Thrifty Thursday.....

I had a plan. These awsome DIY printables from one of my fav wedding blogs. Then, this morning, I see that another fave blog has posted a link for printable invites. So you get not one but TWO printable ideas today on this

Thrifty Thursday!

The first comes from The Wedding Chicks. You must check out their site. They have awsome ideas! Real vendors share their products, services and whats new with their readers.

http://www.weddingchicks.com/freebies/custom-goodies/

Go there to customize invites, save the date cards, thank you for your guests or briadal party, you name it they got it! They will email the file to you and you print how and where you want it!

These are some of the samples...

Go check them out, they have tons more!

Now this morning while reading 2000DollarBudgetWedding, they shared a website called

http://www.downloadandprint.com/

Another GREAT resource for FREE DIY invites. They had wedding invites, save the date, baby announcement, RSVP cards.

I thought this was a cute one...

And for those of you who know me, know I could have totally used this for my wedding! Where was this place 10 years ago?!

jack of trades master of none....

Ive been a busy bee, kind of a scattered bee with all my projects.

I've been trying hard to work on my sewing projects. My goal is to open my etsy shop next month with a variety of items. Sewing is fun for me, but its so hard to find the time with a 15 month old, a full time job and a husband who works two jobs. Alone time to sew usually means giving up family time on the weekends. I've been speending about a half an hour at night when the boy goes to sleep just cutting fabric before my bed time rolls around.

I've also have two dear friends getting married in about 12 days. I'm very excited to be marrying them. I have known the groom practically all my life, we grew up just down the road from each other. And the bride has been a friend of mine since the 7th grade, we even used to work together. I performed her brother's wedding this past February. How special for a family to celebrate 2 weddings in one year!

Another project I've been putting my heart into is my neice's birthday. It's the double digits year. I cant believe she's growing into the beautiful and smart young lady. Can we just turn back time? At my son's first birthday she asked me to please help plan her party and thanks to a huge number of blogs out there like: kara's party ideas, amy atlas, bella grace party designs, tomkat studio, party box design and so many others i cant name them all...

I have the most wonderful ideas, now to pull them all off. I am planning a dessert table of course inspired by amy atlas and bakerella. Cake pops, chocolate dipped marshmallows, strawberry pocky, chocolate and strawberry cupcakes, maybe some french macarons, pink lemonaid... do you see a pattern here? She has chosen a pink and black skulls party.

Images courtesy of Birthday Party Express

I'm so excited to put it all together and even more excited to post pix of the finished product. Keep checking back her party is the end of June.

Our final project, as far as the big ones go, we are putting up a partial wall in our garage, extending our back patio and painting the house! I'm very excited to get this done. Not only does our house need a fresh coat of paint really bad but putting this wall in the garage and the patio roof in the back will allow us to more comfortably entertain our friends. I was so tired of putting a blue tacky tarp up to block the wind when we would cookout. And we have NO shade in our backyard so Im very much looking forward to extenting the roof and enjoying the backyard with my son this summer. I'm gonna pull out his picnic table and inflatable pool and get our sun on!

Well, because we belong to a community association we have to get everything approved! It wasnt as bad a process as I had expected and we actually got a response within a week. Wish I could turn around and get my father in law and the crew over to do the work and be done in a week too :-) After careful consideration on what would make us both happy and be approved by the association we finally picked our colors. Nothing exciting sorry to report, were going with Anonymous and Dark Granite. (second column in towards the bottom)

I'm gonna get a little crazy with color afterwards with flowers and a great idea from A Soft Place to Land to put curtians on the porch. Im really gonna try to bring the indors out. Now to find an outdoor chandelier and hang it before the hubby stops me! He might like it, he really likes the hanging baskets I hung on our fence after he fought me on it. "hunny i really like to look out the kitchen window and see the yellow flowers" ... i already knew he would. Why do men have to fight us???

Thrifty Thursday (on a friday)

So, this isnt so much a wedding idea, but its graduation today! Congrats class of 2010! Great job, Good luck and reach for the stars!

My friend Becky showed me this when she graduated back in.... well when she graduated. I thought it was so cute and hey so thrifty!
It's a Fruit Loop Lei

Also works great for stringing decorations at partys... like all the rainbow party ideas thats going around the blogisphere.

First you seperate the loops by color

Red

Blue

Green

Purple

Yellow

Orange

At this point my hubbs was just playing with the camera, but it just looks sooo pretty doesnt it?

Then we took yarn that I had laying around the house and strung the loops. It took only half way through the red strand to get thoroughly frustrated with the fraying end of the yarn before we took scotch tape and wrapped it around the tip of the yard and squeezed it into a sort of needle tip.

Here is our work in progress, it actually went very fast, we were done before the second hour of Grey's Anatomy.

When all the strands were done we tied them together on one end and then twisted them.

Then I finished it off with a bow. Look how cute and fun it looks!

Congrats Graduates, have fun but be safe!

Backyard BBQ Birthday for Brian

Ok thats strange BBBB... hahaha.... anyways, soooo many good posts today from all the blogs that I follow that it has inspired me to throw my husband a Backyard BBQ Birthday Party.

(and yes his name is Brian)

Attention to Detail shared this really cute BBQ apron party invite that started it all.

http://http://attention2detailblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/hot-off-grill.html

It's totally cute and a great diy project. For directions visit

http://http://www.ruthannzaroff.com/mirkwooddesigns/barbecue.htm

They have other great diy favors all FREE to download.

Brian has been talking about making BBQ pulled pork ever since I made my first roast in my crockpot so I know he'll love the menu ideas. I got the inspiration for this at

PartyBlueprints Blog on their make ahead menu for memorial day.

http://http://www.partybluprintsblog.com/party-themes/make-ahead-memorial-day-menu

Yummy pulled pork sandwiches, slaw, corn and bean salad and biscuts. I think I'll have to also try Amanda's from Kevin & Amanda Ultimate Bakes Beans or otherwise affectionately known as Manly beans.

http://http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/

And I just couldnt forget dessert. Party Box Design showed off these really cute cupcake cups from etsy that I just thought would match perfectly with the theme.

http://http://partyboxdesign.blogspot.com/2010/05/happy-anniversary-love-story.html

I bought these in red from Cupcake Confessional's etsy store

http://http://www.etsy.com/shop/CupcakeConfessional

Easy Roast Dinner...

**11/17/11 UPDATE**
I'm reposting this one and linking up to


(please excuse the itsy bitsy photos, this was in the early blogging stages!)

Once again we had a lovely dinner with friends this past Saturday night. I made the easiest roast ever and wanted to share with you. Perfect for those busy days that you just cant be bothered by spending too much time cooking. It takes just a few minutes to prep and the set it in the crockpot and forget about it for a few hours. BTW, it was a hit! 

First of all I took my roasting meat and seasoned with salt and then browned it on all sides before I put it in the crock pot.

Then in the same pan I quickly sauteed the holy trinity (onion, carrots & celery) and added chopped garlic and red wine. About a couple of turns around the pan.


Dont have to sautee long since it will cook for several hours in the crock pot. Then I poured it all over the meat already in the pot and opened a can of diced tomatoes with roasted garlic and onion. You can use regular diced tomatoes or fresh diced tomatos but I have found that using the one with roasted garlic and onion just tastes sooo much better.

There you go! Set it and forget it. Depending on how much meat you have in there will determine how long to cook it. Here I cooked just over 7 lbs of meat so I cooked it on high for about 6 hrs.

When its done, I scooped out all the veggies and some of the drippings and put it in a blender.

Heres all the yummy goodness that will be come the gravy.

Blend till you get the consistency that you want. I didnt add any water or stock, if its too thick just add some of the liquid from the crockpot, its taster!

Super easy and did I mention it was a hit! And with all those veggies in it, it has to be good for you too! Didnt get a pix before dinner, we just all dug right in.

Whats your favorite Crock Pot recipe?

I'm linking to:

Recipe Round Up
Rock your recepies

Looking for a Wedding Gift?

I just attended a Pampered Chef party last night and had a BLAST!

We ate, drank wine, cooked and even baked a cake in the micro in 14 mins!

I loved their stone wear, we made a totally healthy and natural pizza in no time! I knew exactly what was going on my pizza and it was all fresh ingredients and I would feel great serving it to my friends and family. Not to mention how fun and fast it was.

Here's the pizza stone, but we made it in the square pan. Their stoneware is freezer safe, micro safe, and convection or conventional oven safe!

This is the flutted stoneware pan that we baked the cake in the micro. Man, that would so

come in handy!

They dont just have stoneware, they have cookbooks, cutlery, bakeware, cookware, beautiful serving dishes, which I got a 3 tiered stand... cant wait to use that! They have quality products that last and they offer product gaurantees. They look great and make life easier!

Look for a consultant near you or let me know and I can have one contact you! Makes me wish I was getting married all over again, this would definately be on my registry.

Photo Credits: pamperedchef.com

thinking outloud

just taking notes for a couple of weddings I'm working on...

The Hip Entrance...

The newest trend these days seems to be a hip, memorable and dance themed entrace to the wedding ceremony. You've all seen them on YouTube and yes, some are very memorable and fun. Doing something like this in your own ceremony is up to you, but remember one thing, who your audience is.

Yes, most will be friends but dont forget your family that will be there. How receptive is your 70 year old grandma gonna take the groomsmen pelvic thrusting and butt slapping the air infront of his crotch?

I saw this video on YouTube and although entertaining I couldnt help but notice the only thing keeping my attention was the guests reactions and the look on their faces.

Entertaining yes.... totally apropriate, maybe not for all.

Happy Mothers Day

Hoping you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!

I'm proud to be a mommy ♥

Photo Credit: Charity V Photography

FRIDAY FIND!

My very first Friday Find is our very own local florist

Pua Lei - A Flower Shop

located in Kapaa Town

822-1200

Visit them at http://www.pualeiaflowershop.com/

or on face book

Here they are featured in Hawaii Princess Brides

They did the bride's bouquet and the arch/flowers.

Also a congrats to Mel and Marissa Purcell!

Isn't the colors of the rainbow just beautiful!

HTML Geek needed.....

I'm so computer illiterate, cant seem to get my layout right. Any suggestions?

Thrifty Thursday... DIY Match Boxes

photo credit: www.blog.mika78.com

photo credt: www.projectwedding.com

So here I am revisiting the personalized matchboxes again! I have done them and are very cute and actually pretty simple to make. My photo skills though, needs some work so I borrowed the pix from http://www.do-it-yourself-weddings.com/ They have a great step by step tutorial including photos! Love tutorials that include photos, I'm a visual person. Next time I'll ask the hubs to take the pix as I do the project.

I went to my local grocery store (Big Save) and I bought a pack of I think it was 32 boxes for $1.89 and to our Craft store (Ace Hardware) and bough sheets of scrapbook paper for 99 cents.

First step was to seperate the inside box with the cover. I only covered the outside cover and not the inside box that holds the matches. I took apart one of the covers so that it layed flat and traced the matchbox cover on the scrapbook paper.

Cut the tracing out of the paper and glue it onto the matchbox cover. Do not cover the strip that you strike your match on. Very Important.

Next fold the matchbox cover back up following the creases from the orignal box and glue back together!

Done! Thats it, super fast!

You can use any type of paper that matches your party theme; origami paper, scrapbook paper, newspaper, wrapping paper or how about magazine pages.

Check out www.do-it-yourself-weddings.com/personalized-matchboxes.html for step by step instructions and photos. They even go over printing our personalized ones on the computer!

Also check out www.projectwedding.com/wedding-ideas/personalized-matchboxes-for-dummies

Have fun!

Reminders.......

I got these super cute post its from butterflygirlmsblogdesigns.blogspot.com this morning.

Want some of your own? get them at http://wigflip.com/superstickies/