the blog has moved!

sorry to all those waiting and waiting for a new post outta me - i kinda abandoned this blog... while it'll stay up and i might occasionally surprise everyone with a post every now & then, i'd like to invite you to my other two blogs -

*  my jewelry, accessories, & paperie blog: Joie de Vie

*  {my newest blog} my wedding & event design blog: Blair Britt Events

i also tweet under these two accounts:
@joideviejewelry
@blairbrittevent

thank you to everyone who was so loyal and visited so often, i just wish i had made this announcement sooner for y'all!

*blair

{recap} wedding invite - final product

let me preface this post by saying - a majority of the photos were taken by me... and i'm terrible at detail shots - so i apologize for the blurry, out of focus ones! =)

ok so here's the final product - this pic was actually shot by a friend at one of my bridal showers - thanks shayn - keep up the good work!

back to my photos again - here's the belly band my sis-in-law slaved away on - 2" by 12" creates this look - then i layered the 1"x 1" blue square (which has the gold gocco'd sand dollar) on top of the ivory 2"x 2" square to "close" the band off.

once you slide the belly band off - it reveals the inside of our pockets - lined with my favorite paisley paper - the invitation piece sits on the left (with gocco'd gold sand dollars again) - and all of the info cards and rsvp postcard are in the pocket to the right (again lined with my favorite paisley paper).

here's a shot of the ceremony & reception card... duh =)

direction card - again tying in our sand dollar motif 

here's the front of our rsvp postcard

and the back - it was really fun to get responses and song requests back from our guests!

finally after all the hard work, they're ready to be shipped out to all our wedding guests! i really loved the Louis Comfort Tiffany stamps we used - they worked well with our overall color scheme!

and here our invitations are immortalized by our wonderful photographer -

 MemoriesbyMichael.com

hope you enjoyed seeing some of what went into DIY'ing your own invitation suite, it's A LOT of hard work - but if you have help from family and friends you too can DIY your dream invitations! 

next up - i'll be deconstructing my inspiration board - showing you my inspiration photo and the real life wedding photo, it should be fun!

b

{recap} wedding invite workshop

well... to start off the wedding recaps, i think i should begin with our invites - since they did inspire a great deal of the details that stood out on our wedding day.

after designing and printing the invites - which were partially printed by a family friend, then the sandollar details were gocco'd by me - we had a family assembly party consisting of my parents, my brother and sis-in-law, myself and my hubby (then fiance). each person more of less to charge of a "station" ...

here's what we had to tackle that day:

-emboss address on all envelope flaps

-crease and close belly bands

-xyron paisley pocket liners & all invitation pieces

-adhesive main paisley liner and flap liner

-gocco all sandollar details

-adhesive invites into pocket folders

-insert all the detail cards into pockets

-apply postage stamps to rsvp postcards

... that was pretty much it! sounds easy right? well take a look at the process and you decide, but in my opinion this was a labor of love that took upwards of 10 hours to complete!

here are my bro and sis-in-law: he's embossing our envelope flaps 

and here lisa is using the sample belly band that's taped to the mat to line up the crease marks for each band

even my now hubs got involved - J worked the xyron machine to make the pocket folder lining into stickers, making them easier/quicker to stick the lining on. and that's me standing gocco'ing the sandollars!

mom and J watching me work the kinks outta lining the pocket folders

in the pic below - my nephew showing off something and if you look at my gocco screen you can see the various sizes of sandollars awaiting their turn to be gocco'd

mr. b .... in the zone - our family is full of perfectionist, especially him, so those embossed envelopes were perfectly squared thanks to the mat, some blue tape, and repeat - repeat - repeat

here you can see the grid my bro set up to use to emboss all the envelopes and in the next pic my mom testing it out

two perfectionist - my dad and bro - go figure, racing to see how many they could line in 10 minutes! boys operate so differently from women

taking a break to play a lil' wii bowling...

no longer is it light outside and the girls of course are still working on affixing the lining and the actual invite pieces to the pocketfolders 

later that night i continued lining pocket folders and backing the invites to the liner...

first i put in the part that sits behind the invite, then the flap had to be attached

i made sure to run my bone folder over all the liner to smooth it down and make sure there were no ripples

last up was to stick on each invitation piece which had previously been xxyron'd to create a stick backing so i could easily stick them all in to their own pocket folders.

next up i'll show you the final results of all the pieces assembled and ready to be sent out to our guests!

it's so hard to believe we were making these almost a year ago in May! wow!

after 6 months of marriage...

i'm finally going to start the journey of posting about our wedding details!  i figure i should introduce all the various elements by showing you my inspiration and the reality at our wedding... kind like a before and after.

boy do i have lots in store... here's an overview of the journey we're about to take to recap the wedding:

- paper goods: invites, programs, escort cards, valet tags, and menu cards...

- flowers: ceremony, reception, diy floral elements, and our personal flowers of course...

- personalization: diy centerpieces, personal touches, decor, jewelry, and accessories....

- random: the cake, photography, music, and my advice to future brides....

i'll leave you with my original inspiration board i had created months in advance of our wedding... and you can determine if we hit the mark!

any other newlyweds having a hard time catching up on blogging (or anything else for that matter) the way they used to while feverishly planning your wedding?

After Wedding to-do list

during the final days leading up to the wedding, i started to notice that so much of my "normal", non-wedding planning life was on hold...  that got me thinking about what i wanted to do when i got back to life as usual.

well at that point i thought, piece of cake, life will resume once we get outta town and head to tahiti for our honeymoon... haha looking back now i laugh at how naive i was to think that relaxing in tahiti was "normal life" - give me a break!

here's us at the pinnacle of "non-normal life" at our rehearsal dinner

and here we are once again - recovering from the wedding weekend 

on our honeymoon in Bora Bora

we look pretty stress free right?

yes but i realize now that the wedding and then traveling to paradise to "relax" was really more the calm before the storm.

Life has become so crazy for the two of us - J is just preparing for 3rd year law school finals, and here i am with my crazy jobs and trying to run my jewelry & accessory business!

we recovered, then returned, and life never went back to life as we knew it ...

 so in an attempt to retain some type of normalcy i started a list that grows each week.  since i'm a list maker, it helps to know that i'm accomplishing things, no matter how small or trivial they seem - it's just nice to know we're getting things done!

I give you my after wedding to-do list: 

• go to Disneyland - 
• go on a date with J - check (although this is something i'd love to do weekly)
• spend quality time with friends & family - check
• go to the swap meet - 
• look into a business credit card (maybe not such a great idea given the current financial climate) -
• get our apartment organized - quasi check... with the exception of our study
• close out our wedding registries  - check (except Crate & Barrel)
• get holiday items posted in my etsy shop - check
• get caught up on my business blog - check
• get wedding thank you's written and sent - 1/2 check (still have 1/2 the list to go)
• get my credit card paid off - almost check =)
• spend time playing catch up with close friends - 1/2 check
• christmas shopping - almost check!

and the list goes on... did anyone else feel like much of their normal life had disappeared and long to rein it in once the big day had passed!

Recap: DIY Cocktail Napkins

after mastering my beloved gocco machine, i decided that i was going to take on making my personalized cocktail napkins for our wedding. i went to IKEA of all places to buy my napkins since they were having a blow out sale on these, i snatched them up for uber-cheap. i bought them in navy and white - and at that time i had planned on just repeating the pattern i used on the blue.

well needless to say, i got a little creative/ambitious and thought i'd incorporate our paisley pattern from our invitations on the white napkins... and i was really happy with the way they turned out. below is a candid from one of my bridesmaids, the napkins were sitting on the cake table... note to future brides: if you take on DIY projects, give a list to you photographer, i blew it on that, and therefore didn't end up with many photos of my DIY details.

the navy napkins had our sand dollar

Blair & Justus

August 2, 2008

all in metallic gold ink

below is a close up of our sand dollar image

above is our cake with the napkins next to it

here's a close up of the paisley napkins

and finally a shot from the design process: gocco'ing napkins means - very little counter space!

give me some time and you'll be able to view some client's custom cocktail napkins that i'll be posting on my company blog for an upcoming wedding... go to JoiedeVieJewelry.blogspot.com.

I'm back as a MRS

i know it's been quite some time since my last post... let me just say this:

planning a wedding consumes your life, i was barely able to keep up with my family, friends, and fiance... let alone set aside time to blog.  so, let me say i'm sorry for spending so much time away. and to those of you loyal readers - you'll be happy to know that the wedding recaps are about to begin!

i'll leave you with one of my favorite photos from our wedding... it was taken by our photographer - Michael Erdkamp of Memories by Michael.

if you'd like to see more of Michael's work from our wedding, he put together a slideshow of that day check it out here.

Under Pressure... sing it Queen

as my FI and i flew back from our Wedding Open House in SLC, we spent time discussing our 10 mile long to-do list.... which by the way we have 18 days or 2.5 weeks left!

 time to really buckle down.

the past 4 days wass the most time we've consecutively spent together maybe since our trip to Jackson Hole last summer when we got engaged! so, we used most of this past weekend to catch up on all of the "things" we've been meaning to talk about or forget to bring up - in relation to the wedding.

after talking and interupting each other mid thought so we wouldn't lose our own train of thought - it hit us that not only are we rapidly approaching our wedding date (duh!), we still have so many miles to cover on the journey to Aug 2nd.... not to mention we are trying to set up shop for our married lives together after that date... so it's wedding and marriage planning all rolled into one large rolling snowball. (i like visual imagery)

here's a brilliant yet totally lame idea i came up with to help keep me on track - rather than just a huge to-do list i made 3 to work from and i'm filling them in according to the week.

here's an example of a few things per week:

this week (before the bachelor party)

- get keys to apartment/ paint/ get utilities transfered

- get final hotel guest list for OOT Bags & order Bags

- go hunting for OOT goodies

- prep for crazy wedding workshop this weekend

next week (before my bachelorette party):

- finish bridal party gifts (since i'm such a DIY lady)

- make sure all my time off from work is taken care of

- empty my bank account - ie. pay all bills due while we are on our honeymoon

- finalize music & wedding weekend/ day of timeline and distribute to all vendors & bridal party members

week of wedding:

- no more DIY projects! must be complete before leaving for Vegas

- finish HM packing

- get floating rafts for HM =) so cheesy

- go crazy!  jk

it helped me to lay out the weeks this way... and now i'm starting to break down these lists into smaller ones i can use each day of those weeks.  for example the night before i have a game plan of what errands need to be run before or after work, so the next day i can not only conserve gas, but my time and sanity - which could be better used for another task!

do i sound insane or has anyone previously or is anyone currently in the state i am (not quite panic but on the verge)?  sorry for the ramblings of this tired lady, i'm cutting myself off and going to bed.... g'night

a fiance-free, no peeking kinda post

i really mean it...

 Justus - 

under

no

circumstance

 

do 

 

you 

want 

 

to 

go

past

this

point!

! 

!

!

   - ok i think i'm getting a little overboard here  =)

so my wedding dress is done... yippee! it's been done for a few weeks, this is one thing i'm proud to say didn't end up on the procrastination list! and if you know me, you know that's a huge deal

this post is really about my fabulous seamstress than my dress, but i threw in some ivory eye candy for those of you dying to see the dress.

so aside from standard alterations, i was having trouble with this :

in the above pic the fabric kept slouching on my torso (the one feature of my dress that i was not happy with)... not to worry, my fabulous seamstress Thanh fixed the problem!

Thanh works from her home and sews/recreates dresses, and also does alterations in the evenings as a hobby... but her talent is much greater than it should be for someone doing this as a hobby!

She showed us photos of designer dresses she has duplicated, and she's amazing... she is clearly one very gifted lady! 

i came to her as a referral from a friend of mine at work, and when she looked at me in my dress she knew exactly what to do! as when she ran through the laundry list of alterations my dress needed, my mom and i braced ourselves fearing for my wedding budget... but there was nothing to fear, not only did she finish all my insane alterations in 10 DAYS!!! she was so affordable!  so thank you toni for the recommendation.... you're a life saver.

here's the back view: she was showing us how the bustle would look once she was finished.

above: this is just and poor quality up close shot of my train and its details.

we were so impressed with Thanh that my mom dropped off all her materials last night for her to start work on her MOB dress!

have alterations been a breeze or a nightmare for any other brides?

also if you're in the LA/OC area and would like to contact Thanh, i'm happy to pass her info along!

is it too late to apologize?

so i haven't posted since last week... and i most likely will not post until after this weekend.

between our housing hunt, sinus problems, cough, phantom migraines, and this weekend's bridal expo (which i will be a vendor at not a bride to be)... i need a blogging break! maybe i was a tad bit ambitious or crazy to load up my plate with so much during this wedding planning crunch, but that's just what i do!

so, for the sake of my health and sanity, sorry for the delay, but i will be back on the air soon! and between you and me, let's hope i don't post because that'll mean i'm getting distracted from my bridal show prep work.... speaking of, i think this post has been long enough!

b

Hoop Dreams....

on wednesday i went looking at housing options with my parents (since FI is so busy in the office 12 hours a day).  we looked all around in old town orange, since my FI will be finishing his last year at Chapman Law we thought it might be a good idea to live near campus, plus all the cute little craftsman bungalows are to die for!

first we checked out 2 "places" (i won't call them homes) that the University had to offer us, and to be totally truthful, they just aren't the nest i had envisioned for us to live.  

just after viewing these 2 non-options my parents suggested we pray about this housing situation, and my dad and i continued to look for rental signs in the area.

then while driving the neighborhood.... my dad and i called a sign on an adorable gem which was for sale.... not that we will be in a position to buy when we get married, but since i'm a Realtor, we could go in and check out the house!

here it is:

my car would match the house so well! =)

it has so much charm, and is so suited to our taste, that i asked the owner if they would consider leasing it - and they said it could be a possibility....

here's the adorable kitchen with stainless appliances and a farmhouse kitchen sink!

a little breakfast nook off the kitchen where the current owner (a recent law grad) has his study office all set up!

the bathroom with wainscoting on the walls!

last but not least - the yard which would be great for warm summer night BBQ's

this is where i need to come back down to earth... it's for sale, and there's no way we could afford to buy anything even though the market is so low right now.  the owner did say that they would consider leasing it to us, since they love the home and quasi know my fiance... there might be hope!

but if those of you reading this could pray that the owners would consider the lease option for us, it would be a real blessing to live this close to Chapman and in such an amazing place!

any other soon - to - be - newlyweds out there struggling to find their perfect place to call home?

random school spirit?

so i was cruising around on etsy.... not really looking for garters but found the GarterLady shop. after browsing through many of the handmade garters, many of which were team garters... i laughed and thought if only she had an SC Trojans one... 

uh- oh... now that i've found one, i don't know what to do....

very tempting to make this my toss garter and my way of tying in our alma mater....

maybe i shouldn't think about this too much.... but most of our single guys are trojans.... 

am i crazy to even consider this idea?

refreshments

since i am the queen of arriving to an event on what is called california time, we are helping guests out by telling them to arrive just a smidge earlier than they really need to be at the ceremony, that way the ceremony can start at the "secret" scheduled time! wink... while the guests are waiting and chatting we thought it would be nice to provide refreshments since it will be August in CA and about 90 degrees!  above is a photo i found while scouring many wedding photog's blogs in the early planning stages.  

when i started looking for dispensers for our pre-ceremony refreshments, i came across this online company, who had this dispenser featured in Redbook magazine.

these are made by infusion jars

above is the style i'm thinking about ordering, it's called the Messina Jar

when i do finally decide which one to order, i'm getting 2 jars, my mom said after the wedding it'll be one for me, one for her! =)

i also think i'll be switching out the spigot and upgrading to this user friendly chrome one.

i also haven't decided if the dispensers need a stand to sit up off the table, or if it's not necessary.

i do know that my new gocco'd cocktail napkins will be on the table with the beverages... more on the napkins later....

now what to fill the dispensers with...???

i was thinking ice water in one with slices of lemon, lime, and orange wedges,

the other, maybe some sort of blueberry lemonade with blueberries and sliced lemons.

now i just need to find a good recipe for the lemonade!

is anyone else concerned about their guest' pre-ceremony experience? and if you could help me get my hands on some lemonade/ with blueberry recipes, i would be ever so grateful!

image sources: 1 - 2 - 5