March Madness

This whole not being home on the weekends...every weekend..?

It's rough.

I'm exhausted. The weekend was wonderful. Although I was too tired to go to dinner Friday night for our anniversary. I felt so horrible, but I couldn't even move. My body felt like lead, it was awful.

The NH Shower was amazing. Like really. My girls are just incredible and Amanda and MamaKoala are party-throwing-machines!

I'm just so tired. I've been too exhausted to do anything. At least I unpacked the car load of presents and organized them and stored them in the basement. At least I wrote out all the thank yous already and all but two are in the mail. At least I unpacked my bag and repacked it for this coming weekend.

Still doesn't mean I don't have three loads of clean laundry to put away when I get home, or a million errands to run this week including getting my taxes done.

Ugh. I want to cry I'm so tired.

DPF: Oy

I'm so exhausted this week. The weather is blah. My allergies are crazy.

I've been slacking, but I promise to post a few things next week. This weekend is Laura's Shower. It's a surprise where we're taking her so I didn't post anything about her invitations or Thank Yous that I made because every so often she happens upon my blog and I didn't want to ruin it. But I will post a few photos of the things I've made and of the shower next week.

I also have photos to post of her actual invitations that we mailed out a while ago. I'm such a slacker.

I'm really really excited because we're seeing three different wedding venues this Sunday. So I'll have a post about those at some point too.

Please excuse this interruption:

Showers Showers Everywhere

Been a little elusive lately, but here I am, back again.

The shower was wonderful. Everyone adored the food Julibean made and they practically scraped the Key Lime Pie plate clean and every other guest was asking for the broccoli salad recipe.

Jade and Jessy did a wonderful job of finishing decorating outside while Julibean and I finished preparing some food and sangria in the house. And Stacey made pretty much the sweetest hat of bows I have EVER seen!

Our family and friends literally showered Jaclyn with love and affection and a mondo amount of gifts. They basically cleared out her B3 registry and there are only a few things left on her Macys registry.

Jaclyn was most excited that there were so few things left on those registries not because she wanted to add more things, but because her and Andy have also registered for their honeymoon to...where else? Disney! They're hoping that everyone who has yet to bestow gifts on them will put money towards their honeymoon.

I personally had never heard about registering for a honeymoon before but apparently it's all the rage. I'm pretty sure my Mom decided to pay for a couples massage or something utterly romantic like that for their honeymoon but she was originally tentative because it's just not something her generation was familiar with. I think it's really cool!

Jaclyn's co-workers, they were flipp'n fantastic ladies.

So family, friends, lots of good food, lots of generous gifts, and cute little princess tiaras to boot! Jaclyn's shower was fantastic and she was so happy with how the day went and that's all that is important.

Three generations.

Jaclyn & her maids: Jessy, Jade, Jaclyn, Stacey, me & Julianne

Come on People

The 10th is the response date for Jaclyn's bridal shower invitations and the verdict is still out on almost a quarter of the guest list.

I understand that some invitations were sent out merely as a polite "we're thinking of you and don't want to insult you by not inviting you even though we know you can't possibly make it", but HOW HARD IS IT TO REPLY?!

My aunt told me that one of Jaclyn's cousins will not be coming because she lives in Texas and it was only a "polite invite", but how hard could it have been for her to drop me a line and let me know two or three weeks ago when she got the invitation?

I can also understand that I don't even know half the guests I sent invitations to, and they might feel uncomfortable calling me to reply. But I gave them the option of emailing me too!

*sigh* People just need to be less lazy and more responsible about responding. I can't even imagine how it's going to be when they send out the actual wedding invitations, it'll take 4 weeks just to track everyone down AFTER the RSVP date!

DIY Shower Invitations & Decor

As I've mentioned before my sousin Jaclyn is getting married in October and my sister and I are co-maids of honor. The other wonderful bridesmaids and the two of us decided to throw Jaclyn her shower in July and I've been crafting ever since.

It started with the invitations. I had an idea in my head and managed to get it into paper form pretty easily. (Some personal information is blurred out.) I bought the purple cover and matching envelopes from envelopemall.com. From what I've seen they have the best prices on envelopes out of any online store out there and have an excellent selection of colors and brands. I've ordered samples from them before and their customer service personnel are all very friendly and accommodating.

The ivory paper is actually some resume paper I've had forever and the ribbon came from Michael's. Each of these invitations fit into a long policy 10 envelope. I liked the different shape of the invitation and knew that this was a chance for me to do something creative since J&A decided to get store bought wedding invitations.

Two weekends ago Julibean and I started working on some decor elements. We're hosting the shower in our backyard, so we wanted to add some simple pieces to the canopies and to the trees in the yard to bring some of Jaclyn's favorite color (purple) into the space. We searched around for ways to create pretty and simple centerpieces and decided to make luminaries.

We bought small glass filled candles at the dollar store and wrapped vellum around them. Then we decorated them with the same cut outs that I used on the invitations. I don't have a photo of one while the candle is lit, but trust me, they look very pretty and were really simple to make.

I also came across these fabulous easy to make paper poms from Martha Stewart. You can actually buy kits to make these at Michael's since they carry her craft line there, but we were able to make them ourselves at home without the kit.

We wound up making about six or seven of these poms in different sizes and shades of purple. They look a lot better hanging up than sitting on a table. I hung one from my chandelier to give you a feel for them. When a breeze hits them and they spin a little they look soooooo pretty. And they were really simple to make and despite the fact I have tiny shreds of tissue paper on my floor we definitely had some fun putting them together.

So we have paper poms, little luminaries and we've gone ahead and purchased Jaclyn a fantastic tiara she can wear because obviously the shower is all about her. :)

I also decided I wanted to make Thank You notes for Jaclyn as part of my shower gift to her. I know she'll use them and I had plenty of purple cover paper left over so I got to making them this weekend. We've invited about 45 people to the shower, so I still have quite a few to make, but I'm getting there.

I designed them to match the invitations and go along with the whole fun little flower theme we have going on. I found a set of cute little stamps that said things like "Thanks a bunch!" and "I really loved it!" and those little messages are the kinds of sentiments that Jaclyn would definitely like to impart on her friends and family.

So once I finish the Thank You cards, which I made to fit into A2 sized envelopes, then I just have a few more poms to create and we are set for decor!

Then all I have to do is practice my calligraphy a little more. I'm going to hand address all of the wedding invitations for Jaclyn & Andy. So I've been working on exactly how things should look and how certain letters should connect into others. Calligraphy is definitely a dying art and it has long been something I have had a passion for. I haven't pulled out the stops yet, since my different pen nibs are in need of a cleaning, but it's interesting how your medium can change your end work. Same name with same style of writing in a regular marker, a ball point pen and a special calligraphy marker...all have a different kind of attitude to them.

We'll see which style and which pen the bride and groom like the best, I can adapt to a certain degree with my handwriting. I'm excited to get going with more wedding craftiness, but my hand is definitely tired from just the practicing. When you've spent the past four years typing everything instead of writing it by hand, writing a lot suddenly is really a pain :P