milestone in our lives! Loren emailed the other day to let us know that our engagement shoot is going to be featured on Bisou Bride sometime in August; neat!

Anyways, I guess I was waiting to share until after we sent out our StD's but now that they're out well... 

THE REVEAL!! 

:::insert twinkling magical noise:::

I Can Make it Rain ....But only for the next few days, probably.

I'm trying this neat thing called "only paying for stuff with cash" (caveat: unless its fuel or groceries since this cash is my 'leftover/spending' money). What this means is I basically do not have any money to spend in my account - it's all earmarked for something except frivolity. I have $200 to last 15 days. Seems easy enough, right?

It's been about 18 hours since I decided this would be a neato experiment and I'm not struggling yet. But that's mostly because I haven't done my usual morning internetz routine: Deal News, Tradesy, Wedding Bee, 100Layer Cake, EBay, and sometimes Ruffled Blog Marketplace (but their site really REALLY grates my fucking nerves, so that one is easy to avoid). The tangibility of cash will hopefully help curb my spending - most of which is wedding related, reminding myself that we can indeed still get married without "that" ...or that, or that, or that.

I spent my first cash this morning, picking up discs of the digital files from the boys' disposable cameras they took to camp for 4ish days. Spoiler alert: they're less than interesting. Well, to me, anyways. $20 (for TWO discs. 2). GONE.

Only $180 to last 14 days. ::::deeeeeep breaths::::

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast, the independent way! Blueberries, strawberries, powdered tasty kake donuts, and bacon!

Let freedom ring, y'all!

Oh, and I also attached a pic of my paper flowers mingling with some fresh snipped Black Eyed Susan's from the front yard.