This week I bought things...

Those of you that know me personally, know that I'm not a big clothes shopper. Sure, I love to buy makeup, but owning 3 Urban Decay palettes will insure that there isn't a single shade of eyeshadow I need. And really, most of the time I would rather spend my money on the latest gadgets. Although I do tend to buy nail polish on a regular basis.

This week happened to be an exception. Every store I popped into with Nick the last few days has been having some sort of ridiculous sale. Realistically, I was in need of some new clothes as my husband reminded me that I have 6 identical black v-neck shirts hanging in the closet... Yep, it has gotten to that point where my fashionista husband has to rag on me to finally buy some darn clothes.

So I gave in of course and got some new things!

DIY Fabric Pin/Headboard

I recently stubbled on a cute fabric cork board on Pinterest and thought it would be the perfect thing to hang above our bed. I might not have jumped at this little DIY project as quickly if I hadn't already had a rather large cork board leftover from our wedding.

What you'll need:

- Cork board

- paint (if cork board isn't the color you want)

- fabric

- silver push pins

All of my supplies were purchased from Hobby Lobby (love their coupons), and I did use acrylic paint which is different than the pinner I got this from. 

I started off by painting the cork board the night before with a glossy acrylic black paint so it would match the rest of our bedroom furniture. I know some of you are thinking "glossy?" this paint really has a very light gloss to it. After painting two thick coats of this stuff (outside) I let it dry over night.

The next day I measured and marked the back side of the fabric using the cork board itself. I then marked an extra inch on all sides so I could iron the fabric for a clean line. Since, the fabric I picked was a bit stretchy I secured the fabric down with regular fabric pins. That kept it from moving on me while I tried to put the silver push pins in. It didn't take long to get all the silver push pins in and then it was happily hung with command strips above our bed!

I also had enough fabric leftover to cover a pillow!

Home Management Binder

I've been on a serious organization kick lately. I would like to thank Pinterest for that. I've seen a lot of things that I knew I could make for myself. I originally made printable PDF pages for my wedding binder. I had so many paper notes and lists I wanted to just make a set of printable things I could utilize during my crazy wedding process. Anyway, I saw some really cool home management binders that make planning schedules and keeping information together really easy.

I typically have to make an effort to keep myself organized and on track with my agenda that I keep with me for school, work, and anything else I pencil in. I wanted to make a binder that could include Nick's appointments and work schedule in as well as some of our important information to have handy. And since I'm not a huge cook and Nick literally eats only three different things I included my recipes with the rest of the binder.

* If anyone is interested in these PDFs let me know in the comments *

The Tabs I used are:

Info

Contacts 

Goals

Calendar

Party Planning

Finances

Shopping

Recipes

{download this pdf}

User names & passwords {download this pdf}

Important dates {download this pdf}

{download this pdf}

{download this pdf}

{ I made full sheets for individual days in the Calendar section so I could reuse them by just putting sticky notes for things to do}

{download this pdf}

PDFs not shown above:

- Monthly checklist {download this pdf}

- Monthly budget {download this pdf}

- Year at a glance {download this pdf}

- Adresses {download this pdf}

My Beautiful DIY Wedding Invitations

I think one of the most important elements of your wedding is your invitations. They give your guests a little glimpse of your wedding. I wanted to do just that... on a budget. 

After Nick and I had decided on our theme I was positive I wanted to make a lot of the stuff myself. Since our theme is a bit rustic and summery I thought that making some of the elements  would further fit the theme. I must also confess that I'm a bit of a control freak and perfectionist when it comes to certain things. My wedding is one of them so of course I wanted my invitations to look and feel like us... I admittedly looked around online and compared prices/options because it surely would be easier to order some, but I just didn't find anything that really caught my eye so I fired up Photoshop and got to work.

I spent several weeks just messing around with ideas on photoshop for my design and looking at inspiring photos on Pinterest. After several mock ups and font changes I finally came up with a design I liked and just went with it. I then went in search of the products I'd use to print the invitations on. In the end Hobby Lobby became my go-to store because they are always have such wonderful sales and have a huge variety of crafts and decor. I ended up using coupons and catching a scrapbooking material sale. I purchased cream colored card stock, paper bag colored card stock, and 5x7 envelopes and 4x5.5 envelopes and notecards in the same color. 

While in Hobby Lobby I found the cutest brown paper tags that came with twine. They were a bit pricey for my taste and I figured I could just cut the card stock into similar tags. I had originally planned to tie twine around my invites into a simple bow, but the tags were so cute I just had to incorporate them. I'm so glad I did, because the invites look like cute little packages wrapped in paper and tied with twine!

I am beyond thrilled with how they turned out and I feel it was very rewarding (although time consuming) to make these myself. 

The Progression of My Desk

Over the last couple of years I always seem to take pictures of my desk setup. This year is no different.

2012:

2011:

2010:

A Preview...

I just wanted to post a little glimpse at some of my wedding decorations. This is certainly not all of it... Trust me! These are some of my favorite little things though. I'm not going to go into too much detail on everything because it's kind of surprise, ya know? So as you may have figured out our theme is a bit rustic. I may or may not post of glimpse of the centerpieces I'm making... We'll see!

Organization and Wedding Planning

Most people wouldn't think I'm a super organized person, but I actually have to keep my agenda up to date and highlighted in colors corresponding with certain activities (i.e. school or work) or my life just goes into chaos. Which you can see here...

So of course, wedding planning is no exception. In addition to a my iPad 2 as an awesome planning tool, I wanted a physical binder to keep my lists, contracts, and other documents. Plus, it's always great to have something physical to show your friends. For the most part I used my iPad 2 for making boards of my inspirational images, ideas and lists I could take shopping with me. This was so much easier to walk around with instead of my giant binder.

I decided to put my binder in four categories:To Do, Contracts/ Venue info, Craft Mock ups, and Inspiration (physical images taken from magazines, etc). The to do tab is where I have put everything from things to purchase, tasks I need to get done, and the guest list. Obviously, the contracts are all physical information I need at hand and in a safe place. Then my craft mock up tab includes everything from my save the date mock up and the first run of invitations and post cards I created.

It would probably be good to mention that I've been using those clear document sleeves for binders. They are pretty cheap for a huge pack and look a little nicer than just 3-hole punching everything. 

The only other things in my binder that do not fall in tab categories are my front zip pockets that I got at Wal-mart for like .75 cents, and the folder for our registry information. The zip pockets or pencil pockets, were added after I put together the binder because I was super annoyed at having my stamps, post-its, and other junk just floating around. 

I feel like such a dork with my goofy binder, but whatever it has helped me stay so organized through out this process. I also love just being able to flip through my lists and check off what I've done/purchased. Oh, and I picked the goofiest picture of us ever for the cover. We're cool like that.