The Wedding Invites

Choosing the style and look of our wedding invitations was one of the biggest and hardest decisions I made... seriously! I knew that these (along with the save the dates), would give our guests a first look at what to expect on our big day. I wanted them to perfectly reflect us and what we wanted from our Wedding, and I wanted them to be a little different, in both look and wording. I scoured Pinterest and blogs for weeks, and pinned all kinds of designs that varied in colours and style. Finally, I stumbled across these beautiful invites...

{via Tied Bow Inspiration}

I had finally found what I was looking for! It was the perfection inspiration to set me in motion. I took some aspects from other invites I had seen and my Mom and I worked together to create the perfect invite.

As I mentioned yesterday, I really loved the idea of creating a monogram for us that we could carry into other parts of our Wedding. So after I had picked two fonts I loved, that worked well together, my Mom designed a logo for us and then went ahead and we created the invites.

We placed our new monogram at the top, and then alternated our two fonts for the invite. I removed a couple of lines from the original wording, and we made a few small tweaks here and there. In the end I was thrilled with how they looked. I was literally so excited I sent photos to all of my bridesmaids immediately, and even showed it off to a couple of girlfriends who popped by to visit during a visit to my parents in the spring. (The photos below are of the mock up we created. The final invites had darker ink and we used the same linen textured paper as the Save the Dates.)

The final touch was the lacey edge we added to the top and bottom of the invite. I used a Martha Stewart punch that I grabbed at Michael's, and it was well worth the money spent! We've used the punch for a few different things, and I am sure I will find more ways to use it the closer we get to the big day.

{Looking at me totally giving away our full names. I never thought that the day would come!}

Once I saw the wording, the design and the paper all come together I just fell head over heels. I knew we had created my perfect wedding invites and I couldn't stop staring at them and reading them over and over again. We even took the part about "An Evening of Merrymaking and Celebration" and incorporated it into the RSVP cards. 

What made me even happier is when we started to receive feedback from our guests after they received them. They seemed to love them just as much as I did! Some sent fun little notes on their cards, which made receiving them back even more fun (seriously, what's better than receiving all of those little envelopes in your mailbox?). 

How did you choose the style of your wedding invites? Did you design them yourself, or hire someone else to do the dirty work for you? 

Birthday Planning - Creating Invites

As I mentioned the other week, Halle's birthday is really creeping up on us quickly. I'm in the process of planning and purchasing items, and at the top of my list is invites. Mailing out invites is one of my favourite things to do. Everyone loves receiving mail, and I find a mailed invite feels more personal and thoughtful. Of course, not everyone has time to DIY up some gorgeous invites for a party and this year, that is definitely me. Luckily, I was able to work with Minted to create some really gorgeous invites for our girl's second birthday, quick and conveniently.

It was seriously hard to pick just ONE design, but in the end I just couldn't resist the confection children's birthday party invite.

The whole process was as simple as filling in my personal info, the date and time, and changing it to read "SECOND BIRTHDAY". I also opted to change the colour of "SECOND BIRTHDAY" to red. Then, by clicking on the blank spot to the right, I was able to go in and select a photo of Halle that I loved and add it to the card. I'll wait to share the whole thing with you when I share her final invites...

The front is not the only part of the card that you can pretty up though. For an additional fee you can pick a pretty back to finish up your invites. I opted to add the colourful confetti dots to the back of the invites, and I must say - it looks pretty cute...

With my back selected I had a chance to look over all of my final decisions on one page. It's here that you are able to make any additional changes to your invite's, by making a request on the page that will go directly to the designer. I like this feature, since it really let's you personalize your products more than any other website! In the case of Halle's invite's I kept it simple and, of course, only requested to have the name changed to our sweet girl's.

It took about a day for a proof to come back to me for my approval, and once I virtually signed off on everything they went to print and were shipped off. I honestly loved the whole process of selecting and personalizing these invites and I can't wait to send them out to our family and friends! 

What I REALLY love about Minted is that they work with indie designers from all over the world, giving them a chance to make their beautiful work available and grow their careers. It feels pretty great to receive a little personal message from them after you place your order. 

So, Halle's invites are ready to go out, so I will wait to share the final design until I know they have all been received.

Have you worked with Minted before? How did you enjoy the whole process, and have you done anything more to personalize an order from them? I'd love to hear what you think?

*I was provided my invites and a birthday bunting in exchange for writing about Minted. All opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

Bubbles & Balloons - Birthday Inspiration

With all of the wedding planning and moving we've had going on, I haven't had a ton of time to start planning Halle's second birthday party yet. Yup, that's right, in about a month and a half my sweet girl will turn two. How has time passed so quickly? It feels like only yesterday, I was a brand new Mommy, wondering if I would ever sleep the whole night through again. 

{care of Nicole Kathlyn Photography}

Now, I stay up until the wee hours of the morning reading blogs and starting posts that I haven't quite finished. I've also spent many of those late nights pinning inspiration for Halle's upcoming party. This year, I'm taking two things that she loves and combining them for her party - Bubbles & Balloons.

Here's some of my favourite pins so far that have me feeling ready to shop and plan...

{via Catch my Party}

I plan on making some little bubble favours for her little guests! I love that they will be simple with some dollar store containers, pipe cleaners, water, soap and some cute labels! 

{via bliss bloom blog}

Some food & drink labels will be easy to make with some coloured card stock and a glue stick!

{1. via 2. via Catch My Party 3. via flickr}

Balloons EVERYWHERE! I can load up on balloons at the dollar store and will be able to utilize them for both parts of the theme! I love being able to do stuff like that. I hope B doesn't mind blowing up tons and tons of balloons for me to string, stick and hang everywhere!

{via curbly}

I think that a bubble wreath would be a great way to welcome people to the party! I wonder if I can find some clear plastic bulbs like that at Michael's, Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store? Any suggestions?

So that's just a little peek at where I have started with my plans... now to begin shopping and collecting items for the party. I think I'll go with purple's, pink's and white for the colour's. Next up, invites so I can get them in the mail to our guests.

Are you planning any birthday's or parties that are coming up?

Superbowl Party Planning

This coming Sunday is Superbowl Sunday. We love the Superbowl (even if our Pats got knocked out by Flacco and his Ravens). It gives us a chance to host a party, see friends and eat a ton of delicious food. I've been saving tons of ideas for our annual party on Pinterest, but have never put any of them to use. WELL, this was the year. I picked out a few inexpensive DIY's that I planned on putting together and sharing with you today. However, this week has been a little nuts and I haven't quite got to the "assembly" part of my DIY plans. Instead, today I will just share my inspiration for you.

I don't want to go too overboard and make it looked like a football themed birthday party or something, but I thought it would be fun to do a few things. Here's what I am thinking.

This transformed island from A Night Owl Blog is so cute! I love the bunting too, but I think for this party, I'll stick to transforming just the top of the table. Last weekend while running errands we picked up a green table cloth and some white tape to do this exact project. I'm so excited to tackle it and see it in place this weekend.

The past few times we've had guests over for a "party", I've had a hard time finding something to put our plastic utensils in. I've usually just ended up putting them into some plastic cups and calling it a day. Then I saw this cute idea to repurpose some tin cans, from Rust & Sunshine, and thought, I CAN DO THAT! So, I will try!

Football Brownies? Who doesn't want some of those? I just need to take some time today to hunt down a cutter for them... I assume Michael's may be my best bet. Any other suggestions?

On the savoury side, I decided to make some mini cornbread muffins to go with the Chilli that B is making. We love cornbread, and I may make mine as the cheddar jalapeño cornbread that we are so fond of.

These are just a few small ideas I have for this coming Sunday. If I'm lucky (and have time) I may put together a few more things before the big day... but we'll see how everything goes. 

Anyone else out there hosting a Superbowl Party? What do you have planned for food & entertainment for your guests? Who are you cheering for? I'd love to hear your plans!

Pretty Paper Choices

Wedding planning is moving along pretty nicely, considering we have less than 7 months left until the big day. One part that I never realized was such an important step was choosing your save the dates and invites. I mean, yes, I've always spent hours drooling over beautiful paper pieces on blogs and Pinterest, but now that it's finally come down to the time to decide what I want, I've been incredibly overwhelmed. I've spent a lot of time pinning different invites and save-the-dates that I love, and it's obvious that I'm undecided on what I want...

{1. All The Roads - Wedding Paper Divas} {2. Timeline Save the Date - Bayside Bride} {3. Navy + Gold Foil Calligraphy Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper} {4. Faux Bois Paper Invites - Tied Bow Inspiration}

I'm sure that any other bride-to-be out there knows how daunting this task can be. You want something that will give your guests a hint of what to expect on the big day, and you want it to be beautiful and a little unique. 

When I arrived at my parents a couple of weeks ago, I just couldn't decide what I wanted to do with my Save-The-Dates (really important at this point in time). I would spend hours looking online and pinning all kinds of gorgeous options. I showed my Mom some I had done by hand and she thought they were beautiful. The more I looked at them, the more I decided that would be the way to go. It was what I had always had my mind set on, and they were a little extra special since I did it by hand. My Mom just scanned them into her computer, sized everything in Corel and we printed it on some gorgeous paper. I smile every time that I look at them, and I think that's the most important part when picking out your stationery. You need to LOVE it!

{1. Calligraphy Save the Dates - Oh So Beautiful Paper} {2. Rubber Stamp Save the Dates - Oh So Beautiful Paper}

I promise to share them as soon as they are mailed out and I am sure that most of our guests have received them! I can't wait until I can. I love them THAT much!

We were finalizing the Save the Date's on Wednesday afternoon. At that point, I had pretty much decided that I wouldn't find the right inspiration for our invitations before I left. I figured I could keep looking when I came home, my Mom and I could collaborate online and over the phone and we'd finish everything up during my next visit. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across the PERFECT inspiration. I found the right wording and instantly fell in love with it. From there, the rest of the invite just fell into place. By the time I was packing up the last of our stuff on Wednesday night, we had a mock up of the invite ready for me to bring home and show B, and again, I am in LOVE. As in, I could spend hours just staring at our invites - they are THAT perfect! 

Once again - I will share those once everything has gone out in the mail... still a few more months before that happens though. 

So now I need to ask - what kind of "process" did you have to go through to find the right stationery for your wedding? Did you know all along? Did you hire someone to do it all for you? Or were you as lucky as I was to have a professional in the family to help you out with it? I'd love to hear how you all came up with something that spoke to you for your big day. 

Outfitting the Bridesmaids

We're well into planning our wedding these days. The date has been chosen, as well as our venue, photographer, and officiant. I found my dress over the weekend (SO EXCITED), and we're 99% sure we've got the DJ and venue for the rehearsal dinner! Yup, I'm crossing things off the list rather quickly, and I'm happy to say one of the easiest things was finding the dresses for my lovely bridesmaids (you can see how I asked them to be a part of my big day in this post). 

I'll start off by saying I never had a concrete idea of how I wanted the girls to look on my big day. I was pretty laid back and thought if they each wanted to pick a different style of dress in a similar colour that would be fine, but if they all liked the same dress, I'd be happy with that as well. 

{via OneWed}

So, once all of my girls had accepted my invitation to be a part of our wedding, I began searching online for some pretty and affordable dresses. Each time that I found a dress that I loved, I would pin it to my private wedding board on Pinterest (that each of the girls have access to) and had them tell me which one's they liked. 

{via brides.com}

This seemed to work really well since the girls still had a lot of choice from the dresses that I had found. I was also thrilled to be able to virtually do the dress hunt with my girls, who are in three different cities than I am. The biggest bonus was being able to find a large selection of dresses all for under $100! This made me happy since I know each of my girls have other financial obligations. Plus, if we're planning the wedding on a budget ourselves - why should I make my ladies shell out a ton of cash for a dress they will wear once.

In the end, we picked a beautiful dress from Ruche, that wasn't even part of their bridesmaid collection. Since I'm back in my hometown working on wedding planning for the next week and a half, I was finally able to see the dress in person! The fabric is soft and beautiful, and the colour is perfect. We saw a similar style to it at the bridal store yesterday and it was double the price of what my girl's paid. If you're wondering - they only paid $65 for the dress. 

I'm thrilled at how everything is falling into place... especially since it's not always easy to plan a wedding from across the country.

Next on my list is the hotels, Save-the-dates and flowers. I plan on getting ahead of my to-do list this week if I can help it.

Now I need to know - how did you save money when you were planning your big day? What did you find useful to save on and what did you really splurge on? I'd love to hear all of your tips and idea's for planning and affordable, and beautiful wedding!

Making Space

Now that we've been back in BC for over a week we're finally settling back into our routine and really preparing for the holidays. Part of my new routine, of course, is working on pieces for my Etsy shop, Halle Handmade. Since I began working on items back in late September, our kitchen table has been my workshop, which means it's been an absolute disaster most days. With things picking up, I need a new space to work with lots of room to organize all of my supplies. For this, I feel our dining room would be the best space. It's still on the main floor close to everything, but I am able to close the doors and keep Halle out. Unfortunately, with everything piled in there at the moment, and boxes of Christmas decorations scattered across the floor, it is anything but neat and organized.

1) A work table: The one we have in there now is very small, so it just won't do. I want something large and functional. Ideally, I want something that will work as both a work space, but also a dining table for the times we do have guests over. In an ideal world, we'd build something like this table from Ana White. It's gorgeous, big and we should be able to take it with us when we move...

2) Seating: If we're going to have a table, we're going to need seating as well. Both for me to work at, and also something for people to sit at to dine. I want the seats to be comfortable, but not too precious and easy to clean. Between me working, little hands and too big dogs, I'm sure these seats will meet many messes. I would love 2 BYHOLMA/MARIEBERG Armchairs from IKEA for either end of the table, and some nicely slipcovered options on either side... or maybe benches. I'm still slightly torn between the two. I guess it will come down to what is more budget friendly.

3) Organization: I will need somewhere to keep everything neat and tidy. I want everything to have a place while I'm working, but also when it needs to go away. I don't want things laying out in the open all of the time, so I need to figure it all out. Definitely a sideboard, where I can close the doors and keep everything out of sight. Something like this Dining Room Office, from Martha Stewart via this blog post, is what I have in mind...

4) Lighting: I'm going to want more than just that boob light on the ceiling (whoever thought that was a good idea in a dining room needs to sit down and have a chat with me). However, since neither of us really want to be paying to switch out this lighting in our rental, we'll make do with it and just layer in some task lighting for me. Maybe some lamps on our sideboard, and a floor lamp or a small desk lamp that I can move to the dining table while I work. We'll see what we can come up with.

Whatever we do in this space, will have to be inexpensive (as we are currently saving for a wedding) and easy for us to take with us when we leave. Of course, I wish I could turn this space into my dream office/dining room, but for now, I'm just looking for a pretty and functional space.

What are your best tips for making a neat and organized office on the cheap?

Design Decisions - Making Progress

As you've all noticed, I have been slacking in our personal design posts (with the exception of the two posts this week). This is for a few reasons, the number 1 being that things are slow going with Halle being around. She is quite obviously top priority for us these days (as well as leaving us pretty sleep deprived). With baby stuff aside though, I haven't posted a whole lot on our bathroom design decisions because I haven't really had time to sit down and pull together a solid design plan. This means we've been working blindly, which left me feeling uncertain about where we were headed. Of course, there was also the issue of B and I not seeing eye to eye on design plans. However, I can finally say I'm feeling better about things and I'm ready to share some decisions that we've made, with you.

One big decision that saved us quite a bit of money was to not get my father to build us a custom vanity. Instead we opted for the IKEA Godmorgon vanity (in birch veneer), and lucky for us they just had a bathroom sale. This means for our sink and vanity, we only paid just over $400. HUGE savings!

We have plans to add our own hardware choice to the front, which I am very happy about. Now if you are really observant, you will remember that we have a widespread Delta faucet for the sink, and IKEA sinks only have 1 hole for faucets. Well - wish us luck on this hack! My Dad picked us up a diamond blade hole saw for adding the extra holes we need for our faucet. Yes, I'm nervous, but I have complete faith it will not be a (complete) disaster. 

Now, with the vanity out of the way, this brings us to our paint choice. As I had previously mentioned, B was pulling for yellow while I wanted blue. I knew yellow would just not mesh well with our vanity, and thankfully B agreed once we got in there with the vanity and my paint deck from Para Paints. In the end, we decided on Ephiany, which is the perfect combination of blue grey, that works fabulously with the birch veneer.

As for tile, we knew without a doubt that the tub enclosure will be done with white subway tile, and we are leaning towards using grey or silver grout. For the floor we were stuck again. We knew we wanted a 12 x 24, but couldn't decide if we wanted a light grey or plain white. So last Thursday we took a trip out to Dufferin Tile to look around. We spotted a grey tile that we liked, but of course I forgot our paint chip, and wasn't sure if it would be to "matchy-matchy" with our paint choice (backwards decision making there, right?). So, we left on Thursday with nothing and headed back on Friday with my Para Paint deck in hand. Thankfully, our blue looked lovely with the grey tile, so home it came - all under $220. 

So things are most definitely coming together (finally). It's been a long road, and the fact that I'm sleep deprived is not helping with my decision making or stress levels, but I have hope everything will balance itself out soon... and we can bang this whole renovation thing out as quickly as possible.

... and I'll try to get better with sharing what's happening on our end with reno and decor decisions!

Back and Forth

So, the time has come and we are finally gearing up to begin our next big reno! Almost a year after beginning our last major renovation project, we are ready for a new upstairs bathroom. We're still finalizing our layout (post to come soon) and design, and let me tell you - it hasn't exactly been a walk in the park.


For anyone who has redone a bathroom before, you know that the decision making is not an easy process. There are a ton of tiles too choose from and you have to consider what type of material you want, the colour, shape, etc. For us, choosing our floor tile has been a big decision. Originally, I was thinking a nice simple 12x24 white tile would be great... then I thought maybe grey, but went back on that decision quickly. Unfortunately, I had mentioned it to B briefly, and that kind of stuck with him, leaving us wanting different things. While I was still leaning towards white, B was starting to think that grey was our best bet. 

{via}

I think we are finally ready to settle on some sort of marble tile. White and grey... the best compromise that we could come up with. Now to search for something that will not bust our budget. 

{via}

The other decision that we are having a hard time coming to agree upon is the wall colours. While I continue to lean towards my safe blues, B is hoping to see a nice pale yellow on our bathroom walls. I figure, if I can get some white floors, I can happily choose a nice soft, sunny yellow for the walls. 

{via}

Hopefully over the next few days, and the weekend, B and I can get out and start making some more purchases for the bathroom. Halle needs a tub and FAST!

What do you do when you and your other half cannot agree on elements of a renovation or decorating project? 

Coming Down the Pipes...

Today our Halle girl is already one month old (where has time gone?), and thankfully she's still pretty tiny... tiny enough to bathe in the kitchen sink. However, we know that she won't stay this small for much longer, which means that plans for our upstairs bathroom renovation are well underway...

It's not a big space, and it doesn't have much storage, so we want to utilize the space the best we can, and on a rather tight budget, as I am currently down to half of my salary while on maternity leave. With that in mind, B and I have started to collect inspiration, talk finishes, pick up stuff here and there and of course, put together a budget. 

At this point, we have a rough idea of how we want the layout to work, after all, we are pretty limited with space. So, when the opportunity has come up to grab pieces for our renovation, we've been all over it!

The first item that we acquired, you may remember we won through a giveaway that Janice hosted way back in April. It was the beautiful Victorian Two Handle Widespread Faucet from Delta. It came in chrome, and B and I knew it would be perfect for our new bathroom.

Gorgeous, right? What makes it even better is that the wonderful people at Delta hooked us up and sent us the matching Victorian Monitor 14 Series Tub and Shower trim in chrome! We're so happy that we'll have these two beautiful coordinating pieces from Delta in our gorgeous new bathroom!

And that's not all that we've got so far! My cousin works at a transport company, and one of their customers had ordered a bunch of tubs for a hotel project they were working on. However, when they showed up it was not what they needed, so we were able to score a brand new American Standard tub for only $165!! 

As for the rest of the main fixtures, we plan on using the low flow toilet that we already have, since we purchased it when we moved into our home two years ago. The vanity will all be brand new! We plan on recruiting my father to build it for us, and I've been pinning lots and lots of inspiration pictures - we have some really great ideas (hopefully he can keep up with our "demands"). So there you have it - our next big reno... that we plan on undertaking with a baby who is only a few months old, B working full time, and me back in my classes one night a week (I start back September 14th). Are we crazy!? Yes! Do we love it!? Absolutely!

Do you have any major renovations planned for this fall... or any major renovations you wish you could tackle this fall?