Shop the Stress Away (A CSN Giveaway!)

------This Giveaway is Now Closed------

With the big day fast approaching (84 days and counting!) the stress is piling on! There are decisions to make, appointments to attend, craft projects to complete. Ahhhhhhhhh! It's enough to make a girl's head hurt! What I need is some stress relief? And what better way to relieve some stress than to do some shopping? I know I would love, love, love some pretty new clothes! Unfortunately, my retail therapy will have to wait for a bit (weddings cost a lot!). But one of you lucky readers can get an instant shot of stress relief in the form of free shopping!! Yay!! CSN stores is offering one lucky reader a gift certificate for $15 to any of their over 200 online stores.  Whether you're looking for a shiny new piece of modern office furniture or you desperately "need" new shoes, CSN stores have it all!!

Here's how to enter (please leave a separate comment for each entry):

•  Leave me a comment telling me how you relieve stress  one entry
• Follow this blog (or tell me that you already do)  one entry

The winner will be chosen at random on February 1st. Good luck and happy shopping! :o)

"Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping" - Bo Derek

Welcome/Thank You Boxes

As usual, I found another project to add to my wedding project list. I decided I wanted to make Welcome Boxes for all of my out-of-town guests. I mean, they paid money to fly in and rent a hotel room, the least I can do is give them a little gift to show my appreciation.

Before even deciding what to put in the boxes, I needed to figure out what I was going to put things in. SO I ordered some nice sized white gable boxes.

I wanted to fancy them up somehow, so I printed some labels with a monogram design I whipped up.

For the inside, I'm planning on a thank you card, some bottles of water (with these labels), sun screen (it is the desert after all), a hangover kit (more on that later), maps, a list of local favorite eateries, and some edible goodies like these:

I got the idea for the gumballs here. I think they're super cute!

Since we're having Mexican food and margaritas at the wedding, I thought it would only be fitting to throw in some Mexican Wedding Cookies. Clearly I have to wait a bit to make the cookies, but I've got the bags all ready for them.

I can't wait til my guests see these! :o)

DIY Wedding Guest Book

Does anyone else think traditional guest books are boring? 10 years after the wedding, who really wants to look back and see who signed their name?

I wanted something more personalized and "Jenny-fied" for my wedding (surprise, surprise, right?). I wanted something that people could write messages in, not just sign their name. And I wanted them to be able to get a glimpse of FH and I and our relationship.

So I bought an ordinary spiral bound book that had blank pages inside. The idea was to put pictures of FH and I all throughout the book, leaving room for guests to leave us little notes. But it was nothing special, so it definitely needed to be jazzed up. I needed to make a cover for it.

I talked before about how I made the artwork for the guest book cover myself.

Well the project is finally finished!

I took my artwork (on linen) and some beautiful Joel Dewberry fabric (Herringbone in Pond) that I ordered online especially for this project and created this.

All I had to do then was add some photos (a some old, some new) and I was done!

I love it! What do you think? :o)

Shey B Camera Strap on GroopDealz!

Boy do I have a deal for you!

Have you all heard of SheyB? I'm sure you have! She's all over blogland, so it's kinda hard to miss her! She's a super talented lady who makes such pretty camera strap covers! They're seriously super cute!

I bought one as a gift for a family member and immediately regretted not purchasing one for myself! I haven't given it to her yet . . . maybe I'll just "forget" and keep it for myself ;o) But why? Now's the perfect time to buy one . . . or two!

GroopDealz is showcasing the wonderful SheyB Camera Straps for $15 (+ $3 shipping)!!

If you've got a SLR camera, you certainly want your camera strap to reflect your creative personality.

Choose from the 3 straps below for $15! (+$3 shipping)

"You're not boring, why should your camera be?"

Just click here to purchase.

Hurry, this offer ends on Sunday at midnight! Happy shopping! :o)

Bird Making with the Girls

I'm so blessed to have such awesome friends (and bridesmaids)! Clearly I'm a very crafty, do-it-yourself kind of person, so there are a lots of crafty type projects involved in my wedding planning.

I've made a flock of fabric birds, an army of cameras, and my own guest book (just to name a few). And of course, there's still more on my list like an origami crane curtain, program fans, and (right before the big day) cupcake favors.

One of the things still on my to-do list was make the wire feet for my fabric birds. I'd sewn like 40 birds, but they were all leg-less!

My girls know how much I have to do (and how hard it is for me to ask for help) so they've been pretty much demanding that I give them something to do. So last week I had my two besties over for a little bird feet making party.

They were troopers and picked it up really quickly! We also all had our "specialties" which worked out great. Corynn was best at the big bird legs, Madison at the medium, and I thought making the little feet was a breeze!

(Look Corynn! Your finger's famous!)

With their help, I was able to finish off all the feet in just about an hour (and that includes the time we spent eating instead of working. You gotta feed people when they help you!).

We finished so fast that we started folding paper cranes for the curtain. We made about 50 cranes in about 2 hours. We still have more to make, but at least we're crane folding experts now!

Thanks ladies for all your help! You guys are awesome! :o)

Love Bird Wedding Invitations

Have I mentioned before how much I love Etsy? Cuz I do. I really, really do. The cute little reversible signs in these engagement photos:

I bought them on Etsy.

My Honey Tree painting:

Bought that on Etsy.

I've even purchased gifts for my bridesmaids, my mom, my dad, and a cousin who recently got married all on Etsy.

So it was only fitting that I bought my wedding invitations on Etsy too!

I looked at a lot of beautiful invitations, but this set was the winner. It totally fits with the "Love Birds" theme and we were able to get the invitation to reflect our wedding colors (aqua and yellow).

The picture's a bit wonky so you can't really see the beautiful aqua border that runs all the way around the invite.

We also opted to have RSVP postcards instead of traditional cards. These came pre-printed with our address on the opposite side.

We were also able to purchased cards inserts with our wedding website information.

I'm so thrilled with the set! Everything is so beautiful! And I was able to purchase a set of 100 for about $170! That's super cheap compared to a lot of the prices I was seeing on the internet.

My only complication was that the only postcard stamps the post office currently sells have polar bears on them. Doesn't exactly go with my spring wedding. So I decided to splurge and order my own stamps from PhotoStamps. I used one of our engagement pictures and wa la! The perfect stamp for my pretty postcards!

I can't wait to send these babies out! Everything is so springy. So pretty. So . . . ME!

I love Etsy!

Engagement Photos

I know we're already a week into the new year, but I think I'm still recovering from December! Talk about a whirlwind month! There were birthday parties, Christmas parties, cookie parties, premarital counseling (Don't worry. Nothing's wrong. It's required by the church), and Christmas (of course). And to top it all off, FH and I had the most amazing engagement photo shoot with an incredible photographer out of Phoenix, Melissa Young.

I actually discovered her thanks to a blog I found at a link party. This awesome card catalog transformation caught my eye and lead me to the blog Dream Book Design. I was poking around and found some really beautiful photos of that couple with the photo credit belonging to Melissa. Even the photo of the card catalog that caught my attention was taken by Melissa!

It was perfect timing! I just happened at that moment to be looking for a photographer to shoot our engagement photos. Not only was she affordable, but her portfolio is amazing!! She definitely had the artistic eye I was looking for. So I thought I'd share some of my favorite photos from this fantastic photographer!

 

And last, but not least . . . my personal favorite . . .

So if you're in the So. Arizona area and are looking for the most awesomist (Is that a word? . . . It is now!) photographer, look no further! Just contact Melissa and let the incredible photos come your way!

Thanks a ton Melissa!! :o)