Decking The Halls: diy Wreath Instructions

As I mentioned, this is my first married Christmas and the first time I've had my own space to decorate. I have finals this week so I've been going nutso getting papers written and projects finished so my hall decking is coming along slowly and intermittently. Our beautiful tree stood bare for at least a week before I had time to decorate it.

I did make time to make a wreath out of the scraps I snagged from the Christmas tree lot! So maybe I should have been doing homework but a girl's gotta have priorities!

I was inspired by this wreath that I found on Pinterest and figured out how to make it happen with what I have.

In addition to the cuttings from the tree farm I gathered some sticks and stole trimmed some holly from the bushed in front of my office building.

Supplies:
Wreath frame (if desired)
Florist wire
Greenery of choice (it uses more than you may think so get plenty!)
Sticks
Heavy duty scissors or wire cutters

Step 1: Lay down a sheet or newspaper for a work area and clip greenery to smaller pieces that are ready to be wired on to your frame.

Step 2: Start with wreath frame or wire some sticks of roughly the same length together. Do your best to make sure the frame is very secure.

Step 3: Begin wiring greenery pieces onto your frame. It is best to keep all your greenery facing the same direction, rotating your frame as you make your way around it.
This step should be where the fullness of your wreath is determined. I didn't make mine as full as I wanted here so I had to keep adding greenery later which was much harder to make look good.
The more your greens overlap, the thicker and fuller your wreath will be.

Step 4: Wire on sticks.
Lay the sticks on your wreath and play around with placement so you know where each one is going before you start wiring them in place.
This was a little tricky to find a secure spot to wire them without smashing the greenery. It should be secure but, unless your wreath needs to stand up to heavy winds, the sticks can be a little wiggly.

Step 5: Hold up wreath and examine from different angles and fill in any thin spots with more greenery.

Step 6: Add berries and other accent greenery or additional adornment.

At this point you can use wire or string to add a hanging tab on the back. I have a wreath hanger that I just hooked onto the wreath frame.

Happy Hall Decking!

12 Days of Christmas

You can purchase cards with these darling illustrations at ThatllBeFine on Etsy

It's Christmas time!!!! 

This is my first married Christmas and I am having a delightful time decorating! More on that later…

Starting December 12th, I am going to post 12 gift ideas to go along with the 12 Days of Christmas song!

Even though, technically, the song refers to the 12 days after Christmas, I am going to post them before Christmas with the 12th day being the day before Christmas Eve.

My first post will be Thursday, December 12th. 

Be sure to check it out each day for some fun, girly gift ideas for a girlfriend/wife, friend, sister, mother, or yourself!

Advent Guest Blog!

I did a guest post for my dear friend Ryn at Styled By Ryn!
She'll have advent posts all month so keep checking her out and show her some love!
You can follow her in instagram as well @rynb and look at her Etsy shop Maude C.!

You can check out her blog here.

Fall Party!

Some Jack O' Lanterns I made. Templates here.

I want to get this out there before Thanksgiving is over and the world prepares for Christmas!
My extracurricular activities (such as updating this blog) have been seriously hampered by the fact that I am now in school. I am studying Graphic Design at the Art Institute AND continuing my full time job. I am definitely excited for Christmas break!!!

I had a fall costume party and wanted to share some of the decorations I made.
My goal was to make it fun and fall but not Halloween-ey. I found this styled shoot and that was it!

Unfortunately, I was so focused on getting my costume together after school and before the party that I didn't get very great pictures of the set up.

Here are the shots from the styled shoot by Love Me Sailor, Mr. Caballero, and Geronimo Balloons in L.A. originally posted by 100 Layer Cake.

I mean. Beautiful right?!

I ordered one chocolate brown and one orange 30" balloon from balloonsfast.com and these gold foil baking cups, borrowed all of my mom's silver serving dishes, and decided to make everything else for the decor.

I plan to write up a tutorial for the balloon tassels soon and will link it here.

I had orange crush to drink with gold pipe cleaner curls, some beautiful french macaroons that I found at Trader Joe's, a tassel garland made from gold ribbon and tissue paper tassels, a silver bowl of clementines, and Gluten Free chocolate cupcakes (this recipe but with GF all purpose flour) with salted caramel buttercream icing (this recipe with coarse salt sprinkled on top).

A couple other people brought caramel apples and some fall doughnuts and we had a sweet time of it!

I also whipped up a vanilla cake with the help of a friend's recipe and cake frosting tools because there were a couple birthdays coming up.

For the cake topper, I cut triangles of brown paper, wrote Happy Birthday on them with gold paint marker, threaded them through with white embroidery floss, and tied them to kabob skewers.
The cake is decorated with gold stars and edible glitter.

I dressed up as Frida Kahlo complete with a light unibrow and mustache:

Happy Autumn Everyone!! (Even though it's pretty much over…)

Mark Your Calendar!

My (now husband) hates the term 'Save The Date'. So we didn't have those to prepare people for our wedding, we had 'Mark Your Calendar's. :)

I was going to do away with them all together because everyone that needed to know our date early for travel plans, etc. already knew so I considered it an unnecessary expense. However, my darling had such a good idea and was so excited that I liked the idea as well that I felt we had to send them.

My husband could be termed, what I refer to as, an Über Nerd. He has extensive knowledge of space travel, past and present, listens to lectures and podcasts on astro physics for entertainment, enjoys tinkering with legos on a regular basis, reads comic books (Marvel not DC... heaven forbid you should confuse the two), etc. I love all of these things about him and encourage him not to hide his 'nerdy' interests. (He also is an avid mountain biker, has his private pilot's license, and has other more active (and expensive) hobbies. I love a very multi faceted man).

With that explanation through, he suggested using a comic book cover with likenesses of us as our Save The Date Mark Your Calendar. I had him pick a cover he liked and my art school sister went at it in Photoshop.

I had it printed on post cards with our wedding date info on the back (I used Alphagraphics and picked them up locally) and we received a huge amount of positive feedback! And my husband was so excited that I used his idea. Win win!!

Here is the original cover that we chose:

The Defenders #4

And here is ours:

Pretty good for amateur work, no? (notice the ring detail)

Here's a pic of us for reference:

My Perfect Fireworks-less Wedding Dress

I had a very interesting time with my wedding dress. I was hoping for an obvious, tearful, fireworks moment when I put on 'the one' but I never got that. If this is the case with you, don't feel like there's something wrong with you (or your dress selection!). You definitely shouldn't have to settle, but not everyone has that magical moment. I read an article that I wish I had bookmarked that helped me a lot. It said that sometimes what makes the dress special and 'THE dress' is that it's the dress you've chosen to get married in. It's not always the dress itself that is inherently meaningful, it's the meaning you give it. I clung to that when I was going through my wedding dress journey.

I really didn't know what I wanted starting out but as I began trying on gowns, I quickly started seeing what I didn't want with no noticeable pattern as to be any help at all. I realized that I probably wasn't going to find something that I liked off the rack. It was going to take some customizing before I really felt like it was 'me'. After several dress shop visits, I eventually decided that I wanted a fairly poufy dress with a calf length high/low hemline so I could swing dance at the reception.

I ended up making an appointment at the last minute for a sample sale at Bliss Bridal Salon in Fort Worth, TX. The girls that worked with me were personal, cheerful, and upbeat and, since it was a sample sale, the prices were very reasonable.
I cannot emphasis clearly how anti-climactic my decision moment was. When I had the dress on, I felt pretty and comfortable. There were lots of other dresses that I had tried on that looked good on me but were just inexplicably wrong. Basically, this was the first one I had tried that wasn't a 'no' so I went for it! I was so nervous about my decision that as soon as I got in the car I burst into tears. I think it was partially relief at having that huge decision over, but also how unsure I was because I didn't have 'a moment'. My mom didn't burst into tears when she saw the dress, I didn't get misty eyed. I just calmly said, "Yeah. This one's good". And there it was. The material was my favorite part. It had a natural linen-like quality while remaining sheer and dainty. It's hard to see that in the photos.

The gown I chose: Watters Austin

The dress I bought was several sizes too large and full length with a train so next were the alterations. That in itself was a journey! They made a mistake on the hem and the high and low were not centered. After they removed the whole bodice from the skirt and centered the levels (also waving the fee for the whole thing) I finally had my dress!

The article I read was right. The fact that it was MY DRESS made it so special!! And my husband loved it!

My sisters helping me get my dress on

My shoes are Poetic Licence. I had custom ankle straps made.

My veil was custom made by GlamorByDesign

First Dance

She lives!

Aha! I'm still alive!
I've been married for almost 5 months now and it looks like I'm ready to rejoin the world again. :)
I am loving being married and we have been spending all our free time doing nothing together which, after a year of wedding planning, has been EXACTLY what we both needed.

My excitement has been building about posting all the DIY projects I did for my wedding to the point that I can't wait any longer!
For a little sample of how it all turned out, check out where we were featured on Green Wedding Shoes.

It was a huge honor to be featured as I had looked at a lot of the Real Weddings on the GWS blog for ideas while planning our wedding, which basically ended up being my Pinterest board come to life! (And I'm not ashamed to admit it)

Of course, I could not have done half of what we did without the help of my amazing friends and family. It really was a group effort. I can't say enough what talented and amazing friends I have!!!

<3 Caitlin