Hard decision

This post has been really difficult for me to write. It has taken a couple of weeks, and some serious thought. This blog was started as a way for Anna and myself to share information about our upcoming weddings. Since Anna has decided to no longer blog on this site I also think I will move on, as it is weird to think about blogging on here alone.

If anyone is interested in following my journey down the aisle, you can follow me here: (Somewhat) Crafty Wedding

Thanks for taking me this far, Just Around the Riverbend, you've been good to me...

pausing

Anna here...
Taking a break from the blog (maybe short, maybe prolonged). People that are really involved in my wedding have started reading the blog, which is wonderful. However, at the same time, I want a lot of things to be a surprise, so I'm scaling back. This has been a wonderful place to test ideas over the last year. In the last month we've made some dramatic changes to our plans, and I am pretty sure I will be walking the last miles of the journey without the blogosphere!

Good luck on hunting for a home, Mandie!

365...

We've reached the one year mark until our wedding! Woohoo!

I can't say that I'm always pleased about our extra long engagement, it can be really hard. Often I find myself thinking, what's the point? It's just a wedding right? But then I make myself think, it's not just a wedding, it's an entrance to our marriage. And it's a celebration that is important to our families and friends, and they are important to us. Plus, in two weeks we will have a pre-approval for a mortgage and will be looking to buy our first home. By extending our engagement we spread out payments, yay! Trying to stay positive, but sometimes it's still hard.

Moving on... You HAVE to check out this beautiful gorgeous-ness that I found today!













All images from Justin and Mary photography

Ummm, can I say how in love with the all the yellow I am?

DIY complete!

This post is dedicated to Jessica, my post loyal reader ;) Love you

If you remember from my last post I showed you an ugly yellow candlestick. What did I manage to do with it? (Successfully I might add :) )

Dun dun duh... I give you, a cake stand!

Okay, it was really quite easy and there is no need for the dramatics I've been giving it, but it was one of my very first solid DIY projects and I love how it came out!

Step one: Wash plate and stand
Step two: Test it out and see roughly where you'd like to glue it.
Step three: Put a ring of glue on the bottom of plate
Because I had just washed the candlestick it left a small water ring when I put it on the plate to test where I wanted it, so I followed that with the glue. Note: The glue is called Weldbond, it's a strong glue meant for ceramics.

Step four: Place book or other object on top of candlestick to help it bond better.
Step five: Let sit.
Step six: Enjoy your handiwork
Me showing how bonded it is now.

It's hard to see in the pictures, but there is a faint ring of yellow around the edges of this plate.


Other things to note: I just went to Goodwill and bought plates and other things that might work for stands. This plate is a good dinner size, but small for a cake stand so I have been keeping my eyes open for other, larger plates. I also wasn't super exact about being perfectly in the middle of the bottom of the plate, but it worked out okay anyway.

Anyway, boring but I'm excited about them. I have a couple more plates and stands, but now that I know it's super easy to do, I'm going to put them aside for now, they are easier to store as they are now!

DIY experiment

Today I went with a friend to pick up the supplies for one of the first of my (hopefully) many DIY projects. Here is a teaser:

On it's own, a slightly ugly yellow candlestick. But together with some other supplies...?

You'll have to wait and see :)

(Man, I hope this project works, if not, I apologize in advance for having to wait and hear about my failures)

I love me some Ikea

So after my registry brainstorming, Ikea suddenly popped into my brain. "Do they do registries?!" because there is so much stuff I would get there. As soon as I got home from work (yes, I constantly have weddings on the mind) I checked. They don't do registries, but I did find lots of other good stuff! I think I will be heading there on Sunday to pick some of this stuff up :D

First, if I was doing a candy buffet as I had originally wanted, I would use these:
The Burken Jar. The largest size is $3.99 and will hold just over 4 pounds of candy. There are two smaller sizes (17oz for 1.99 and 37 for 2.99) if you want to mix up the sizes.

There is also the Slom jar
This one is 61 oz is 3.99 and will hold almost 4 pounds. There is a 68 oz for the same price, but, well, it has an oddly phallic shape...

Then I found these bottle openers:
The 'Charm bottle opener'. For 0.99 a piece, these could make awfully cute favors, and are much cuter than some other sketchy bottle openers I've seen.

These actually caught my eye in the weekly circular they sent out last week
The Tripp tins. These are 7.99 (for all 3) and the other set...
...is 2.99. I will have to admit that the first thing I thought was, how cute would these be as floral arrangement containers? But I'm sure they could be used for other things. I would use the green and yellow from both sets, but would probably find another use for the orange...

I also love these Marit placemats
And for 0.99 a piece these would be cute as pops of color under arrangements. But I think I will pick some of these up just for my own personal use right now. I love love love the green.

I have also been a little obsessed with cake stands lately and the idea of maybe creating my own. Then I found this plate, the Fargrik.
The largest of them is 3.99 and I was thinking I could use the matching bowl as a stand. Or something else, haven't figured that part out yet. Much cheaper than buying a jadeite cake stand.

Last but not least I found these Wilma curtains.
While they are sheer. But at $9.99 for a pack of two, these would make delightful table runners.

I have to come to the acceptance that the greens I'm going to use aren't necessarily going to match. But that's okay, but I love lots of shades of green. I found most of these things by going to the Ikea website and searching for 'green'. They also have some adorable fabrics and other things. The placemats, curtains, and plate all come in other colors which is why I included their names. If you want to check them out, just search the name on the website.

Anyone else wish that Ikea had a registry option? Or does anyone else want to run to the store and check out what they have, right now-ish?

Shopping for others

It's a busy summer for me in terms of weddings. I attended a wedding last month, I'll be going to another in a couple of weeks, and I'll be buying a gift for my parents to take when they go to my cousins wedding in August. It's been an interesting look at the registry aspect of weddings. All three of the couples registered at both Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It seems to be a trend.


Looking through the registries got me thinking about where we are going to register and what we would register for. Personally, I think the idea of registering is kind of weird, I have always hated telling people that I want things (personal issue, obviously). Registries just seem kind of selfish to me, putting out for the world what you want them to buy for you. I know that it is so that people who love you can support you and the building of your home and life together. But it just makes me feel weird.

It makes me think about where we are going to register (because despite my weirdness about it, it's an expected part of the wedding that I'm not going to shirk... ) My mom suggested Macy's but I can't see myself asking people to spend for stuff from Macy's. I've considered Kohl's, but their merchandise changes so often. I have looked into those websites where people can contribute to your honeymoon, but they often charge people on top of what they are gifting). What does that leave us with? BB&B, Target. I'm also considering Amazon, but I don't want that to be the only registry because it will then require shipping costs.

Are there are places that people have registered? And how far out are couples 'expected' to register?