Christmas Craftiness

Back in November I was browsing around the WeddingBee boards and I saw a thread for a holiday card swap.  Awesome!  Who doesn’t like to get stuff in the mail?  The only question was whether I’d be able to create three homemade Christmas cards to send to my swap buddies.  I somewhat doubted my creativity.  Thanks to some coloured cardstock and ribbon from Michaels I did manage to come up with something:

I had already purchased the flower punches ages ago for a wedding related project.  Thanks to my trusty compass from my university days I created a round wreath to glue on the front.  I finished the wreath off with a bit of ribbon.  I had some leftover silver letters from my “Will you be my bridesmaid?” cards to finish off the embellishments.

I then printed off one of my favourite Christmas time recipes – Tiger Cake – for the inside of the card.  My mom makes at least one of these vanilla and chocolate layered and swirled Bundt cakes every Christmas and oh, how I love it!

To finish the card off I created a wrap around address label in Microsoft PowerPoint using clipart from weddingclipart.com.  Yup, honestly it was super easy to create this in PowerPoint.  The latest edition lets you change the colour of graphics, remove the white space background and it gives you a lot more control over graphics than before.  The fonts are from fonts for peas – Pea Picky Panda and Pea Valerie.

So there we go.  That was my Christmas card design!  I still managed to clutz up a bit here and there (like accidently trimming off too much of one end of the card trying to make it fit in an envelope) but I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.

I think this taught me a bit of a lesson in preparation for making our invitations next year.  I think the invitation design in my head is very complicated!!  I’m going to have to simplify it a bit or else I will go crazy making up 40+ invites (and it will take forever).  I also love the wrap around labels so I think we’ll probably do something similar!

What did you get up to this weekend?

Sneak Peek!

Oh my gosh you guys!  I e-mailed our photographer to ask if we could possibly have a sneak peek of one of our engagement shots so that we could use it for our Shutterfly cards this holiday season.  Yesterday afternoon she sent me two.

They are so amazing and we are so excited to see the rest!  The sky in the two pictures are so different it is almost hard to believe that these were taken on the same day, only 15 to 30 minutes apart.

Within a few minutes I was on Shutterfly, ordering 50 cards to send to friends and family to say “Happy New Year!”

Don’t forget, if you want 50 free holiday cards you have until December 31.  Just go here to get all the details.

Did you squeal with excitement when you got your first look at your engagement photos?

All photos are from Sakura Photography.

Step by Step…

I think I was in grade 6 when I first heard the New Kids on the Block. I had Step by Step on repeat on my walkman or on the stereo in my room all the time.  Their tape was my number one favourite gift to give at birthday parties that year.  And I totally had a crush on Jordan and Joey.

A couple of years ago the New Kids (now NKOTB) decided to reunite and tour.  Myself and BM-D were all over it!  We dug out some of our best retro clothes ever, layered the blue eyeshadow on, tucked and rolled our jeans and took our hot selves to the concert.I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect of the night but it turned out to be such a fun time!

Where am I going with this?  A couple of weeks ago I got an excited e-mail from BM-D.

“NKOTB and the Backstreet Boys are reuniting and they are playing in Vancouver the night before your wedding.  I think it is fate.”

It wouldn’t be a stagette (or otherwise known as a bachelorette party), it would just be a pretty casual get together.  Dinner and a concert?  And just in case you might wonder what we are in for, here is a clip from the AMA’s where NKOTBSB performed for the first time ever.

So…what do you think?  Would it be fun to spend your last night as a single gal reminiscing over some old boy bands? 

P.S. I am struck by how badly the BSB can sing in this video.

Way Behind!

Sorry I’ve been a bit absent on the blogs these last few weeks!  I had a major project due at work this past Friday so I’ve been working my tail off to get it done.  That meant that not a lot of extra time to blog, let alone have things to blog about.  I currently have 221 unread posts in my wedding blogs folder on Google Reader so I’m behind on all of your blogs too!  I hope to catch up soon!

I did manage to do some fun stuff this weekend though.  Yesterday I helped my friend Pam decorate a load of gingerbread men cookies.  This afternoon the Future Hubs and I put up our Christmas tree.Here’s an ornament from my sister-in-law/MOH – bride and groom kissing fish!Looking forward to catching up with all of you soon!

Happy Holidays Shutterfly Style

Have you figured out your holiday cards yet?  If not then you definitely need to scope out the holiday cards available at Shutterfly!  If you aren’t familiar with Shutterfly, it is a great *free* site with unlimited photo storage online.  Now you can turn you favourite photos into amazing Christmas cards!

How cute is this one?

And this one?  This would be perfect if you can’t quite get your cards out in time for Christmas.  Now you can say “Happy New Year!”

I love how simple and modern this one is:

Of all of them this one is my favourite because it really puts the emphasis on the picture:

And in case you want to highlight those engagement shots just a bit more you could always get a calendar made up (you know, in case you are trying to really get your money’s worth of those engagement shots):

The calendars can be personalized with you awesome niece’s birthday, or with a helpful reminder for you future hubs…

Right now Shutterfly is offering up to 30% off on Holiday Cards and buy one get on 50% off on calendars.  Hurry though, as these offers end on December 1.

But, even better, if you are a blogger then you can sign up for Shutterfly’s holiday card promotion for 50 free holiday cards!  What are you waiting for?  You have until December 31.

Do you send out Christmas cards and don’t you love getting them in the mail?

Lucky Me! Or Lucky Us!

Remember back when I was waxing poetic about non-floral boutonnieres awhile ago?  I fell in love with the boutonnieres at Pomp & Plumage on etsy.  When I saw that Souris Mariage was holding a giveaway for three boutonnieres from Pomp & Plumage you bet I threw my name in the hat.  And I won!

Or rather, future husband wins since they are for him.  Here is what we picked:

The Rosseau for the future hubs:

The Goldstein for one of the groomsmen:

The Jonathan Livingston Seagull for another groomsman:

And we are going to order three of the Oscar Wilde boutonnieres for our fathers and our master of ceremonies:

I was going to make the boutonnieres myself so I now have a bunch of feathers that I’ll have to find an alternate use for.  Any ideas on what to do with a few peacock, Lady Amherst pheasant, silver pheasant and guinea feathers?

A DIY Filled Weekend

We had a busy weekend around here, full of DIY!  Not a whole lot related to the wedding, but here we go!

1. On Friday night the Future Hubs upgraded my computer from Vista to Windows 7.  So far I really like new operating system and I’m trying out Windows Live Writer 2011 for the first time.
2. While FH upgraded my computer I got to work on a little craft project – a felt dahlia brooch.  It was a little finicky, but I love it as an accent on my black pea coat.
3. On Saturday the FH and I tackled a home project together – installing a new faucet in our kitchen!  We have been busy turning this place from mine (since I bought it four years ago) to ours over the last few weeks.
   The before is your bog standard faucet that the builder installed:And after, a fancy schmancy Moen faucet!
4. And finally, this is just the beginnings of a wedding DIY project, but I got these awesome wood frames from someone on kijiji.  I’m planning on repainting these and they may have another life as a chalkboard sometime in the future..??

How was your weekend?