Friday, January 31, 2014

Stay Cozy



It's been frigidly cold these last few weeks, but it looks like we might get a bit of reprieve for the weekend! These two have been spending plenty of time snuggling in close to stay nice and cozy warm. We are celebrating my good friend Leslie's birthday this weekend and then heading to visit Chris' parents. I'm looking forward to checking out some thrift stores in their town as I've been craving a thrift shopping fix for a while now!

I hope you all have a great weekend and stay cozy!


Wednesday, January 29, 2014

East Coast Girls Night

A few weeks ago, I got together with a few of my east coast girls to catch up on each others lives and two east coast delicacies: Garlic Fingers and Donairs. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of the sheer deliciousness of these two items, you're missing out! There is a restaurant in my friend's town run by two couples from Halifax serving this yummy taste of home, and three small girls each polished off a donair and shared an extra large garlic fingers! In addition to the food, the company was awesome- I don't think I've laughed so much in a long time, and sometimes you just need a good old fashioned girls night, finished off with a sleepover with your best friend of 18 years!!!



For those of you interested in learning more about donairs, garlic fingers and the amazing sweet garlic donair sauce, check out Halifax Donair, this site, and this one

Monday, January 27, 2014

On the Weekend

We had a great weekend, here's what kept us busy:


On Friday night, Chris took me to the Keith Urban concert (apologies for the blurry iphone photo). Little Big Town opened for him, and they were awesome. Keith was amazing, and he is a crazy good guitar player.

On Saturday I made these brown sugar oatmeal cookies from Pioneer Woman, they are delicious. They make a ton, so I put two thirds of the dough in the freezer. Chris thinks they need chocolate chips, I think they're perfect as is.


On Saturday night, we decided to order Chinese Food from a local restaurant. It was our first time, and when we called they said if they delivered it would be 2 hours but if we picked up only one. We opted to pick up and an hour later, we ventured down to the restaurant. It was packed with pick up patrons (good sign as I think traffic means quality), but we learned very quickly service was lacking. We ended up waiting in the cramped space with five other customers for another hour with the phone ringing off the hook non-stop and nobody answering it. Apparently we made the rookie mistake of ordering after 4 pm. Chris felt like he was living the Seinfeld "Chinese Restaurant" episode, and although the food was good, I'm not sure we'll be ordering again soon!

On Sunday I went to Yoga at Lululemon. Most stores do a free Sunday Morning Yoga class, and it's worth checking out in your area if you've never been.

I also worked on my menu planning skills by making a batch of this quinoa salad and this chili.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Wedding Wednesday: Custom Invitations Without the Custom Price

Our wedding invitations were another labour of love and cost savings. We ordered a digital custom design from YellowBrickGraphics on Etsy and had them printed at a local PATH printing shop. The digital custom route is really affordable and great for brides inviting a ton of people because the more people you invite the cheaper the cost. We paid $35 for our design, and were able to request custom colours from the designer. It's worth shopping the printing around- we saved with Path because they print on big sheets and then just cut the invitations to size. I purchased the Kraft paper envelopes from PaperGoodsSupplyShop on Etsy which is a local seller and was able to save the shipping by meeting the seller at a Starbucks. The return address envelopes were standard from Staples. I was lucky to get some cute heart stamps from Canada Post, but I understand you can now customize your stamps similar to the US.





I love how our invitations turned out, they fit our colour scheme with the wildflowers, and the kraft paper envelopes tied in with the Burlap on the tables.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Tick Tock Clock

We got a few beautiful handmade gifts for our wedding. I have already posted about the gorgeous afghan crocheted by my good friend Jessica here, and today I am back to share the beautiful clock that Chris' good family friends built for us. This clock is beautiful and very special to us. My grandmother used to have a grandfather clock, and the sound of the chimes still makes me think of visiting her when I was little.



Virgil put so much time into building this beautiful clock for us, and we love the way it looks in our home. The cats are also very fond of the swinging arm!




There is and inscription with our names and wedding date on the back. I have dreams of this clock becoming a heirloom we pass down to our children and grandchildren one day!

Friday, January 17, 2014

DIY Friday: Wedding Venue Decor

After reading the Style Me Pretty and Ruffled blogs religiously for over a year and a half, I knew the decor for my venue was going to be really important to me. I didn't want to spend a ton of money, but I did want it to reflect my style; rustic, colourful and full of patina! It was hard because we don't live where we got married, so I had to make sure whatever I planned was manageable. I was very lucky to have the help of my parents on this one. They travelled to visit us earlier in the year, so they were able to take all of the jars I have collected over the years that I planned to use for my centrepieces. My dad also arranged with a friend to borrow a few items his daughter was using for her rustic wedding that was held just a few weeks before mine. One tip for brides getting married in a different city is to check Kijiji and Craigslist in the city their getting married in for items they may want to use. That's where I found my colourful bunting and old door I put my menu on. You just need a Super Dad or Relative to pick stuff up for you. I'll never forget when I sent him for the door- "You need me to pick up an old door...and you want to use it as decor?"



I found the wooden C and J at the Christie Antique Show, after a coat of paint they were ready to go. My mom and grandmother arranged all of the flowers in the canning jars.


I got this printable online (Wedding Chicks Blog) and put it in an old frame that use to have my mom's grad picture in it!




This old door was converted into a chalkboard and used to display the buffet menu. It is currently living in my parents shed and we're working on ways to bring it back to Ontario as I am in love with it.



The centrepieces were a burlap square with a stack of old books, two flower arrangements in canning jars (the smaller one on top of the books) with tea lights and a floral table number held up by a vintage spool. My friends did an awesome job arranging these and I loved how they turned out. We personalized a few of the tables by picking books that related to the people sitting at that table. 



Since only my maternal grandparents were still alive to witness our special day, we wanted to do something to remember all of the grandparents. We got black and white copies of each of them and had a table dedicated just to them with the word "Memories" in scrabble tiles.



When we asked our baker to put sprinkles on our wedding cake, I think she was probably very surprised. It turned out exactly how we pictured it, and looked great with the DIY bunting cake topper I made (tutorial here). When I sent a thank you card to the Baker, she said that her and her husband drop off a lot of wedding cakes, and most decor set ups don't make them take a second look like ours did. I like that we didn't have a cookie cutter reception, and I'm glad we did it on really light budget by using a ton of items we owned already.


We also used scrabble tiles as place settings for the wedding party at the head table.


Speaking of head table, here was the panoramic view I took on my iphone during the reception. My dad and brother hung all of the bunting along the top of the room the morning of the wedding. Did I mention how thankful I was to have family and friends pitch in to make this day great?


I love this picture. Chris surprised everyone with this big kiss! I made the Mr. & Mrs bunting out of burlap and stencils I got at the dollar store. Behind us is the crocheted bunting my mom made that says "Love Is All You Need". It was such a great day, and we truly are blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives that helped put it all together. I also need to thank my friend Shaun for taking many of these decor and venue pictures. He knew how much work I put into planning everything, and knew it would be important to capture all of the details. He did such a phenomenal job!

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

DIY Bouquets and Boutonnieres

I'm back with some wedding posts as I received all of my pictures just before the holidays, and now have plenty to share!

As you know by now, this wedding was a labour of love and a practice in cost savings. One of the greatest opportunities for cost savings in my opinion is designing your own bouquets and boutonnieres. Not everyone is up for this, or wants the added stress, but given we only had 3 bouquets and 8 boutonnieres, I figured we could definitely manage. There are tons of DIY videos and blog posts on making your own bouquets. This is a good one for bouquets and this one is good for boutonnieres.

You will need:
Flowers
Floral wire
Floral tape
Garden Sheers
Ribbon to wrap around the base
Glue gun and glue to secure ribbon

We ordered flowers ahead of time from Costco. The total for all of this was $96.50, and we didn't even use all of these flowers!

The ladies in action making boutonnieres
Mom helping to add the final touch on the day

The finished product!

With the girls' blue bouquets


The guys and their boutonnieres

All in all this wasn't a bad project at all. We made all 8 boutonnieres in less than two hours. If we bought them at the store, it would have cost us about $100. We did ours for less than $20. Our bouquets took a little longer, but that's just because we had to decide how we wanted them to look and what flowers to use. For those indecisive brides, i'd recommend choosing an inspiration photo so you and your ladies have something to go off of. This was my inspiration bouquet, and i'm very happy with how it turned out:) I added lace from my dress to the base and secured my grandmother's brooch on the front. It was my something borrowed, blue and old!

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Surviving Christmas

I was so looking forward to our first Christmas in our new home, and it certainly was a memorable one. We lost our power on December 21st and it did not come back on for good until the 24th. We were so lucky to have it come back before Christmas, as many were without power much longer than us.

Before the power went off, I captured a few images of surviving the ice storm. Here are a few of the tree branches that fell on our roof before tumbling to the ground. Our sitting room has skylights and is surrounded by windows, falling trees are terrifying. From what we can tell, the only major damage was to our eves trough. We'll find out more in the Spring.

We weren't the only ones terrified. Every time a branch fell, one cat ran upstairs and the other ran to the basement. We set up shop in the sitting room, and they were very happy to comply.


On day 3 of no power, I went to my local gym for a hot shower. I couldn't help but take in the ice crystal landscape.


All in all we had a great holiday despite the storm. My mom came to visit after Christmas and we got to see Chris' family after they returned from vacation. We capped it off with a party with friends and taking down all of the decorations. I am looking forward to 2014, and hope to learn how to use the DSLR we got from my parents as a wedding present.
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