The last 2 weeks...it appears I've been slacking...in reality I've just been busy!

Well my beads finally arrived, and they are awesome! I can't believe the deal I got on them, especially compared to the $5 strands at Michaels for half the beads!  I ordered the rest of my supplies from The Beading Room, an online beading store from Nova Scotia and they got here super quick so I started on the necklaces for the girls (which took no time at all, I was done in an hour or so) and the earrings, which were substantially more frustrating, hence why I haven't finished them yet...they're on a time out! I did manage to get 2 done and they stayed pretty long enough for me to take one picture before one of them fell apart.  I think I need a way to hold the pearl while I try to hook the loop through the stud...we'll see how those turn out, but I love the necklaces :) That's all 5 piled together btw, not a massively huge one!  The necklaces and earrings will be part of the gift for my girls but I'm a little stuck on what else to give them.  Two of them in particular have been incredibly awesome so I want to do something special for them.  If you have any suggestions please leave me a comment!



I am massively happy with my table numbers as well, although I'm thinking they could use some sprucing up a bit...thoughts?  They're just a little plain but I don't know if adding stickers or something would be too childish.  Also, you can't see it but the frames are double-sided so there will be a picture of the two of us on the other side, for our guests to gaze at fondly of course!

We have all of the ingredients now that we need to do all of the adult favours for the reception so that's going to be our next big project...Jelly Bean Jelly!  The recipe is from the Bernardin Website and we're packaging it in 125ml mason jars with custom stickers on the top from StickerYou that have a green daisy and have our names/wedding date and the jelly flavour.  We'll be making half of them apple flavour and half of them mint chocolate chip flavour, both tinted a different shade of green.  The flavours were the hardest thing to find, but I used Golda's Kitchen which is just an awesome store, they have everything, including the flower mould I used for the crayons.  Once these are done, I'll post a DIY with pics and the recipe.  Thats all for now I think, sorry bout the long post!!

Phew!

It was a busy last couple of week's so I didn't get much time to post let alone do any DIY stuff...we were incredibly busy planning/having our stag and doe and working on finding jobs and a place of our own to live...craziness let me tell you.  We're currently living with Ryan's mom, which is nice, we really appreciate her letting us stay but we definitely need our own space!  Ryan started a new job last week, not a forever type job, but its going to allow us to move out on our own again which is awesome!!! We're moving this weekend and I can't wait!!  The stag and doe was on Saturday and was an awesome success! It was so great to see family and friends that I haven't seen in awhile and a great opportunity for some of Ryan's family to meet mine.  All in all we made a good amount of money that will promptly be put towards our plans! First item on the to-do list is wedding bands so we'll be going out tomorrow in search of those.  Currently I'm working on addressing the invitations, which I've been putting off and putting off and putting off....but it has to be done, we are getting married in just 96 days!

I had an extremely unsuccessful shoe shopping trip the other day, I hate my gigantic feet.  Every time I'd find a pair I like, they either wouldn't come in my size (a whopping 11) or wouldn't be flat (Ryan's already 3 inches shorter than me), or didn't come in a wide width...damn wide feet.  But I've still got time thank god...may end up just going with green chucks haha.

I'm not sure if I mentioned before, but my cousin is doing our centerpieces as part of a project for one of her classes at school which is so totally ok with me lol.  We're doing 3 different size mason jars with a green silk gerbera and water in it and a floating candle.  Next to these, we're doing the table numbers in little frames from IKEA.  99 cents for a two sided frame, doesn't get better than that!  We'll put one of our engagement pics on one side and the table number on the other.  I have some ideas for table numbers (brown scrapbook paper with a green painted wooden letter?) but I might let Ryan have a go at designing them.

I finally found some nice glass pearls on ebay to use to make the jewelry for my girls, ordered them on the 13th of July and they're not here yet which is a little worrisome but I'm hoping they're just stuck at customs somewhere since they're coming from the states.  I think that's all I needed to get off my chest tonight lol I'm hoping that once we're in our own place I'll have more time for some DIY and finalizing plans!

DIY Jewelery Ups and Downs...

So I have these gorgeous pearls that my parents got me for a graduation/birthday present and I love love love them so I wanted to make my girls something that would sort of match to wear on the big day.  I found awesome instructions and I think they're going to look great...only problem is the cost! Why oh why is everything in Canada so expensive!?! I hit up my local Michael's to see what they had and even on sale, strands of freshwater potato pearls were $4 for 12"...just for the pearls alone it costs $24 and then each 'jewelry making accessory' was $5 on top of that...throw in the proper tool for the job and I was out $85 for a project that was supposed to be budget friendly.  I took everything home and after sleeping on it, decided that I didn't even like how the pearls looked (some looked like popcorn kernels or were really bumpy...) so I returned it all and am back at square one.  I think I'm going to get white glass pearls instead which seem to be much more uniform in shape (actually round) and significantly cheaper.  I found some on ebay that I can get a 32" strand for $1.99.  I ordered 4 so we'll see how they look when they arrive.  I think I'm going to try to find an online source for all the other materials as well...hopefully I'll get around to doing all the jewelry in the next week or so.  Wish me luck!