Impromptu Thrift Store Visit

I love shopping at thrift stores!  There's something about it that always feels like a treasure hunt and I've written before about my favourite thrift store tips.  While I was looking for something specific during this trip, I ended up coming home with two other small treasures.

As many of you know, our wedding centerpieces are going to be a mix of succulents and cacti planted in vintage glass and milk glass, which I mentioned in this post.  I was also hoping to add some fresh cut flowers in vases to fill each table.

Well, I recently ordered flowers in white and green from Bunches Direct and I decided to look online for fun ways to arrange them.  I loved some of the photos I found of flowers arranged in milk glass vases (I'm afraid I was unable to track the original source of either of these two pictures.) and I decided to see if I could find some more.

I had a few already but I added to my collection and I now have a nice assortment for the wedding.  I can't wait to see what they look like with flowers.

Remember when we styled our living room gallery wall last year?  We had always assumed that we'd add to it over time.

I found this little painting which makes me want to travel to Greece.

It was only three dollars and I figured I could always recycle the frame if I ended up hating the picture.

But I think it goes quite nicely in our living room.

And we came home with one final purchase.  I know I've posted a few pictures in the past of my nightstand (photo below) but lately, I've been finding that it gets too cluttered.

I found this pretty little candy dish (on the right) which sparkled like new after a trip through the dishwasher.

Now I have a place to put my hair elastics, chapstick and even jewelry.

I think our bill came to about $18.  Not too shabby!  It also makes me want to sing this song...

I'm gonna pop some tags

Only got twenty dollars in my pocket

I'm I'm I'm hunting, looking for a come-up

This is f%$#ing awesome!

Let's Talk Dessert!

I remember one of my teachers once teaching me the difference in spelling between "dessert" and "desert" by reminding me that dessert had an extra "s"... which stood for an extra scoop of ice cream!  I don't know why that random memory popped into my head. but I thought I'd share.  I suppose it could also stand for an extra slice of cake or pie... Mmmm.

Over the weekend, Corey and I were enjoying a date and exploring our neighbourhood, when we came across Bite Me Bakery.  The proprietor was friendly, casual... and swore like a sailor.  Seriously, Corey commented that she swore a lot, but then we got home and looked up her website and I think it's part of her business model.  I liked her at once.  She also happens to make delicious cupcakes! (Top: Cookie Dough, Mint Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Bottom: Chocolate Raspberry, Strawberry, Lemon)

Also, they taste even better than they look!  Seriously.  Corey has already asked me to get more this weekend.

She also has some boozy (Think tequila or champagne icing.) and some savoury (Think blue cheese and chicken wings.) flavours.  We're thinking of choosing a couple to add to the candy buffet that we're planning for our wedding.  We think they'd make a sweet addition.  Remember this inspiration photo?

Probably unsurprisingly, we have already begun to collect candy dishes and apothecary jars.  We mostly find them in thrift stores.  Here are a few that still need to be washed and aren't packed away yet:

What do you think? Would some designer mini-cupcakes compliment a candy bar nicely?  

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Another Wedding Post: Vintage Centrepieces

You have all been so supportive and excited about our wedding posts, that I thought I would squeeze one in this week.  Thank you all for your enthusiasm and ideas!

As I have mentioned, planning a wedding makes me feel a little like we're doing this:

I find myself feeling exhausted and unsentimental when I think of budgeting for venue, food, alcohol and all the other things that cost money. 

We've done a good job of sticking to our budget so far, but friends keep reminding me that we will still need to decorate and have centrepieces.  It's becoming obvious that the little things really add up! 

I had said from the beginning that we would not hire a florist so we know we will be making the centrepieces ourselves.  As you probably know, I love all things vintage and eclectic, so we've been collecting vases and planters at local thrift stores.  We think this is a great way to keep costs down and ensure that we have unique table decorations.

We chose a mix of green glass, white milk glass and clear glass or crystal.  We think these will work well with our "Emerald and Jade" theme.

We plan to have an eclectic grouping at each table.  Here are some of our inspiration photos.

I love the look of random groupings like this one:

We plan to fill our vases with candles, succulents, greenery and some wholesale flowers in white and pale green.

It took some elbow grease to remove the price tags and a sanitize cycle in our new dishwasher, but it looks like we are one step closer!

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More Wedding Ideas

This is another wedding post.  So many of you were so excited for us the last time I wrote about our upcoming wedding, that I decided we would be sharing most of the details with you on our blog.  Even my mother visits the blog to catch up on our wedding plans, so we hope you enjoy the full disclosure. 

Also, a few of you asked if you could "copy" ideas.  Please rest assured, that most of these ideas are borrowed from others and I am not possessive of any of my own wedding ideas, so please feel free to take what you like! :)

It's been another busy week, which has left us very little time to work on our bathroom renovation.  It seems like we've been playing catch-up with our sleep and Corey and I have been working opposite hours.  It's seriously been one of those weeks where you basically collapse in bed at the end of the day without an ounce of energy to spare.  I honestly don't know how people with kids manage... I think parents must be superheroes!  The good news is that Monty has gone to his forever home and our house is back to normal again!

We have been devoting a little time to planning our wedding, since it is something we can do for a few minutes before bed.  Last time I posted about our wedding, we mentioned our colour palette of emerald and jade, and we found a couple of great inspiration photos on Martha Stewart Weddings (photos above and below)... As usual, Martha knows best!

I came across this pretty inspiration board for emerald weddings online, and while we probably won't use any of these ideas, it reassured me that this is a good choice for us!  I've posted some other ideas below.

I just love this simple DIY photo backdrop from Style Me Pretty.

 

In case you missed our glass cutting post, we're making individual glasses from wine bottles for our guests.

 

 

 

 

I adore this idea from Wedding Window and think we'll definitely have shot glasses of milk and mini cookies passed around to our guests at the end of the night.  What's better before bed than milk and cookies?

 

 

Since our ceremony and venue will be a few kilometers apart, we were thinking of printing cute maps to include in the invitations or to post on our wedding website.  I really liked the fun style of the maps by Merry Maps!  We could add personal landmarks and set a fun tone for the wedding!

 

 

 

I will never tire of beautiful vintage milk glass centrepieces planted with succulents.  I think they're so pretty and simple.  This photo is from Pinterest.

 

 

... And these are from Green Wedding Shoes.

 

 

This table from Silver and Jewelry is a little too rustic for our taste, but I love the eclectic style!

 

 

Do you like the idea of a providing a large frame as a photo prop for wedding guests?  I think we would choose something a little more ornate... and perhaps hang it from a tree so it's more stationary.  This inspiration photo is from Pinterest.

 

 

I doubt I'll have the time, but these fabric flowers from My Hand Made It are really sweet.  There's a tutorial for brides who are even more DIY ambitious than I am. 

 

We have known from the beginning that our camp themed wedding would have a candy buffet.  We're planning on calling it the "Tuck Shop" and including some of our favourite candies for our guests to help themselves.  This photo serves as our inspiration and we're already collecting large apothecary jars from thrift stores.

 

  

We're thinking of providing these sweet boxes to our guests so that they can take their candy home. 

 

 

 



 We're hoping to have our ceremony outdoors, and these personalized water bottle labels, featured on Wedding Window would make a nice touch.

 

 

I'm not sure if we'll need these, but I thought this printed itinerary from Etsy would be a cute way of helping people to understand our timeline.  It would probably be appreciated by our friends who have children and will want to know when we eat, how long the ceremony is, etc.

 

 

And on the paper front, we think we'll probably be printing our own invitations.  These pocket envelopes from Paper and More would allow us to neatly include RSVP cards, maps etc.

While we still have some oodles of planning to do, you may have noticed that I'm sounding more excited about it!  Now that we know how much we're going to need to spend, I have relaxed and now feel motivated to make our wedding as nice as possible on our budget.  I think this will be almost as fun as renovating our house... ALMOST!





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