CSN GC Winner

I completely goofed on my CSN giveaway draw. I am happy to announce that the winner is Lilian  of Nu Flaiir who said that she hosted a CSN giveaway a few days ago. I guess what goes around comes around. Good things anyway. If and when you read this, please contact me so I can get your info.

I did go to random.org and plugged in my numbers but neglected to post the winner with the full intention of doing so the day after the draw. However since my oldest nephew graduated from high school, we've been running around planning his bash and i've only come up for air today.

Here's a pic of him and his mom (my sister) I think he's in training for a toothpaste commercial.

My sister and I. I know the sun's glare made me look like I had a large bald spot on the side of my head. For whatever reason, we both decided to wear black but I had to add a little aqua in my shoes and clutch.

This is my little munchkin, isn't he adorable all decked out? Although he doesn't look too happy after his nap was cut short.That's my Mr. Muscle standing next to him btw. Me and my great photography skills cut his head off. Sorry hunny boo. It was sooooo hot that Mr. Muscle went back home to change into a short sleeved shirt.

And here's one of just me, I was vogueing big time. Again with the sun created balled spot. I guess bad photography must run in the family because this one was taken by my sister.

Once again, congratulations Nu Flaiir and please get in touch with me to claim your gift certificate.

JEM.

DJ horror!

"5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40 hundred stab, thousand jook".  If you're confused, then you have every right to be. That first sentence (if you can call it that) is actually the way a song starts and guess what, it's one of the songs my DJ was going to play at my wedding. Apparently it's not a violent song, the stabbing and jooking going on is supposed to have a sexual connotation. Now this would almost be funny if it wasn't my wedding.  I can just see Grandpa dancing to this one.

My ex SIL's  (used to be married to my brother) new husband is our DJ friendor  - as in vendor we're not paying. He did a really god job at a wedding that I went to in January so when my ex SIL offered as their wedding present, I was thrilled. But when I had them over and asked him to bring his laptop so that we could just run through a "Play" and "Don't Play" list. Most of his songs ended up on my "Don't Play" list. So now with the 3, 876,432.1 things already on my TO-DO list, i've now added create reception playlist.

I figure I could give him some leeway with the cocktail hour and the other music like for first dance, cutting of the cake etc. are already in the bag. If he plays some crazy song during the cocktail hour, most people won't notice with all the talking, eating and mingling but the reception is another story.

So now I have to go rifling through my old CD collection; my itunes library; and ask my brother and nephew for the latest music. I don't what's out there now considering the only time I listen to the radio is in the car and it's usually "The wheels on the bus go round and round", thanks to my little man or the current Yankees game thanks to Mr. Muscle.

Sigh, the joys of being the 'little woman' and the mommy.

JEM.

I lost one.

What the heck? Today I noticed that I had one less follower. I'm not sure who it was because I have quite a few followers who have no pictures and rarely ever comment. I don't know why someone would stop following me but I hope it's not something I said.

I have to say I absolutely love blogging and love reading comments from fellow bloggers and I in no way ever want to offend anyone. It can be totally innocent and the person who dropped out did so for their own reasons, but it does kinda burn when that happens because it makes you feel like a friend has stopped talking to you. Waa-waa, come back, i'll be good, I pwo-mise...
JEM.

To the people who still love me, please don't forget to enter my CSN giveaway here.

Another Giveaway

I have another giveaway for you my darling readers. This one is from CSN Stores. I told you about their stores yesterday and now i'm going to help one lucky winner start their shopping spree with them by giving you a $20 gift certificate.

You can put your gift card towards something more expensive or you can get something like:

This great Tote for $17.79 or these adorable cow collection for $20.

This cute little coin purse for $10                     Or tealight holder for $16.01

             

This garment bags for the Mister's suit or your dress for 18.89 and antique gold candle holder for $18

or maybe this cute little set for a little cutie for $14.40

 this really cool candle holder for $15

There are so many other uses that you can put your gift certificate to.
Here is the only very simple entry requirement.

You have to be a follower to partake. Simply enter by leaving a comment and a way to contact you. Easy peasy. This giveaway will be open till friday June 25th. Good luck ladies .  
JEM.

CSN Stores Sneak Peek

I recently went to the CSN website after being contacted by them and let me tell you that I was so blown away. The have over 200 stores selling pretty much everything that your little heart can desire. As soon as the wedding is over, I know i'll need another project and making over my home seems like a great enough project. I'll probably start with the master bedroom and include a really great bed from their collection of amazing beds and bedroom furniture.

CSN stores has everything, I'm talking furniture, Home Decor, Baby and kids,Shoes and Bags and so so many other things.
Here are some of the things i've been eyeing:

And a little something for myself:

This pretty clutch is only $35.99 You should really check them out. I think you'll be very pleased. Their prices are great and there's free shipping on so many items.


And if i'm feeling really nice, I may just giveaway something from one of the CSN stores. Stay tuned.

JEM.

Another One

We are down to 1 month and 20 days to our wedding and i'm knocking down projects left and right. Being unemployed has it's advantages. Lots of time for DIY projects.
So you remember we downgraded our wedding a bit and decided to got he City Hall route and have a reception for friends and family. Well although i'm not knocking a civil ceremony, it really isn't that personal or romantic so we (mostly me) decided that we should have a mini ceremony right there in the banquet hall before the party starts. So we;ll have our legal ceremony at City Hall and our romantic one at our banquet hall.

I kinda still wanted to incorporate wedding things into it but didn't want to decorate too much so I got some white rose petals from Deals and I had a whole lot of aqua paper left so I made some cones for  my petals.

I printed labels from Avery address labels with our names and wedding date and stuck them on.  I think i'll put 2 on each table and guests can toss them.

This is what the paper looked like after I cut them out. I didn't throw them out just thinking that I could find a use for them.

 I had a eureka moment when I saw this at Michael's yesterday. A butterfly stamp on sale for $7. How could I say no.

Look at my lovelies. Since I won't have my diamond confetti, I can scatter paper butterflies on the tables.

This is what the papers looked like when I was done with them, I think now I can throw them out. Maybe.
With just a little imagination, you can find uses for just about anything. I'm very happy with my cones and butterflies.


So whadya think?

JEM.

Drink Up

I really don't like the idea of disposables at a wedding but since our wedding is going to be self catered, we decided that at least the cocktail hour would have disposables. We'll rent real dishes for everything else. Also the champagne glasses that will be used for all of 5 minutes will also be disposable.

However there's no question that the guests of honor (US) have to have gorgeous flutes. Enter my freebie from Macy's Sip and Scan Event. Among other things, Macy's gave me a set of champagne flutes as a 'Thank you' for coming. Of course they had to have their darn star on them.

Although I have really great flutes at my house that we could have used, (I really didn't want personalized ones) I thought it would be a great idea to do something with these, you know spruce them up a bit. After all, I figured if I messed them up, it wouldn't be my expensive crystal ones that we have at home. So I pulled out my trusty glue gun and some diamond confetti crystals. I had planned on scattering the diamond confetti on our tables instead os using petals but since we have white satin overlays, you can barely see the crystals so I decided to repurpose them. I also used some crystal beads and one aqua one and made a little bracelet type thing for the bottom. This is what the glasses look like now:

There are those friggin stars again. I tried to find ways online to remove etching but I learnt that it's on pretty much for life. I don't quite know yet what i'll do about them. As much as I didn't want personalization, i'll probably end up sticking a rhinestone smack dab in the center of that star and adding crystal initials on each side of the star to downplay it. After all, I don't think our guests will be peering really closely at our flutes. I can't honestly say i've ever noticed anyone's flutes (besides my sister's)  and i've been to countless weddings. And if they do, oh well.

Close up:

and closer still.
Maybe i'll post a pic again when it's completely done. If I decide to do anything that is.

JEM.

Shameful Pitch

I know, I know, it's shameful for asking people to nominate me but it would really be nice to win. Maybe in the DIY category. he, he.
Weddingchannel.com is having their annual blog awards and it's open to brides and blogs/bloggers. If you like a blog (not necessarily mine) and you want to nominate it, go here you can. You can read all the details there too. A blog can be nominated more than once so go ahead and nominate to your heart's content. Thanks so much.

JEM.

DIY Napkins Revisited

Way back when I had no followers or maybe 1 or 2, I mentioned here that I would be attempting DIY napkins. Cloth napkins. Well fast forward 7 months and ta-daaaaa...

these are my aqua napkins that only Mr.Muscle and I will use.

these white ones are for the bridal party  

and the rest of the guests will have these turquoise ones. I actually thought that I was getting aqua when I ordered these table runners that I converted into napkins. I tried them on the table and I kinda like the slightly different shades.

I also made the napkin rings from toilet paper/paper towel rolls and ribbon. Tutorial can be found on my DIY page. Damask for us so we they can stand out a little. Aqua for bridal party and white for other guests.

The centerpiece has evolved as well. It's still flowerless but I've decided that the aqua boxes would be aqua overkill. Will post the new centerpieces when I've completed a prototype.

The kids are having all disposables in aqua and white.

JEM.

Invitation(s) Revealed!!!

I have to say that I love, love, love my invites. They took forever to make but I'm very happy with how they turned out. First I must tell you that I have 2 invitations and by that I mean 2 different invitations for the same wedding. I know you're probably confused so let me explain. Initially I planned on making only 32 invitations for our 60 guests and one extra to keep for us. When our guest list expanded to 101 people, I had no choice but to make more but at some point, I just got tired and decided that all the out-of-town guests would get slightly different invitations.

This is my pretty. She's actually called Tiffany. The pictures truly don't do her justice. I think it's my camera. She's made from metallic aqua lagoon card stock. I printed our initials in Chopin script on strips of linen paper and hot glued black rhinestones as the dots with a square aqua stone in the center.

Close-up. I really suck at taking these photos.

This is the inside. Notice my butterflies? The invitation measures 10 X 7  and when folded, measures 5X7.

This is the back with the little pocket I made using aqua lagoon and embossed metallic silver shimmery card stock.









This is the back with my RSVP card tucked nicely
inside.












Side view.

This is the second invitation that I made. 

I called her Baby Tiffany. As you can see here,  the name strip is missing as well as the black rhinestones. I added the aqua square stone for some bling. The inside and the back is the same as the other one. 

As mentioned before, I made these mostly for our out-of-town guests who were late to be added to the guest list. I also sent them to people overseas who I know won't be coming but want an invitation anyway. So in total, I made 45 of the original Tiffany and 10 Baby Tiffany invitations. I love them so much, I kinda felt sad sending them away.

So there you have it folks, my babies are out there and will hopefully be delivered by Friday, Saturday or early next week. Then the RSVPs can come rolling in. I hope.  I'm so excited about that part. I just hope people send them back and I don't have to call everyone. Or else.

What do you think?

JEM.

Invites Are Off

O.M.G. Whew, I can't tell you how relieved I am and nervous all at the same time. My invitations are finally out there and I am so relieved that they're done and over. Yet, this makes it so real and people are now going to look for clothes and arranging for sitters and transportation  and hair appointments etc. all for us. It makes me nervous that we now have to deliver, big time.

So onto the good stuff. These are what my babies looked like when I handed them over to the very nice post-office lady yesterday.

I used AA7 Pearl White Metallic Envelopes, 5 1/4 X 7 1/4 from Paper and More. My wedding cake stamp looked very pretty all by its self. You see that cute little butterfly. I did it. I got a stamp from Michael's in the dollar bin.

See the word soar on there. Yeah that got cut off. I just took an exacto knife and cut the rubber part with the word off the stamp. I then mixed up some paint, yes paint not ink. I used the same paint that I used for my bathroom baskets. I didn't have a stamp pad so I just spread the paint onto a piece of felt and used that. Surprisingly enough, I didn't smudge any envelopes.

I also made return labels from leftover card stock and more shimmery program paper.

I wanted to post the actual invitations here but I realized that would make the post too long so i'll do it another post. They were a labor of love and I want to give them their own spotlight. Don't worry, I won't keep you hanging.  It will come up right after.
JEM.

Let's Toss It...

or not. We haven't decided if we're doing the bouquet and garter toss yet. I was all against it but Mr. Muscle kinda wants to surprisingly. Well he hasn't exactly said so but he mentioned it which if you know him, is kinda the same thing.  Since we're having crystal bouquets, chances are that someone will end up in the hospital if I throw one of them so I will have to come up with another bouquet. Probably one made from silk flowers, maybe all white roses.

The garter however is another story. I definitely want a garter, even if we don't do the the whole (oral sex simulation) thing. At least I can surprise my groom on our wedding night because let's face it ladies, I'm getting laid on my wedding night, exhausted or not.  I had some left over aqua fabric from my ring pillows, flower/bubble baskets, and DIY napkins projects so I thought why not make my own garter. And so I did:

here's my cutie in all her glory. I know it looks like a scrunchie here but it's large enough to fit way up on my thigh. Tutorial on DIY page.

What do you think, are you doing or did you do the bouquet and garter toss?

JEM.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wheeeeeeeeee! Wheeeeeeeee! We got a package today and guess what was in it. Oh my goodness, our first wedding present arrived today. When my new best friend the UPS man buzzed my apartment, I was kinda confused as to what it could be since I wasn't expecting anything. Well he got upstairs and placed the box in my hot little hands and I hurriedly signed. I looked the box all over but only saw a from address, no name.

Well then folks, I opened the brown shipping box and look what greeted me. This beautiful box. 

In case you didn't see it closely enough.

I was so impatient, I started ripping through the ribbon before I remembered you ladies and kinda put the ribbon back on to take the pictures. That's why you see it a little messed up here.

When I opened that pretty, this is what lay inside.

Tiffany crystal candlesticks. I was so excited to get something off our registry that I never even remembered to look for a card. It was only when I called Mr. Muscle at work screaming into the phone, he asked me who it was from and then duh I looked for a card.

It turned out to be one of my friends who will not be here for the wedding because her extended family made plans for a reunion in Spain this summer. I was so touched.  She is so generous. Aren't they gorgeous?

I have a Tiffany registry with like only 4 items and that's what she chose from, inspite of my Target and Macy's registries. Gotta love her. Thanks S, even if you know nothing of this blog.

JEM.

Oh My Goodness My First Wedding Dream - Not Good

Source: Google Images

I remember reading about other bloggers' dreams and I have to say that I felt that I was immune to it. I even thought that these other bloggers were maybe somehow or the other not handling their thoughts well and they overflowed into dreams.

Well let me tell you something fellow bloggers, forgive me for even thinking that because last night I joined your ranks. I woke up sweating and even my cheeks were wet and I rarely ever cry. The dream, or rather nightmare - was horrible.

I didn't dream about the ceremony. It was all the reception, if you could call it that. I never once saw my groom throughout the whole dream. He was just somehow there at one time.

First my reception was in some sort of basement place. We had to go down some stairs from the ground floor to get to it which was a little hole in the wall with no windows.

I walked down those stairs by myself without being announced for some reason and no one noticed. Everyone was just walking or sitting around doing their own thing. Someone then told me to go back out/up and we would be announced. I went back up the stairs and me and my groom, who was somehow there but who I didn't see were announced by my brother. He (my brother) was dressed in jeans, t-shirt and a fishing hat. He announced us as his kids (meaning he said his kids names) and not ours. Someone shouted out newlyweds and he then said the newlyweds and our names and went back into whatever hole he had come from. No one clapped or anything.

Then we got into the room and the linen was all ivory and salmon and stained.  No aqua in sight. The centerpieces were a large plastic cups/tumblers with dollar store items in it. I mean not pretty dollar store items but stuff like straws, blow-out toys and just a whole lot of crap.

I vagely recognized some of the people there but none were my actual guests except my sister/MOH who kept trying to reassure/placate me. There was no cake and I was told that it was still at home along with the linens and everything else. Why, I don't know. Everywhere I turned something was missing or wrong.

The dream ended with me saying F it, that I was going home to get all my stuff and I didn't care who liked it. Mind you, it was already 8pm by then and reception was supposed to end at 11 and my sister kept trying to tell me that it was pointless and that by the time I got back, it would be time to leave. I was adamant however until something woke me up. I think it was my son.

I am rreasured though that this won't happen for real because with the number of lists and timelines that i've drawn up, even if I forget something, hopefully someone else will remember.
This reminded me of when I was pregnant and dreamed I was having cats. ha, ha
Has anyone had THE nightmare yet or was it a beautiful dream?
 JEM.

Bicoastal Bride is getting hitched

Heather over at Bicoastal Bride is getting married today and I wish her and her hubby to be (very shortly) the very best day. We know form her blog how much work and effort has gone in today and i'm sure you will join me in congratulating her and wishing her the very best. Congratulations honey!

JEM.

The stars are aligning

Today I took one completed invitation to the post office to be weighed. Guess how much it costs? A whopping $0.61. What are the odds that they'd be the exact cost of the stamps that I already bought.

While I was still employed, I went to the post office to mail a package for my then boss and saw these cute wedding cake stamps for which I promptly purchased hoping that my invitations wouldn't need any more than that. I also bought the wedding rings stamp for the rsvp.

Everything is exactly right, not under, not over. Apparently the stars are aligning for me. Even if it's just this once.
If they had cost anymore that, I would have bought these beauties:

Invitations will be revealed soon. I'm mailing hopefully on Saturday so all will be revealed.
What stamps did you use?
JEM.