Spa Goods Done!

Oh, I'm so pleased with the way this stuff turned out. It was even better than I had planned on, because I got these epsom salts with eucalyptus and spearmint already in them... I added some mint oil, grapefruit essential oil, and peppermint extract and a few drops of red food coloring to make it pink. That's all I did for the amazing smelling bath salts. For the sugar scrub, I took equal parts of white sugar and brown sugar, then filled up with grapeseed oil, lavender essential oil, and vanilla extract. You don't want to oversaturate with oil, but you do want it to be moist enough to use as a scrub.

ADORABLE RIGHT?
(the tall container is the bath salt, the square is the scrub)

The soap was fun too. I got some white glycerin from Michael's and a few heart molds. I melted the glycerin, added honey, cinnamon and food coloring, then poured it into the heart molds (making sure to spray liberally with Pam before doing so). It hardened back up, I popped it out, and wrapped it pretty. And voila! My maids are going to have some awesome stuff to pamper themselves with. I gotta get the nail polishes and stuff into the cosmetic bags, and then package the whole thing up. I also need to schedule a bridesmaids luncheon for the end of next month.

So that's what I've been doing today. It was a clean the house and stuff kind of day, and I'll probably assemble some more invitations tonight.

Overwhelmed!

Have you ever had those days where just nothing seems to go right? It's been one of those days. From the moment I dropped my dad off at work it seemed and started driving right into the sun, then the weird guy at the laundry that manhandled my undies (and eliciting a threat from me) ... having a super bad tummy ache and spending more time out than I really had planned - it just started out terrible. Then got into a few misunderstandings with the boy (which eventually worked themselves out) and I couldn't catch a break at all today. It was like 50 billion little things all adding up to terribleness. I did get some ghirardelli holiday chocolates though, and all in all they were awesome. The pumpkin spice caramel chocolates were my favorite!

None of this has to do with my wedding. I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on my holiday wreath. It is absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to put it on the door. I then went to try to work on wedding stuff this afternoon. I tied tulle to the tins that will hold the bath salts and scrub. I managed to make the scrub yesterday between batches of cookies, and it smells amazing (lavender vanilla for those of you that don't remember). It's not enough though. I used two cups each sugar and it didn't make enough for four tins much less the extra I wanted to make to take to my friend as a hospitality gift (she's letting me crash at her place on the way to and from TN in December). And of course, I'm low on sugar after cookies, so it will wait until after the store tomorrow.

Here is a peek at the wreath! I'm thinking of selling them on Etsy.

I tinned up 3.5 tins of scrub and set them aside, and after some theraputic WoW with the boy and some Sweet Tomatoes, I started working on tulle bows for the pews. I didn't know how to make bows so I set to google and youtube. Yeah, they look stupid. I'm going to have to redo them. I made one that is kind of nice but I don't think it'll work for the pews. Maybe it will work for the seat backs. Hopefully his mom knows how to tie them better than I do. I think we're going to need a lot more tulle too.

The point of all this is that today I'm just overwhelmed and uninspired. And I suppose it's ok to have those days. You can't be 100% all the time. It seems the closer he is to coming home, the less I want to do for the wedding. I haven't done any more invitations since the day I shot the tutorial. Maybe I just need a couple of days off of wedding stuff to refresh my mind. Maybe I just need him to come home and then I can go OK! onto wedding stuff. Sigh.

DIY Post: Invitation Invocation

I FINALLY GOT IT DOWN!! I had so many issues figuring out how I wanted to do the invitations. I got this really pretty cream colored card stock with flecks of purple, blue, and other colors. It was marketed as stardust and it is very celestial. I then got some pretty purple card stock for the outside. I grabbed some white and purple tissue paper at wal mart. Then I also got some really super thin cream ribbon from the craft section. It was like $1 a spool. I have a guillotine paper slicer which came in real handy for this project, and I had a real cute edger puncher (you can find them in the scrapbook section of Michael's or Hobby Lobby and they have all kinds of cute designs). I also had a heart-shaped hole puncher (you can save the hole punches if you want to make confetti later too - great multi tasking!).

Step one: (cut a hole in the box - ok, not really)

Print out and cut your invitation the way you want it. I printed four per page because that will fit our envelopes perfect. I then trimmed most of the space around it like you can see above.

Step two:

Cut the card stock to fit around the invite itself. I used the invite, held it up to the stock, and sliced away.

Step three:

Use the edger to make the ends look all nice and pretty.

Step four:

I used the ruler part of my paper cutter for this to get it exact. Measure to the center of the backing card stock, and drop dots of glue all the way down. Then settle your invitation in the center, like so. Then fold the sides up.

Step five:

Punch two holes on each folded up side. This is to thread your ribbon though.

Step six:

Cut a piece of tissue paper to fit over top of the invitation. That'll be how it's presented - they'll see that first, so make sure it looks nice.

Step seven:

Thread the ribbon through. I tried it a few different ways, and it seemed that the ribbon sticking out OVER the folds instead of under looked better.

like this

Step eight:

And this is what it looks like all tied up! Isn't that pretty?

I can't wait for my friends and family to open these up. They take some time, but doing them myself was such a great idea. I love how they look!

Wedding Fashion

I am feeling pretty good right now. Today I took care of all kinds of hurdles. Clayton's mom called and woke me up this morning to talk about the church and that we were going to be able to get it without breaking the bank. Reception area too. That was a huge load off my mind. Last night I utilized a coupon code that Clayton's brother gave us from a friend whose wedding he was in - Tungsten rings costing $300 on average for free - just pay $25 per ring for shipping and if you want engraving that's extra (pro tip: if you use them, don't order the engraving. Before it ships they will call and offer it to you 1/2 price). (click here) JVL Jewelry and the coupon code is 291120. It'll take it off when you add it at checkout. Hopefully if there is another bride out there this will help her!

This is the Devotion Ring which we ordered I ordered my dress about two months ago. I ordered it from a site called In Wedding Dress. There are a few reasons why I ordered the dress from here. First off, look at it!

I got the sash in purple, which is what my colors are going to be. It was $300 dollars base. I wanted a few alterations and since I'm a weird shaped fattie, I wanted the dress custom tailored to my specific measurements. Those are the plusses. The minus, well it came from China. Ordering anything online is always a gamble, especially clothing. Would it arrive okay? Would it fit? Would it look like the picture? Those are the things I had to deal with. I eagerly awaited my dress and after some initial back and forth with the sellers, it arrived in a giant DHL package. You should have seen me open it up so carefully yet with so much excitement! And when I got it out of the package it looked just as beautiful as the photo - even more so because the sash was in my color. My dad said it looked like a $2000 dress. I had to agree!

The cool thing is that at the site, I could pick out the bridesmaids dresses and they could order them in the same color as my sash. So after some back and forth, we all picked out one that everyone could agree on.

This, but in the purple color. I had them get two alterations: (a) they added a 2nd ruffle sleeve (most of my girls have big ta tas and this is to help with the bra situation) (b) Got it lengthened to tea-length. It's going to be gorgeous and my ladies are going to be gorgeous!

The only thing left to do fashion wise is to hash out a dress for his baby sister, our flower girl, and to go to Al's Formal Wear to pick out the men's attire. I know it's going to be grey, and I know that Clayton and my dad will be wearing suits - the rest of the party will be wearing vests and no suit jacket. It's going to look AWESOME.

So all in all today was a good day. Fashion's going well, church is booked. I moved the sweet peas I'm growing over into a larger planter and gave them some water. Now I just need to get working on these invitations!

Adventures in Spray Painting

This is going to be a chronicle of my day. I'm working on bridesmaids gifts today. I decided a cool thing to do would be to have the luncheon sometime in December and hand out the gifts then, so they can use them. It's going to be a big gift basket and include the following:

Handmade necklace and earrings for the wedding


Handmade honey and cinnamon soaps


A tank top with their "title" in rhinestones


And some things I haven't done yet:
Handmade grapefruit-mint bath salts
Handmade lavender vanilla sugar scrub
A sleep mask and maybe a few other dollar store type spa items
and a relaxing spa candle

Since I'm making all the spa products myself, I needed something cute to package them in. I thought about mason jars but that was just plain. While perusing Michael's (I go there way too much, but it's so neat to find cute stuff there) I found these adorable tins ... there were some square ones that were short and thick - perfect size for sugar scrubs, then there were some tall round ones that would hold bath salts nicely. The only problem? They were Christmas ones. so I grabbed some white and purple acrylic paint and the tins and set off for home.

Yesterday I decided to tackle this craft (this was actually before the bottles. Before this blog if we want to be real specific) so I pulled them out and started to paint. The paint didn't look good at all. It was going to need a second coat to cover up the holiday design. Okay then. I decided to let the first coat dry and in a few hours I'd come back and re-coat. A few hours passed, and when I started to paint the second coat, it just smeared the first coat around after it was re-wet. It just looked yuck.

Then the idea hit me. Spray painting it! I was renewed with vigor and so after dinner out with the parental unit last night, I stopped in at Home Depot. I also had to get a big planter and potting soil, as it's time to transplant my sweet peas into a more permanent home (I am growing the flowers for our wedding too. HARDCORE!). I was set on just getting the white spray paint but as I was looking over the selections, it hit me! METALLIC! So I grabbed the silver and gleefully headed to the checkout counter. It was funny because the guy ringing me up goes "I have to ask, what are you using the paint for?"

Without missing a beat, I said "Gang initiation." We both had a chuckle and I was on my way. It was too late to spray paint when I got home, so after my errands this morning I decided to go do it. I covered the patio table in newspaper and taped it down since it's a windy day, then set out my containers. A few minutes later, they were drying and I was grumbling at the metallic streak on my hand. I'm going to let them dry a few hours then add some accents with my purple acrylic paint. I'll post another day a completed (and filled) project. But that's what I'm doing today!

A Case of the Bridezillas

Today, my dearest told me I was being a bridezilla. At first I wanted to throttle him, because what the hell? Then I was like, bless his heart. You know, he had the cajones to tell me I was being impossible. I don't know that it was totally warranted but I will admit sometimes I need to be stood up to. He seems to know that and take it into consideration.

I was looking at some friends' engagement pictures (which were awesome and creative) ... the fact that they were so awesome and creative though left me in a tailspin, mostly because I'd been on the fence about ours since we'd had them done. I didn't like them at first and then grew to like some of them only because of the way he looked at me in some of them. And the colors were nice. But overall? Our photographer didn't do much. There was no direction, she was just .. I don't know. She was new, and she was cheap, and that was what Clayton pointed out (As I was ranting about doing ours over, myself - now that I have the technology) "You're being a bridezilla. they're just freaking pictures." At this point I'm like staring at the computer going "WHAT?" he quickly followed up with "Well, they probably paid a ton for theirs, and we paid $70. It's not a big deal."

While he's right, it's like ... he doesn't understand that as women, we all have a competitive streak against other women. It doesn't mean we don't like them, or whatever - it's just every woman wants their wedding to be the best, the prettiest, the most fun, etc - and I would expect every friend that comes to my wedding to judge me and compare it to their own. It's natural. He doesn't get that about us and I'm not sure how I can explain it and not appear crazy. Or maybe I am crazy and other women don't think like that. If so, someone tell me this.

I'd like to think I'm pretty easygoing where bridezilla-ness is concerned. I am anal and OCD about how I want things to go, but it is the stuff I am doing myself that I can allow myself to be that way about. I'm trying to be good towards everyone else. I let my bridesmaids approve the dress and tried to pick out something both affordable, cute, and something they may use at a fancy function again. (I know everyone says "oh you can use those dresses again" but usually? no.)

So this is a call to all my friends. If you see me being a bridezilla, I am probably stressed and not meaning to be. Just call me out and let me calm down. My sweetie did and I am super glad about it.

Introduction and Today's Crafting

This is my first post in what I hope will be a four month little blog that I can keep for all eternity - I have my regular website at Eating and Art that I post recipes and things I have created (mostly for sale on ETSY) but when I wanted to start chronicling all the things I was doing for my upcoming wedding, it didn't seem like it fit there. So here I am. I suppose my first post should be one of introduction and back story, most of which will find its way on an about me page.

This is me, Kellie

My fiance's name is Clayton. He's an awesome guy. We met three years ago (on Christmas day) and we have been inseparable ever since. we were best friends for months then the following May just eased into a relationship. He's a geologist, working on an oil ship. It stinks because he is gone four weeks, then home two.

This is us

I got engaged in June (officially - we'd been planning it much longer than that) and our wedding is set for March 2, 2013. That means as of this post, there's just under four months left. I have my dress, I have picked out the wedding party's dresses, and now I am just waiting for my husband-to-be to come home to get the men's attire settled. My work area is overflowing with wedding stuff. I'm doing as much of it myself as I can because not only am I cheap, I'm creative. And I want things like I want them and the best way of having this happen is to do it myself.

Right now the biggest hurdle to get over is to find a place to have the wedding and reception. Where we're having it, it's a super small town and there are like very few places to have a wedding. There are a few but they're super expensive. I'm utilizing my fiance's mother as much as I can to help find places etc but with all of us so busy, it's been difficult so far.

Today I decided I was going to start on the centerpieces for the tables. My roommate loves drinking Barefoot moscato, and I've been asking her to save the empty bottles for me to craft with. I figured wrapping them in burlap and purple tulle would make for a great way to create some cutesy flower holders or whatever and I was definitely right.

See? cute, right?

I am covered in hot glue, paint, and burlap shards. Burlap hurts if it pokes into your skin. It's definitely something you want to be careful working with and change your shirt when you're done cause the pokey shards will be everywhere ... I'm not even exaggerating. I am plucking burlap splinters from my skin and it aches. They are starting to look cute though. I'm going to also string some pearls and silver beads and other assorted lovelies and dress them up a bit more. I want them to be absolutely gorgeous!

I suppose that's it for now. I might blog on a few assorted topics here and there but I feel like they might need their own blog post. Have a lovely day!