Archive for the ‘inspiration’ Category

flowery alternative

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Posted by Rebecca, October 27th, 2010

Yesterday, Sara from House Bella posted this entry about making pom flowers. What’s a pom flower you ask?  Well I asked the same thing and luckily Sara included a picture and some links…

I watched the YouTube video and saw how easy it was to make these adorable and stylish pom flowers.  I think I am going to have to make some because…

a) my cats eat flowers

b) Mike is allergic to many flowers

c) I kill all plants/flowers

Prior to Sara’s post, my solution was to buy some fake hydrangeas.  I don’t like fake flowers, but I love hydrangeas and though we planted some, I will have to wait until the spring for them to bloom. I figured fake hydrangeas don’t look all that fake, so I’d give it a shot.  I stuck two on our mantle in vases to test them out…

That vase is the Mira vase from Crate and Barrel, which they currently only have in purple. Which means I may have to buy another one in purple…

A close up of the fake flowers.  See, they’re not so bad afterall…

Some of my failed missions in flower owning include: (pictures via iPhone)

The time I bought these flowers, which you may recognize as the blue version of the flowers I used for my sister in law’s baby shower

Macky chewed them so they were photographed in the bathroom, where they were safe.  Until they caused Mike to have a sneezing attack so bad that we had to leave the house.  The flowers walked out with us and went into the trash.  I tried. The vase is from Ikea a few years back.

So then I got a few Ikea plants, which we had in the condo and I always called Miss Leafy.  We bought 3 when we moved here to line up on our mantle. As of 2 weeks ago, this is what was left of them…

The fake hydrangeas are my mantle substitute… for now.  I think I’m moving them… I have house A.D.H.D.

So special thanks to Sara for the suggestion and accompanying links!  Families like us need some stylish fake flowers. Especially since I once killed this Ikea cactus…

Really guys, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

house of mouse

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Posted by Rebecca, October 19th, 2010

We have a lot of unfinished, unblogged about projects around here.  We’re waiting for some molding to be finished in the hallway/bedroom and another layer of spackle needs to be applied to the new wall.  We also have yet to finish up the office, because I am in full swing of midterm time over here.  So while Mike was hanging around, unable to make any house progress, he decided to book a vacation.  Ladies and gentlemen….

WE’RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!

In my 26 years on earth (it will be 27 by the time I get there) I have never been to Disney.  That is right.  I might as well be the devil.  I just really didn’t start traveling until I graduated college and by then I only had 2 weeks of vacation to use, so I wanted to go to distant places.  But starting in January, I will receive a third week of vacation! Yaaay!  So we’re leaving January 5th, Mike’s birthday 🙂

Usually when we go on vacation, I like to bring a little something back for the house.  I painted this from one of our Florida vacations (and just so happens to be where we got engaged)….

I painted it for a college art class and we had it hanging in our old bedroom, but I’m not sure what to do with it here yet.  It kinda has sentimental meaning, so I’ll have to frame and hang it somewhere.

When we went to Mexico, I picked up this little cat…

I try to find local, handmade things, but it’s hard in touristy areas.

Then exactly a year ago, when we were in Maui for our honeymoon, Mike snapped literally thousands of pictures…

Four of these awesome photos (which I didn’t have the time to post right now) will be hanging above our fireplace shortly.  I placed two of the “rejects” from the rounds of choices in small frames on our entertainment center…

So what am I going to incorporate from Disney?? Hm maybe I’ll just get some mouse ears for Darwin (Macky and Mowie are too cool for that). Oooor, we do have some Pixar prints already, though they’re packed away somewhere and we never framed them.  Maybe we’ll add to that collection?  I have a weakness for Pixar and all things Finding Nemo, we shall see 🙂

ps- since I was going through honeymoon pictures, I checked the dates to see what we were doing a year ago today.  We were hanging out with chickens and kittens… in one spot!

the wedding

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Posted by Rebecca, October 11th, 2010

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary.  We always have to be different, so instead of doing the 10/10/10 thing we went for 10/10/09.  Actually, I was aiming for 10/3/09 but we couldn’t get the date.  So the 10th it is!

In honor of our anniversary, I decided to post a few (okay, 25) wedding pictures that cover more of the design/style side of the wedding and less of the hey! look at us! side.  How does this relate to the house? Well as I’ve mentioned before, we did all of our flowers and most of the wedding design on the same day as we chose our interior options for the house.  And coincidentally, the foundation of our house was poured on 10/9/09… the day before the wedding.  Here’s a picture of the house on 10/4/09, the last chance we had to take a picture before the wedding….

So without further ado, our wedding, in mostly pictures so I don’t bore you 🙂

(Pictures courtesy of our phenomenal photographer, Zlatko Batistich)

We got married at a very small, little known bed and breakfast with an organic farm not far from where we live.  It’s nestled so far back in the woods that we had driven past numerous times and never knew it was there.  We attempted to time the date so that the leaves had began to change, but of course those things never work out and it was mostly green around the farm.

The wreath our florist made for the door

Our DIY menu cards…Mike used the font from our invites (which we had to purchase and also appears in the title for this site) we printed them on textured cardstock, glued them to green scrapbook paper, hole punched the corners and tied some twine in there.  We made quite the team.

Hey look, it’s me! Coming down the stairs of the old house, which dates back to 1750.

My bridesmaids and I, walking to meet Mike in one of the gardens with old water tower in the background.

There is an old cottage on the grounds and it was one of the reasons why we chose this place.  We had our cocktail hour in this area and since it got chilly at night, the owners lit the fireplace inside.  Definitely one of the highlights of the wedding.  We didn’t even think anyone would go in there, but it was jam packed.

Walking through one of the gardens.  My dress and shoes were filthy before the wedding even started. I’ve never claimed to be very glamorous.

My favorite series of pictures.  I wanted a location with a dirt driveway for this reason.

My bouquet. (Side note- this picture is completely candid, I had no clue it was taken.  How’s that for an awesome photographer?)

Bridal party… girls’ dresses were from David’s Bridal (unbelievable right?), guys got suits from Macy’s and wore striped ties to compliment Mike’s solid tie.  The florist didn’t listen to anything we said about the bridesmaids flowers.  I hate leaves in arrangments.  But when the day comes around, what can you do? I’m no bridezilla.

Always connected…

Mmm cake. The florist “forgot” our topper, so we had a naked cake.  But I kinda like it like that.  Maybe a new trend?

One of the table arrangements

Our DIY menus, with our DIY favors/placecards

The first tag on the favor box gives a name/table number.  The second tag said this…

And was filled with these…probably my favorite part of everything we did.

Farm signage

Every wedding needs a cute kid, I believe we hit the jackpot.  Complete with ring bearer pillow via Etsy.

Ceremony view

Every good party has guacamole!

It rained in the morning, which was very nerve racking, but it cleared up by the afternoon and left us with this beautiful sunset.

The reception was in a tent, which I know a lot of people consider to be a turn off, but it was something we were looking for.  A blank canvas 🙂

And I was dying to hang paper laterns, which don’t exactly go with a ballroom

We specifically asked our caterer for mini ice cream cones, being that we’re pretty well known for being ice cream lovers

Another thing that was huge to us was the music.  We did nothing traditional for the ceremony and didn’t want any group dances, slow dances, etc during the reception, which made for one hell of a party.

The old house at night

All and all, I’d say our wedding was pretty cool, though I suppose I’m a little biased 🙂

Happy Anniversary, Husband.

since I’m in love with…

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Posted by Rebecca, September 28th, 2010

Drum style pendant lights, you can imagine my excitement when I walked into a restaurant last night and saw this. They can spare a few for me, can’t they? 🙂

i see a pattern here…

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Posted by Rebecca, September 26th, 2010

Because I don’t like the combination of taupe and white or anything. I couldn’t have matched this better if I tried. But the tissues won’t be going in my dining room….

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