My hanger and a few choice words

I have made all the hangers for the gifts except for mine. I had every hopes of it saying Mrs. Earl...however no matter how many times I tried I couldn't get the E to look right so after scratching myself up, throwing wire on the ground and muttering a few choice words I was about to give up until I decided to write Mrs. Squirrel. Good thing my husband to be has a nickname, because I now have a hanger!





*photos courtesy of our fabulous photograher Stephen's Photography

I love drinking out of Mason Jars!

My glass of choice? ...sorry I just took a sip of lemonade out of my mason jar ;)
Yes, a mason jar and that is what I wanted to have everyone drink out of at our wedding reception. Who seriously orders 400 mason jars? Oh we do! ...and they aren't the tiny ones either. They are the 32 oz Quart sized.

My labels are all cut and ready to be stuck on... here we go. Oh but there's more, not only are we putting the chalkboard label, but my mom has cut out pink and brown fabric squares to put on the lids to embrace my pink and brown color scheme.

I think they look great and everyone will enjoy filling these bad boys up to the brim and not have to worry about making quick trips to the bar or bringing back to cups of beer to last them for a few minutes. After attending all these weddings, I'm starting to pay attention to people's comments and concerns.

We ordered chalk and pink and white striped straws to help decorate the mason jars.

  

*Here are some photo's taken by our guests from the wedding

Too cute to not be the Ring bearer

Like I mentioned in my flower girl post, after seeing Daniel standing next to Addison, I knew he had to be the ring bearer. We originally weren't going to have one, but he is just too precious to pass up.


I found this adorable little boys vintage vest to match Jeff's suede vest he will be wearing. The vest was rush shipped to arrive before the wedding as we are getting close to the wire Amy from Rootsdown was extremely helpful and very sweet to help us ship quickly.

I found a belt on Cavender's website to go along with the theme of the groomsman's gifts belt buckles. I couldn't find an intial one like the other guys, but we found a cut cowboy one.

Daniel's mom, Mallory, who I also have to give a major THANK YOU to, found him brown cowboy boots, a cream shirt and jeans to wear. Mallory has been my liaison when we needed info on the flower girls.

He is going to be adorable. This is his first wedding he is in, and he's 2 so we can only hope he puts on a good show. If he's anything like my brother was when he was a ring bearer, he won't even make it down the aisle. I think the kids are adorable especially when they do the unpredictable in the ceremony.

Finally getting to test drive my Cricut with chalkboard labels

I became obsessed with seeing the chalkboard labels everywhere and decided I could cut my own if I had a Cricut. I luckily received a Cricut Expression for Christmas, so we ordered 2 rolls of chalkboard vinyl online, which is about 20 yards. I wanted to make sure we had enough to cut 400 labels for our guests to have on their mason jars at the reception. I had to cut out 12" x 12" squares by using a scrapbook paper as my guide before putting the vinyl in the Cricut to cut out the labels.


After cutting out the 12" x 12" squares I put the vinyl on the mat and inserted in the feeder. I selected my label option Bookplt1 Shadow to cut 10 times.









I began a system after the starting the Cricut up. I would cut my 12" x 12" piece while the Cricut cut out 10 labels, then I would switch them out and start again. 40 pieces later I had 400 labels ready to be placed on mason jars.

My Adorable Flower Girls

Trying to stick with the theme of getting dresses made, I found these cute dresses on Etsy, from England, but as time passed and we didn't order them right away, I began searching for other dresses. I found them on LaParisLaur's shop We ordered the Beautifu Natural Ivory Ruffle Dress with vintage lace and Flower. I ordered them in May and had them by June, she is located in Chicago so it wasn't too far to ship to Jefferson City. I had her ship them to me and then I shipped them to the flower girls in Tennessee so I could make sure they looked ok. I think Kimber and Addison look adorable in them.

Addison's dress was a little long so we had a family member remove the bottom layer as you can see in the last photo. Next to Addison is Daniel who looked so cute next to her we decided he should be the ring bearer. Talk about a last minute addition, we're now searching for him an outfit to match Jeff.

I asked how they liked the dresses and I was told they loved them and they felt really pretty. I'm so happy they loved them and they look adorable in their pink boots to match me. I can't wait to see them in person!

I'm going to make muslin fabric roses to put in their hair the day of the wedding to match their dresses.

Cotton and Wheat Boutonnieres

Wanting to stay true to our country wedding theme, I was looking for something different than the traditional flower boutonnieres. Jeff had always talked about his mom growing up in Tennessee and picking cotton when she was younger so I thought that would be a cute addition to our wedding theme. Back in April I ordered the cotton bolls from Cottonman.com a cotton farm in North Carolina. He also sold wheat bundles, so I ordered a bundle of wheat. I bought a roll of jute from Joann's.

When they arrived, I searched ideas online to see what styles I liked and decided I wanted to do 3 pieces of wheat behind the cotton boll and wrap the jute around the stem. The key is to hot glue spots while you are wrapping the jute so it stays. I also glued the stems together and started wrapping from the top. I did two layers of jute wrapping on the stem so the pins were able to stay better.

These were fairly easy and I was able to make 20 of them pretty quickly.

DIY coaster favors for the wedding

At our reception, we ordered 400 mason jars for everyone to drink out of. I designed this mason jar design with our last name replacing the Ball on it and put JA instead of the TM.

To make the coasters you need tile, which can be found at 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" tile,Mod Podge and a glue gun.

Cost savings: I purchased a large amount of tile on Craigslist, for a reasonable price. For the amount of tiles we made, we decided to hot glue 5 dots on the bottom of the coaster instead of cutting out felt and gluing it to the bottom as I have done in the past. We also ran out of the white tile and I had different colors, so we had to paint the tiles white to not let the blue or green color show through.

What to do:

• Print the design out, I could only fit 2 squares on each page.
  
• Cut squares out, I found it easy to do with my cricut trimmer
  
• Hot glue the dots on the corners and in center
  
• Mod Podge the design onto the tile, let dry
  
• After design is dry, Mod Podge over it to seal it to make it waterproof
  
• Let dry and you are done!
  

Thank you to my mom for helping me make the 400 coasters! Without her it wouldn't have been finished!

Hey! I'm crazy and decided to make my own invitations.

After looking at hundreds of different invitation options and receiving so many this year (13 weddings plus our own to attend) , I couldn't relate to any. None of them portrayed our wedding the way I wanted it to. So, being the control freak that I am, I decided to make them myself. I figured, how hard could this really be? People make them all the time. Wow, did I have some interesting moments during the invitation process.
First I looked online at different card stock options and found this site called cutcardstock.com. They were very reasonably priced and had the colors and sizes I thought I needed. They shipped them to me extremely fast and arrived in perfect condition.

I ordered:

• Pop-tones "Whipped Cream" size A-7, 5 1/8" x 7"
  
• Brown Bag Kraft square flap A-7 envelopes
  
• Pop-tones "Whipped Cream" size A-1, 3.5" x 4 7/8"
  
• Pop-tones "Whipped Cream" size A-2, 4.25" x 5.5"
  
• Brown Bag Kraft square flap A-2 envelopes
  

I used A-7 for the actual invitation, A-1 for hotel accommodations and response cards (a minor mistake) and A-2 for the thank you cards.
Wanting them to have the diy rustic look I came to terms with printing them on my computer printer. I designed my invitation, accommodation card and the mad lib response card and decided to start printing some. Fail. My printer would not allow me to insert random sized paper into the feeder. I called my mom freaking out and she said don't stress, bring it to our house this weekend and I'm sure one of our 3 printers will work. Success! I began printing away at her house until I ran out of ink...not once, but twice. Also the border was a cm off when I printed them so I had to trim 220 invitations so the borders were even on the paper. I was printing invitations, response and accommodation cards all the way up until Jeff said, Amy if we don't leave now we won't be able to get our dog from the kennel, it's a 2 hour drive.
When I returned home I was feeling pretty good, minor printing and trimming issues were resolved, I was happy with the look, next steps were to stuff, address and stamp.
I decided I wanted to put burlap squares behind each invitation to give it that rustic country feel. So I spent a few nights cutting 220 squares of burlap. Random fact: Dogs love the smell of burlap! I can't tell you how many times I had to swipe a piece of burlap from Tucker. Finally I gave up and let him play with a piece. I wanted to wrap a piece of jute around the pieces, but it was too bulky in the brown bag envelope.
In the few days that I was cutting all those burlap squares I decided I should go to the post office to make sure it was up to par. He made me remove the piece of jute, which I had already figured I'd remove, but tried it anyways. I asked him for stamps for the invitations and postcard stamps. He then asked to see the post card. As he takes it from me, he puts it on his measuring board and tells me, "You are going to have to get these re-printed, they are a half an inch to short." After a breath I looked at him with tears in my eyes and said seriously? He replied with well it's either re-print them or buy envelopes to put them in. I wanted to just start crying at that point, but I held it in and said fine, I will go buy some envelopes because I am not re-printing these, I had enough issues with them. I bought the stamps for the invitations and walked out quietly cursing to myself over a half of a cm.
Once I was in the car I called my mom with another freak out moment and she was busy so I could only vent for a moment. I then decided to call our friend who's mom works at the post office to see what would happen if I put a regular stamp on them and sent them off anyways. Her mom told us that if it has a stamp on it, they normally ship it. She saw a piece of cardboard come through with a stamp on it so she figured I would be ok with my wedding response cards. Then I called a bridesmaid to discuss my frustration and she calmed me down and determined to give it a try. Isn't the post office complaining it needs more revenue? I'm trying to buy stamps to mail my 220 wedding invitations along with 220 response cards, so I will buy the regular stamps and they can make an extra $28 by having me send the 45 cent stamps on everything even if it's half an inch too short.
I hand addressed all my invitations myself, along with the return address. I only had white return address labels and I didn't like how it looked so the perfectionist in me made it match. I wish I would have bought one of those cute stamps on Etsy.
I must admit I did have a helper, Jeff helped me stuff all the invitations and seal them with the Scotch Scrapbookers Glue. After what felt like weeks, it was really days, we finally finished all the invitations. I was extremely pleased with them and our mail man delivered them back to us. He even stopped me and said you seem to be planning a very large party, best wishes to you both! Made my day especially after thinking I wouldn't receive any of our response cards because they were a little short. Thank you to the usps workers that allowed me to receive my response cards!

*Fonts used were Bleeding Cowboys and Bookman Old Style.

April Shower

When I first got engaged, the shower was discussed. I said I would like to only have one, invite everyone and not have to worry about 3 different weekends of showers (I was also working with the 10 other weddings, showers and bachelorette party's I would be attending). Our shower was held at Jeff's family's church, it was large enough to hold a lot of people, so we didn't have to have multiple showers, making it easier on everyone.

A huge thank you to Judy Smith who lead the planning of the cutest shower for me. Judy had quite a few helpers from the church, all the ladies were very much appreciated by our families. She found some cute cherry blossom plates and napkins to make my pink, brown and cream theme stay true at the shower. She had someone make oreo balls, which she didn't realize, I'm a cake ball queen and very much appreciated the little gesture. she also had the large jugs with pink lemonade as the refreshment. Pictured Below is Jeff's mom, Fran, My mom, Kelly, Judy and me

Cute drink station

Guests at the shower

Opening one of my favorite gifts, my PINK mixer, which was from Judy and ladies who helped with my shower from the church.

Me and my sister, maid of honor

Some of my bridesmaids...a few are missing, I had 10 total.

Me and my groom, Jeff

Wedding Party Attire

Back in January I headed off with one of my bridesmaids to visit every craft store in Columbia that sells fabric. Luckily after going into Hobby Lobby, we found the perfect fabric, a light pink and brown paisley fabric.

The goal is to have each girl select a different style pattern to look good with their body type in this fabric. We hired a seamstress and began the process. We also decided the guys would have vests made to match the dresses. Girls will wear a brown belt and boots with their dresses while the guys wear a tan button up, paisley vest, jeans and brown belt and boots.

Enjoy the previews, I can't wait for the big day to see everyone looking fabulous in Pink Paisley...which I recently discovered is a popular trend for spring and summer this year! I love being ahead of the trends!

Flowers and BBQ

While out in Columbia, we have been doing some planning from a distance trying to coordinate times to meet with a florist, caterer, decide on centerpieces and get dresses and vests made for the wedding party. So when I'm in Hillsboro for the weekend, I take full advantage of wedding planning time with my mom.

During my birthday weekend we went to Drummond Florist in Desoto, and picked out the bridesmaid bouquets and some flowers for the centerpieces. Here is the inspiration

My bouquet is going to be a brooch bouquet like Miranda Lambert's bouquet, my mom and her friend Holly are making it for me.

The boutonniere's will be made of cotton bolls, wheat and jute. I am making them myself :)
Here is the cotton boll

While we were at the florist, our caterer dropped off the bbq to sample. We will be having Pulled Pork from King Daddy's Catering. It is the best pulled pork I have ever had.

We then hit up hobby lobby to look for unique centerpiece ideas, to give the reception a very vintage/country feel.

I can't wait to see everything come together!