This is my Westie, Duffie, and she's my princess. I've been her proud Mama since April 2007. When's her birthday, you ask? Valentine's Day of course! She's such a looker, and I'm pretty sure she knows it.
I swear there's a point to this...I entered her in a Twitter contest! There's an amazing dog artist, aptly named Dog Arteest that's hosting a monthly contest to win a free portrait of your pup. Aimee is so talented- her paintings are out of control. I WANT ONE SO BAD. What's better? She does them in 140. The winner is picked by Aimee, so please wish us luck!
Along with monthly contests, Aimee does commission work too. These paintings are more labor intensive, taking up to 30 hours! Here's some images from her recent commissions. Check out Aimee's site for more of her work.
Are you kidding me? How awesome is that Schnauzer?!?
This weekend's weather had me thinking about all the brides and grooms that planned perfect outdoor ceremonies and receptions. We originally wanted , but I couldn't handle leaving that up to chance.
Last week I discovered the high for Nashville in August was 107 degrees (1954). Yikes!!! Hopefully we won't have that type of heat for our wedding! The Farmer's Almanac is always kind of fun to look at for predictions, like a horoscope for weather. I don't really believe in them, but they're definitely fun to read. Here's their outlook for Summer 2010. What's your take- do you believe in the almanac? Were you a weather.com stalking bride, or did you just wait and see what the weather would bring?
Warning: simplexml_load_file(http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/videos?vq=Farmer\'s Almanac&alt=rss&start-index=1&max-results=11) [function.simplexml-load-file]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
in /home1/desarro4/public_html/alexcastaneda/PROYECTO_ALEXCASTANEDA/sistemadeactualizacion/google/youtube.class.php on line 286
Warning: simplexml_load_file() [function.simplexml-load-file]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/videos?vq=Farmer\'s Almanac&alt=rss&start-index=1&max-results=11" in /home1/desarro4/public_html/alexcastaneda/PROYECTO_ALEXCASTANEDA/sistemadeactualizacion/google/youtube.class.php on line 286
Part 2 of this Snippet & Ink-inspired shoot from Millie Holloman and Salt Harbor Designs is an open house that took place at The Balcony in Wilmington, North Carolina. Photos from the love shoot were hung around the venue, and the party continued the vintage citrus theme...
Mmmm.... how amazing does this cake look? By Nicki's Cakes.
Thank you so much to Millie and Jennifer for sharing both of these shoots with us - it's so much fun for me (and I hope for everyone else, too), to see how a Snippet & Ink inspiration board can translate to reality!
This was just too fun not to share with you - I'm here in Birmingham where I'll be speaking tomorrow at the A Bryan Photo workshop, and I am so excited to be here. I get to hang out with the whole A Bryan Photo team, the awesome Jonathan Canlas, Bill from Richard Photo Lab, Brian from Cypress Albums, and some other really wonderful people. Anyway, I get really nervous speaking in front of groups, so wish me luck with my talk!
Oh, and check in for some pretty posts this week - two engagement shoots and a wedding that I just couldn't keep to myself any longer.
I am obsessed with Rachel Zoe. She's over the top, way too dramatic, and I can't get enough. Last year my roommate and I drooled over every single eposide of Season I. Loved it when Brad & Taylor had to share a room during NY's fashion week- hilarious.
Because of a prior engagement, I missed the premier on Monday night. But no worries- I DVR'd it to watch later this week. The fashion inspires me and I can't wait for the next episode. Here's my favorite look from the show last night...
I've posted a number of winter wedding inspiration boards this week and last, so when my sweet friend Janie at The Bride's Cafe asked if I'd like to share this winter holiday shoot with you here on Snippet & Ink, I jumped at the chance. And that was before I'd even seen the photos! Created by some wonderfully talented ladies, including Janie, Courtney from Merriment Events, and Katie from Open Air Photography, this lovely shoot is exactly what I love - beautiful and thoughtful without being overdone. Whether you're looking for inspiration for your winter wedding or for next week's holiday party, you'll definitely find some great ideas here...
The tree was decorated with pine cones and mercury glass ornaments hung with jute twine.
Courtney created this garland by stamping the letters on vintage tags, then stringing them on jute twine.
Vintage sheet music can be found throughout the shoot, from accordion "garlands" on the mantle, to paper pinwheels, to gift wrap. (Can you see the name on that gift tag? It's Kathryn! How much did that make my day!)
Gifts were also wrapped with kraft paper and tied with gold ric rac, upholstery ribbon, or green satin. This one was embellished with vintage skeleton keys.
The mantle was decorated with various flowers in mercury glass vases and a vintage box filled with jute twine and silver ornaments. Silver serving trays were hung on the wall above the mantle - what a simple and effective way to fill up wall space!
Janie decorated the table with white amaryllis, French anemones, Victoria white ranunculus, supergreen parrot tulips, and white peonies all in mercury glass vases. Using only one type of flower in each vase allows each flower to stand out, and is simple solution for centerpieces. The amaryllis arrangements are rather tall, so they can be removed once guests are seated to allow for conversation across the table.
The menus were lettered in the shape of a star, and embellished with little stars made of sheet music.
Menus and place cards were calligraphed by Jen at Pretty Pen Jen, using gold ink on ivory paper.
Croquembouche is a perfectly dramatic and appropriate dessert choice for a winter wedding or party. This one, created by Jenny at Sweetest Thing Bakery, is drizzled in white chocolate.
For the winter brides out there, a bouquet of white peonies, gray dusty miller, nearly black privet berries, and tied with beautiful striped French wire ribbon.
Thank you so so much to all of these talented ladies for sharing this beautiful winter shoot with us - now I can't wait to throw a holiday dinner party! I hope we'll be able to have all of you back on Snippet & Ink again very soon.
To be completely honest with you, this is probably the post I was most looking forward to sharing! I understand not everybody enjoys a do-it-yourself wedding, but I come from the kind of family where my mother/father/grandmothers would look at something and say, "I can make that."
I wanted the family to feel like an antique garden party. I told my mother I wanted it to give the impression we just gathered some stuff out of grandma's attic and planned a last-minute party. I could not have executed this vision without plenty of time to plan, and I had a leisurely year-and-a-half to pull it together.
The weekend before the wedding, I made three wooden signs out of posts and pre-cut arrows I purchased from Michaels and secured with wood glue. Directional signs were crucial because there were three weddings in the same complex that night!
Sara and I spent two days in April punching hearts out of the "Twilight" books to make these garlands. We used twine from the $1 bin at Target, and bought the heart hole punches at Michael's. I chose to use the "Twilight" books because they were the only literature I could imagine destroying; I figured fans of the books would think it was romantic and people who hated the books would think it was funny.
My friend Bret told me it was hilarious to see people reading the hearts and saying, "Oh, this is when Jacob is teaching Bella how to ride a motorcycle..."
Sara, my stepsister Crysta and I all worked to make the glitter stars. We purchased cardboard 3d stars from Michaels, and used Martha Stewart glitter in gold, silver and bronze. They were gorgeous! We hung them from the trees with ribbon, also purchased from Michael's, and I plan to use them as Christmas decor for the rest of my life.
I picked up this sweet vintage cake topper from the 1940s at my favorite antiques store in Staunton, Va. It's called 17 East Beverley (which is also its address), and has to be one of my favorite places to while away the hours. The sweet lady at the checkout counter said it was from her collection, and told me she used her entire collection as centerpieces at her son's wedding. Isn't that a sweet idea?
I didn't want to spend a lot of money on favors and I've always liked edible favors, so I decided to do a candy bar and give people muslin bags that they could fill with candy. For our candy bar, I collected apothecary jars and vases from Target, TJ Maxx and various other places.
Our candy bar included Twizzlers, Sixlets, M&M's, Swedish Fish, cotton candy-flavored rock candy swizzle sticks and Charleston Chews (an old favorite of my mom's). I ordered the swizzle sticks and chews from Candy Crate, the only place I could find the right flavor of rock candy!
Ashleigh kindly hand-stamped each of these muslin bags, which are just so excellent for all kinds of gift bags. I always receive Anthropologie jewelry in them, but they are great for sachets, office products, candy, etc.
I ordered 100 of the bags for $25 from Celestial Gifts. The stamps were office-themed, because Sean and I met at our college newspaper office. They are made by Cavallini.
The vintage Coca-Cola crate, by the way, is from a great antique store in Newport News called Plantiques. It's located in Hilton Village, right on Warwick Avenue.
We agonized over what to do for a guest book. My original dream was to use a typewriter, like all the cool couples in blogland and Martha Stewart Weddings. But despite months of searching, we couldn't find an affordable, usable typewriter and I was becoming desperate.
When my friend Miranda was married, her guest book had cute little cards with writing prompts in a blank scrapbook. The prompts asked guests to predict how many children the couple would have, and where they would live; others had Mad Libs-style paragraphs to fill in. I liked that idea, but I wasn't having much luck finding a completely blank scrapbook. Stymied again!
THEN, a week before the wedding, I spotted John Derian's hollow storage books at Target and I knew I had found the perfect guest book for us. Using a card catalog we keep in the office as storage, I printed four newspaper-themed prompts on the back of index cards: Archive, Headline, Horoscope and Advice Column.
People filled them out, stuck them in the box and the box will go on our bookshelf. It was great fun to read people's advice and predictions for our future, and the headlines were really fun.
I was equally stuck on what to do for programs, but I knew I didn't want to spend a lot of money because experience has shown that no one other than parents keeps them.
I decided to keep our color scheme and print two pages on the cheap pastel paper you can buy at Office Max, then secure them with fabric tape from Michael's. The first page featured our bridal party and the ceremony info, while the second page had our thank you's and shout outs to all the people who helped make our wedding happen.
I bought the Canada Dry crate at the Williamsburg Antique Mall. I decided to use crates at the wedding because they can easily be used and reused for storage for the rest of our lives. That was very important to me...I wanted to see reminders of my wedding in my home.
I love this shot Ryan got of the Bentleys looking into the venue; the Bentleys were my second family growing up!
Our caterer was Sweet Madeleine's, based in Gloucester. They were amazingly flexible, and brought out all sorts of little touches I wouldn't have even known to request. We told them we wanted food that was unpretentious, delicious and easy to eat. I wanted people to mix and mingle, and make a meal out of whatever they liked.
Our menu included: cinnamon bourbon brie tarts (above), sesame chicken skewers, caprese skewers, shrimp cocktail, Virginia ham biscuits, assorted fruit and cheese and the piece de resistance -- mini burgers with a display of toppings.
Sean doesn't much care for cake, so we had a groomsman run out and buy an apple pie to surprise him. He ended up not having a bite!
I bought the napkins on close-out sale from For Your Party!
Videos Relacionados:below I show related videos and not so related to this article.
TitleWedding Decor Ideas : How to Make a Centerpiece for a Wedding Reception
When making a centerpiece for a wedding reception, it is important to make it unique because it will be the center of attention at the table. Learn to make a beautiful centerpiece for your wedding with the guidance of an award-winning wedding planner in this free video on wedding decorations.
Expert: Phyllis Cambria Contact: www.WeddingPlansPlus.com Bio: Phyllis Cambria is a nationally-recognized, award-winning party planning expert, event marketing expert, wedding planner, wedding coach, author and sought-after speaker. Filmmaker: Paul Muller
Title:Show Me How to create own Wedding Decorations
How-To DVD Books order at showmehow.im
Show Me How - Wedding Decorations is the perfect guide for anyone who wants to give a wedding reception an individual style by creating their own table settings. To give a personal touch to the arrangements, each one includes a range of lovely handcrafted decorations to make.
Each table is styled by experts, who demonstrate how to make all the projects and also explain the basic skills and materials needed. There are lots of professional hints and tips, money-saving ideas and advice on personalizing the arrangements.
Documento sin título
Videos Relacionados:below I show related videos and not so related to this article.
TitleWedding Decoration Ideas
The Wedding Decorators Sherisse Bhimani shows past weddings & events that she has decorated for 2009. Stunning backdrops, head table decorations, luxury linens & more. Make sure to check out the website www.theweddingdecorators.ca if you looking for wedding or event decor in Ontario Canada.
Title:Wedding Reception Decor Ideas
Following wedding decorating with Sherisse Bhimani from The Wedding Decorators Inc. Wedding receptions, ceremonies & other events like birthdays, proms, engagements, coming out parties, communions, corporate events & more. Please visit our website for more details www.theweddingdecorators.ca serving Toronto Canada & surrounding area.....
Documento sin título
Videos Relacionados:below I show related videos and not so related to this article.
TitleWedding Decor Ideas : How to Make a Centerpiece for a Wedding Reception
When making a centerpiece for a wedding reception, it is important to make it unique because it will be the center of attention at the table. Learn to make a beautiful centerpiece for your wedding with the guidance of an award-winning wedding planner in this free video on wedding decorations.
Expert: Phyllis Cambria Contact: www.WeddingPlansPlus.com Bio: Phyllis Cambria is a nationally-recognized, award-winning party planning expert, event marketing expert, wedding planner, wedding coach, author and sought-after speaker. Filmmaker: Paul Muller
Title:Wedding Decor Ideas
http://www.bestforbride.com/
Wedding decoration ideas for banquet halls, synagogue, churches and more including wedding cake decor, head table decor, boutonnieres, bridal bouquet, centerpieces, wedding backdrops and more.
wedding planning ideas, developing a wedding checklist, organizing wedding flowers, catering, photography. wedding planner is a professional who assists with planning and organization of weddings
{our contest entry}
Are you kidding me? How awesome is that Schnauzer?!?
Look at that face!
Suscrbete va Feed (RSS)
