Make it Stop!

I think I need a DIY intervention. Now.

Today, the office folks are taking me out to a celebratory wedding lunch! Nice! I thought it would be a great time to casually invite the group to our Pre-Wedding/Rehearsal Gathering. Casually.

That is until I woke up this morning at 4:30 am, unable to sleep. Again. Please note that I took a Benadryl AND a Tylenol PM last night. Ha! I laugh in the face of these so-called sleep inducing drugs.

So, I'm laying there, snuggling up to The Candyman and starting to toss and turn and I know I've got to be disturbing him. No sense in both of us not sleeping, so I got up. I contemplated the gym for about a half a second, then realized that I couldn't quite breath through my nose yet and quickly dismissed that crazy thought.

I'm never really quite ready for Mafia Wars or Scramble on Facebook that early, so I sat at the computer, contemplating what used to be my sewing table, which is now covered in PWC (Piles of Wedding Crap). I was staring aimlessly at the remaining card stock and cute little ivory flowers I have left over and......it happened. Another project. But it was a really small one, I swear! Here, see for yourselves.

I just whipped up a little invite for those folks not invited to the wedding. I only needed a few of them (our office is small).

I just used a pretty little font, similar to what I've used throughout my other wedding stuff, but this one is more swoopy. Swoopy - look it up.
I stuck a little flower on it with my left over flowers and glue dots.
I printed two per sheet and used my paper-cutter I bought at JoAnn's (on sale, thank you) to cut in half.
I used my Martha Stewart bone folder (Michael's, on sale) to fold in half.

I used my heart hole punch (Michael's, with coupons) and the left-over ribbon (Michael's, with coupons) to close them up the same way I did my fun registration booklets.

I had purchased the "All You Need Is Love" stamp out of the $.99 bin at Michael's, but never used it. Until this morning around 5am.

It's not too bad, right? Or do I need the aforementioned intervention?

Aaaaaahhhhh.....the weekend.

Man, after the emotional roller coaster of last week, I really needed some down time this weekend. While I can't say I got a lot of "lay on the couch and watch back to back episodes of Top Chef" time, I was able to totally re-group.

The Candyman had a speaking engagement on Saturday with a volunteer group he's associated with, so he left the house rather early. I proceeded to clean the shit out of the house. Seriously. I was doing baseboards, scrubbing behind the toilets - that kind of cleaning. I finished about an hour before The Candman got home and I was able to relax with a glass of wine in my shiny, clean house. I don't know what it is about a spotless house that makes me happy, but it just does. I actually feel prettier and thinner in a clean house than I do in a cluttered one. How weird is that?

I did do some wedding stuff this weekend. I had my final dress fitting on Friday afternoon. The dress looks stunning. I didn't want to take it off! I just kept wandering round the bridal shop in it. It was cool because a woman and her mother were paying for the exact dress I bought when I was trying the final dress on! Dress twins! I had the seamstress snap a shot of the back. Love it!


The simplicity of this just makes me so happy. I have no idea why. When I was in high school, I remember seeing a picture of a wedding gown that had really long back straps like this. I remember thinking then, "I want my wedding dress to look like that." I totally didn't even remember that thought until I saw this picture and it all came rushing back to me! Serendipity? Fate? Chance? Luck? I'm not sure, but it makes me happy.

Here's the sad/funny part about my dress. We took the sides of the chest in. We added C-cup pads. We took in the front section of the dress. Guess what? The damn thing still gaps in the front just a bit. The seamstress was at a loss and to be honest, I don't think there is anything else she can do. I asked her to go grab another set of demi-cups and voila, problem solved. So, I need to get myself an extra set of pads to slip into the dress to hike up my teeny-tiny boobettes to fill out the front of the dress. What's funny is with the C-cup pads and with the addition of the demi's, my tits look great! Seriously, I look stacked. Liza, eat your heart out! (Little inside joke. She'll get it.)

I also finished up the hair toys for me and my MOH as well as started working on the match boxes. Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to be them, but I didn't feel like working on the favors, so match boxes it was. It was actually kind of fun, so I was happy to do them while watching mindless TV. The Candyman let me watch some really bad chick flicks without uttering one word of complaint. Actually, he did scoff a bit at me watching Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in "The Lake House," but I deserved that one. It really is a dumb movie.

Sunday was more re-grouping, relaxing, cooking and wine drinking. It was exactly what I needed. Sigh......
I hope everyone was as lucky as I was to have a weekend to regroup! Happy Monday!

Ceremony Programs? Check!

I'm done with the ceremony programs! Yeehaw! The Candyman and I actually finished these up together last weekend. One more thing crossed off the list!

I really can't rave enough about the Brides brand of invitations and matching everything I got at Michael's. While I did have to monkey around with the formatting a bit, it's all worth it. I've done a few things to make it my own and that's what's nice. It's kinds of like that show on The Food Network, Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. I didn't make my own invitations per se, but I took pre-made stuff and have tweaked it just a little to make it all work.

The first ceremony programs I had were tiered with a card stock backing. These were impossible to print. Even using their assigned format and font, it wouldn't work. There was a mini-WPM (Wedding Planning Meltdown) during this process. I took them back to Michael's and bought regular booklet style programs and they were a total snap.

Here's the outside of the booklet.

Here's the inside.

I printed the version of The Lord's Prayer we like. Did you know there are three different versions? We prefer the 1928 version from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

The Candyman folded all the pages for me while I assembled and tied the ribbons into pretty knots. Can I tell you what pain in the ass that was? Who knew tying knots would be so difficult.?

Remember all the little flowers I used on my invitations? Well, I have a bunch left over, so I decided to use them on the outside of the programs, just for fun.

God love The Candyman for glue-dotting tiny little flowers on our programs. Definitely not his thing.

And voila! Our ceremony programs!

While I wish that I had a Gocco printer, time to DIY everything and a little bit more creativity, I am really happy with how all my printed materials came out. I'm happy I haven't spent a fortune on all of it. I bought all my invitations (pocket fold with response cards), table cards, menus, thank you cards, place cards, ceremony programs, glue dots, mini flowers, double sided sticky tape, favor boxes, extra card stock for favor stuff (as well as guest book fun), extra ribbon, heart and round hole punchers, favor bags for inside the box (yes, I'm anal retentive), DIY personalized labels for the invites and all postage for about $350! I took advantage of every sale and coupon from JoAnn's and Michael's as I could! The one thing I did not include in this total is the ink to print all this. I've purchase 3 sets of ink cartridges as $35 a pop. I think I would have only needed 2 if it hadn't been for my OOT bags. The iron-on transfer I'm using for those used a TON of ink per page! Still, I think I'm doing pretty good since all the stuff is personalized by moi! Thus far, I don't think I would have wanted to do this any other way.

I have what I hope is my LAST dress fitting this afternoon. I can't believe that our wedding is only 43 days away! Crazy!

So tell me, those of you going the DIY route - are you enjoying it? Do you think it's worth it?

DIY Hair Toys

Hair toys and a tomatillo.

OK, so you all know the drastic fate of my hair toy from DonnaElla. It committed floral suicide on I-65 North. A moment of silence please for the dearly departed. *sniff*

Since I simply couldn't face more time on Etsy in a seemingly desperate search for a new hair toy, I decided to DIY my hair toy. It's actually turning out OK! I started the process by refusing to use hot glue and sewing only. However, the thickness of some of the layers was not allowing me to pull the thread tight enough to keep the little pearls from rolling around.

You can see in these pictures how they look a little sad. I put the center pearl on top of a sequin and that just wasn't helping the situation either. I cut it all off and went and bought some "bling" glue from JoAnn's. It worked like a charm. I still hate hot glue.

I decided to make my MOH a matching hair toy since this wasn't so hard. When I was out buying bling glue, I figured I could get some black flowers to match my MOH's black dress. Black flowers. Yeah, I said it and no, they do not exist - at least not at happy-happy JoAnn's. I really didn't think that through now, did I? What to do? Buy some cheap-ass fabric dye and dye the petals. Yes, that is what I did and it was easy-peasy-japoneasy. I bought fabric dye for synthetic material for like $3.99 (of course I had a coupon - duh) and the job was done in a little over an hour. You have to put the dye in an enamel or stainless steel pot and simmer the fabric for an hour. You also have to be really careful with the dye because that crap will get everywhere if you're not careful. I was super careful and still managed to spill.

Once I dumped all the dye out, I put the petals on top of one of those mesh metal splash guard kitchen thingies to dry over the sink.

I let the petals dry all day and then just played with them a little to get them stacked right.

I've got the same center icon of silver and pearls to sew in the middle of this flower. Once I get that done, I'll share the final results. I'm making a second smaller flowers for myself (because one just isn't enough) and I need to figure out the best way to add the alligator clip to the back. I have a couple of these kinds of flowers already (store bought) and I'm referencing them for the best method. Stay tuned for the final results!

Blowing the Budget?

I have found myself in a unique position these days. Ever since January, The Candyman and I have been on serious financial lock down. All you brides out there know how tough it is to plan a wedding in an economic slump, right? My personal up-side to this is that I imagine myself, in my golden years, saying things like, "I remember the crash of '09! That's the year we got married honey, remember? We were so young then..."

Things in The Thirty-Something Bride's personal world are topsy-turvy, to say the least. Work is, well......work. It's both physically and emotionally draining these days. Damn economy. I come home totally exhausted and have to do things like print menus. Sigh...it's supposed to be fun, right?

I come home last night to a very unique situation: my neighbor's destroyed fence, a now non-existent clutch in the fiance's truck and the new knowledge that we'll be several hundred dollars lighter to repair said fence and truck. Again....sigh.

What's funny though is that I really don't care right now. I really just want to blow money on stuff that will chillax me: pedicures, eyebrow waxing, massages, facials. I haven't done all this, but I want it. Bad.

I'm also in the mood for some serious DIY stuff. Do not ask me why, I just am. I bought a bunch of matchbooks yesterday and had my intern friend Google DIY instructions to do my own matchboxes. She found a really aggressive DIY version here, but whomever did these lovelies is more OCD than I am.

Source

I made a lame attempt last night to DIY and decided that it was the dumbest idea I've ever had. Like I have time to cover 100+ matchboxes 2 months before my wedding. Riiiiiiight. It ain't gonna happen. However, I'm now obsessed with personalization - matches, napkins. I want them. Bad. Screw the budget. At this point, how much worse can it get? I mean, what's an extra $50 after $$$ has been spent already? This is not the attitude to have and I believe it's one that trips up many brides.

All I know is that this weekend is tax free weekend in Tennessee. The state has a tax free weekend twice per year so folks can get ready for back to school and summer. It applies to clothes and school supplies only. It means a lot to many people when your sales tax is 9.25%! I think this might be good time to shop for The Rehearsal Gathering Dress. And shoes. Because you know I loves me some shoes!

There are lots of you out there quickly approaching your wedding date! Cheap Wife is getting hitched this weekend, Chic n' Cheap NYC Wedding is about to walk the aisle, and we all know when August15Bride is getting married! Who else is just tired of the budget and ready to blow?