Sheet Music Charger Plates from Celebrations at Home

For the reception, we're just keeping it all very simple. Buffet, cupcakes & donuts, and the linens & china the venue is letting us use. I never thought of charger plates. To be honest, I had to look them up to be sure I understood what they were. I also looked them up to see how much they were.
Yikes.
The answer? Simplify and awesome-ify. Especially if you like music, you'l, love what I found at Celebrations at Home.

I know, sheet music charger plates!!! I saw these and had to share. They'd be a wonderful DIY project and it just looks SO. FABULOUS.

Go see what Chris & the other ladies have goin' on at Celebrations at Home.

Weddzilla

Weddzilla Blog

After following one of my fellow Nebraska brides, she shared on her blog that she blogs for Weddzilla. I went to the site and took a look around... wow! There's a whole positive little community chock full of realistic and first-hand advice as well as typical wedding talk you'd want and expect. I was really taken with them so I applied--and now I blog there as well! I'll still continue posting different things from what is here, I'll just be blogging more often alltogether!

Please come vist me over there Tuesdays and Thursdays, and check out the other bloggers as well; they have a ton of wonderful ideas!

Vintage Lace Garter - DIY Tutorial #2

This weekend was DIY central! I got my last standing order of sock monkeys done (see the neon cuteness here at HiLLjO). Shawn took some winter bunny pictures of us. I made my garter. I also started our sock bunnies.

The garter is a luscious vintage lace creation that is a tad larger than your average leg adornment.

Here's how it was done.
I had 2 yards of vintage lace trim, a yard of swimsuit elastic, a needle, ivory & blue thread, scissors and some of my favorite Royal Blue American Ribbon in the petite picot style.

Stretch the elastic around your thigh until it's tight but comfortable. Cut this length and set it aside. Next measure your lace trim out to the circumference of your thigh and add an inch, then cut. I cut 4 lengths of lace total.

With right sides of two lengths of lace facing each other, line up lace how you'd like it to be aligned when finished. Thread your needle with ivory thread and sew the lengths together at the base of the trim.
Repeat for the last two lengths of lace.
Open up your trim you just sewed so you can see the right sides and flatten it with your fingers or an iron on LOW.
Tricky part ahead.
Get your elastic and make a lace-elastic-on-rye sandwich by layering as follows:
Opened lace length right side up
elastic
Opened lace length right side up

Lace your needle with ivory thread again and sew the first inch of all three layers together to anchor the elastic. Stretch the elastic to the end of the lace lengths and pin along the layers as you stretch. Continue sewing across the elastic-lace sandwich until the end, then knot and cut your thread.

Fold garter in half with right sides facing and sew the open edges together, whipstitching to hold any stringy ends in.
Knot several times and cut thread.


Easy part: Measure ribbon long enough to tie in a nice large bow around your thigh, cut length. Put your garter on and tie your ribbon around the center. Thread your needle with blue thread and secure the ribbon to the back of the garter where you just sewed the edges together. I also put two tack stitches on either side of the garter and also through the center of the bow to secure it all the way around the lace.
Easiest DIY yet. I'm starting to heart elastic, by the way.

Cute Shot Glasses

We spent some time with some family this weekend and one of the trips we took was to my parents'. We haven't seen them for a couple weeks so she gave us our Valentine gift today.

SO CUTE! We collect shot glasses so this is highly appropriate.

We enjoy these.

It's snowing AGAIN!

Thank goodness.
Why? Because we need a winter photo together with snow!

James L. Amos for Nat'l Geo. 1978, Dearborn MI

We've been meaning to take a winter photo of us together while we're engaged so that we can have a "seasonal-bunnies" collage matted in place of a guestbook at the wedding. Every time it's been snowing here the wind is too high to take a nice picture. Your hair is either all over in the wind or your nose gets red and drippy after 5 minutes outside. Purty.
I almost thought it wouldn't happen after all our snow melted last week so I am very happy for snow.  

Our matte's photo will be laid out in this way, but each photo will be of us from that time of year.
We haven't decided which color the matte should be. I don't think white will work. Maybe a light blue? Or yellow with Shawn's paper-tie-dye technique overdyed? We'll see... He will have to be dying a lot of stuff for the wedding.
The man is a master tie-dyer so naturally I wouldn't have anyone else dye my crinoline yellow for my dress, nor would I have anyone else dye the backdrop sheet for our photobooth. He just has such an eye for dispersal and color combinations. People ask him if he buys his shirts. NOPE! He dyes them himself with his hands.
He also takes rad photos!

You can see some of his stuff here and here. That's my leg by the way... lol.

He also colors with colored pencil so deep and so even that it looks like laser jet printing. So he will also be coloring in our DIY Marriage Certificate. He's a groom who is involved in the wedding because he wants to be, much to my delight!