Surprisingly lovely...

Is it amazing when something unexpectedly (good) happens? Like grabbing coffee just to hear the person in front of you pre-paid for your order? Or if you're a mess like me, being surprised with a holiday your office is closed for?

In Japan over 600 manhole covers have been "recreated" into a burst of art. What a nice way to brighten up your day....

Juliana Herrera has patched some love into cracked sidewalks in Paris. Just what that city needed, to get even more cute and cozy.

Lighting can be $$, so I was thrilled to see these modern marvels at under $100

Of course, now that all my wedding invites and thank you cards are out these hippie love stamps hit the post office.... le sigh.

Things I love on the interwebs

So, its been a slow week at work and I've come to the end of the internet.... here is what I've found to be pretty nifty imo.

Make Fido fancy

Vintage Carafe

Bright cover-ups for summer

Garden by color, funky plant stakes to keep your greens properly labeled

Wine not say something, personalized sauce

Dreaming of my next vacay.... but here are a few pix from Spain!

Almost Friday friends! I can see the light....

Budget bride

So I'm officially a married gal! Jeff and I tied the knot on the beach in Cabo at the beautiful hotel Zoetry end of March. We had about 35 of our closest friends and family for an all-inclusive vacation/celebration. I wanted to share some of our planning/wedding highlights.

Paper/Invites: for our save the dates, wedding invites and Cabo itinerary my close friend and designer Ashley helped me craft a vintage/natural theme. Using colors like light blue, sage green and tan we sent out "boarding pass" save the date, travel poster/post card invites and "passport" in-room booklets keeping our guest informed of the hotel amenities and events. (Ashely's starting a shop on etsy, which I'll link to once its up!)
Cost:
Design- Free
Paper/envelopes- $100
*Random: $120
Printing- Ashley took care of this as well! What a steal!

*I bought a Gocco printer, that I used to print parts of her design onto my envelopes. Also we used raffia to tie our invites together.


The event: for the wedding, I wanted to have things that were uniquely mine... and not going to bust your budget. After dress shopping, I found a few ($3k-$5k) dresses I liked and used those as inspiration for a lady to create a dress for me, from scratch for $500! (not including fabric cost)
Cost:
Fabric: $160
Dress: $500

I wore a pearl/diamond necklace my grandfather had given me and used etsy for the rest. I had a flower/veil hairpiece, cake topper and shrug created to match my vintage style.
Cost: It was under $200 for all 3 pieces to be originally created just for us, worth the investment! Love me some etsy.

Venue: Luckily, a beach provides most of your ambience! The hotel's outdoor area was changed to an imperial/single table to make the space feel different on the day of. For the placecards, I purchased some buri fans online and some tags/stamps/ribbon at Michaels and handwrote each persons name to keep our intimate feel.
Cost:
Table/seating: included with wedding package
Cards: ~$75
Flowers: $700

The shoes I did splurge on, but I tried so hard not too! I ended up with these lovely Badley Mischka shoes, but they were ~$100 on sale!

I thought overall we had a unique and initimate wedding. I am so grateful that we were able to spend time with our friends and loved the beach wedding. I say same time, same place next year?

etsy-mania

Someone, help me! I'm addicted and I can not stop. Is there a recovery program for this?!

The last 6wks alone I've bought, earrings, a shrug, cake toppers and a hairpiece for the wedding. Wowza! And prior to that, the list is just as long.

You can sort on Etsy.com for your treasures by 1. local finds (purchasing from vendors of handmade or vintage goods in your area) 2. pounce (isn't that just fun to say), for a random list of things that are a. just posted b. something just sold from that shop or lastly, 3. searching through the treasury for hand selected collections.

I mean, just look at how cute and synchronized the home page is? Love teal and brown.

Galpals + New Orleans

Every year I am reminded of how fortunate I am to have such amazing, fun, feisty, adventurous gal pals when we make our annual girls trip. So for 2011, we combined that trip with my bachelorette party which was spent end of January in the French Quarter. This was my third time there and a few ladies first so we hit some old favs and some new hot spots.

Here are some of our highlights:
We only ate three meals, but all were simply cajun perfection! We started our Friday night with dinner at Cochan's. We sampled and shared various pork plates that make this restaurant famous. My favorites were the wood-fired oyster roast and the smoked brisket. Yummmm. We then hit up some of Bourbon street for some drinks, street hand-grenades, the haunted and dark Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. The story is that this dark, candle-lit bar is haunted! No ghost spotting’s for us, but we did enjoy a "purple" and some piano bar hits!
The next day we dined at Commander's Palace for the famous brunch and bloody mary's. This place was worth the early (6 wk prior!) booking. The food (shrimp and grits and a strawberry shortcake) was top notch, the singing trio and wait staff really made you feel welcome and I LOVED the special note they left me! Next we walked the cemetery and then took the trolley down for day drinking and bachelorette non sense. Bars worth seeing: Cats Meow (we rocked it out), Sing Sing (good live music), Hotel Monteleone and Tujague's (old fashion cocktails and they were being photographed for a book featuring the oldest bars in the US!).

Thank you ladies for an amazing trip to New Orleans, looking forward to our next trip... where should we go?!

Random loves

Things that make my heart beat fast....

This vintage salt and pepper shakers, so mid century modern and fabulous! (via etsy)

Anthropologie's new wedding line, all of it, but especially these earrings. Don't you just love that color?

Sleepy pups on white linens! (via snippet and ink)

Badgley Mischka's 2011 Spring line have these romantic shoes that are adorable and will be later featured in my 2011 Wedding line.

And if you 'like' AA Advantage on fb, you can enter your FF# and get anywhere from 100-10,000 miles! One step closer to my trip around the world....

What I like right now...

A few random things I've found on the interwebs.....

Cool DIY vintage globe, who is up for making this a fun Saturday home project with me?

This is so cute, little daddy & daughter jam session (thx for sharing bec!)

Peanut butter bacon cookies? Madness or genius?

Lovely calendars to celebrate this year, after all, its going to be the best one yet...

This cold weather has be craving a hot tawdy

10 tips to keep your travel cost low

Happy 2011 everyone!