Some Extra Reading Material

Hello!  Just a quick pop in today, we're very busy and down to the crunch now - 12 days to go!!

Here's something completely un-house related, but something that's been all over Pinterest forever and I'd been itching to try...

Newspaper nails!  Have you seen these all over Pinterest?  So fun.  And super super easy.  All you need (other than regular nail polish stuff) is newspaper and alcohol!

You can find more in depth tutorials all over the internet, but if you're curious about what I did here's the basics:

1.  Paint nails and let dry completely

2.  Dip finger in alcohol for 20ish seconds

3.  Remove and immediately place newspaper strip onto nail, pressing firmly down in all directions for about 5-10 seconds (without shifting the newspaper or it will smudge), then peel it off

4.  Finish with a top coat (or else the print will just smudge off)

If you make a mistake, just rub your nail and the print will come right off and you can try again.

Fun!  A little extra reading material for the next time I'm waiting for 45 minutes in the doctor's office and forget my book.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, mine was full of little wedding projects that I'll be sharing soon. 

Have you tried these nails before?  Or do you have other fun nail techniques?

Have A Seat...

With less than three weeks to go, it's time to get down to all the nitty gritty details in our wedding planning.  One of these tricky things is the seating plans.  I've seen the abundant signs with cute poems all over pinterest and blogs where guests can seat themselves,

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and while I love the idea in theory, I've been to a wedding where this was the arrangement and it was like a crazy mad dash when the doors opened, and all of our friends except two made it to a table together and the other two ended up at a table with the pastor.  So for us we wanted to do a bit of planning. 

Here's the feel we're going for...

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We'll be using our old windows from our main floor renovation that look quite similar to these...my writing, however, not so much!

Last night I got to a little of the brainstorming suggested here...

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What a great idea for how to figure out your seating plan without having to erase things any time you need to make a change!

Card Box Inpiration

A while back we were strolling through Value Village and came across....a yellow AND grey suitcase....what are the chances!!  After some" Pinteresearch" I came across a lovely selection of inspiration.

As usual, I held onto the suitcase and all of the supplies I had collected for decorating it for, well, months.  But yesterday I finally got around to tackling it (and I look forward to sharing it with you in a few very short weeks, but I for now I have to leave some element of surprise for my guests who also read my blog!)

It's safe to say it looks something like a combo of all of these...

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I love that at the end of the night it can just be closed up and easily carried out.  So handy.

For now I am off to hunt down some centerpiece materials and then back to Value Village.  This weekend I will be soaking in my third (I've been spoiled!) and final shower and I am so looking forward to it!

What kinds of things are you looking for inspiration on?  Have you come across any unique card box ideas?  Plans for the weekend?

Mushy Mushies

I am very fortunate to have a cousin in my life who enjoys photography and just happens to be pretty good at it.  As a wedding shower gift to us, she asked if we would like some Engagement pictures taken, and I said heck yes!

Forgive me for the number of pictures you're about to see, there were over 100 to choose from!

At first it was pretty awkward pretending to be all lovey dovey - well not pretending - but I guess doing it while someone is watching.  But eventually we eased in and got some lovely pictures.

Had to get a close up of the ring of course!

This one makes me laugh a little bit...it's such a typical engagement pose, but we were running out of ideas! 

I'm so happy with how this one turned out, I love the combination of the rustic wood, the vibrant flowers and the sparkly ring.  Scrabble art is all over blogland and pinterest, and I didn't want a generic "Love" or "Forever" where the ring was the O.  So after some thought about how to personalize it a little, I realized our last names both had an O in them, and whatengagement picture could be more perfect than a picture of two people (represented by our names) being joined by marriage (represented by my ring)!? 

I like this picture because it captured something completely unintentional by both us and my cousin taking the pictures.  She only noticed days later while she was editing that it said "loving husband" on the bench plaque...what a coincidence!

Gotta have some smoochie pictures

Wow, I'm just realizing as I edit this post how partial I am to black & white/sepia shots.

My cousin will also be doing our wedding photography and I'm already excited to see how they turn out. 

As part of the gift she gave us two large frames and a smaller album so now I have to narrow it down even further and decide which ones to print and enlarge!  Hopefully now that I've ripped the bandaid on hanging wall art it shouldn't be as tough.  Maybe it will even inspire us to do something with our bedroom which has not been touched in terms of painting/decorating since the day we moved in  :S



Centerpieces

I hope all the Canadians out there are enjoying this long weekend!

With our wedding less than 4 weeks away on September 1st, I've got all the details on the brain.  One thing I've been struggling with for a while now is what to do for the centerpieces. The problem is that I have too much inspiration - oh pinterest, you've confused me!  I'm having so much trouble trying to narrow it down now.  So let's take a look at some of the images I'm liking.

These silver flower pots are a-dor-able...

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I took a stroll around Value Village to see what they might have on hand and saw 12 silver cups...

And some other little containers...

While I was wandering around I came across a section of yellow glass - since our colours are grey and yellow I thought they could be neat.  Unfortunately they didn't have enough, but I'll keep my an eye open at other stores too...

I also love the look of vintage book centerpieces...

                                  

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 I really like the ambiance these doily lanterns give off, and they could be a fun DIY...

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I also think these lemon centerpieces are so sweet, the perfect colour and would probably make the room smell pretty nice!  But Darryl finds the sliced open lemons creepy.  It's one of his quirks.  He says it reminds him of the center of a sunflower, which we can all agree is uber creepy, right?  So I didn't push the lemon idea (although I have to say, the first thing that comes to mind when I look at them is a bicycle wheel and he loves bikes, soooo... lol) So I guess no lemons for us, but we can still look...

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So pretty, right?

Whichever way we end up going, I would prefer for them to have a bit of a hand-made touch and also to be a bit unique as opposed to the traditional flowers in a vase centerpiece.

UPDATE since I drafted this: I think I've narrowed it down to one of these options... guesses??

Have you seen any unique centerpieces at a wedding or online somewhere?

Boas, Burlesque and Belly Laughs...Oh My!

Last weekend was my Bachelorette party and I had such a great time.  Our day started at 3pm with a Burlesque dance lesson.  I love to try to pretend to be a dancer, I love to take classes of all sorts and to try to learn coreography.  I watch So You Think You Can Dance and imagine that if I had tried harder as a kid I could have been some amazing dancer by now hahaha.  I'll keep dreaming... 

So as you can imagine I was thrilled to try the Burlesque class.  Our instructor was voluptuous, wearing hot pink eyelash extensions, a huge boa and cone-shaped Madonna boobs.  It was great.  She taught us some moves and then the steps to a little routine to "Hey Big Spender" and then we had to have a Burlesque-off in two groups.  All the girls picked up boas at the dollar-store but as part of my gift I received a much larger, heavier boa which was super fun.

This was before we got started, we're just getting suited up with our boas

This move cracked me up - right when she sings "Hey Big Spender" we had to boa-whip the floor hahah

After the class...what a great time!

Afterwards, we headed to my future sister-in-law's house for a potluck and some beverages.

Just before leaving we grabbed a shot of the bridesmaids (the one on the far left lives in BC and won't be here until the wedding, so the girls made sure she'd be there in spirit, printing off her head and attaching a stick and a boa so that we could bring her out with us!)

 

Next we went to YukYuks which was such a great time, we laughed so hard!  My cheeks were hurting by the time we left.

Then of course we had to end the night with some dancing (boa included)

The next morning I was definitely not smiling like this, but it was such a fun fun fun time that it was well worth it!

I hope you all enjoy your weekend...anything fun planned!? 

Art Installation

We've been in our house for almost 3 years now and I can finally say we've HUNG SOMETHING ON OUR WALLS!!!  I know I can't be the only person who has trouble commiting to hanging things on their walls...right?

In our open concept living/dining room, we have a fairly long expanse of uninterrupted blank wall...

This is just the dining half, but the living room is a bit of a mess right now so I'll spare you that view

Not very interesting to look at, eh?  Part of the reason I found it so tricky was because we couldn't decide what to hang.  Until I finally stopped trying to look for the perfect piece of art, and started thinking more about the things that were important or special to us. 

Months ago I started compiling all of the things that meant something to us and slowly a nice little collection began to form.  As with many projects in our house, we get them started, then stall out or get distracted with something else.  So the framed artwork sat on a chair in our living room for a couple of weeks.  Two weekends ago we finally got to putting them up! ... And now I'm finally getting to posting about it haha

Tracing the frames onto paper makes it so much easier to get the placement of a gallery wall just how you want it.  Not a step to be skipped, I say...

Crazy how different the paint colour looks from night to day!  The window in the middle is the original window from our kitchen. 

Here's a closer look at it all...

A cute engagement card from a family member that I backed onto some cute scrapbooking paper

One of our "congrats on your new first home" cards (it got a little beat up in the drawer it was banished to over the last 3 years, but I think it's sweet)

A special picture of my sister and I as kids sharing a towel at the beach

My sweetest little niece, Lily - her frame came banged up!  I'll have to get a little paint on there to mask it

An old fish scale Darryl picked up at a consignment shop, and a horseshoe I inherited from my Great Aunt Bobby

The next three pictures are of some super cool things we found hidden in the lath and plaster during demo.  The above picture has some bread/milk/egg notes for the home deliveries that used to be left in our milk box.  I wish those services still existed here...Also, a Modish Fur Co. business card and a Thank You/Merry Christmas card from the local paper boy.  Everything is backed on some old sandpaper we also found.

This frame is filled with a bunch of Toronto Star payment stubs (aside from the few my Papa wanted as nostalgic pieces), ranging from 1952-1964 - also backed on some of the same sandpaper as above.

And what makes it even more super cool is that at our garage sale last month, we got to chatting to a customer who turned out to have lived in our next door neighbour's house for a few decades and she knew the lady who lived in our house from 1930 until at least the 70s.  That lady is Mrs. Martin, which is so funny to me, because it is just one letter off from my last name!  Coincidence....or meant to be??  So these are Mrs. Martin's bread and paper stubs.  Coolio.

Hopefully we'll be able to add a few more things to the wall as we go along!

What kind of art do you have hanging in your house....any favourites??  Do you have commitment issues to hanging stuff as well!?