Cake Toppers...check!

rumroll please. Ta da!Cake toppers for our not so real wedding cake! I've been seeing a bunch of these wooden peg wedding couple cake toppers, but they're always so ridiculous in price. Ranging anywhere from $80-$120, it's just a lot to pay when so many little things keep popping into your budget and you're bleeding money that you don't have. But I love them and decided to try making them myself. If it didn't work out, no harm no foul, I'd be out like $8. I bought a set of 3 girl and boy wood couples but used only one set ($2.66). Then I bought a set of brushes for $2.99 on sale, and a handful of acrylic paints for about $4. About 6 hours later, I was done. I also had a claw of a hand. It was not pretty. I think it gets easier and faster as you get used to painting them. The groom was first and took a very long time. But the bride was MUCH quicker, thank goodness. I then sealed them with gloss varnish, which I regret because now they look way too shiny. I think I'll go over them with a matte varnish. eek. But now that's one more thing I can check off my list, yay!

Hungry...

am sitting here in my office, waiting for the Fiance to pick me up so that we can head on over to Social Eatz and stuff my face with a burger. I've pretty much eaten every edible thing in my office and now I'm starting to get weak. So what do I do? I read food blogs. Because I love to make myself miserable. The good news is that I found some really inspiring posts!

One of my guilty pleasures is reading Gwyneth Paltrow's blog. I love her. I can't get enough of her. She's the epitome of super cool and wonderful, in my book. Although...I saw her recently on Who Do You Think You Are and her personality was a little...snobbish? It doesn't matter. She's still really awesome and I'm happy to report that we both have a love of Epoisse. Anyway, she had a wonderfully informative post on cheese boards, featuring two of her go-to cheese spots in London and NYC. Obviously, she chose Murray's for NY. If you're looking to have a cheese board set up, this will be helpful (and it will be SO helpful when planning my cocktail hour)!


{courtesy of GOOP}

Moving on, I have been simply drooling over Smitten Kitchen's post on dobos torte, a 7 (here, 10) layer cake of chocolatey goodness. She swears this is easy. I can see that it is likely not, at least not for me. But oh my goodness...yum.


{courtesy of Smitten Kitchen}

Wedding Venting

ver the past few weeks, I've been trying to amp up the wedding planning and buckle down. So far I've chosen bridesmaid dresses, which was actually a bit difficult because I did not want to go over $100 per dress. No one wears them again and being part of a bridal party is expensive to begin with. I found these really classy/elegant and pretty dresses from David's. I love them. I want one. I also booked a florist, which is great because I don't have to deal with ordering the flowers myself! Which was my awful and overly ambitious plan. This florist works independently and will go out to the flower district in the early morning to buy everything wholesale, which allows me to have a really low budget for so many flowers! Success! Now in the not so successful news, I am still searching for a hair and makeup artist. This. Process. Sucks. Let me tell you why. Because trials are EXPENSIVE! They are at least $100. I've had rotten luck so far and did a trial with a company that came highly recommended. I liked it, I didn't love it, and I felt like we didn't get the "look" that I wanted. But I was denied a second trial (unless I paid the entire trial fee) and THEN when I tried to book them, they already signed with someone else! That....pisses me off. Majorly. I'm trying to be cost conscious here. Every penny adds up and I intentionally only got a hair trial because I did not want to pay for both hair and makeup trial. The least that they could have done was to give me a deadline to give an answer, or to tell me before someone else took my date! I understand that they're under no obligation until you give a deposit, but YOU TOOK MY MONEY. Sigh. So now I'm back to the drawing board and so far, everyone is booked. Suggestions?

Next, I've been doing some DIY here and there and my weekend project is to make cake toppers using wooden peg people. Would you believe these go for $120+? Nuh uh. Not happenin' over here. I think more than having the "perfect" wedding, I refuse to give in to the madness of wedding prices. Yes, some things you have to. But other things that may not be as important need to be let go of. Example: I just spent $52 on a hair clip. Who am I? But...it's important. It gets photographed. It's on my head. And I can probably re-sell it or gift it. Ugh. Weddings are so expensive.

I Dream Of...

dreamt of a food recipe last night and now I can't stop thinking about it! I won't reveal it yet (just in case it goes awry) but I want to try my hand at making it this weekend. Here's a hint...it's a ravioli dish! So random! Good thing I bought a ravioli stamp a few months back (and never used it).

I have a super secret (not so secret) recipe book of tried and trues, JUST in case one day the Fiance and I end up opening a small cafe, or JUST in case I decide to write a cookbook one day, or or...who knows.

A DIY Wedding

his was quite the DIY wedding weekend for me and the Fiance. I've been trying to re-create the pinwheels that are so "in" now, but I absolutely refuse to pay these insane prices, just because the word "wedding" is attached to it. Plus, I'm a bit obsessed with paper and picked up several sheets of gorgeous italian print paper for about $3-$5 a sheet (sorry, I don't know the specific measurements, but they're huge).

These are harder to make then they look! Good thing the Fiance was there to help. After I threw a few mistakes down on the table in frustration, he picked them up and reconfigured them and voila! We have pinwheels, folks. I sewed a button in the center for one of them, and plan to do the same to the others. Then fix a stem piece and pop them in a vase.

Next, I tried my hand at making some pom poms to hang around the venue. I think our wedding will have a very DIY look, but I'm trying to be cautious so as not to make it look like we just threw up some arts and crafts and went too cheap. But these pom poms were very easy to make and cost $0. I used tissue paper that came as the wrapping for a West Elm purchase from last week.

Instructions are on Martha Stewart's Craft Page.