Its all good!!!

Today has been an awesome day!  We are not only on track with all of the DIY projects I have on my list, but we had a meeting today with the Church staff and everything is falling into place.

It is a very good feeling when you see the vision you created for your wedding day, comes to life and that others around you see your vision as you do!  Nothing beats that feeling of accomplishment!  The meeting we had today was awesome.  The Church wedding coordinator, facility coordinator and custodian all see my dream and are excited to help make it a reality.  This put me in such a good mood that I not only finished the seating chart, but also finished the table numbers, the programs and started printing the photos that we need.

We are all set for our wedding in 7 days!!!  A lot was done today and I am estatic!!!  :-)

Long time no blog...

I'm sorry that it has been a long while since I last posted on my blog.  Things have changed at my work and it has affected my wedding plans.

Mr. Teddybear and I have decided to move our wedding and reception from the Golf Course we originally wanted to our Church.  This was mainly done for financial reasons.  Again, we did not want to cut the guest list because everyone on our list are near and dear to our hearts.

So, several of my DIY projects have been deleted as well due to costs.

• Wishing Tree - The trees are not cheap and it would also take a good amount of time to put together at the reception and I didn't want either Mr. Teddybear or I to be stressed in getting it put together.
• Foam Hearts -  I just couldn't find these foam hearts any where and they were more than I planned on spending to buy them online.  I couldn't justify this project.

What has been done:

• The Invitations - They have been completed and mailed out.  We are starting to get a slow trickle of RSVP's in too.  Here are some of my picts of the invitations.

• My Dress - My dress has been ordered, paid off and I have pictures of me in it.  My first fitting will be next week.

• The Guestbook - Well since we are not able to do the Wishing Tree.  Mr. Teddybear and I decided to go with the traditional guestbook with photos of us in it.  The guests would sign in the space around our photos.  However, this isn't going to be just a book on a table and that's it!  No, we will have the guestbook surrounded by family photos.  We found a great deal at BigLots.  It was a fram that had 3 areas for pictures and on top of these pictures was the word "Family" carved out.  This frame will sit on a gold table-top easel and will be surrounded by other smaller frames with pictures of our family members and extended family members.  We will also have small votive candles on the table as well.  As soon as I can, I will post pictures and hopefully a mock up of the table.

Still to be done:  We have a few DIY projects left to be done.  I am thankful that I have plenty of time to get it done.

• Programs - We haven't had our ceremony finalized by our Pastor.  Once he finalizes our ceremony, we can commit it to paper and get the programs printed.
• Table Numbers/Names  - We have decided to use Mr. Teddybear's favorite Nascar Drivers and their car numbers as our Table Names/Numbers.  I will be working on a mock up of this this weekend as well.
• CD Favors/Tablecards - Well I don't want to make too many CD holders so I have only started cutting for 60 favors and if we get more RSVPs then I will make more.  I just have these cut.  I haven't put them together yet.  I do have a mock up and when I take pictures of it, I will post it here.

Well, it is 5 weeks until our wedding.  Mr. Teddybear and I can hardly wait.  We are both so excited to be marrying each other and are looking forward to our future together. 

Have a great weekend everyone!!

My List of DIY projects for my wedding

Well it will soon be 3 months till my wedding and so far, I am on time for my DIY projects.  Here are my projects along with the original inspirations for each project where available.

1)  Invitations.  The first and foremost that needs to be done is the invitations.  Without the invitations, there will be no guests for the wedding.  So my inspiration came from Cards And Pockets.  I am using the Signature style of pocketfold invitations in a Bronze color.  I am also accenting it with cream and a bit of sage.  I should be receiveing these tomorrow....I can't wait!!!

2)  Favors.  Our favors are not just favors.  Our favors will double as the placecards.  Although I don't have a picture handy of my inspiration, trust me, its beautiful.  Our favors are music CDs with songs that are imporant to us.  The holder will list all the songs that are on the CD and will have on the front the guests names and the table they will be seated at.  The cd holder will be beautiful and will coordinate with my invitations.

3)  Envelope Liners.  I know that this should be under the invitations, but I think it deserves its own entry.  I got the inspiration from Rosey Little Things.  It seems a very easy project and I love the idea.

4)  Wishing Tree - Several aspects of our wedding are non-traditional.  Our wishing tree will be our version of the guest book.  My inspiration came from this picture:

The only difference will be that we will have one tree but it will still have several branches.  I plan on scrapbooking the tags into our wedding album.   This picture and instructions were found here.

5)  Bouquet Holders - I found this website when I was looking for florists:  Blume Box.  I went to their gallery and the ideas were zipping through my head!  I couldn't believe that these were so affordable too!

Again, the ideas were endless!!!

6)  Foam Hearts -  I came across this idea late in the wedding planning and I thought it would be a nice touch for the entrance into the reception hall.

The foam hearts that I make will not be made with red roses, instead it will be made with the flowers that will be in mine and the bridesmaids bouquet. I came across this idea at SavOn Crafts.

7)  Wedding Journey Display - Steve had a great idea by taking pictures of him and I as we went about planning our wedding.  We took pictures at bridal expos, shopping for my dress, Elena's dress, and his tuxedo so far.  We will putting up a display that will showcase our Journey from Will You to I Do.

8)  Last but not least our Wedding Programs -  This is something I really loved doing and designed myself.  Although I don't have a picture yet, I finished the design about 4 months ago.  I am just waiting to get the right color of cardstock which should be delivered with the invitations supplies tomorrow. 

As of next Saturday, July 3, 2010, it will officially be three months before my wedding.  I do not feel like I am running out of time or that I won't complete these projects.  I know my craft abilities very well and am confident that I will complete all of these projects well within my timeframe that I have set up.

I hope these inspire others out there to think outside your box, you can create beautiful things!

Its a good day when you wake up with a smile on your face!

Even though I was a bit rattled by the earthquake last night (no matter the size or distance of the earthquake, I am always rattled), I woke up this morning with a smile on my face.  

Why?  Well not only is my wedding 110 days away, but I will be ordering my supplies to create my invitations today.  Yes, I am DIY'ing my invitations.  I have taken pictures of my sample but they don't do the invitations justice.  I will try again and post them soon.

So please, enjoy today.  Mr. Teddybear and I will be!!!   :-)

Wedding Planning Update

As of today, it is 4 months, two weeks and 6 days until my wedding!  Yikes!  I remember when we were telling everyone that it was over a year away!!!  Now is the time when things get nitty gritty.  Hehehehehe...I like this time.  I shine at this type of deadline!  ;-)

We haven't had layoffs at work, but Mr. Teddybear and I decided to change our venue to save more money and to be on the safe side.  Instead of having it at a golf course, we will be having it at our Church in West Covina, CA.  It should be approximately $2 -3K less than the golf course and we will still get to have it outside.

Tomorrow, Mr. Teddybear and I are looking for his tux and the tuxedos for the other men.  We have an appointment at Friar Tux's in Glendale.  I'm excited, I took the day off and everything!  We might be looking for bakers and caterers too, but we don't have anything set in stone yet.  We wanted to have a relaxing day too so we will see what happens.

I have a long list of DIY projects for the wedding.  I will be ordering the supplies for my invitations in a few weeks which will include invitation envelope liners, I also want to create our favors which will not only be the favors but also the tablecards as well.  When I am done with those, I will post pictures.  I also will be creating a wishing tree (our version of a guest book) and two foam hearts for the reception doors at the Church.  For all of my DIY Projects, I will be posting pictures and instructions as soon as I can.

So, although I have less than 5 months, I am confident that I will get these projects done in time for the wedding.  Wow...I can't wait till we get married!!!  :-D

Wedding plans and layoffs do not go hand in hand.

In today's day and age, it will be hard for you to find someone who is NOT affected by the downturn of our economy.  Everyone is affected by it.  Even big corporations and city municipalities.  I am affected by this downturn.  I work for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.  DWP is an agency of the City of Los Angeles.  With the recent credit rating given to the City, the word layoffs have been swirling every City department and office in Los Angeles.  You can read about the credit rating change here. 

Situations like these can be daunting to the newly engaged and those well into their wedding planning.  What can you do?  Well Mr. Teddybear and I had a nice talk about it ourselves.  What would we do with our wedding plans if I was laid off from my job?  After much discussion, we found that we have several options when it comes to our wedding:

1.     The quickest and most efficient cost-cutting step would be to cut the guest list down.  The cost of the food should be almost 50% of your wedding budget, so if you cut the guest list down, this step could be a significant savings.

2.     Do more DIY projects on top of the DIY projects I am already planning and have done.  The one caveat I have about DIY projects for weddings is to do the projects your comfortable with and ask for lots of help!  Now with that being said, I have always been a crafty, thinking outside the box kinda gal and doing DIY projects is just right up my alley.  Mr. Teddybear and I discussed the possibility of doing our own flowers and decorations.  There are a plethora of how-to videos online to show you how to create your own bouquets, floral wedding arch decoration, and centerpieces.  If you are not comfortable or are not as crafty, find out if you have a friend or family member who is and enlist their help.  Just remember to allow enough time to complete the work and that you don't have to do it all yourselves.  The next option goes hand-in-hand with this one as well.

3.     Another option for Mr. Teddybear and I would be to cancel our contract with the reception venue (yes we would more than likey lose our deposit but we are hopeful that they would have a heart) and have the smaller wedding and reception at our house.  We decided how and where we would put our furniture, where we would have our ceremony, where we would eat, and where we might dance.

4.     The last all, end all option for Mr. Teddybear and I would be to postpone our wedding to when we are back on our feet.  For me personally, I don't consider this an option.  I love this man in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer.  I want to marry him whether we are poor or not.

These are the options that me and Mr. Teddybear came up with yesterday.   If I am laid off we would definately do option 1 & 2.  We would only consider option 3 if there were certain circumstances involved and if all else fails, then we would go with option 4.  I hope these options are helpful for those out there who are in the same boat as I am. Can you think of anything we missed?  Let me know and post a comment.

Have a blessed day!

 

DIY 5th Birthday Party Invitations - UPDATED WITH MORE PICS

Well it is after Christmas and it has been awhile since I blogged.  I appologize for the absence, but there has been health issues that are currently being looking into.

I have finally found the invitation to my daughter's 5th Birthday party invitations.  She wanted a princess birthday sleepover.  We obliged as we usually do for our only daughter.  So, here is the picture of the princess.

This was a stamp image from StampinUp!  I hand colored the images for approximately 16 invites.  Then I stamped the castle image on the actual invitation and tore the edges of the princess to make a feathery look.  I then glued fiber to the edge of the torn edges of the princess image and glued it onto the invitation.  This is how it came out:

The pertinent information was filled in on the inside.  Now, although we didn't do that many invites, it took me a long time as I hand-colored all of the princesses while I took the train into Downtown L.A. to work.

There were also other items that I did for the party.

*  I purchased plain paperbags with handles and as each guest came in to the party, they had a small table with crayons, markers, and other things to decorate their bags with.  They then put their names on it and it became their goodie bags.  All treats and giveaways were put in their bags.

*I went all out and purchased Disney Princess decorations and decorated the eating area.  The menu included veggies with dip, finger sandwhiches, and tea (punch).

*After we played games such as pin the tiara on Cinderella, after eating, we had a princess movie marathon.  All of the movies had Princess in the title and that was all of the movies they had to watch.

*I couldn't find the pictures of the cake, but it really did look like a castle.  I went all out for this party and was a Martha Stewart clone!  The cake was a 9x9x2 cake pan and I baked 2 cakes.  I place one on top of the other with strawberry flavor frosting in the middle.  I also frosted the outside of the cake with the same frosting.  I then took a regular (flat-bottom) icecream cone and frosted 4 of them and placed them in each corner of the cake.  I then took 4 sugar cone (pointy-bottom) icecream cone and frosted that as well and place them on top of the regular cones.  These became the turrets for the castle.  I then took half of a graham craker to make the door.  I also had a bunch of hersheys kisses and made sure that the paper was sticking up straight and place them around as part of the wall of the castle.  It was a fun cake to make and the girls enjoyed it!  As soon as I find the pictures, I will edit this post and include them.

As I believe I stated before, my daughter has requested another princess sleepover for her 12th birthday and requested that I make the cake again.  It will be fun and I am just glad that she enjoyes and appreciates what I do for her and to make her party special.


**********UPDATE***********

So I found some, not all, pictures from her 5th birthday party.   Were they on my home computer?  No, they were on my computer at work.  Go figure.

So here they are. 

The infamous cake.  One mistake I will note, I thought I used graham crakers for the doors, but it was wafer cookies, pink ones, for the drawbridge.

The dining table and the partygoers enjoying the cake.

The birthday girl enjoying one of the turrets.

The birthday girl AFTER finishing the turret.  The two things I forgot to mention and they were pivital items to making this birthday party a success were:

1) having a helper for the party.  My neice Nicole was a tremendous help at the party.

2)For birthday parties, I follow this rule:  For the number of years the child is turning, that is the number of invitees for the party.  I told my daughter that since she was turning five, she could invite 5 girls.  I also told her that if someone wasn't able to come, we could keep inviting girls, one by one until we get 5 confirmed rsvp's.  It really helped in keeping my insanity.

Have hammer will travel!!

We have moved in some stuff on Wednesday and will continue tomorrow, Friday.  Mr. Teddybear and I have both agreed that we like and dislike some of the color that was painted in the new place.  Here is what we like and don't like about the color by room.

Livingroom - There is one accent wall that is painted what looks like a burgandy color which we actually like.  However, the rest of the walls are painted a dark beige which is a neutral color (Mr. Teddybear doesn't like neutral) but it also makes the room darker.  We are looking for a color that is lighter but also compliments the accent wall that we are trying to keep. 

Kitchen - The previous tenant was going for a bistro look by painting the walls a light yellow and painting the trim black.  Yes, black.  Mr. Teddybear and I both don't like the black trim, but we kind of like the yellow.  We kinda like it but it seems a bit too light.  We are just not sure if it is too light because the black overpowers it and mutes the color or not.  So we are looking for a blue or green that would compliment the current yellow.  If the current yellow is still too light, then we would go with a different yellow.

Our Bedroom -  I have known that blues and greens are a serene color and have always wanted my room one of those colors.  Although this room has the same burgandy as the livingroom, we will be painting over it.  We are still picking which blue or green we want.

2nd Bedroom - This room was painted a dark beige as the livingroom.  My daughter has already voiced her opinions and wants to paint her room pink.  She is such a girly-girl!  We are trying to keep her realistic in her color choices and toning it down a bit while still trying to give her control and creative freedom. 

Bathroom - This is the one room that there is not much change going on.  It is currently white with purple accents.  We love the soft purple specks on the tile.  We have decided that one of the walls need some color so we will be painting it a light lavender to go with the very pretty purple speckeled tile.  We are also considering painting the current cabinet a white or very light lavender but we haven't fully decided that.

Den -  Well this is one room that we currently will not be changing.  It is a bit dark and not only has a fireplace, but also has wood paneling.  Now this is not your '70's dated wood paneling, this is the real wood, tonge-in-grove paneling that adds value to a house.  We decided to not paint over the wood paneling because it is just so beautiful but we decided to paint the fireplace at a later date, if the owner allows us to.  I believe that will brighten the room and give the room a focal point.  I think this will be the last room we tackle as it might be the most difficult.

So that is the future DIY projects that we have on our plate.  I brought up laying wood flooring down and re-tiling the kitchen counters but that is still in negotiations with Mr. Teddybear.   ;-)  I'll let you know how that turns out!

Tips for beginning DIYers

One might wonder if a project is something that they can DIY or Do It Yourself.  Or some might shiver and want to dig a deep hole to hide at the mere thought of anything DIY.  Here are some tips on figuring out whether or not a project is something you can truthfully handle on your own.

Research!  Research!  Research!!!
You need to find out everything you can about how a project is completed, the materials you will need and the approximate time it will take in order to figure out if a DIY project is one you can handle.  For example, Mr. Teddybear and I are seriously considering on DIY'ing our flowers for the wedding.  I did extensive research on this subject and found out that the type of bouquets I want for me and my girls are relatively easy to do as well as the boutineers and the centerpieces.  I found that the only item giving me some concern was the flowers that decorate the arch. I also found out the timeframe we would need to get our flowers done.  Although we both love the personal touch doing our own flower decorations for our wedding brings, we are on the fence on whether or not we want to tackle the stress that comes with DIY.

Practice.  Practice.  Practice.
Once you believe that the DIY project is something you can handle, be prepared to practice the project.  Going back to my wedding flowers, Mr. Teddybear and I have made tenative plans on practicing our flowers.  We plan on going to downtown L.A. to buy flowers on a Thursday and then prepare them on a Saturday for a Sunday wedding.  This will give us a good idea on exactly how long it will take us to complete the flowers and whether or not the anticipated stress will be real or just in our heads.

Gather all tools needed.
Make sure, before you start your DIY project or practicing it, that you have all of the tools and supplies needed so that you don't have to stop in the middle of it and go shopping for it. 

Ask for help when needed.
Don't worry about asking for help.  If your painting a room at the house, it would be a lot faster having more than one person helping you out.  For our flowers, not only is Mr. Teddybear helping, but I do plan on asking my Maid of Honor to help out as well.

Well I hope this bit of information helps you in deciding if a project is something you want to DIY or not.

Have a great weekend!!!  :-)

Where do we stand?

Well wedding plans have been getting off to a slow start. Its no wonder since we had more than a year to plan when we first got engaged.  We have been to a wedding expo or two and everyone we talked to at these expos have told us that we have plenty of time to plan things!  With our wedding now officially less than a year away, it feels like we don't have enough time!  LOL!  Here is where we stand with our wedding plans so far:

1) Venue - We have not only choosen our wedding/reception venue, but we also put a deposit down on it. It is a very nice golf course that Mr. Teddybear has golfed at many, many times.

2) Wedding Coordinator - Mr. Teddybear really doesn't want me stressed out the day of the wedding so he and I are both interviewing coordinators for a "Day of" package. We will do all the wedding planning ourselves but we need someone to make sure it is all done the day of the wedding.

3) DIY - Yes, I am and always have been a very crafty person. I have handmade my daughter's birthday party invites and also created a castle cake for her party as well, have designed, created my christmas cards, and I am an avid scrapbooker who also make my own greeting cards. HOWEVER! When it comes to the wedding, I do know my limits. My sister and I will be making the wedding invitations and the accessory cards as well. Mr. Teddybear and I are discusssing the possibilty of doing our own wedding flowers and floral decorations as well. We didn't plan anything to extensive to begin with so we both believe it is a project we can accomplish. However, we have decided to interview a few florist first. If they can't give us the flowers we want within our budget, then its off to the FlowerMart in Downtown L.A. for us!!! This trip will be a blog post within itself! LOL!

4) Bridal party members - We asked them months ago and all have said yes! Woo Hoo!!!

5) My Wedding Dress - I already know the style of my dress, but to find one that looks like what I envisioned, well that's a whole other Oprah! I am starting my search for my dress this weekend when Mr. Teddybear and I go to the first appointment at a bridal shop. Yes, we are not the conventional types! :-D

6) Save the Dates - They have been ordered and received. Just getting some, a few...ok, several last minute address before sending them out. Keep an eye out for them around January!

I think that is all that we have done so far regarding our wedding.  With the wedding being less than a year away, it will be all downhill from here!  Have a great day y'all!!!

We Did It!!!

We have set a date for our wedding!!! Woo Hoo! We are getting married on October 2, 2010!

So now the fun starts! The planning begins! I'm so excited!!!! Sometimes I think that I really should know what to do now since I have done this before, but I am blank. The really good thing is that when I told my brother the date, he offered his house for the reception. It would be great and I can design what I want and not what a hotel or country club says I can have. The only thing is that one would think having a wedding reception in a backyard would be less expensive. No, it can sometimes be more expensive than a reception at a hotel or country club.

So I have a lot to do.

Thankfully I have pleanty of time to do it in!