And pretty maids all in a row...

Thank you Martha... 

I mentioned before that I was planning on letting my bridesmaids choose their own dresses. This seems to be a new trend lately, but I can't think of why it hasn't been done before!  In my case I have four bridesmaids. All four of them have very different body types; two tall, two short, two skinny twigs, two of average build, one has chest, the other three, well... You get the idea. Very different bodies need very different dresses to look fabulous!

Taste also has to be considered. Even though we're all great friends and have a lot in common, our ideas of fashion are not all necessarily the same. Again, I want something that they love and would feel comfortable wearing for the night.

That brings up the concept of bridesmaids having to buy a dress that they will never w
ear again. It just doesn't seem fair! So, by letting them pick what they want, hopefully they will like it enough to reuse it!

So far , I've been out with two of my lovely ladies to pick out their dresses. First up was the lovely Jenny! We went to Classic Bridal in Buffalo (I wouldn't recommend them now) and Jenny tried on a wide variety of dresses. The poor girl probably tried on as many dresses as I tried on wedding dresses! But at last, there was a definite winner! It was super flattering on Jenny, comfortable and flowy and came in the right color!


The dress is made by B2 is chiffon and will be a color called "celadon". Jenny hasn't ordered it yet, but I can't wait to see her in it again!

Next up was bridesmaid Holly. Like all the rest of my lovely bridal brigade, her schedule is nutty, plus the fact that she lives on the other side of the state. This meant that our dress shopping spree was completed in the last 45 minutes before the shop (New York Bride) closed.  Like with Jenny, Holly tried on a number of dresses, including the one Jenny ended up with and it did not look good on her at all.  Still, Holly was successful and ended up ordering this dress from a bridal shop closer to her that night.

The dress is by Eden Bridals and is satin with a little chiffon poking out the bottom. Holly wasn't so hot about the flower at the bust line, but luckily its a pin so it can be taken off. We matched up a swatch of the color fabric that Jenny will be wearing and found out that Holly's dress color is called "green tea".

So far I think the two dresses will look really nice together, will fit in well with the style of the wedding and most importantly, look great and feel comfortable on the girls!

That leaves Corey and Jamie. We have plans to go shopping for their dresses in February. Check one more thing off the list!

Exactly 11 months to go...

So far we have the location, photographer and... as of last week, the dress!! I purchased a store sample off E-bay of the exact Maggie Sottero dress I wanted, in my size, for less than half the price I would have paid if I had bought it new! Fabulous!

It arrived in the mail last Wednesday and I was thrilled. I ran right upstairs after camp to check it out. Mike was confused by the deceptively small box, but there it was in perfect shape! It will need a few alterations, but then it will be perfect!

I'm a winner! (again!)

Wow. I really must be lucky... or maybe its just the enormous amount of blogs that I read that have contests I enter. I'm a little obsessed, but came you blame me? I keep winning! Now, I just need to win something for the wedding.

So, Thank Yous to:
VintageGlam Weddings and {sweeter than me} designs (a great Etsy seller!) for these two pairs of great earrings! I wore the ones on the left for my graduation. They both have the romantic vintage feel that I love! Thanks so much ladies!

My second round of thanks goes to Focus Organic and Niagra Conservation for this lovely little house...
filled with eco-goodies!It includes a whole bunch of things to help make our house more energy and water efficient. We definitely could have used these in our crazy old house this past winter! I think we're going to hold on to the stuff and install it in our next place, once we find out where that will be!

Thanks again for all the great giveaways fellow bloggers! Keep it up! :)

Oh so pretty!

Remember that post about anthropologie being a store I drool over, but can't really afford? Well... I found this great lady who can MAKE anthropology-like pretty things and, even better, recycles other clothes to make them!



Just look at this great shirt here! Even better, she's GIVING IT AWAY!

Oh, fingers crossed!

Dude, (I'd) look like a lady!

I've been looking around a bridesmaid dresses (don't worry ladies, I'm still letting you pick... just getting ideas!) and it made me want to wear a pretty dress myself! Specifically, one that I can wear on some of the beautiful sunny days that are coming up!

I'm becoming obsessed with Anthropologie, even though their prices are a bit rich for my blood. I'm thinking for these ones, I may save up to get one for my rehearsal dinner!

Finely Furrowed Dress


Somewhere, Anywhere Dress



One Hundred Summits

Drool.....

At last, an update! Holiday Craftiness!

I have totally been slacking on my posting, but I have a good excuse. After Mike and I returned from Utah, I started my first student teaching placement of my master's program at a great school for the Deaf. Hopefully, I'll get to posting about that later. For now, here are the as promised details of my holiday craftiness.

The first was a Secret Hollow Book that I made for Michael. I got the directions from the How to do Stuff blog and it was a pretty easy, though somewhat time consuming project.

I took a trip to the local used book store to pick out the book. I had a little trouble at first, because I wanted to get a book that was hard cover and large enough to hold something. It also had to be a book that would be expected to be in Mike's collection, but not one that he would be upset about not being able to actually read. I settled on a wine encyclopedia that was updated for 1980.


Without its dust cover on it was a simple white book with just a little bit of texture. I thought it would look nice on a shelf in the office. Then it was time to break out the decoupage and paint brushes which i had from a chair project I never finished several years previously...


After it was all glued together, I had the arduous process of cutting out the middle. This took several hours and made a lot of mess. But the finished project was worth it!



I filled it with several little gifts and wrapped it up. Mike seemed pretty happy about the finished project and hopefully will be used in our house for quite some time.

The next gift was another idea that I stumbled upon though some blogs I read. This one was from With this Ring, one of the many wedding inspiration blogs that I read. It was a really cute and really simple apron made from a tea towel. I decided this would be cute for Jenny as well as a good hostess gift for Cassandra who was going to be taking care of us while we were in Utah.

This is the one I made for Jenny, I bought some cute matching towels from Bed, Bath and Beyond so I could add a pocket to the original design and give her another towel to have that matched.

Here's the basic design.


The only sewing in the basic design was attaching the buttons. The ribbon is actually just tied around the buttons.

Here's the finished product with pockets. They were pretty simple to put on, but I think they add a lot to the design. I also gave Jen a bag of Wegman's loose leaf tea. Last year I gave her a reusable tea basket (which you use in place of tea bags). I like to try encourage good eco-friendly habits in my friends when I can- plus its handy and the tea tastes bettter!


I also decided to make Mike an apron. I didn't have a whole lot of time when I came up with this idea and I thought he'd like a full one, so I went with embelshing a pre-made one instead of making my own or another tea towel one.

I picked one up at my favorite store, Wegamans. I decided to embroider it, even though I've never done that in my life. My strategy was to print out a letter from Microsoft Word, copy it on to tissue paper. Then I pined it to the apron and use an embrodery needle I got with a set and some thread that I had leftover from my friendship bracelet days.

I think the finished product again came out really nicely!



I did a few other crafty things, but I think this is plenty of showing off for one day. :)
I'll try to be back soon with a little bit about our Utah trip and goings on in my life right now. Take care everyone!

Nostalgia

I'm nostalgic for the 30s and 40s..... a romanticized version of course. Recently, I watched Kit Kitterage, an American girl movie with my mom and sister. I wasn't sure I would be interested at first, but it ended up being a really good movie. It takes place during the depression. There were many heart wrenching moments showing the struggles people had during the depression and I was moved by those, but I have to say I was most interested in the life style. Firstly, I love the clothing that was worn. Women's clothes were very femine and flowy, yet practical. Then men were tailored and classic. The young girls clothes were pretty, but could stand playing outside. There were even some very stylish clothes made from chicken feed bags! I could totaly see myself wearing alot of the clothing that was worn, and I see my wardrobe moving in that direction. Not to mention my new love of vintage jewelery!
Here are some examples:


From the movie, aren't these girls outfits adorable! I would even wear them.




This is Kit and her Mom. I love the dresses!

Aside from the clothing, there were lots of other great things from this time period that I would love to incorporate into my life in the future: having a kitchen garden, doing lots of cooking, and sewing and crafty things inexpensively, and having genuine connections with neighbors, community and family that can be drawn upon in times of need.
Now I understand that there were a lot of awful things that happened during this time period, and this Thanksgiving I intend to ask my grandmother, who lived during the depression, to tell me about what it was really like. At this time though, I think I can say that this is my favorite American time period. What's yours?