DIY Winter Wonderland Bridal Shower

As soon as my dear friend announced she was getting married I knew I wanted to throw her bridal shower.  She is such a sweet girl... I mean, woman!  What a blessing it was to be able to show her love and support through the shower.

Originally she was going to have a summer wedding and a spring bridal shower.  I was going to use the sunflower mason jar decorations from my sisters' receptions and do a tea party theme.  But when the wedding was moved up to March and the shower was bumped to February I knew we had to do a Winter Wonderland theme!

me and my partner in crime...  ;-)

I scoured Pinterest pinning all sorts of ideas and shopped the Christmas clearance sales for wintery items to use for the shower.  I was even able to modify some of the wood candle holder's from my sister's reception to fit our wintery look.  We used a lot of natural elements in the decorations.  I got cinnamon scented pine cones for the centerpieces that just filled the room with their lovely scent!

I enlisted the help of some of our church's awesome cooks for the menu which included these tasty treats:

fruit salad

pinwheels - we got ours premade at GFS but you can make your own

chicken fiesta dip - its a church recipe kind of like this dish only done in the crock pot

basil/mozzarella/cherry tomato skewers

pigs in a blanket

flaky wafer sandwichcookies!! my faves!

veggie tray

strawberrycheesecake bites

Nutella brownies - I mean, you had me at Nutella! Love that stuff!!
two kinds of tasty cake balls!  my girl Lehi makes the best cake pops eh-va!

punch - this is the best party punch!

hot chocolate bar (toppings, marshmallows, etc)

We were able to reuse some of the wood candle holders that my dad made for my sister's reception last year.  We repurposed them to fit the winter wonderland theme and they worked for the centerpieces perfectly.

We wanted some unique elements to the shower.  So we did a mini-photobooth (with wrapping paper backdrop) so Rachael could have pix with all the guests.

And we had the ladies write messages and doodles on Christmas ornaments for the bride and groom to use on the tree their first Christmas together.  Another Pinterest find!

What a blessing it was to be a part of this shower.  And how rewarding to see all our ideas finally come together in perfect harmony!  ;-)  So proud of all the work from our team!  I appreciate their help SO much!!  And I know Rach does too!

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart," from Psalm 37:4

Wedding Season!

My family has been busy with a wedding boom!  In the last 9mos or so we've had two of my sisters, two cousins and one aunt get married... and two more cousins get engaged!  What a wonderful time of celebration!  With weddings come expenses...  I thought I would share how we were able to recycle some of our decorations to be used in all of these occasions!

Hannah & Ted had a literary themed wedding with beautiful colorful and classy flour arrangements.  My mom did the floral arch and custom did the chalkboard.  It was lovely.

My sister, Lauren had a courthouse wedding out of town and followed it with a country bbq reception a couple of months later.  It was a little more laid back so we modified the arrangements from Hannah's reception to take on the "country" feel.  And of course we added a few new touches to the mix, like the colorful burlap bunting.

My cousin Sean's new wife Kristen had already chosen to go with sunflowers and was happy to borrow the arch from Hannah's for their beautiful backyard ceremony.

My cousin Brad's reception was held in a large open air building with great exposed brick and needed a touch of color.  They borrowed the bunting from Lauren's reception to add a pop of color!

And my aunt Jody just got married this past weekend.  She was one of the most laid back brides I have ever seen.  ;-)  It was a second marriage for her and she just wanted to get married, the rest was just details.  So, the night before the wedding my mom added purple flowers to the sunflower arch to define the ceremony area.  It turned out beautifully. 

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?  And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Belated Reception

Its been a busy year for our family.  My youngest sister got married last August.  Two of my sisters had babies in the fall.  And my sister (who lives out of state) had a beautiful courthouse wedding in November.  Well, since friends and family were not able to celebrate with them then we had a belated wedding reception for them this past weekend.

 

Being the frugal family we are we wanted to keep costs down and one way we did that was reusing some of the decor from the August wedding.  We used all the same flower arrangements but instead of being a literary theme we went with a country BBQ theme.  After much "pinning" to the wedding board we decided to change a few things up here and there and add a lot of bunting to create our country barbeque reception.  We were so happy with the results!

  

We loved being able to use the awesome chalkboard again.  My mom is so awesome! And we found work for my dad also.  He worked hard making several wooden candle holders inspired by these.  We literally strung bunting banners around most of the room, and on a few tables.  We chose somewhat modern patterns to keep things playful and fun.

 

 We put together a playful popcorn bar for the guests.  When we first pitched the idea to my mom she was not really into it.  But she went along and was really happy with the results, and so were the guests! 

We hand stamped brown paper bags with this Mason Jar stamp we found online.  And we had several seasoning mixes for people to add to their popcorn.  

The yummy buffet featured grape salad, a salad bar, baked beans, corn casserole, fried chicken and bbq pulled pork. So good!  Thanks to all the ladies who helped with the food!

Check out the cute country cake!  My mom made it.  Its chocolate cake with peanut butter icing.  YUM!  One of my sister's favorites!  And the cute bunting banner cake topper was inspired by this cake found online.  Rather than have just cake we enjoyed a plethora of yummy treats on the dessert table.

 

 Because my sister lives out of state now we aren't all together in one place very often.  So thankful for the time we got to celebrate their marriage!  Love you guys!

 

Matthew 19:4-6 He answered,  ”Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said,’Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Another Family Wedding

My sister had some fun ideas for her wedding flowers.  She and I went back and forth pinning links on her Pinterest wedding board for awhile before we narrowed it down to what she really wanted.  She showed me this link and said she like the one on the upper right and the one on the bottom left.

 

That was a little daunting to me given its autumn and I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find such tropical flowers at this time of year.  However I was up for the task and I tackled JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's looking for flowers that would fit the bill.

 I did her bouquet a little differently than I have others in the past.  I started with a premade bouquet from Hobby Lobby like this one and then added other complimentary flowers (from both JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby).  One thing I have found that I like about doing it this way is I felt like the whole thing was sturdier because it had the solid base of the premade stem.  Then I wrapped it all in satin ribbon (with the help of a little hot glue).

  I also used the satin ribbon to make a rolled rosette broach to go on her dress, a rolled rosette hairclip and a boutonniere for the groom.

 They make such a beautiful couple!  So blessed to have been able to share in their special day!

I'll be linking up to a few of these great blogs! 

Girls Vacation!

I was blessed to spend the last week on the road with three of my favorite ladies!  My best friend, my mom and one of my aunts and I hit the road from our home in the Hoosier state and made our way to Florida for my cousin's wedding.  We spent a couple of days on the beach and then headed up to Georgia for a few days with my sister who just a baby last month.  What a good time with great ladies!  Here are a few of the highlights from our trip.

The first of many gas station stops... though may aunt's car got 40 mpg!  ;-)  whoohoo!

Our first day on the beach!  No, I'm not that short... there was an incline!  seriously.

We had used FlavortownUSA to find Diner, Drive-in and Dives in the areas we'd be traveling.  The closest one we found was the Alpine Steakhouse.  We tried alligator... it was cool to be able to say that we had it but we found it to be a bit chewy (my aunt said its been that way the other times she's tried it too), so we probably won't become big alligator junkies in the future. 

We did get the TurDucKen sandwich, which was like a thanksgiving dinner all wrapped up in a nice little bun.  Good stuff!

A few of us from my mom's side of the family all dressed up for the beach wedding.

It was a beautiful small ceremony on the beach with close friends and family.  What a blessing to be able to share their special day.

My uncle has always had a way with words and he brought a lot of us to tears with his toast. 

 

We got a little crafty while we stayed at my sister's house in Georgia.  She wanted to change the color scheme in her living room.  We made a trip to Goodwill and got the picture above.  Ugh!  But it was only $11 so we snatched it up.

We ModPodged old book paged onto it and let them dry.  Then we placed vinyl letters (though we had to stick them to the carpet once or twice to help them become slightly less sticky to avoid destroying the modpodged pages) to spell out their family name.  

My mom painted over the whole thing.  She used a wash technique so that you can still see the book pages a bit in places and you get a lot of texture throughout the piece.  My sis loves it and it brings a whole new color to the room!

My friend got a tattoo of "love & prayers" in her late grandma's handwriting.  Precious. 

We took a day to tour a couple of plantations north of Atlanta.  They were beautiful!

This one was the childhood home of Theodore Roosevelt's mother.

We tried to find another Diner, Drive-in and Dive place but it was only open for dinner and we were hungry girls. 

Thankfully a local turned us to Fat Matt's Rib Shack which was awesome!  The food was delicious (and between the four of us we tried a bit of nearly everything).  I even bought a bottle of their BBQ sauce to bring home for my hubs.  Can't wait to use it!

One day we spent the afternoon at the State Botanical Gardens with my cousin and her daughter.  It was a perfect day to spend wandering around the beautiful grounds!

I had a wonderful week with these ladies.  It was such a great break from reality.  What a blessing to have them in my life!  Love you guys!