A DIY Mother's Day

So I know Mother's Day was a while ago, but I'm really lazy and just getting around to uploading all of the pictures. I wanted to do something special, more than just the greeting card and dinner route, but since I don't have a lot of money to spend, I got creative.

One of the bees (Miss Plum, I believe?) posted a cute little craft segment involving pens, fake flowers and a flower pot. Since I can't see my mom with a frilly collection of flowery things, I decided to tweak it a little to suit her tastes.

So instead of using flowers, I used... CAT TOYS! My mom is crazy about her cat Puck. Seriously, the cat can do no wrong, and when he does, it's only because of the "bad influence" her other cat Rocky (now our cat Rockstar) had on him. At any rate, I figured it would be cute to tweak the project a bit to suit her needs.

(Because of my lack of originality, and because Jason's mom is a teacher, I made her gift out of the regular flower/pot combo.)

All of my materials:

Flowers, flower pot, pen cup, floral tape, cat toys, paper clips, glue sticks, glue gun, basic pens.








First, you have to take all of the little ends off the pens. Eventually, the lids too.






Next, put a good amount of hot glue into the open end of the pen. You can feel the heat through the plastic, so be careful not to burn yourself! You don't have to fill the entire body with glue, I filled about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way down. The most important thing is that there's enough glue where the toy and the end of the pen meet. Quickly press a toy (or flower) into the warm adhesive and hold tight for a few minutes while the glue initially sets. You have to be careful with the round toys, because if you set the pen down before the toy is set it will roll right off the end of the pen!



Since some of the toys were a little large, I reinforced the bond by putting a layer of glue around the base of the toy/pen. This will be mostly covered up later, and it's better to have the hold too strong than too weak. On several of the toys that didn't have a good surface for sticking straight onto the glue, I threaded a paper clip through them, then glued the entire clip into the barrel of the pen. You can't see the paperclip and it's really good for reinforcing the strength of the bond.

After the glue has completely dried and the bond is very tight, take a piece of floral tape and, starting at the top, wrap it down and around the entire base of the pen. Since I went with both blue and black pens for a little variety, I stopped taping at the part of the pen that shows what color it is, since having toys or flowers on top won't necessarily indicate the ink color. I secured the floral tape at the bottom with a tiny bit of glue, just in case.



That's pretty much the gist of it. I then put the cat toy pens in a pink pen cup (Mom loves pink) and the flower pens in a little glazed flower pot. If you wanted to get really creative, you could even decorate the pot yourself.

The finished products:

Voila!!!

Updates galore

First of all, congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. Courtney and Will Qubty! I'm so sorry I couldn't be at the wedding, but I'm so happy for you guys!

The reason I couldn't be there this weekend is I was in Houston (yay!) visiting my family. It's the first time I've met my niece, who is almost 6 months old and ADORABLE!!! Just a happy baby all around, hardly fussy at all, fearless (my big teddy bear of a dog made friends with her very quickly) and cute :) She loves seeing herself in the mirror - she was starting to fuss so I walked around with her a bit and put her in front of our big mirror wall in the dining room: instant giggles. We just sat there and played until her bath was ready. She was too cute and so much fun and the only negative about the whole ordeal is that I don't get to see her more often. I think the next time will be at the wedding and she'll be 10 months, a lot different!

Having all of my family there was great because I spread the word about a lot of details. We aren't sending out save-the-dates because most everyone knows the info via word of mouth, and our website of course. Just as a reminder I shot out a quick email last night to those traveling the farthest. I was going to use the Knot's handy automated one, but it linked to my Knot webpage, which I haven't set up since we have the one at weddingpath. So the email one worked just as well and I was able to include the correct webpage address!

There was another wedding this weekend, and although I don't know the couple personally, she posts on Weddingbee and is probably the poster I feel closest with (because she's my age and had a lot of the same college related elements as me.) One thing that was so helpful was that she continued posting updates all the way until about 8 hours before her wedding (when she had to leave to get her hair done and then head to the venue.) She gave a lot of helpful advice about taking care of as much stuff as possible, even though you have a lot of time. All those little things that are 90% done, except for xyz, really come back and haunt you that last week leading up to the event. She suggested evaluating what things we still had to work on and try to completely finish up as many as possible.

Something else helpful was that she took each element (centerpieces, altar decorations, guest book table details, etc) and wrote out very specific, detailed directions for what was supposed to happen, then boxed that element and its directions in a box by itself. That way, when her family and friends came to help, they could grab a box, follow the directions, get her approval, and start on something else. It was a very organized way so she wasn't bombarded with "where does this go?" and "how do you want to do this?" and "should we do it like this or this?" I definitely think it was a brilliant move on her part. Especially since I know I'll be a perfectionist when it comes to my wedding, might as well get started on that stuff now.

So today I went to Michael's and purchased even more stuff! Among that stuff was a wooden "W" that I am going to decorate myself with little crystals to go on our cake (probably not as a topper, maybe on the second tier.) I got some big vases on sale for $5 apiece and then some little clear bags with twist ties that I'll use as favor bags.

It's so interesting to talk about my wedding with my sister in law. It made me realize how much we've gotten done, and how much there is left to do... I'm really hurting for a paycheck to finish up the purchases I have left to make, but this week is the last of my training at Barnes and Noble and next week I'm on the regular schedule, so that should help some. I get another paycheck this Thursday! Of course, it will go straight to my credit card, but since I'm charging all the wedding stuff anyway, it's like making a wedding payment. Sort of.

Sorry for the long boring post with no pictures. Maybe this will help:



A beautiful butterfly. One of many hanging around our apartment in the past few weeks. I was hoping to see them in more colors, but this is all we got. Still pretty.

Check, check (check)

According to my oh-so-helpful Knot reminder checklist, I have three things left to do this month: Start planning the rehearsal dinner (and give Jason's parents all the info re: the guest list), visit tux shops to make a decision on Jason's day-of finery, and then actually book the place we decide to hold the rehearsal dinner. To number 2 I'm adding figuring out what Arthur and Thomas are going to wear. Might as well take care of it all at once while we're there. I think that we can squish 1 and 3 together into one, but I have no idea where to get what I want. I even tried talking to the owner of our venue to see where other brides go afterwards (yes, Justin is so small everyone has to go back into Roanoke, FW or Denton for food - unless we want to rent out the Abbey's little house next door, which then we'd have to book a caterer just for that night, so no.) The suggestions she made were the three places I was expecting her to say, none of which I'm really interested in. I really don't want a fancy restaurant rehearsal dinner. I want something totally laid back where we can just chill. Somehow, the local fried chicken joint isn't doing it for me. Oh well. Maybe I'll have Jason gives his parents my ideas and let them decide. They're paying, after all; if they choose for me I can't very well be ungrateful.

This lack of much left on this month's checklist comes after yesterday's very productive day. Not only did I finally make a decision about a florist, I went and put down a deposit and signed a contract. We went over everything again, just to make sure we are on the right page. I typed everything up in a spreadsheet to make sure I didn't miss anything. It's a very detailed spreadsheet, all the way from what colors of what flowers to what color and type of ribbons we will be using. As a bonus, she's going to make me a smaller version of my bouquet as a sample, and then I'll use it as my bouquet when I take my bridal portraits. Which I should probably book soon. But I have to wait for my dress to come in first (hurry up!) and get it altered and all.

Lots of payments need to be made soon. Good thing Jason got a slew of 0% APR credit card offers in the mail yesterday!

Yikes

I finally buckled down and ordered our wedding cake. I know we only met with two places, but we both really liked the first one, and they can do all the "extra" stuff for Jason's cake that I was hoping for. Their prices are really reasonable, the staff is friendly and talented. It just seemed logical to book with someone we had such great experiences with. We changed our minds from our original design, so hopefully we have a winner now.

I also met with a florist here in town to talk about flowers. She was SO helpful! I brought in a few pictures of things I liked, and not only was she able to identify every flower in each picture, but then she could tell me what other colors it came in, how hard they were to work with, how expensive they would be to get, etc. She made so many good suggestions, pulling out most of the flowers we discussed from their own cooler to physically show me. She even showed me how they can spray flowers to get them the right shade of whatever color we are looking for. And on top of all her help, her prices are really reasonable and she was very professional, emailing me the same day with a written invoice that included everything we had talked about and a price breakdown. It looks like we have another winner - I just have to put down a deposit to reserve her. I guess I should just go ahead and do it now, why wait.

Yesterday we had our first meeting with our pastor to start our premarital "counseling." The meeting was short and sweet - he gave us a book to read together and then a packet of info we each have to fill out about ourselves. The hardest part is going to be coming up with 10 reasons I want to marry him and 10 reasons I think I'm ready for marriage. Don't get me wrong, of course I can come up with all 20, it's just that I've never had to put this kind of stuff into words before. How do you say "I just know" ten times? Isn't love an indescribable feeling? I have about 5 of each so far, and we have almost a month before we meet with him again, so I've got some time to keep thinking about it.

We have to turn in our packets a few days before our next meeting with him so he can compare our answers and prepare our discussion for the next meeting. I'm interested to see what things will jump out at him as something that needs to be discussed. I wonder what Jason really thinks of me...

I lied...

We aren't doing cake stuff this weekend. Not unless you count designing a cake for Jason's mom's surprise party next weekend. And even that is stretching it, because I'm going to have them decorate her cake to match the invitations we sent out :)

What I did do, however, was scope out Craigslist to see if I could find an affordable videographer in the area. By affordable, I mean next to free. In Jason's mind, he's generously budgeting a whopping $100. In reality, we'd be lucky to get an hour of someon'es time for that much. It's one of those things that's a pretty divided issue on Weddingbee whether they're worth it or not, and it's something I keep flip flopping on.

On the one hand, I've read about a lot of previous brides who say the day just flew by and it would be nice to have the video to go back and actually WATCH what happened, instead of remembering a big whirl of events and sights and sounds. Sure, professional photography is nice, but still film can't capture the way Jason's voice cracks during the vows, or how drunk Aunt Ida hits on all the teenage boys (note: for the record, Jason has long since reached puberty, and I don't have an Aunt Ida that I know of)

On the other hand, most of the pricing I've seen is in the thousands, or in the upper hundreds for JUST the ceremony (and our ceremony should only be about 25 minutes, so that seems a bit much, no?) I know there's some editing involved, but it can't be that hard to stand still for half an hour while we say we do and lock lips in matrimony.

I'm not looking for fancy editing. I'm not looking for interviews with every guest. I'm not even looking for more than just the highlights (do I really need to watch two hours of the dance floor?) All I'm looking for are the important things - the ceremony obviously, our first dance, dancing with my daddy, Jason and his mommy, cutting the cake and tossing our respective baubbles, and the gathering of family and friends as they wave goodbye to us on our way to [somewhere, not sure yet, maybe a hotel, maybe just home.]

Why does this have to be so freakin expensive?!

Let's see...

I am in the process of contacting more bakeries to meet with this weekend. I'd like to find someone on this side of the metroplex so delivery fees won't be as outrageous as from companies coming from the other side. It's hard because since there's NOTHING in Justin save for our wedding chapel I have to go elsewhere for everything!

I have a meeting with a florist on Tuesday. Going to sit down and discuss not only ideas but specific flowers, and then prices of course. I'd really like a florist who could deliver instead of someone having to pick everything up. We'll see.

We have our first meeting with our officiant on Tuesday. We have to take a few classes with him. Easy breezy.

It's official

Jason and I are now full members of the First United Methodist Church of Keller. Yay. We talked to Pastor Jason (I know, I know haha) about marrying us, and he said he'd check his calendar and get back to us. Haven't heard from him, but on Sunday he was talking to us about the three "sessions" we'd have to take with him prior to the wedding. No big deal. Jason's sister Danielle was married by him and she said the sessions were more just talking about the wedding than anything deeply religious. So it looks like we're golden. Good to have something else (almost) done.

I'm back to being indecisive about flowers. Now I'm thinking I'd rather spend the money and not have the headache. Especially since the prices that I got from a girl I kind of know are pretty good (ie men's bouts for $5 each). She has her own floral/design company, and she even made her own bouquet for her bridal portraits, and will be making everything for her wedding. So she has the experience. And I've seen pictures of her stuff and it's good. She definitely knows what she's doing. I'm wondering if I'd really be saving money by doing flowers myself, since I would have to essentially have to buy double of everything, one for practice and one for real. Then what if on my wedding day we are making flowers and they don't look so great? I don't want to have to settle for ok flowers that will be preserved in pictures for centuries to come. *Sigh* I wish I could just make a decision and stick to it.

Currently in the process of working on hotel discount stuff for out of town guests. We visited the 5 closest hotels last weekend and picked one that was fancier and one that more economic. I'm just waiting to hear back from them about what exactly they can do for us in terms of discount. I also inquired to several car rental companies for those people who are flying in and will need to rent a car for the weekend. So that's pretty much taken care of.

Next up is the rehearsal dinner I guess. It's really early to be thinking about it, but I'm trying to at least get a general idea of the style we want to have. It's hard because Justin is so small that I doubt there's anything IN the city that will work. So we are going to have to drive back into FW. And since none of my family is familiar with this area, the directions have to be pretty simple. Right now, I'm thinking a backyard BBQ type of dinner. Something really laid back where we can spend more time just hanging out and talking than doing anything formal and planned. But that's a lot to ask Jason's parents to host all of these people at their (or someone's) house, provide all the food, and then clean up after 20 some odd people. So we may shift focus to a real casual restaurant. Nothing like McDonald's or anything, but maybe somewhere that we can rent out a room and just chill. I want it to be really informal where we can wear jeans and stuff and not worry about a whole lot. So if anyone has ideas, let's hear them!

Inspiration

So I read and sometimes contribute to this online community called Weddingbee (is this really the first time I've mentioned it?!) It's composed of a bunch of brides-to-be from all over the US (and Canada, too!) and they share all the stuff about their weddings that we as readers might find helpful. There's all sorts of pictures, DIY (do it yourself) project ideas, polls, tips and other interesting tidbits that keep me giddy to read new entries! I guess you could kinda say it's the reason I started this blog - well, that and because I'm sure I was starting to annoy Jason with all this mindless wedding chatter!

Anywho, there was an entry recently from one of the bloggers (Mrs. Bee herself, actually) about this company called Patch NYC that makes custom cake toppers based on a couple, incorporating things like actual scraps from her wedding dress, or a replication of his tux style. The only problem is, they take four months to go from idea to your hot little hands. Oh, yeah, the $500 PRICE TAG might be a small hindrance, too!

While one of the readers commented that she actually did spend that much money on one, most of us either thought they were hideouly ugly or cute but not $500 cute. But one of the readers commented that she had made her own for about $25 in materials! That's more my price range.
First, the $500 offering:


Anyone here salivating? Rushing out to order one? No? Me either.








And now, for Melissa Sue's contribution:

If you click on her name, it will take you to a page with her instructions, as well as a picture of her and her future husband to show that they really do look like that :)






I smell a project - and one that could be done with other wedding-crazy friends? Of course, these are cute to have even if you don't use them for your wedding cake. Any takers? Anyone?

On this day in history

Today is our three year anniversary! I highly doubt he's got anything special for me because he's so romantic like that, but we've made it through three years so far and I know I'm looking forward to the next hundred!