Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

Before I was so rudely interrupted by hideous, mindless thievery, I was talking about my fabulous girl's weekend I had last week! Now, where was I?

I mentioned eating our way through the sushi menu at Peter's. I mentioned getting our first wedding present (so cool) and I think that's where we had truckus-takeus-interruptus.

Saturday morning I headed over to my friend Jan's house where Kathy was staying for the weekend to help us with OOT bags (The Candyman's aunt asked him not too long ago, "What's an oot bag? Not O.O.T, but saying oot. That's what we call them now, our "oot bags."). I was greeted with mimosas. Not a bad way to start the day, I must say.

Just a few updates on the details:
Natural covered tote bags from CheapTotes.com, $.79 each.
Iron-on transfers from Micheal's using my trusty coupons, about $.80 each.
A plethora a goodies I collected from Costco over a few months:

• RiceKkrispie Treats
• Blow Pops
• Bottle Water
• Fruit Snacks
• Lance Cheese & Crackers
• Chips
• Pretzels
• Double Mint Gum
• Mini Candy Bars
• A Map of Tennessee (free from AAA!)
• Welcome Letter
  

I added the welcome letter at the last minute because we've had SO many questions about the weekend activities that I figured I've save us some phone calls once people start arriving. It includes events, times and directions. Hopefully, it will help - if people read them. I threw those together at the last minute using my pile of left-over card stock and little confetti flowers from my invitations. I love those little things.

The total cost of the Costco goodies was about $70, but I spread that out over a good bit of time, just buying random things here and there during my regularly scheduled Costco trips. Each bag cost approximately $3.34. It ended up being a little bit more than I had planned (I was aiming for $2.75), but since we only did 40 of them it wasn't a huge cost hit. I think if we were doing large quantities, I might have forgone some of the goodies. We had PLENTY!

Once we'd had a little a.m. mimosa, we plugged in the iPod, our irons and got to work. I will say this: the iron-on directions that come with the transfers are a bunch of BULLSHIT. We messed up a few before we realized this. It says you should NOT run the iron across the transfer as if you were ironing it, but just place the iron, pick it up and place again. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Happily, the font and style of the bags leans towards an antique type of feel, so the ones we messed up really don't look that bad. Besides, anyone looking close enough has way too much time on their hands.

Jan ironed all the bags flat (I had washed them because that's what the direction said to do. Now, I'm thinking I could have skipped it) and Kathy and I ironed the transfers on.

Jan, ironing.

Kathy and The Thirty-Something Bride ironing on the transfers.

Ta-da! This one actually has a place where it's messed up (can you find it?).

Jan helped me fold and seal all the letters and then we stuffed.

The Loot!

Done!
Thankfully, Jan is letting me keep these at her house until we take them to the hotels. Whew!

We started the whole process around 10:30 am and finished before 1pm. Many hands, make light work. That would have taken me ALL DAY to finish that project. We had enough time to go shopping....

More on that later!