Showing posts with label Cool Sites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cool Sites. Show all posts

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Wedding Shoes - Add a little color at bargain prices!

The idea of adding a little color under the dress has been widely popular. I see a lot of "real wedding" pics with brides showing off their shoes. Having a color shoe that matches your wedding theme makes options endless - and I love shoes! I fell in love with this purple silk shoe from Nine West and what a bargain it is from Amazon's shoe site 6pm.com:


This particular shoe is also offered in Black Silk and Taupe Silk. Add in free shipping and you just scored! 6pm.com offers name brand shoes and sometimes you can score these shoes at deeply discounted prices! It's a great site to shop at and they have (literally) 1000's of shoes! I was browsing the Clearance section and look at these deals:

It is also available in French Blue, the color shown above which is a pretty popular wedding shoe color!
One of my favorite bridal shoe designers is Pour La Victoire. Gorgeous shoes but, they are not cheap! So, finding them at bargain prices is a big deal! Many white and ivory satin designs feature blue leather soles that read "I DO" in sparkling rhinestones. But, their colored shoes are also trendy, well made shoes you would pick as your go-to favorite! This morning I saw a "Real Wedding" on La Magnifique and the bride was wearing the "Divia" by Pour La Victorie in Royal Blue Satin! I found the same pair, in a pretty Silver satin:

Product Image
I do love the Royal Blue Satin color though so I had to sneak in these! The "Baylie" is available in 5 colors and lots of sizes are available!
Product Image


Saturday, September 3, 2011

Get your Hollywood Makeover - Online!

Today, I have been playing around with this online tool from InStyle Magazine. It's called the Hollywood Makeover and it is totally fun addicting! If you want to play around with your wedding day look this is the place for you - now you don't have to have multiple trials with your hair and makeup girl! You just upload a picture of yourself and away you go! You can choose from options like hair, makeup - including lips, eyes, skin or do the whole package with the complete look! I uploaded a picture and tried out different hairstyles - I really liked Katie Holmes hairstyles and even one using Michelle Obama's hair style looked pretty good on me! Just for fun, I opted to let the hubby see how I would look with long hair using Kim Kardashian! Here are my looks:

Go check it out here! It's a lot of fun! A few other sites have something similar but, I found Instyle to be more user friendly! Who is your favorite celebrity?

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Mini Cakes

One of the featured vendors for the Aqua Blue and Red inspiration was Carrie's Cakes. This bakery, located in Sandy, UT, is the owned and operated by...you guessed it: Carrie! She has been making cakes for over 30 years and I can tell you, it really makes a difference when you have that much experience behind you! An idea I toyed around with when I was planning my own wedding (6 years ago) was having mini cakes - but, they were pretty much non-existent then.

Carrie has a whole section of her website dedicated to these delightful mini works of art! She has perfected the use of fondant - she has her own secret recipe and if you have ever tried working with fondant you will know what a huge undertaking this is.
One of the best things about mini cakes is that you can have all different kinds of cakes - different shapes, sizes and flavors! 

The other reason I wanted to share about Carrie's Cakes is because she seems FUN! I looked at all her incredible cakes and I read her blog. She offers cake classes and has a store on her website where you can purchase tools if you want to try your hand at cake making - even DVD tutorials! But, the thing that really put her personality in perspective was this video:


Wedding cake delivery on a scooter! from David Perry on Vimeo.

Kudos to you Carrie! I loved watching this video because, seriously - when have you ever seen something like this? Love the polka dot helmet, love the awesome pink scooter and love the CakeSafe delivery box! This is just awesome - I wish I was in Utah so I could meet her in person (and order a mini cake!).

Friday, July 8, 2011

Maryland: Antrim 1844 Inn and local wedding photographers

One of the things I do every day is surf wedding websites and blogs...it's a tough job, I know. Sometimes, I find myself at sites and I forget how I got there. Such is the case with finding Mr. and Mrs. Adams. It's a blog that was written for (I assume) friends and family to enjoy the musings of a young couple embarking down the aisle. Like I said, I am not sure how I got there but, what kept me there (for a couple of days now) was reading about the venue where "Mr. and Mrs. Adams" (not their real names) were planning their wedding: Antrim 1844. This venue is a neoclassical Civil War plantation that now serves as a nationally recognized bed and breakfast and fine dining restaurant. 




Last summer, when I was visiting my best friend in Maryland, I wrote about this venue, because she was married here! Finding Mr. and Mrs. Adams blog brought back all of the memories from my friend's wedding weekend, which took place in May of 1998! This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to and it's a place I would absolutely love to go back to (one day, crossing my fingers!). If you are in the area or even if you are planning a destination wedding - this is definitely a place to check out! Sadly, "Mrs. Adams" never finished her wedding blog...kind of leaving readers, like me, with a feeling of "what ever happened to..." so, I didn't get to read about her big day and how everything came together. From her blog, I found photographers, Procopio Photography (and this is exactly how I get lost in all the sites I visit!!).

Procopio Photography Blog logo

This photography team has gorgeous "eye candy" for you to view! Their latest blog post, the wedding of Michelle and Jason, at the Washington National Cathedral prompted this blog post actually! My thoughts on the images were: double wow! We did not visit the Washington National Cathedral last summer but, another reason to head back to the east coast! During my visit to their website, I did find the real Mr. and Mrs. Adams! My curiosity about how their wedding turned out was finally satisfied and if you are curious you can check out their pictures here!

I hope that if any of my readers, or maybe people like me who wander wedding websites and blogs, happen upon this post that you might connect with these two wedding vendors! I feel pretty confident that you would not only be in capable hands but, that you would have the most amazing wedding with them! Sharing things I love with you all is just one of the reasons I love writing this blog! Cheers to a wonderful weekend!


===========Update==========

A reader let me know that Mrs Adams is back and updating her blog once again! She just posted a lovely video of her gorgeous wedding at the Antrim Inn! So lovely. Welcome back! 


Saturday, June 25, 2011

Carnival Theme: Wedding or Party - Part 2

Doing a carnival dessert station was so much fun! I love creating and designing themed parties! In part 1 of the carnival party I talked about how I was able to get a dessert table for 50 people for just a little less than $2.00 a person! In this post we will tackle how to do the paper goods! Although this post is geared towards a carnival theme, you can incorporate some of the printables into other themes!


Stickers on the cotton candy bag: Adorable right? And...super easy! I had a package of Avery 8293 Shipping Labels at home - you get 400 of them in a package and these are GREAT for making your own labels for a variety of wedding items! I recently saw them priced at Amazon for $15.58 (free shipping and no tax!) makes them about .04 cents a piece! Here is a tutorial I put together on how to print the perfect label size every time that you will LOVE! 


If you are familiar with MS Publisher you can head off now to go and create stickers, after you download the red and white striped background here but, if you are not familiar with using Publisher and want to know how to create the stickers, keep reading!


Open your saved sticker in Publisher. You will need to use the oval tool to create the white space:






Now, you need to fill in your circle to make sure it's white:




Once you have done this you will want to open the red and white stripe paper using Adobe Reader and then hit Edit, Copy File to Clipboard. Go back to Publisher and hit CTRL M to get to the background mode. Hit CTRL V to paste your red and white stripe background on the file. This background will fill up your whole screen! Hit CTRL M to toggle back to your circle.


Use the text tool to write in your personal message:



Make sure you SAVE your document! And then you can print them off! You can use the Print Preview button to see how your finished document will look:


Pretty easy, right?! I just love these stickers and with a little work on your part you really will use all 400 stickers! If you didn't want to use the stripe background, but instead a solid color background, you can easily do this in Publisher using the Fill tool. If you need help with that you can leave a message on this post and I would be happy to help you!


I also came across this gorgeous collection for a carnival wedding or shower from Wedding Style Guide!




You can get all these goodies in PDF format! Click on any of the links to download the documents! Name tags, Invitations, Drink Tickets and Party Games!




Monday, June 13, 2011

Elegant Handmade Card Boxes

Over 7 years ago, artisan Glenn began selling her card boxes on Ebay. Now her company has become the US #1 maker of elegant and sophisticated wedding card boxes - and just check them out to see why! 


Her shop, TheWeddingMainSt, is the trendsetter of elegant and sophisticated wedding card boxes. All of the items in her shop are made to order and she can work with you to create the ideal card box for your event.

 You can buy the custom boxes from her Etsy store or direct from her website!
 



Monday, May 9, 2011

A Special Giveaway - Just For You!

ENTRIES CLOSED!


So, I have THE BEST news! Last week when I was buying all the fun goodies for our Sweet Treat Giveaway winner, I messaged all the Etsy sellers privately to let them know I was buying the items as a gift for the blog winner. Rowena, from CraftyPagan got back to me right away and said:


"Hi there! I was going to send these out for free for you for the winner! We can absolutely do a giveaway-you can pick anything or several items up to a $35 value"


Isn't that super-duper amazingly sweet of her?! This kindness is just one of the reasons I support the handmade community! The CraftyPagan shop is also one of my personal favorites. Rowena and her husband run this shop and everything is completely hand made from them; from being hand cut (even the tags) to hand dyed and hand stamped.


So, my dear friends, this is a Special Giveaway - Just For You from Rowena at the CraftyPagan! You can choose ANY item from her shop, up to $35.00 - you will have a lot to choose from:


Love Birds Vintage Save The Date Magnet - $3.50 each
The Love Birds Vintage Save The Date Magnet Tags-Colour Options Available

Set of 6 "Drink Me" hang tags - $8.50
DRINK ME Gift Tags- 6-Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Tea Party Stamped and Distressed Tags-Ribbon Choice- AS FEATURED in ETSY WEDDINGS

Eat, Drink, and Be Married Vintage Style Gift Tags - Set of 6 $8.50
Eat, Drink, and Be Married Vintage Style Gift Tags Wishing Tree Tags Labels SET of 6-Choice of Ribbon

Eat Me Hang Tags - Set of 10 $14.50
Alice in Wonderland EAT ME Labels/Gift Tags/Hang Tags CIRCUS-SET of 10-Ribbon Choice Available

So...what do you think? Pretty amazing things, right? I love these hang tags! So let's talk about how you win this giveaway!

HOW TO ENTER

MANDATORY:
  • Get ONE entry for: Following my blog PUBLICLY (which means I can see you are following) or follow the CraftyPagan Blog!
OPTIONAL:
  • Get ONE entry for: following the CraftyPagan on Facebook
  • Get ONE entry for: Visiting the CraftyPagan etsy store and leaving a comment with your favorite item(s) from her shop
  • Get ONE entry for: blogging about this giveaway (post the link in your comment)
  • Get ONE entry for: Tweet about this giveaway (post the link in your comment)
  • 5 BONUS ENTRIES: Grab my Blog Button and add it to your page (leave an additional post with link to let me know you did this!) and get FIVE bonus entries! If my button is already on your page just state that and you get the 5 bonus entries!

YOU CAN GET UP TO 10 ENTRIES into this giveaway! WOW!
(leave one comment for each item you do!)

This giveaway will end on: May 23rd, 2011 at 5pm PST and the winner will be posted and contacted shortly there after! If we do not hear from the winner within 3 days, another winner will be chosen. PLEASE, make sure you leave me a way to contact you!!

What you win
A gift voucher from Etsy seller CraftyPagan for $35.00

Value of giveaway: $35.00


This giveaway is open EVERYONE!


Shipping Charges: Shipping charges will be paid BY THE WINNER! 

Don't want to wait until the giveaway ends to purchase something?
I don't blame you! Rowena was also generous enough to offer this special discount code for you to get 15% off any orderDiscount expires on June 1. 2011. Happy Shopping...


Thursday, May 5, 2011

Happy Cinco de Mayo - and an few wedding ideas

Right now, I should be breaking out my new empanada press that I bought at a Tupperware party (yup, I went to a Tupperware party!). I got all excited when I saw this in the catalog because: A. I love empanadas and B. I get excited about the prospect of making new things! 


Picture


So, once this lovely item came into my possession, I was pretty pumped up! I ran out to the store and bought a 4 lb bag of special flour to make handmade dough (pretty impressive huh?) But, once I started reading the directions that Tupperware supplied with the empanada press (note: you should always read the directions first) it told me I could use refrigerated pie crust! I thought, why the heck did I just buy 4 lbs of corn flour?!


Tortillas - Maseca Corn...
So, my inspiration has always been to try my hand at the empanadas on Cinco de Mayo. Guess what? That's TODAY! But, here I sit reading blogs and websites ABOUT Cinco de Mayo and thinking about how you could incorporate all these fun things at a wedding, err Fiesta! I originally started looking at Margarita Cupcakes (the idea came from the Sweet Treat Giveaway we just did because a couple of readers sited them as their favorite cupcake). Sounds delish right? So, I went recipe searching and people really do add tequila into the cupcakes....whoa! These are not for kids ladies and gentleman! 


My daydreaming continued into fiesta-land where I found this adorable FREE template for you to download and print out your own invitation! 


Flights of Fancy created this invite and all you have to do is: Type your wording in the template, print on cardstock and trim using the cropmarks as a guide and for the address labels: type your return address in the template, then print on Avery labels #5164 (3 1/3″ x 4″, 6 labels per sheet). Wow! Super simple right?

So, now that I have satisfied my wedding fiesta ideas, I think I am going to go see how difficult making homemade empanadas will be...I will keep you posted if I tackle them or just do Mexican take-out! Happy Cinco de Mayo!

***UPDATE***

I braved the empanada maker....and I WON! If you like empanadas and know someone who sells Tupperware, I highly suggest buying this little gadget! They were easy to make and tasted SUPER good! For sure, next time I would try the refrigerated pie crust. I used the corn flour and ended up frying my empanadas (would have preferred baked). Here's a pic (bad quality Iphone pic)





Monday, May 2, 2011

Free Wedding Invitations: Yes please!

Have you heard of Pingg? If not, you better listen up because they are hosting an amazing giveaway ALL MONTH LONG! That's right my friends! 4 lucky brides will win 150 digitally printed wedding invitations and reply cards of their choice - brought to you by Pingg and Hello Lucky


Cherry Blossom---Digital Wedding Invitation---Blossom, Chocolate & Coral

So who and what is Pingg? Well, if you read their company "vision" you kind of get a taste of who they are:


"Our vision is a world where online invitations & announcements can exist in the same sentence as "cool" and "awesome" (or if you're British, "wicked awesome"). The time has come to elevate the online experience--yes people, to RAAAAAISE the bar artistically and technically-so that online and traditional postmarked invitations can live together in peace, harmony and celebration... like yin and yang... like Cheech and Chong."

I love that last sentence! Any company that compares themselves to Cheech and Chong has to be cool, right? They also have teamed up with artists, photographers, illustrators and other creative geniuses to bring a fresh perspective to online invitations announcements and then they raised the bar one more level by allowing you to also order the online announcement in a print version!

Nouveau Peonies---Digital Wedding Invitation---Blossom, Spring & Stone

So how do you win? It's pretty simple and straight forward - and they will be 
picking a winner every Friday so get on this and enter today!

How to enter:
1) Send your Save-the-Date cards or Engagement announcements on pingg. Choose a design from pingg’s Wedding Collection, from your favorite designer or upload your own design.


2) Select “Wedding Invitation Giveaway” for your Event or Card Theme when you enter details.


3) Send to at least three recipients and You’re Entered to Win!


Eligibility for prize packages will end at 12:00am ET Friday, May 27th, 2011. All winners must be 18 years of age or older.


NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE CHANCES OF WINNING.


One winner will be randomly selected each Friday from the entries received. Claiming of prizes requires an email response to pingg from the winning sender email address. Winner may forfeit any and all winnings if verification cannot or has not been made within 7 days.


Tahoe---Digital Wedding Invitation---Chocolate, Lake & Moss



Sunday, May 1, 2011

Will you be my bridesmaid?

If you want to surprise those special girls in your life, by asking them to be your bridesmaid, you need to talk to Esther over at ChoosingYou. She has the most unique, beautiful items not only for your bridesmaids but also for your wedding! I think once you do choose her, you will come back again and again. 


These Vintage Spools contain your personalized, unique message! The average price is about $8.00 each and they are completely customizable! You just need to send Esther a private convo. She does have a message up on her site to let you know that she is a busy lady (can't you see why?) so, make sure you plan ahead and order with time to spare! 


Set of 7- Will You Be My Bridesmaid Token of Affection Gifts


Beach Style Set of 5- Will You Be My Bridesmaid Token of Affection Gifts RESERVED for Jacquelyn

Will You Be My Bridesmaid Gift -Set of Eight-RESERVED for underwear

Will You Be My Bridesmaid Token of Affection Gift - RESERVED FOR jjames88

handmade wedding choosingyou21 e1292837895868 Bridesmaid Love:  Vintage Spools + Ten Gorgeous Gifts!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Beautiful Bridal Hair Pieces

There is no escaping bridal frenzy this week as the Royal Wedding approaches! I am finally getting excited about it myself. I have been finding all kinds of amazing designers from England - from wedding gowns to gorgeous hair pieces and jewels (well not those jewels!) When I saw this flower fascinator I had to share - it's gorgeous!


Delivery on this beautiful Hair piece from order date 2/3 weeks or sooner. This piece will be packaged in a beautiful Alan Hannah branded gift box and dispatched by next day courier when ready to send. The item number is ME5001. I also converted the price to US dollars so the price to the US is 131.81! 


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Groupon + Etsy = Heartsy


Heartsy

Today's site of the day is Heartsy. If you like Groupon (the website where you get daily deals) and you like Etsy (the website where you get beautiful handmade items) then you will love HeartsyHeartsy features exclusive daily deals on handmade items across the internet. Here's how Heartsy works:


1. They send you exclusive deals on handmade items. Every day or so they will email you one deeply discounted deal to use at an artist's Etsy store. Sign up to get their email.


2. Click to buy the deal. Purchase the deals with one easy click. You will receive your voucher immediately. It's that simple!


3. Use your deal voucher on Etsy. After purchasing a deal on Heartsy you receive a voucher (which is just like a gift certificate) which you can use at the Etsy store that sponsored the deal.


A couple of cool things about Heartsy vouchers:

  • The voucher can be applied to shipping costs
  • The voucher can be used multiple times (if you buy a $40 voucher and buy a $10 item you still have $30 left to spend!)
  • They do offer a 30 day return policy

Referral program? Yup...they have that too! So, let's say I invite you (and I am!) you click this link to sign up. Once you buy your first item we get $10 to share ($5 to you and $5 to me) but it gets even better! After you buy a deal, you'll get ANOTHER unique link to share! If any of your friends buy the deal on Heartsy, using the link you shared, you and your friend each get $5 to spend in the future! That's a pretty nice referral plan!