featured on The Wedding Notebook

On Monday morning I woke to my Bridesmaid Boxes featured on The Wedding Notebook. What a perfect start to the week to see a piece of our wedding featured on the lovely wedding website. Check out the Be My Bridesmaids Ideas post and you can find my boxes along with 4 other wonderful ideas.

In February my DIY Coloring Mason Jar tutorial was also featured on the Wedding Notebook. I literally squealed with joy at seeing my mason jars up on a website devoted to tying the knot. So hop on over and take a peak. 

strawberries & cream Valentine cupcakes

Our work week around here is crazy. We get up long before the sun peeks out and by the time we get home it's time for supper, a little cleaning and then we relax on the couch with a tv show or 2. Then it's off to bed early since we have to start the day all over again in about 7 hours.

So This year I wasn't able to do any valentine's day cooking/baking till the weekend. That didn't stop my amazing husband though from cooking an amazing romantic supper for us on Valentine's Day. I still melt when I think just how amazing it was.

This morning I woke with a need to do some creative baking. My husband and I love watching cupcake wars, and that is where I got the inspiration for these Strawberries & Cream Valentine cupcakes. So here is what I did this morning:

I combined 2 cups of strawberries + 1/4 cup sugar + 1 tablespoon lemon juice. On to the vanilla cupcakes with red sprinkles inside. After letting them cool, I cut a hole in the tops and added the cooled strawberry compote. 

After letting them cool, I cut a hole in the tops and added the cooled strawberry compote. Now onto the frosting. For those of you who don't have a frosting piping bag, don't fret. I don't have one either and I still made them look somewhat professional. My trick is to transfer the frosting, what ever type you choose {I so happen to like cream cheese frosting the best} into a plastic bag and pop it into the fridge for about 10 minutes. This way it will hold it's form a little better when you pipe it on. I snip a small hole and spiral it on, starting from the outside and working inward.

My husband and I couldn't keep our fingers off of them. We try to stay away from too many sweet treats but around the holidays, that tends to go out the window.

What will I make next? Any cupcake suggestions?

St. Patrick's day is coming up next, and trying a tart lime cream cupcake seems like a great way to kick off spring.

on the 1st day of Christmas....

I have been searching on one of my favorite websites {etsy.com} for weeks, looking at Christmas gifts, inspiration for Christmas decor, birthday gifts, craft ideas and found something totally inspiring. Christmas decor is all over the place on this site and I really wanted to make something for Brian and my mom as a early Christmas gift/thank you for all of their help with our wedding. I love making decor that is not only cute but practical, so I decided on an advent calendar made with a cupcake tin . How fun is that?

So after a festive trip to the craft store, I got to work on the calendars and came up with these. I snapped a quick shot of the one I made for my mom, which is below, and good thing I did. Just to keep it real I will let you know that in 2 attempts to finish Brian and my advent calendar, I bought the wrote magnets to adhere to the paper...twice.

How does that even happen?

You might ask, why didn't I just run back out to the store, well the store is now 35 minutes away from our house so I couldn't just run back out and waist the gas. So ours will have to wait to be completed till tomorrow.

Every day leading up to Christmas I will be sharing with you what is in our advent calendar. For each day there is a slip of paper with an activity we will do to get more in the Christmas spirit! Now if we are not able to complete the activity for that day, I will put the slip of paper in a little Christmas tin and we will do it on a different day, but mark my words, we will do every one!! So there might be a day when I don't share what the activity was, but I will share it eventually.

On the 1st day of Christmas the activity was....

1st week {at home} as a wife

I still have to pinch myself most days. It has been a whole week of being a stay-at-home wife and life is totally changing around here. This place has gone from a bachelor pad, to a slightly less bachelor pad when I moved a few things in, to a full fledged 'home of a married couple.' It smells a little bit better, is much more filled, has at least 1 person {meaning me} in it almost all the time, and is a little more organized but then again a little more chaotic with all of my crafting supplies.

Before my husband and I got married he worried that I would feel confined and claustrophobic because the square footage of our apartment is about the size of my bedroom, bathroom, and craft room at my parents house. In fact isn't quite the contrary. Our apartment is the perfect size. It is still plenty spacious to clean and I love being able to check in 2 seconds if all the lights are off, or in the summer we can air out our place with the opening of 2 windows. I love that I don't have to search across the house to see what my husband is doing, I just have to peak around the corner.

Now this doesn't mean that I don't miss where I lived before. I don't really think it quite hit me until today. I had been holding off the Christmas music {which is very unlike me} because I wasn't really in the Christmas mood. Again very strange for me, I'm normally getting into the holiday spirit before kids decide on their Halloween costume. Anyway, I have seen commercials on TV with Santa and have seen red & green creep into most department stores, but I wasn't feeling festive. All the memories I have of Christmas are tied to the house with my parents & sister, and I no longer live there.

So this holiday season will be the start of new traditions, creating new memories, making lots of Christmas gifts, sending our own Christmas cards....it will be a year of firsts.

So back to my first weeks as a wife, I have had lots to accomplish but haven't made it too far on my to-do list. It turns out that the "simple" task of changing your name & address, takes much longer than it sounds. Anyone who has recently changed their name will understand what I mean. You think it would be as simple as hopping on the internet, and typing in your new name & address but it's much more than that. I just went into a paragraph rant but then realized that nobody really needs to hear me rant about that, so in short...changing your name & address takes much more effort than I had anticipated.

I am also learning how to be a better wife. I made a lengthy trip to the grocery store to stock up. It really is nice to have filled cupboards instead of running to the store for each meal. After a little practice I can now wake up with Brian at 4:45, snuggle for a few minutes, make coffee to-go, pack his lunch, and send him off with breakfast for the car ride, all before 5:15.

Our apartment is coming together piece by piece, so stay tuned and I will show it to you corner by corner.

color tour of our apartment

Ever since Brian and I got engaged there have been lots and lots of questions asked about us.

Where will you live?
When will you start applying for jobs?
Will you move back the town where both your parents & lots of friends currently live?
When and how many kids will you have? {the most popular one
Is your place really right on the lake?
What is the color palette for you apartment?

The list goes on and on of the wonderful questions Brian and I have been peppered with over the past few months. With 3 wedding showers coming up, I am getting the last question on my list asked a few times a week. So I thought of a good way to share with people what colors we have picked to liven up our new place.

The other day I made a special trip to the paint store {not for paint of course} but to picked out some fabulous colors swatches to send by 'snail mail' to those who have been inquiring about our place. I was literally in the process of cutting and pasting some pictures from the internet for those who were inquiring and ready to send them in an envelope when it hit me like a brick wall. HELLO Emily, what is a great way to share your ideas, thoughts, inspiration with others? If you aren't there already you are as slow as I am today...my blog. That is how big of a "blogging rut" I am in lately. I credit this epiphany to Nate Berkus, he always gets my creative ideas flowing.

Anyway, short story very long... here is a 'color tour' of our apartment. {Side note this is not our place, these are just pictures that I take inspiration from}

Family Room & Kitchen: sea foam blue, cream, white, chocolate, tan

Bedroom & bathroom: cranberry, cream, tan, chocolate, taupe

Photo credit: all these pictures are on my pintrest {which has links to each site}

bride DIY: coloring mason jar

I adore mason jars, cold hard fact. I have always been a fan and started collecting them in high school. I always dreamed of using them in my own wedding, so guess what project I started this week?

After a visit to the store with over 80 jars in tow I started in on my project. I have seen a few DIY tutorials about coloring mason jars to incorporate the colors of you special event, and I was instantly hooked. Mason jars with a hint of pink was the perfect way to add more color into our decor. It took a few rounds, but after some 'trial and error' this is my version of coloring mason jars:

How it works:
You add color to some mad podge and coat the inside of a mason jar. As the jar dries the mod podge will dry just about clear leaving you with a wonderful translucent hue of color.

Ingredients:
-mason jars {what ever size you desire}
-food coloring
-mod podge
-popsicle stick or something disposable for stirring
-wax paper
-paper towels
-heat proof tray
-disposable cups

Step #1:
In a disposable cup mix together mod podge and a few drops of food coloring. I added about 7 drops to a cup of mod podge. Add a few tsp of water to make the consistence a little more runny.

Step #2:
Pour a few tbs into a mason jar and swirl around, coating the whole inside of the jar. Hold upside down for a few minutes, pouring out excess mod podge back into the cup.

Step #3:
Place upside down on a paper towel to absorb the excess fluid for about 10 minutes. Place on wax paper and a heat proof tray.

Step#4:
Put upside down jars on the wax paper and in the oven {set on the lowest temp} for about 10 minutes. Turn right side up and keep them in the oven for another 30-40 minutes.

Step #5:
Take out of oven when there are no more streaks and let air dry for a few hours before you continue with your decoding.

This is such a cute way to add color in a very inexpensive way. It's also a great project for you to invite the girls over and make a day of it. My jars vary a little in color, but I really enjoy that each jar is different from the next.

And now for the obvious comment of the day: of course you can add any food coloring you want to the jars to make them fit with your style. I choose red food coloring to make my jars light pink and it turned out perfect. It pretty much looks like pepto or liquid bubble gum to me, but dries just about clear leaving the pink color behind. Perfect for our wedding!

apartment accessorizing: lighting

I wrote them down, mapped them out and was off. I was on a quest for apartment accessories, particularly lighting, nightstand tables, or an entryway table for the apartment. I had almost given up hope after 1/2 a dozen thrift sales with no new items in tow. I was moments away from throwing in the towel when I spotted it.

A thrift sale with about 8 different lamps, from floor lamps taller then me, to an almost matching set of white lamps that were screaming 'Emily take me!' I noticed that they would need a little work, but I would much rather add my own stamps to them. I love taking something worn down and making it new, so that's what I did all afternoon. A few yards of fabric, my trusty glue gun, a can of ivory spray paint and with lots of patience I set off to make these lamps a little more apartment ready.

 

 

 They started like this with their white pain chipping away and covered in a light layer of dust from the months of neglect. After a good cleaning and a few coats of paint they looked brand spanking new again and ready for some stylish lampshades that would match our apartment. The color of our walls in the family room is a very light sea foamy blue, and that goes perfectly with our brown coach. The whole color scheme of our kitchen/family room is sea blue, tan & brown. The color scheme of our bathroom/bedroom is cranberry, tan, cream & brown.

So when it came time to pick out the fabric I knew exactly what I was looking for. You can probably guess which two lamps will be in the family room and which one in the bedroom. These will add a nice touch of color and help to incorporate our themes while doing their real purpose, adding light to our rooms.

I have a few yards of extra fabric and have some ideas in my head about how to use them but I could use a few suggestions. One of the first things people might think of is pillows, but seeing as I just bought a few of those to make resting on the couch a little more comfy I want to use it else ware. I plan to make some wall art with the fabric, but I'm looking for a few other ideas.

Any suggestions? How would you use the extra fabric in your family room/bedroom?

welcome

 

For some reason sharing pictures of our new apartment feels just about as personal as it gets on my blog. This is our world that only Brian and I know, but now I am sharing it with you. Week by week, we add our own personal touches to our new place and it feels more like home with each visit. It's been almost a month now, and it's surprising how so much things can change it such a small time frame.

There are so many aspects to this apartment that we fell in love with. First off the view. Pretty breath taking. We enjoyed a fresh snack on Sunday {B's homemade salsa}.

Our couch is finally here! It is the most comfortable couch I have ever sat on {of I really should say reclined on}. You really must try it out.

 Our 2 butt kitchen, good thing we don't have a personal bubble problem because while this kitchen has a plethora of storage it can be a little narrow for those who are used to cooking by ourselves. 

Just look at those hardwood floors, aren't they amazing! We think so.

The kitchen table & chairs that we put together on a Sunday afternoon.

This beauty arrived with the couch and Brian can finally get the support needed from a real bed, not the floor.

Can you tell I love to add flowers to bring spring in doors? Daises really are the more cheery flower.

 

Here is the out door patio down by the lake where B and I frequently come to grill out.

 B's boat will soon be in the water and we are jumping at the opportunity to cruise around on the open waters.

The view of our porch from the docks. Brian is going to love seeing the boat from our windows.

Simple breath taking, and it's even better in person. I am so bias but don't care in the slightest.

Disclaimer, just so we are clear: I am not living there yet, not till after we get married but it is still our place.

It is our place and each week I seem to add a few more of my belongings to make the transitions nice and smooth. I told Brian from early on that I don't want to have a weekend of 'Emily Invasion' right before we get married, so this is a lovely transition through the months of our engagement, one weekend at a time.

 

our place

the view from our kitchen window
   

Normally just the thought of moving has people running away faster then they can muster, but for this girl, I welcome it with open arms. I love to pack, give a good clean to old spaces, move heavy boxes into newly painted rooms, and wash dusty dishes until I get prunie hands. I love going shopping for new house supplies and taking before & after photos as we put our own touches on our new apartment. Those were just a few of the fun things we did this weekend as we moved Brian into the new apartment.

The crazy things is, it's not just his apartment.

Right now, it's our apartment meaning: we both contribute to it in our own way {you can only imagine the ideas I have racing around my head to decorate the new space} but he lives in it until we get married. In a few short months it will be our apartment meaning: we live their together as husband & wife. Our place to live.

That was so hard for me to really picture until this weekend. We got just a little taste of what it will be like to be married, and I can only say that......I can't wait!

It feels like a piece of me is still with him in our place as each weekend I will bring a few more items to add to our growing collection. One of the things on my list to bring for next weekend is a dream that recently became a reality. Ever since I was a little girl watching movies like Anne of Green Gables, and Pride & Prejudice, I have wanted one of these treasures in my house. I will save that for my next blog post.

lovely leading ladies

Choosing who I would ask to stand by our sides as Brian & I joined together in marriage was no easy task. It is safe to say that there were a few teary nights when I realized that having a dozen bridesmaids really wasn't that practical. I limited myself to 5 of my closest girl. Now that I was past the difficulties task of deciding, I was on to the enjoyment of asking them in a creative way. I took much inspiration from Bethany's 'be my maid?' boxes and did them in my own way with our colors. So thanks Bethany for the inspiration!

My supplies:
- 5 wooden boxes from any craft store like Micheals or JoAnn's
- paint to cover the wood feel in the color 'eggshell'
- paper in a variety of pinks, creams, and grays
- decorative ribbon in the same soft colors
- an afternoon of wedding shows like 'Say Yes to the Dress' on in the background

After a couple coats of the eggshell color + a few coats of clear varnish it was time to decorate the inside. I added a personal note for each of my 5 girls: my sister and secret keeper, my tree loving grade school buddie, my partner in crime, my sunshine supporter, and my new sister. I also added a note with details about the wedding, like the date, the location, our colors {displayed with buttons sewn onto each note}, and a list of the other lovely ladies.

I also added a few pictures for an overall feel of the wedding, so they would know what to expect, and also a picture of what I am hoping for in regards to the dresses. I also added a little delight for each of the girls in the form of chocolate m&ms in our colors. I want the girls to feel special and have a great time right along with Brian and I as we experience these special months of planning together. I finished off each box with a decorative accent ribbon to add a little touch of elegance.

 

This project did take a little longer then expected, but that was partially because there were 5 boxes to paint & fill, and 2 of them had to be shipped off hundreds of miles away. It was totally worth it, to give each girl a keep sake for being a bridesmaid and thank them for agreeing to stand by our sides.

This was my 1st wedding DIY project of many exciting adventures to come. Next on the list....save the dates!!

12 by 2012

It seems that I have gotten myself into a inspiration/crafting rut as of late, and this looks like my one-way ticket right on out of it. The amazing Danni from Hello, Friend has come up with the idea to have 12 ambitious goals done by 2012. I saw this first posted on a friend's blog {Amanda} and knew it was for me. So come along and join with me, this sounds like the perfect adventure to finish out the year and get us all feeling better about our aspirations.

Here is my list of 12 by 2012:

 updated: 10-27-11

bold = finished

italicized = a work in progress

{1} scrapbook the 2-inch pile of pictures that are currently sitting on my deck {started on 10.27.11}
 

{2} complete at least 2 projects from my new favorite book: "One-Yard Wonders" by Rebecca Yaker & Patricia Hoskins

{3} create some festive holiday cards
 

{4} save up money for the future, now that I have a steady job
 

{5} spend more quality time with my sisters {went out to eat with my older sis on 11.4.11 and had a shopping trip with my younger sis on 11.5.11}
 

{6} plan our trip to California {started making phone calls on 11.6.11 and I found some flights, all that's left to do is book them and plan out the details, booked the flights on 11.28.11}
 

{7} get back into my regular gym schedule {started back up on 11.2.11 and have continued till now}

 

{8} get my etsy shop up and running again {I've been on "vacation" for far too long}

{9} change up my hair stye {on 11.18.11}

 

{10} make a few of my Christmas gifts this year {bought some supplies for them but haven't completed them yet}
 

{11} buy a pair of dressy boots, I've been looking for months with no such luck {accomplished on 11.5.11, pictures will be coming soon}

 

{12} spend a little more time enjoying the pleasures in life {took day to relax and pamper myself on 11.4.11, seen here in this blog post}

I will also be taking pictures of each goal in progress and do a few blogs along the way to update on what's been going on. This way I will really be held accountable for these aspirations and more inspired to complete them!