A postcard giveaway for the holidays

Remember that giveaway madness that happened not too long ago? Well, fabumous UPrinting has been nice enough to sponsor yet another custom postcard giveaway!













Giveaway Prize: 100 Postcards for one (1) lucky winner
Size: 4x6; Paper: 14pt Cardstock Gloss; Printing: Full color both sides
Shipping: Winners have to pay for shipping

Seriously, I've used UPrinting for a couple jobs now and am thrilled with the results!! So easy, so affordable, and they are so helpful. One of the jobs I sent to them had a couple issues that I didn't even realize and they fixed it for me!

I printed our Save the Dates through UPrinting (will not reveal them until they're sent out...want to keep them a surprise for the family members who follow my blog!) but I have some other things that I have used them for (Mr.'s fantastic business cards, our wedding monogram stickers) and I'm planning on using UPrinting for other wedding details as well.

Could you use 100 free custom postcards? Just leave a comment on this post by January 4 about how you'd like to use them and I'll choose one winner using random.org. One entry per person please. Good luck!!

*This is a sponsored post - They're so nice, I get a set of 100 custom postcards too!*

Nala!

Mr. and I got a puppy on Saturday...taking a little break from wedding planning!

Meet Nala!

Tying the Knot: Favors

I love this detail!

{ via Bridal Buzz }

Speaking of Monograms...

How beautiful would this moss and succulent masterpiece be...





{ images via The Bride's Cafe }

...using our monogram?



Seems totally doable...DIY steps here.

For the Pups

Mr. and I have wanted a dog for a LONG time. We are very very close to getting one and will definitely share pictures soon!

In the meantime, I made puppy collars for FMIL's Welsh Springer Spaniels.

The in-process photos I took are totally boring, but in a nutshell I knitted and then felted the collars, and then made buttons. The puppies loved them!

Our Wedding Monogram!

SO excited!! Remember how I found the CK monogram in that book of vintage monograms?

{ image taken from Alphabet of Monograms by me }

Well, I asked my mom to play with it (remember she did that orange tree for our Save the Dates too? Which I changed a bit and redid...story for another day) and here's what she created:

Which I then sent over to UPrinting to have made into stickers!!



{ photo by me }

They are 2"x 4" and I plan on investing in a rotary cutter in order to slice them in half to 2"x 2" stickers. That way I'll have 500 monogram stickers :) I also want to get a 2" circle punch because I think I'd prefer them in circles rather than squares. Although...what if I corner punched them like our Save the Dates?



{ image by me }

Now to figure out what to use them for...So far I'm thinking as stickers on our favors but I'm also thinking of making napkin wraps for the reception and perhaps we could use the stickers to seal the wrap? Or also as an enclosure for part of our invite? Out of town bags somewhere? Lots of ideas.

And it's totally awesome how excited my mom is about these!! Makes me happy that she is such a big part of the creative side of the planning process so far.

Ooh la la!

These earrings from Kande's Etsy Shop would add such a lovely splash of color to a white wedding dress! Not sure if I have the guts to wear them on our wedding day, but perhaps for the engagement session?

Regis, can I use a lifeline?

I'm debating whether or not I should "phone a friend"...ok maybe not a friend but a person who knows more about this wedding stuff than I do.

Now, I'm not saying that I want to have someone completely style my wedding (have you SEEN the latest Inspiration-to-Reality photo shoot from Style Me Pretty??





{ photos by Millie Holloman Photography, via Style Me Pretty }

...Drool.)

BUT, I saw this post on Grey Likes Weddings and it totally hit home for me:

"I’m hoping I’m not alone… but I’m starting to feel really fed up! I can’t seem to make a decision, I think because I want it all to be so perfect… and scared I could get it soooo wrong! I can’t make a decision.

With so many wonderful wedding resources, magazines, and blogs out there, finding wedding inspiration has never been easier. Making decisions, on the other hand, has never been more difficult. Every day, we’re lured into a state of absolute indecision by another real wedding, inspiration board or fabulous vendor feature. How is one to decide when there’s just too much good stuff out there???"

Amen, sistah. I just have so many ideas I'm nervous our wedding will look like a hot mess of all of them and not one cohesive idea.

So then Grey suggests to hire an expert. HAH! Where on earth can we fit that into the budget? But then again, what if we find someone who offers a design consultation? Would the money we spend on a consultant be worth saving my own (and Mr.'s) sanity in trying to make ALL the decisions and the frustration of it not turning out like we had hoped? I definitely have a favorite list of designers, so it can't hurt to just ask, right?

Has anyone out there been in the same boat? Or has anyone worked with a designer just to do a consultation? How did it work for you?

Playing with Envelope Liner Patterns

So I just played around with a tile pattern frequently found in southern Spain...changed the colors around a bit to match a little more what we'd like. What do you think? Could it work as an envelope liner? Big question is, would it look weird with the vintage stamps I have so far?

Jumping on the Vintage Stamp Bandwagon

I loves me some vintage stamps. Tell me that by next summer they won't be overdone?



{ image via Wiley Valentine }



{ image via Wiley Valentine }





{ images via Jenna Hein }



{ Elizabeth's vow renewal stamps, image via Kids and Cocktails }



{ image via Nothing But Bonfires }

So I started collecting my own for our wedding invitations:



{ photo by me }

The individual ones are all 3 cent stamps. The sheet is the "Legendary Baseball Players" set of stamps. Mr. and I are huge baseball fans and so he was thrilled to learn that I was thinking of using them.

Again though, I have a feeling it might be tricky to put the right ones together and not make it look like color vomit on the envelopes. Anyone have any hints of grouping them? Or know of any other stamps that might look good with these? Do you think they're going to be too colorful and I should just start over?

Invitation Inspiration

So here's a picture of what my morning is looking like so far:



{ photo by me }

Along with finishing off the puppy collars that I knitted for FMIL's dogs (you can kinda see the buttons I'm painting in the photo) and several other chores around the house, I'm also going through a bunch of cardstock color swatches for our invitations.

Going with of our lack-of-"wedding colors" idea, I had this idea of a multi-colored invite but now that I see all of the colors together I definitely feel like it's going to be too much. So, now I'm trying to figure out how to use more than 2 colors without making it seem like an invitation to a circus!

Some things I KNOW I want to include with our invites:

• vintage stamps
• a cool font
• some nod to something Spanish - either a Spanish tile pattern as an envelope liner, iron scroll work as detail on the invite, or the orange tree my mom drew for our save the dates.
• natural-colored envelopes addressed with white calligraphy
• color

I like the trifold pocket enclosure invite idea, so the invitation would be matted in the center with a pocket on the right side that has the different cards (directions, reception, rsvp, etc). Originally I had thought it'd be fun to have each one of the cards a different color but as I said, now that I see all of them together it'll be WAY too much.

Here's some inspiration and ideas that I like so far:

I like the simplicity of just the tree at the top on these.



{ image via Style Me Pretty }

Sigh, to have letterpressed invites. Perhaps we can use the tree from our save the dates? I think this idea might be a little TOO simple though.

Love the watercolors at the bottom here.



{ image via Wedding Paper Divas }

It uses a lot of color, but it's not too rainbowy I think?

How cool is this font!



{ image via Rifle }

I like how these feature that iron scroll-type work. Reminds me of all the wrought iron gates with bougainvillea growing up them in Spain.



{ image via Wiley Valentine }

Love love LOVE these invites. Everything about them. The vintage stamps (I'm totally jumping on that bandwagon, think they're so cool!), the font, the colors of the suite, the vintage maps, the dark envelopes and white ink.



{ image via Nothing But Bonfires }

Ok so in that last one, they stuck with two colors, but the envelope liners, stickers, and matting of the invite gave it a bit more color. Maybe that's the best thing to do? Out of all of these ideas, which do you think would work the best with our Rustic Mediterranean feel? Would it be too much to use all of them?

Things I Like: Colored Baker's Twine

I don't know of many bakeries who actually still wrap their goodies in that red and white twine anymore, but wouldn't it be just wonderful if more of them did? I mean, it's just so lovely.



{ image via Classic Bride }

But hey, why do bakers get all the fun? How about some wedding uses too!



{ image via Style Me Pretty }



{ image via 100 Layer Cake }



{ image via Oh So Beautiful Paper }



{ image via Oh So Beautiful Paper }

And then there's colored baker's twine...LOVE it!!



{ image via Orange Blossom Ink }

Cyd's beautiful wedding programs! Cyd, I love this and hope you don't mind if I borrow the idea :)



{ image via Oh So Beautiful Paper }

Ok, and I know it's just plain ol' twine, but I love the mix of the twine and wax seals.



{ image via frolic! }



{ image via Flush Designs }

Surprised face that (knower-of-all-things-beautiful) Kathryn at Snippet & Ink has already thought of this idea...



{ image via Snippet & Ink; Top row from left: white flowers, invitation by Mr. Boddington, lemonade from Martha Stewart, J.Crew dress from Brides; Row 2: balloons photo via Brooklyn Bride, bakery box from Bliss Weddings Market; Row 3: tulips from Taste; Row 4: photo by Liz Banfield, photo by M. Polss, photo via Book By Its Cover, tie from Rebecca Thuss }

Unfortunately, I'm totally not very creative and can't think of as many fun wedding uses for baker's twine as it deserves. Anyone have any other fun ideas?

Rethinking the Garter Idea

No, I'm still not even *considering* having a moment like this at our reception:



{ image via praxxis }

But I'm having a hard time saying no to this one from Bleu:



{ image via Bleu Garters }

Totally not what I think of when I hear the word garter. Love it.

Alison Conklin at Riverview

Alison Conklin (a fav photographer of mine) shot a wedding at Riverview recently. While not too many of her photos really showed the venue, this one does a pretty good job of showing the ceiling and the brick fireplace that's in the center of the room as well.

Holiday Party!

Thanks to our busy marching band schedules, Mr. and I have not seen a lot of our friends in a LONG time. There are also some friends who have not yet been to our new house, so we decided that we should have a holiday party. While I realize this will probably cause me great stress a month from now, I'm looking forward to entertaining for our friends and hosting the first party in our own house (our 4th of July party doesn't count...I'll DEFINITELY have to share that story later)!

We're calling it "No Room at the Inn" because we live in Nazareth (get it? that whole Mary and Joseph thing on Christmas Eve? yeah, we thought it was clever) and I even made up little invites to email out last night:



{ inspiration for my invite from Cheree Berry Paper }

(The little star at the bottom says "Get it? Because we live in Nazareth...and it's a holiday party...")

I've been scouring Martha's files and the blogs for decor ideas and I can't wait! It's like I get to incorporate all my favorite ideas from those beautiful winter weddings since we're getting married in the summer. Again, I say this now and I have all these grand ideas for decor, but I'm sure I'll be stressing a few days leading up to the party.

We've been thinking of a bunch of fun holiday recipes, unfortunately 99% of them all come in a glass. Actually, I think they might all be drink recipes. Hah, so does anyone have any fun (and easy) holiday snack/food ideas we can make as well?

THIS is our photographer

It is taking all my energy right now to not run around school and just giggle and dance (I'm currently subbing for high school in-school suspension...don't really think that'd be appropriate?) Tell me that these photos do not make you want to do the same!!!





{ photos by Punam Bean }

You MUST click on these photos to enlarge them. As long as you have a drool cloth ready, that is.

After we chose our venue and date, hiring our photographer was the first thing we did. I'm so glad to have gotten that out of the way, and I'm SO excited that Punam will be a part of our day!!

If only we had somewhere exotic like the secret gardens of a french chateau to celebrate our wedding... Anyone have one of those that we can borrow? :)