Easy Fourth of July Goodies

Growing up in the Midwest meant that most winter nights were spent trying to stay warm near the fireplace. My older sister always used to tease me because anytime a fire was going, I was right there with my marshmallow, my graham cracker, and my chocolate. You can imagine how excited I was when I first saw the S'mores favor idea! It's like the 100 calorie version of a s'more (well, maybe).

These would be SO easy to put together for this weekend. Grab some marshmallows, graham crackers, individually wrapped mini hershey's bars, and some clear goody bags and you are set.

Aren't these adorable?

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What's your favorite 4th of July tradition?

The Roof of Africa

Good news for my husband and for the Foundation for Blind Children. I received a one a.m. call last night from my husband who said the entire group made it to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro! Wow! They broke two world records: 1-largest group of blind climbers to ever make it to the top and 2-youngest blind climber (13 years old) to ever make it to the top.

Read more about their incredible journey here. They have been blogging from the roof of Africa-crazy, huh?

A picture of part of the team just three weeks before their departure at a charity event.

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A big congratulations to the entire team!

Fruit Infused Water

Whenever I entertain at home, I like to set out multiple carafes of fruit infused water, lemonade, tea, or drink mixers (whatever goes with what I'm serving). I was reading the the Fat Fighter TV blog and an article about Fifteen Ways to Spice up Plain Ol' Water caught my eye. I thought I'd share some of the great ideas with you.

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• Add chopped fruit to your water
• Add cucumbers (one of my favorites)
• Add fresh mint to crushed ice
• Make ice cubes out of pureed strained berries and add them to your water
• Combine fruit and herbs for a perfect blend 

This would be great to put in your fancy drink dispenser and display at your next event. What's your favorite way to spice up your water?

Escort Cards

I am a firm believer in some form of assigned seating at any event. I've been to bridal showers before with only 20 women who all know each other and the question still comes up-"where should I sit?". I like taking the guess work out of it for my guests. People are most comfortable when they know what to expect next.

When it comes to escort cards, get creative! Here are a few of my favorite ideas:

Attach pre-printed cards to skewers and place in vases with sand/rocks/colored candy:

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Take cues from your venue. Tie your escort cards onto a beautiful fence or metal feature.

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Let your favors do double duty. Tie escort cards to each favor.

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Hang your escort cards from a photo tree.

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Again, take cues from your venue. Rather than competing with the space, add to it by using the natural elements to incorporate your wedding decor.

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Get creative!

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What are the most creative escort cards you've ever seen at an event?

Personalized Cocktail Napkins

I have been looking high and low for some affordable and cute personalized cocktail napkins for an upcoming wedding I have. The bride and the groom wanted particular sayings that fit with their personalities and their wedding colors.

Here are some sites I found with price range to help you in your search for personalized cocktail napkins:

1. The Knot 200 for $35.98 The bad side to this site is that shipping is expensive (for 200 napkins it was $15 or so) and you have to add a design to your napkins.

 

2. For Your Party 200 for $58. The good thing about this site is there are a ton of font and layout options. Down side is it is more expensive.

3. Party Favors Plus on Ebay. 200 for $30 and free shipping and handling. I liked this site because you don't have to add a design or monogram and there is no charge for shipping. Down side is limited font options.

Since the napkins for this wedding were just an added bonus and not a necessity for the bride and groom, I went with Party Favors Plus. The napkins showed up in just a few days and I am very happy with how they turned out. 

The groom is an attorney so we thought this saying was perfectly appropriate for cocktail napkins:

What's your favorite shop for personalized napkins?

Off to Africa...

Please forgive me if the next two weeks of posts are sappy, sad, or desperate. I just dropped my husband off at the airport for his two week long trip to Africa. Two weeks! That will be the longest he's ever been away. He is hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro with The Foundation for Blind Children and has been training for this journey for the last year. He will be guiding a blind climber, Max, up the mountain and once Max makes it to the top, he will set the world record for being the youngest blind climber to ever summit Mt. Kilimanjaro. Wow!

Because every post is better with a picture, here's one of me and my handsome hubby. He normally doesn't like when I post pictures of him on here but since he's out of the country, too bad!

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As I was driving yesterday, getting teary eyed just thinking about Pat's departure, I stopped behind a car with a bumper sticker that said "Proud Wife of a US Soldier".  Talk about a sign from above-I'm worried about my husband's journey through Africa while this woman is making the biggest sacrifice of all. A huge thank you goes out to all the women who go months without seeing their husbands so they can fight for our country. Thank you. 

(See, told you things were going to get a little sappy around here)

New Blog Design!

I am so excited about my new blog design by Rainy Day Templates. I fell in love with a blog template she designed for JL Designs and have been stalking her work ever since. I finally emailed her to put together a new blog for me, and seriously, two days later, here it is!

If you are in need of a blog makeover or just a blog at all, I urge you to check her out! Look at a few of these templates she designed-and-they only cost $25 each! Wow! 

Keep an eye out over the next few weeks for some more changes and updates! Lots of exciting stuff going on!

How to Make a Layered Invitation

It's Wednesday which means I posted a how to video over on She Just Got Married. Today's video shows how to make a layered invitation with a ribbon embellishment.

Click here to watch the video or read on for step by step instructions.

Materials Needed:

Paper cutter

Scissors

Card stock in various colors/patterns

Glue stick

Glue dots

Ribbon

Xacto knife

Invitations

Step One:

Design and print your invitation. I designed this baby shower invitation with the help of Blogalicious Designs (they made the pregnant belly in a polka dotted dress for me)

Step Two:

Using your paper cutter, trim your invitations down to size. Figure out how much of each color card stock you want showing and then cut the additional card stock down to size for layering.

Don't you just LOVE the black, white, and yellow colors I used??? (I'm biased!)

Step Three:

Using your Xacto knife, cut small slits where you want to add the ribbon. For these invitations, I cut slits at the waist of the dress so I can add my ribbon there.

Step Four:

Using your Xacto knife again, push the ribbon through the slits from the back, pulling each side through evenly.

Tie a pretty little bow or knot.

Step Five:

Add glue dots and/or glue stick to the back of the invitation. Layer it on card stock #1. Do the same thing to layer it again and again and again depending on how many layers you want.

Seriously, I know I may be biased, but aren't these the cutest invitations ever!!??

Custom Rubber Stamps from Paperwink

I stumbled upon Paperwink the other day and fell in love with all the custom rubber mailing address stamps. The styles range from antique to modern and they also have matching stationery and calling cards to go with them.

At $18 each you could even splurge on some matching notecards or calling cards. What are you doing for your bridesmaid gifts?

DIY Pocketfolds

Pocketfolds are a great way to package all your wedding paper-invitations, programs, cds, favors, and more. Pocketfolds usually run between $1-2 each which isn't a ton, but if you have 100 guests, that could be almost $200 plus shipping plus the cost of whatever you are adding to the pocketfold.

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I'm a huge fan of saving money so I put together a SUPER easy step by step tutorial on how to make your own pocketfolds-two different ways.

Supplies Needed:

12x12 card stock

X-acto knife or paper cutter

Ruler

Pencil

Glue/glue dots/vellum adhesive runner

Step One:

Find 12x12 card stock in your wedding colors. I have seen this for $.50/sheet before and you can get 2 pocketfolds/sheet so it will cost you about $.25/pocketfold.

Step Two:

Cut the paper in half, leaving yourself with 2 pieces that are 12"x6".

Step Three:

Mark along the paper at the 5" mark and the 10" mark. This is to mark where you need to fold.

Step Four:

Apply your adhesive along the sides of the pocketfold. Be sure not to glue it shut though!

Here is one version of the pocketfold using the steps above. This one completely covers whatever you enclose and has a flap at the top:

This is the second version of the pocketfold and has a smaller flap at the bottom. The top piece folds over (this would create the pocketfold in the very first picture).

See how easy that was? Are you planning on taking on any DIY paper projects?

Free Downloadable Fonts

Before you go out and spend money on any upgraded font packages, make sure you check out the numerous free font sites out there. I am a fan of Dafont and always find a ton of great fonts on their site. It's so easy too-all you do is download the file, save it to your fonts, and then when you are in your document (word, publisher, powerpoint, etc), go to your dropdown list of fonts and find the one you just downloaded. 

Here are a few of my faves:

Aren't they so pretty? Download them here. 

How to Make Wine Bottle Labels

I just posted a how to video on She Just Got Married about how to make wine bottle labels.  I am working on this project for an upcoming event and can't get over how easy it is.

Step One:

Get wine bottles. I like tall and skinny ones best (like the first one below) because you have more room for text on your labels.

 

Step Two:

Remove labels on wine bottles with Goo-B-Gone or something similar

Step Three:

Create labels for the wine bottles. They can be as simple as your monogram or a table number or as detailed as the full dinner menu.

Step Four:

Trim labels down to size. I like to keep the labels about 4" wide and 6" high. Again-this depends on the size of your wine bottle.

Step Five:

Using glue dots or double sided tape, adhere your custom label to the front of the wine bottle.

Picture from my Blackberry

How easy is that!? I think the hardest part is designing the labels you want to use. Keep in mind, if you book an event with The Savvy Event we will help you to personalize your event with custom menus, programs, labels, and more (printing cost not included).

Cupcake Caps

I just saw these edible Cupcake Caps in Brides magazine. All you have to do is bake and lightly frost some cupcakes, then stick the cap on top and voila-you've got party ready cupcakes!

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They have a bunch of different designs and they'll even customize them to your liking. At 100 calories per cap (not including the cupcake), I'd like to try one to see exactly how they taste. What do you think of these?

What to do with your Wedding Rings During the Ceremony

I recently had one of my brides ask me what to do with her engagement ring before the ceremony. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to wear the ring, give it to her fiance, or leave it off altogether.

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You can have either a ring bearer carry the wedding bands, the best man carry them, or you can have your maid of honor and best man hold onto the bands during the ceremony. If you have an engagement ring, you should wear this on your right hand during the ceremony. Once your husband puts the wedding band on your finger, you can switch the engagement ring back to your left hand, so it sits on top of the wedding band.

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If you are getting your rings sautered together before the ceremony, you would give the whole set to either the best man or the ring bearer. During the ceremony, your husband would put the whole set on your left ring finger.

Don't forget to bring your rings to your getting ready location if you have your photographer there. They can get lots of creative shots with your rings before the ceremony-with the invitation, on a newspaper, on your bouquet, the list goes on. You will also want to wear your wedding rings if you do photos before the ceremony.

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What are you doing with your rings during the wedding ceremony?

Wedding Day Beauty: Eyebrow Threading

I used to be a fan of getting my eyebrows waxed and then recently for some reason I decided to grow my eyebrows out...you know, like Groucho Marx.

So after a few months of no maintenance, I couldn't take it anymore. I was thinking about getting waxed again at my favorite spot, The Brow Lady, but then my girlfriend started telling me how bad waxing is for the skin above your eyes and how it pulls and stretches the skin. Oy, I'm coming on thirty and the last thing I need is stretched out skin above my eyes!!!

Anyway, I decided to try eyebrow threading because it is supposed to be easier on your skin. Threading is "the ancient method of hair removal that uses a thin cotton thread to remove hair at the follicle level". 

Pros: 

Super quick, maybe five minutes for both brows

Doesn't pull skin or stretch it

Cheaper than waxing, only $15!

Cons:

If your hairs are grown out, it will be more painful

Well let me just tell you, I have super sensitive skin and boy did that lady get me good! My eyes naturally started watering and by the end of the session, my face was covered with mascara and tears. BUT-I was there for only a few minutes and now I am back to looking like myself. If you want info on the lady who "threaded" me, shoot me an email and I will send you her info! 

Have you ever tried threading? Do you think waxing really pulls and stretches your skin?