A Tornado and New Floors!

Its been awhile since I've posted. Nothing really too new going on. We had tornados about five miles down the road in a town called Windsor last Thusrday. It was crazy, we've never had a tornado so close to us before! We visited the site that night after everything had calmed down and it was terrible. There were tons of people everywhere trying to help clean up.

Friday we finished installing the hardwood floors throughout the house! We did our whole upstairs, the living room and hallway, two hallway closets, and both extra bedrooms! The only thing upstairs that isn't hardwood is the kitchen and guest bathroom, which we tiled ourselves as well! Other then this though...no wedding planning or anything has been done, talk of our honeymoon has come about a couple times though..we're trying to figure out where we'd like to go!

Pictures below of the tornado and the new floors :)

This house was completely mangled :( A lot of houses were missing their roofs and were half torn apart. The picture below shows the sign letting people know everyone was out of the job site..ha

This is a picture of the two black hawk helicopters that the governor flew in on. Pretty sweet!

These Pictures below are of the floors in our living room...I guess I didn't take any of either of the bedrooms or anything! The pictures are kind of gross..It looks like there was water droplets or something on my lens?? Hmmm..?

Now all we need is molding!

DIY Cardbox

Wednesday night we made our cardbox that will hold all the cards at the wedding. Its everything I wanted it to be and MORE :) We had a really good time making it too! We got all our supplies together and our Margaritas then went to town. It took about an hour or so but just because the actual top was a little tricky and I had to do it twice :( It was all trial and error though. We had a basic idea of what we were doing from a couple other websites including the blog Road to the Aisle but really we didn't follow her measurements. We just used some L-Brackets and attatched all the frames together then just put a bottom and a top on it and bam it was done! Its so pretty-The frames are white and the top is a yellow and white plaid design! It was actually the first thing for the wedding we've done together! I went home by myself and met all the vendors in March that we're booking so he hasn't really done anything so this was very nice to do it together! I actually think he's more into the idea of the wedding now that he's done something for it!


Supplies/Directions:
4 Picture Frames-I used 8x10 frames but you can do whatever you want. Believe me 8x10 was big enough!
L-Brackets-I used 16 brackets total-4 packets of 4
Screws-for the L brackets-I used #8 so they wouldn't go through the holes in the brackets and 1/2" deep ones so they didn't go through the frames
Foam Board
Pretty Fabric
Batting
Drill
Screwdriver
Stapler

Ruler
Duck Tape

First we attatched all four frames together with L Brackets-We didn't really measure where we put them, we just attatched them (two on each side of the frame) then just lined the frames up and attatched it to the other frame wherever it lined up at right! I left the glass in for this step and I think it would've been easier if the glass would've been removed but its up to you. We had to use a screwdriver instead of a drill to attatch the last frame since the drill wouldn't fit in the box.

After we had the four sides together we added four L brackets to the bottom half of the frames to make a shelf support for the foam board to sit on. For the foam board I just took a ruler and measured the space between the frames-then just cut the board to that size and dropped it in!

These two pictures are looking into the box at the bottom. The one without the foam board and the other with.

After the bottom was in we duck taped it to the L brackets just for a little extra support.

After we put the bottom on it was time for the top. I felt like the top was the hardest part. I first cut the top the same size as the bottom with an exacto knife, which was fine. But I needed the top to be a little smaller because with the batting and fabric it wasn't going to fit. The hard part was trimming the foam board, I tried to use the knife but that didn't work so I switched to scissors, which were a pain in the ass. They ended up working but it took forever to just trim it down a little to what I needed it to be.

We attatched four L brackets-one to each from to make a shelf for the top to sit on as well. Just like we did for the bottom but with them upside down. All in all I think it turned out pretty well! I plan on re-doing the top though..Its too wrinkly for my tastes so I want to try and smooth it out! Heres the finished product though!

Cheap Paper! WOO!

So after searching around for about a week and waiting for samples, I found the perfect deal on white micah paper. Where you ask? EBAY :) Everywhere I looked, like all the paper websites, it was ATLEAST $0.45 (some where like $0.63!!) A SHEET!! All because it was a metallic paper. I wanted to go through anchorpapers again because Tom has such awesome prices..but he didn't carry that color :( He looked at the color of it and said it looked exactly like another brand of paper, stardreams in the color crystal, but that that was the ONLY color in the stardreams collection that he didn't carry! Figures! So the search began and I lucked out! I'm getting 100 sheets of 8.5 x 11 white micah cardstock for....$35!!!! WOOHOOO I found the girl on ebay by searching for white micah, but she only had a post for like 25 sheets of 5 x 7.. but I asked if she had other sizes and stuff and she did! She got back to me today with the price and I was like DONE! I plan on using these on the invitations and 100 sheets of that size will allow me to make two invitation per page for a total of 200 so that was perfect!

Oh shit..I didn't even think that I had planned on using that as the invitation..AND all the inserts! I need to let her know I need more!! Thank god I just thought of that! I'm also thinking about putting our save the dates on that color paper but I had planned on waiting to order that till like July or somewhat closer...maybe I'll save on shipping if I get it all now though..But I'd have to pay for all that paper now..and I would probably need about 100 more just for the save the dates..and about 200 or so more for the inserts..maybe even more..oh shit..I need to figure this out like NOW!!

Day Three!

So I've been on my WW diet for three days now!~ Its a little hard but I feel really motivated to stick with it because its actually kind of easy to do! I get to eat whatever I want, and everything is worth points, and I just get so many points a day. Today I went over my points by a couple, but I was under my points the two previous days so I think it kind of weighed itself out. Plus you get an extra 35 points a week that your allowed to use if you need to, because they don't let you have very many points, I'm allowed to have 23 a day, so technically I'm still in my point range! I've been drinking TONS of water though..I hate water :( Jerry and I also took our babies (buddy a lab, and mesa a corgi) on a farely long bikeride tonight to a watering hole to let them go swimming. That was about the most excercise I've had in awhile! We have a bowflex home gym..but of course I never use it, I think I might start. I just can't wait to watch all this weight fall off. I started out at 155 pounds..We'll see next Tuesday when I weigh in how much I've lost!

My unity candle holders also came into today and I decided to go with the one from the knot. I also was able to sell the one I originally bought off ebay to another knottie so that wasn't a loss of money thank god! The one from ebay just seamed sort of cheap. The stand and stuff was nice but the actual part that held the main candle was like silver painted plastic. The one from the knot is a beautiful opal color and its definitely 'the one'.

Last night Jerry and I went shopping as well. We tried to find something to wear for our engagement photos but with no luck we came home with just some clothes for summer. We did buy the stuff to make the card holder though! We were out and I realized I forgot my coupon to Michaels for 25% off..so we drove ALL the way home..okay its only like five miles but still! ha Then when we got to michaels, we realized almost everything we wanted was on sale anyways so the coupon was no good! The frames, originally $10 a piece were 40% off!! What a steal! The foam board and batting were only like $2 a piece so that wasn't even worth waisting the coupon on! I still need to get some pretty fabric, but I kind of wanted to see the box all made before I decide and we still need a lazy susan...but I didn't feel like going to Walmart.

Weight Watchers

So I signed up for weight watchers today! After a discussion on the knot the other day with all the other July 09 knotties and how some have tried weight watchers and it worked I was thinking about trying it out. Then I woke up this morning and read knottie heatherkj's blog, and what do you know, it was about how she had just re-joined WW yesterday. Crazy. I took it as a sign and started my three month membership. I'm allowed to have 23 points a day which I dont think will be too bad. I was able to stick with it today just fine, although it was a little hard adding items to the recipe page to figure out how many points my casserole I made tonight was. We'll see how it goes though.

UPS also showed up at the door around 6:30 and what do you know, it was the opal unity candle holder from the knot, they didn't even send me a notice they had shipped it yet so I def. wasn't expecting that. But it is soooo beautiful, even more beautiful then in the pictures. Its a really pretty opal color and it just shines and aww.. :) I should have the other one I ordered off of ebay tomorrow. I'm excited!

OFFICIALLY booked

Its final! I feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders and that this wedding actually starting to happen! I sent in a check last Thursday to our vendor for our ceremony/reception site for $500 which was the deposit to rent the place for the day. I have to mail one more check in on June 1st for $300 and its paid for! I also mailed my poppa bear the contract for our photographer and he said he would take that to her with the $500 deposit on Thursday! There are two major things out of the way! I also booked our dj about a week or so ago. He only wanted a deposit of $125. There are three major people I have put my deposits down for! The only thing I really need now is a florist and a baker, but I don't plan on getting those booked till around December or so.

I also found a photographer around here that will be doing our engagement photos for us. We're getting them done on June 22nd (I'm pretty sure thats the day). I don't know if I'm too excited for this lady but she was the cheapest-$150. I am excited to get them done though. Then I can start on the save-the-dates. I also have to wait till knottie heatherkj has her own wedding so she can get her FI to start on our wedding website so I can put them on the save-the-dates as well. I've picked out the paper for them and I think I'm going to order it on Friday-payday-YAY! Then I can start designing those on the computer and get them started. Then once I have the picture and website I can make the layout for the magnets. Then I can ship them off, hopefully that will be right around August sometime.

I've been looking into decorations too. I picked up a couple things to decorate the baskets with that I plan on buying to hold the bubbles and birdseed but I still need some other materials. And neither of the unity candle holders I ordered have even been shipped yet so I'm waiting on those as well, hopefully they'll be here this week.

Other than that I have not been doing anything, I have so many ideas that run through my head daily..its starting to get chaotic! ha This past weekend we worked in our yard and laid some grass seed so hopefully we'll get some grass soon. Next weekend we're going to finish laying the hardwood floors that we've been working on for two weekends! Hopefully this will help take my mind off wedding planning a little bit.

Its been awhile

Its been about two weeks since my last post. I haven't really done anything wedding related latley so I didn't want to post and have nothing really to say. I did shop around and I ordered two unity candle holders that I liked. I couldn't decide between the two so I figured I'd order both and return the one I didn't like. I bought one off the knot (the one on the top) and then one off ebay (the one on the bottom). Hopefully I like the one I got off ebay better that way I can return the one from the knot because I don't think the one I got off ebay is returnable.

I also have made the pocketfolds for almost all 200 invitations. I only need like 175 I think but I'll make 200 to be safe for those unexpected last minute additions. I still haven't ordered the paper for the inside of the invitations because I want that shiny metallic paper and I'm not sure if you can emboss on that type of paper, so I have to wait and find out first.

I also get to call the ceremony/reception venue lady today and hopefully officially get her booked. We're getting our rebate checks by the 16th so I'm hoping to mail out the check by then! I also plan on mailing my dad the contract for the photographer next week and then having him take her the check and everything so she'll be officially booked too! Things are finally starting!