Papertrey Princess Challenge 1 - Paper Piecing

Diane challenged us to paper piece. I decided to pull out a MFT set since I haven't given these any love for awhile -- and these are great to piece. Ok... really, the story is I stamped her in Staz-on cos I'm out of graphite black and I can't find a re-inker for the life of me....everywhere I've looked online is sold out. So I had to paper piece her if I was going to use this image. Darn all your crafty ladies buying the reinker! ;-)

I paper pieced her dress, boots and the dog's little coat. Also stamped the umbrella in Versamark and added some clear embossing powder and "paper pieced" that sucker.

In addition, I thought it might be fun to add some fun poms on the bottom of her dress. I had these poms in my stash for awhile and I just haven't had a chance to use them ever but they keep taunting me. They finally won. I pop-dotted the dress so that the poms didn't stand out too much. I also added a little pom to the center of the flower cluster since it just seemed more fun. :-)

I did add a little coloring with colored pencil. Originally was going to pair it with the orange paper but eh, minds change... coloring can't. The puddle is also glossy accented.

Stamps: My Favorite Things (Rain or Shine)
Paper: Cosmo Cricket (Everafter), Archivers
Ink: Staz-on black
Accessories: Poms (Archivers), Glossy Accents, Apron Lace punch (Fiskars), Pins (Maya Road), Ribbon (Craft Supply), Flowers (Making Memories)

A DIY Wedding

So after many many months of planning and prepping, it's all over! I am officially a Mrs. Since I've been talking so much about it, I thought I'd share some of the pictures.

I love love love how the flowers turned out (this is the only part of the post that isn't DIY - I just loved them so much I had to share). It had some pink and peachy orange roses mixed fushia stock. It also had some fun green accents - the green berries. The bridesmaids got a miniature version of my bouquet. (I'm sorry, I don't totally know the flower names - I'm horrible with those ;-) The colors worked so well with the bridesmaids dresses.

Invites and Save the Dates
If you've been following this blog, then you have already seen my wedding invites and save the dates so I won't bore you with those details again.

Tip: Paper can be bought in bulk - or if you use transparency sheets, they're cheap and unique. ;-) Each invite cost me 75 cents, each save the date cost 50 cents and I mailed them with a normal stamp (which both my husband and I bought many many forever stamps when they were still 41 cents... every penny counts!)

Favors
I made 2 different versions of the favors (mainly because I bought the favor boxes on 75% off clearance and well, they didn't have enough so I decided I'd purposely make 1/2 one style and 1/2 another -- funny, people liked getting different ones to bring home). You can see the close up of one in this photo and then the table shot has a picture of another one. I used Martha Stewarts favor boxes to create them. Using stamps from PTI - Beautiful Blooms, With Sympathy, Around and About Sentiments. I stuffed them with some Dove chocolates that I got during a post-Valentine's Day sale... heehee - don't you just love March weddings? :-) I don't even think anyone noticed since I had a pink color combo as well. Yay! Win win!

Tip: Shop the clearance aisles at your favorite craft store and its ok if people get different favors. Also, post-holiday candy is cheap and candy doesn't go bad that quickly.

Centerpieces
The centerpieces were actually a last minute change. Originally I wanted to do something much more intricate. I ended up getting some dinner plates on clearance and some fun beads to rest the candles on. While not as "crafty" as I initially intended, it did give each table a sense of simple elegance. Candles are a little messy though - definitely lots of wax on the plates and bead things. But once again, the thrify bride knows that candles are cheap.

Tip: I bought the candles at a post-Christmas sale so they were very cheap - and no one could even tell they were peppermint scented! Also, nice looking dinner plates at Walmart are less than a dollar - you don't need to get a candle holder or anything crazy... ( I haven't asked but I doubt anyone knew they were dinner plates)


Place cards
I showed the original template for the place cards I used but I didn't show any names or font choices. The digital Eat Cake files plus some photoshopping helped create a personalized place card that matched the flowers and the programs.

Tip: There are so many free digital kits online. Also, use open source photo editing software (yay free!) to modify the kits to your taste!

Programs
If I were to do the wedding all over again, I would never never never again do my programs (template picture here) the way I did them. I spent the last two days before the wedding basically in a certain commonly known print shop yelling at their incompetence. However, as every thrifty bride knows, when things don't go your way, you negotiate the price down. :-D We got a significant discount because of the screwup.

Apparently even though some places claim to print on cardstock, they really don't. Or at least not the one in my hometown. I don't think I've been so mad before. If we were to call one moment a bridezilla moment, it would have been when I was inside this said printshop. They overcharged me 3 times the original price initially and while the test print was "perfect" (i.e. all my edges lined up properly), the final product was not.

Tip: If anyone screws up, negotiate for a discount! And always ask about bulk discounts!

So there we go! 1 year of my life and all I have to show for it is a few pictures. ;-) I'll have some more fun ones tomorrow - cos we know its the other details such as the dresses that are so much more fun!

St John

 

So we're on to some more interesting pictures... (we were pretty bummy in STT) We spent a day in St. John with our tour guide "Homes". I'm really glad we did a tour since with narrow roads and funny driving (they drive on the left even though the driver is also on the left), I think I would have freaked out if we had to drive.

The nice thing about a local leading you around means that you learn about interesting things. For instance, Homes gave us all a leaf that was something along the lines of an "air" plant. Basically, he said that if we brought it home, it would root w/o being in dirt. And lo-and-behold.... my leaf has little roots! I have since transplanted into a pot of dirt to see how it might fare in the cold cold north. I thought that I actually might have killed it since it got smooshed on its way home but its definitely kicking!

Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend!

St. Thomas Pictures

Hmm, so I've been away too long. The dear hubby woke me up this morning to go running and I barely made it up the hill before I made him stop. Blargh... so out of shape and definitely did not drink enough water... Oh wells... I'm now being waited on hand and foot since he feels bad. :-)

In the meantime, I thought I'd share some of our pics from St. Thomas. We stayed on St. Thomas for the majority of our trip. With a not so subtle comment from yours truly, the hotel upgraded us honeymooners to a very lovely ocean view. :-) It was absolutely lovely though!

I'm back!

After a lovely long break, I'm back to the real world. I have some lovely pics to share. Since I haven't had a chance to fully unpack, I'll be sharing some photos of my honeymoon trip this week. :-) I can't wait to see my wedding photos so I can share those with you all as well.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share an image of my place cards. This is the template that I used to create my place cards. Once cut out, I folded these puppies in half and had a simple place card for guests that was simple and matched my wedding programs.

Digital Elements: Eat Cake (from Paper Crafts WCMD 07, images copyright Papertrey Ink)
Font: Edwardian Script and Century Gothic