My precious...

Want to see one of my favorite things ever? One of those small details that I loved and was so happy to have spent hours making just right?

Well, here it is! My handmade hair dodad!


Isn't she beautiful? This little lady is the result of HOURS of my time and much swearing, but damn...after all that, I'm in love!

I spent a long time looking on esty for a fascinator - and found many of them that were absolutely gorgeous! But I just couldn't bring myself to pay $80 bucks for some hair thing. No way. Plus, I knew what I wanted and I had my materials. I had fabric from cutting the train off my dress and some extra pretty green pearls from my necklace. So I went to it.

First, I searched for a good tutorial on how to make a fabric flower. Wow - so many out there! Its ridiculous! But of course, Martha came to the rescue with an easy and fabulous fabric flower how to. The how to is for a ring pillow but works just as easily for a hair fascinator.

It took me a while to get the flower to look right...somehow, depending on how you pinch the petals, it can come out completely different! One way makes really cupped petals, which make a super cute flower, but I didn't want this thing popping off my head. I wanted it to sit nice and smooth on my hair. So I worked and worked to get the petals to sit flat. Still not sure how I did it...but I did it!

Add the pearls in the center, some feathers, felt the back, super glue some bobby pins to the back and VOILA! What a beaut!

Necklace!

Oh! I'm so excited! I had some serious thoughts to share today but they were completely wiped out by a nice little package that came in the mail for me! A necklace! WEE!!

Some of you may remember a post a while back about necklaces and other accessories. I wanted to add some color (green specifically) to my outfit and searched and searched through tons of necklaces. Lots of pretty stuff out there! But I was looking for something very specific.

In the end, I have actually purchased two candidates for my wedding necklace. And I'm going to keep both because I love them both. But I just got the second one today and I'm so happy with it and so excited that it turned out just like I hoped! Check it out!


Gorgeous, right!?!? and the absolute perfect green!

So here is how it went: I bought this string of bright green pearls
to have something classic (string of pearls) that was still fun and me (green). I get the pearls and they are beautiful, the perfect color, and just like described on the etsy listing, but it turns out sometimes I suck at reading the details of said listings and they are really small. Smaller than I expected. In other words, they don't provide the POW or impact I was hoping and instead looked kinda like a child's string of beads. So I was bummed out.

I continue my search for perrty necklaces and come across this beautiful and unique necklace on this amazing etsy shop by Galit Barak. She is awesome and agreed to incorporate my beautiful green little pearls into one of her beautiful crochet silver necklaces. I sent my little pearls all the way over to Israel, she worked her magic, and the necklace turned out better than I could have expected - its, dare I say, perfect!

Major thanks to Galit for wonderful work and for being such a doll to work with! Definitely check out her super unique jewelery - its like nothing I've ever seen before!

Pimples!!!

OMG, guys, I've got pimples. Like everywhere. They are little baby ones but they are finding strength in numbers!!! AAH!!! I dunno what to do!

See, I've never really had any acne problems or ever really gotten pimples (yeah, boo hoo me, I know) so now I am completely lost! And freaking out that I'm going to be a pimply mess on the wedding day! Of course stress is probably a factor, so freaking out doesn't help... but I'm freaking out.*

Should I find a cleanser? Figure out a new face routine? Go meditate? Buy foundation? (yeah, I don't own any) Call an exorcist? Or just eat this nummy chocolate that I happen to have in front of me...? We'll try the chocolate since its the closest possible solution to me at the moment.

Speaking of, have you ever had Chocolove XOXO num num bars? They are my FAV! I almost always have a dark chocolate and raspberries one stashed away. And not only are they delicious, but they come with super amazing love poems inside the wrapper! Its like a delicious lover serenading you and your taste buds at the same time!

Wanna read mine today? Here it is:

Meeting At Night

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning

Yeah, I don't really get it. But I love them because they are usually really cheezy and just plain epic sounding love poems! Hearts flutter and chests pound and yadda yadda epicness.

Well, I ate the entire bar. Heres hoping that is enough to clear up my pimple army!

Cheers,
Jen

*only mildly. I'm just being dramatic.

Awesome pimple art via ambird

Our Wedding: Sassy flats

Its time.

For shoes.

I've been doing shoe dances, praying to the shoe goddesses, making offerings to the shoe winds, and anything else I can think of to make this process go smoothly. I am hoping the heavens take pity on me and send me something beautiful!

I'm a pretty picky shoe shopper and am not looking forward to shoe shopping for the wedding. But at the same time, I'm excited for wedding shoes. This is another avenue where I can tone down the big bridal of my dress and add some fun and spunk. I've been coming up with some candidates online - though I've never successfully ordered shoes offline and I'm guessing I'm going to end up ordering a bunch and then returning a bunch... but whatever. If that's the sacrifice the shoe goddesses demand.

My criteria is as follows:
1) Flat - Me and heels are not friends. I'm roughly six feet tall and I'd prefer not to feel like a scary giant or to be breaking an ankle at my wedding! Kudos to tall gals that can rock the heels - but its not me at all.
2) Comfy - I'm Practical with a capital P when it comes to shoes.
3) Preferably colorful - I would just die if I could find a wonderful granny smith green shoe! mmmmm, green...
4) Not be flip flops that will go *flip flop* down the aisle.
5) Look at least a little bit formal. But really I don't care that much...just not flip flops.
6) Oh and I don't want to take a loan out for my shoes.

I'm going to go do some shopping one of these days, but so far, I've got a few contenders online.
A) Comfy looking green "Light on Your Feet" Seychelles.
B) Some pinkie Gee WaWa sandals (awesome name, by the way) that would be my big spender shoes at $139. They look like a mix between sandals and flats...interesting...
C) Simple, "something blue" (or pink), well priced DV by Dolce sandals
D) Pinkie leather sandals that look like they'd be hella easy on the feet...and have lost some style because of it
E) Simple, green, sandals by Laundry Common that look totally 'me'. Aka functional, bare bones, with a little bit of styling that doesn't make a huge statement but is enough. The color of green is highly approved of.
G) I could open it up to fun metallics and get these beauties or I could just go with every color there is and be done with it! :)

Phew! Thats way too many shoes for a non-shoe gal like me.

What is your vote? Any others you want to throw into the runnings? And do you have your wedding shoes yet?

Photo from David@UNT

Our Wedding: Rings!!!

I'm so excited! We went to the jewelers on Friday and got our wedding bands!!! WEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Mine is going to be a plain band* that matches my engagement ring, and the mister got this sweet band that has a hammered texture down the middle and with smooth borders. Like this:
Buying our rings felt like a really great step towards finally be MARRIED! I can't wait! And seeing that ring on his finger when he tried it on just made me beam. Not that I need to lay claim to my man or anything, but that ring just makes me think "DIBS!" Really official dibs! Hes mine and I couldn't be luckier!

Yay for wedding highs!

*Apparently they don't really do plain bands anymore. We went in once and they only had three plain wedding bands for women. Three! wtf!? And none of these three matched the non-rounded/non-domed shape of my engagement ring, so the lady recommended we come back this past weekend because a bunch of vendors were going to be there so the selection would be better. We went back and this time they had five. double wtf!?

Our Wedding: Accessories!

After finally dealing will all the dress stress and insanity inside my bridal brain, I've got my dress...now its time for accessories! YAY!

Now I gotta say that this whole 'fashion' thing is not really my realm. About 90% of the time in the summer you can find me in some comfy as hell capris and a tank top, and a simple necklace is as fancy as I get within the accessories world. I pretty much wear one pair of shoes as long as I can until they are worn through with holes and then my mom (still) yells at me that I should go get a new pair. And that new pair will probably look a lot like the last... just saying that me and fashion are not best buds who stay up late chatting on the phone and sharing all our secrets. Me and fashion are more like next door neighbors who wave at each other each morning, talk about the weather, and then carry on with our day.

That said, I am pretty excited to accessorize with my dress! This is where I wanna take that piece of big bridalness and tone it down. Less formal! More fun! WEEE!

Necklace: Right now, I've got two great contenders for this - thank you, Etsy!

Exhibit A: This is the top runner by far. Its simple and you can't get much more classic than a string of pearls. But its got that color and that POW and you can't get much more 'me' than a nice bright green! I think I'm going to introduce this one to the dress and see if they get along.

Exhibit B: Runner up is this simple beaut. Something I'd wear over and over with a nice touch of color. Not quite the same POW but still pretty. Who knows, maybe my dress is an attention hog and won't want to share? Then this little guy could be the subtle touch I'd need.


Hair Piece: No way, no how is a veil going to go on my head, so I turned to the wonderful Meg at A Practical Wedding and her What to Wear on Your Head While You Wed posts. There are so many great options, but I hear the big side-o-head flowers or feathery fascinators calling my name.

Exhibit A: Is a light, cute, simple option. I like the size, that there are two, and their little pearly centers.
Exhibit B: Is a fun flower of a good size that would look great plopped on the side of my head! I think I'd add some frenchie bird cage netting to this to be oh so chic - maybe the netting could be on during the ceremony and off for the reception. This (the big ol' flower in my hair) was the original plan and the one I'm still learning towards. I'm chopping of my dress' train and could use the fabric to make a nice flower with some pizaz.
Exhibit C: Va va voom! What a sexy little feathery piece with some bling going on! I love the shape of these fascinators (the seller has a bunch of purty ones) and these could also be great with some birdcage nettting. The price is a bit high but I'm thinking maybe I can make something like this relatively easily, too. Oh the options!

Phew! That's all I got for today. Shoes are my next big adventure since I'm kinda a picky shoe shopper. I am looking for flat flat, cute, colorful sandals that are nice enough to wear to my wedding but still comfy as can be. Luckily for me flats seem to be 'in' this season. *crosses fingers*

Cheers,
Jen