Here's some help for writing Thank You notes!

One of the things you will do through out the process of getting engaged to getting married is write a whole bunch of "thank you" notes! A couple will have hosted for them: an engagement party, a bridal shower and then the wedding it self that people will purchase gifts for them and it is customary for a note of thanks be written for each of these gifts.

Thank you notes should be personal and always hand written. So what do you do if you are not a good writer or what about if you are just stumped for what to say after writing your 100th note? One thing you can do is visit Emily Easton's Thank You Notes website. From crockpots to cash, from sheets to salad bowls, Emily has done the work for you. You will find over 70 items she has put words of thanks to and it's all free for brides and grooms to use. Emily doesn't sell stationery and she doesn't actually write the notes for you - she just provides brides words to copy or ideas you can use! Check it out if you are needing some helpful tips on what to say or how to say it!

Buzz on over and enter our Meant To Bee Giveaway!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to remind any new visitors that this is the LAST WEEK to enter our October Giveaway! A winner will be chosen on October 23rd! We put together a wonderful selection of items for a wedding, shower or party theme "Meant To Bee". You can enter by clicking here! But, even if that isn't your theme there are still LOTS of other things worth winning! We made it pretty simple to enter this giveaway: Follow us (that's usually a given). By following our blog you will know if you won the giveaway but, you will also get to enter our other giveaways (we usually host 1 giveaway a month), find inspiration, have a place to find other fabulous giveaways and so much more. We have also requested that you "like" two of our generous vendors:

SweetenYourDay: I purchased a dozen handmade bees from her for a party I was having. I absolutely fell in love with them when I got them! Jennifer makes the cutest cupcake toppers, cake toppers and more. All of her items are handmade and edible! This girl has some SERIOUS talent! I contacted her and told her I would be doing a giveaway on the blog and she generously offered to giveaway 1 dozen bees to the winner! She really sweetened my day! :) I know she can make anything you can think of - just ask her for a special request! She made these mini story books - if your guy (or girl) loves to read, or you met in a library these would make a cute little reminder:

Or maybe you are two peas in a pod?

Our next vendor that you were asked to "like" was Bee Creative.  Karen, the crafter extraordinaire, is a personal friend of mine. She is always going out of her way to help her friends with their parties and she puts together amazing banners, invitations and more! I had asked her if she would make a custom "Mr & Mrs" banner for the winner of my giveaway and she was up to the task! She loves creating different things and the winner will get to choose their paper and ribbon colors! She will come up with something that totally matches your wedding or party theme! 


So, a very special "thank you" to both of these ladies! Like I said at the beginning, though, you do not need to be having this specific theme to enter this giveaway! There are other items that you will absolutely LOVE! You will love the Printing Press software. I have used this DIY invitation software for many years. In fact, I purchased this software to do ALL the invitations for my wedding: bridal shower, bachelorette party and the day after wedding brunch! It also makes creating envelopes a breeze. You can use the preloaded images or cut and paste any of your own. It has a very easy to use interface and I know the winner will come up with all kinds of things to use this software for. I am also including two packages of Avery labels that I use - ALL the time! I have uploaded a couple templates (here and here) that you can use for the round labels and you can download all of these items (free of course!) and edit them for your own personal use. I promise to create more - and I will take special requests - just shoot me an email! :)


Ok...that's it for the recap...now hurry up! Go enter the giveaway and good luck to everyone! 

DIY Push Cakes

My friend tried her hand at making those popular push cakes last night. Do you remember ever eating the Nestle Push-Up ice creams? Well, they are still around but, now they have gone a step up! So, instead of ice cream you use plastic tubes and fill them with cake, frosting, sprinkles, then more cake, more frosting and more sprinkles. By the time you are done you have a tube filled with goodness. Can't go wrong there! 

Where you can go wrong is trying to find the most important part: the tubes. My friend decided at the last minute to make these so she found the tubes at a local cake supply store. Mistake number 1. She paid $1.25 per tube and that just didn't seem like an economical treat for a party/shower or wedding - especially if you need to make like 50 of them! So, I did a little research and I found them priced pretty much the same on all sites (around $60 for 100 pops):

• http://www.lagunawholesale.com - $61.12
• http://pushpopcontainers.com  - $73.55
• http://www.bakedeco.com - $67.21

Now, the question is: what do I use to fill them? Well, pretty much anything! I have heard of people doing it the easy way: buying the premade mini brownies at the grocery store, baking a cake and then crumbling the cake inside or my friend ended up using a mini muffin pan and baking her cake in that. The result was a perfect looking push cake! 

You can also use this "Handmade with love!" sticker I created:

Click here to download this file! It was made for MS Publisher and prints nicely on Avery 8293

Did you know that a package of Avery 8293 labels is part of our October "Meant To Bee" Giveaway? You could win this prize package - enter here!

Busy as a bee!

I have been a little quiet on the blog lately but, not without good reason! I have been working feverishly to plan my daughters 5th birthday. Without a doubt, any party planning always makes me think about weddings - because a wedding, engagement shower or bridal shower are simply parties. They are celebrations where you have a lot of people coming together and they inevitably cost a lot of money. One of my goals with the blog is to show you how to save money on your wedding - or any celebration you are having! My daughter finally chose her birthday theme: Bumble Bee and my wedding brain kept telling me "Meant To Bee" with every detail I was planning. Because there is SO much information and detail to share, I am going to break it down into a couple of posts so, bear with me, because at the end you, my faithful readers, will be rewarded for buzzing a long with me on this journey! I will provide you with all these great things to make your event and planning MUCH easier:

• Tutorials - how to make all the DIY items
• Templates - blank templates for you to use
• Vendor tips and reviews

And...finally, you will be rewarded with a giveaway! I have an amazing giveaway planned for you! Please share this blog or these posts with your family and friends: anyone planning a party or a wedding - especially if you feel it is meant to bee!

Love is all you need!

Yeah, yeah yeah....Valentine's Day is fast approaching...umm HELLO did you miss all the decorations the DAY AFTER Christmas?! Sheesh. I couldn't wait to start posting about it, but at least I showed a little restraint! haha. Sorry, I am in a mood tonight! Anyway, one of my favorite shops (that I have mentioned before) is doing a pre-order cookie sale and I thought..."Ok, now is the time to start talking about the love holiday!" I actually really thought these cookies were adorable don't you?

Valentine Cupcake Cookies 1 dozen $30

And, can I just remind all of you to put a little money aside for the after-Valentine's day sale? Red is a pretty popular wedding color and it's a great time to stock up on things like: red, white or pink candy (M&M's anyone?), those red foil heart candies (Dove makes some cute ones), keep an eye out for anything white...and with hearts! Very common items for wedding showers or wedding related goodies! That was my first PSA for putting some moola away to buying things...I am just letting you know, you will hear it again! I am a total bargain shopper! I just told you I was a bargain shopper, right? So, I have blogs I love to follow like Tip Junkie and now they have a Valentine Tip Junkie site!! Wahoo! Get right on over there to find things like:

Cute as a Button

Printable Valentine Goodie Bag

 And my favorite...

Print It Yourself Candy Wrappers

Shoe Bling

Still looking for something blue? Here ya go! For $5.00 you will have a cute little photo op for your shoes! This Los Angeles based company carries an entire line of bling - from T-shirts to flip flops!  From Classy Bride:

But, if you don't want to spend $5.00 and you want to DIY....here is a great tutorial I found on the web!

Free Printable Vintage Labels

I love things free. I love vintage. I found both of these at Graphics Fairy! These labels (especially the last one) are so awesome! Check them out and if you use them - let me know!! I would love to see your handy work!

These labels can be downloaded here

Going French? Check out this beautiful label

DIY - Tea Party

I have posted a couple of times about tea parties and while surfing today I came upon a site that offered some free templates. What a cute, fun project this would be! I love things like this - simple yet creative and very memorable! Here are the links:

Teabag Label - Blue
Teabag Label - Red
Tea Canister Label

To add a little more fun to this do it yourself project - get creative and make your own tea! There is a great Etsy shop that provides the means to do this and it's very inexpensive! 25 Heat Sealable Paper Tea Bags sell for $3.50 and the shop also has herbs to make your own tea creations! Check out Flowering Tree Botanicals

The Big Day Timeline - Template

For my wedding, I did a lot of the invites myself - from the bridal shower to the after party and brunch. I found some templates (that I want to share on my blog) as well as used software purchased from a company called Mountain Cow. The software I purchased was called Printing Press. The cost is $29.99 and I can tell you it saved me a TON of money! So, today I am going to attempt to upload my first template that you should be able to download. :) I say this with a smile because this is my first attempt at adding something a user would be able to download from my blog. If you run into any problems - just email me! I have the document in Word format so you can easily change the wording to fit your timeline.

I used paper purchased from Masterpiece Studios. It was called Tickled Pink from the LUX line. The paper came in sets of 10 with 10 envelopes:

The texture of the paper, which is hard to see online, is a shimmery pink. It's very soft and very pretty! I used the template and created my own time line. I printed the items on my personal printer. Here was the finished look:

And here is the template that you can download to do this yourself!
Big Daytime Line Template