[a taste] of country elegance.

our photographer snapped 2,000+ of our wedding day.

it's been almost two months, and i still have not made it through them all.

it's a shame, i know.

last night, i nearly made it halfway when my computer decided to gain a low connection to the neighbors internet [we get free internet, thanks to my grandparents living next door ;)]

it must've been a sign for me to give up and go to bed.

fair warning: this post is full of pictures, and more pictures.

every.thing. was unique in it's own little way.

each part represented us, somehow, some way.

i like being different.

i wanted our wedding to be unusual.

something everyone would remember for years to come.

the boutonnieres were made from fresh gerber daisies. we simply pulled the petals off & added a few berries. the wooden C + C = <3 sign, i handpainted. the tutorial is found HERE. the wood came from an my daddy's grandparents farmhouse. the pink C & C wooden letters (pictured in the very beginning image), were purchased from hobby lobby at 50% off. i handpainted them with a sponge brush & acrylic paint.

the flowergirl carried a wooden heart sign stating "here comes the bride" on one side and "thank you" on the back. my maternal grandpa made & painted the sign for me. i attached the ribbon, & wa-la!

the pillows were old pillows laying around our homes. our wedding planner covered them with a pleated brown fabric & placed them upon the hay bails.

the fingerprint tree guestbook(s) was handpainted by my former high school art teacher. she did an absolute fabulous job! she painted two identical ones. hobby lobby framed them.

i loved how they turned out.

looking forward to hanging them in our home.

six doves were released. two signifying our new life together. two in rememberance of cliff's grandfather & grandmother. two in rememberance of my grandfather & great grandmother.

part II coming next week, hopefully ♥

redneck wine glasses?

at our couples shower back in may, i mentioned that we received mason jar wine glasses.

i was thrilled.

i know, some of you may be thinking...what? you're kidding right?

how r-e-d-n-e-c-k can one posisbly get?

don't judge.

a friend's mom handmade these for us.

we were going to actually use them as toasting flutes at the wedding.

after all, it did fit the theme to a T.

somehow or another, our wedding planner "lost" them the day of..

[haaahahaha]

twas but a joke.

if you are feeling crafty, you can handmake these yourself. it's pretty simple.

all you need is a set of clear glass candlestick holders, a set of two mason jars (either pint or quart sized- pint sized is shown in pictures), e6000 glue & a little bit of twine.

Glue the candlestick holders to the bottom of the mason jar, tie the lid on with some twine and waa-la!

You now have yourself a pair of redneck mason jars.

If you aren't feeling too crafty, check out etsy instead. they have a ton of these listed here.

                                                                 {this set is only $8}

Now go fill it up with your favorite toddy, sweet tea, or lemonade and have yourself a drank!

what we've been up to in pictures.

 Life has been insane lately.

So incredibly busy.

Running around like serious chickens with our heads completely cut off.

But hey, I'm not complaining :)

There's no sense in me rambling on about why I haven't been able to blog. It's simply the fact that at this point in life, we are just flat out b.u.s.y.

Here's a little bit about what we've been up to.

Someday soon I hope to go into depth with each event mentioned, just for my personal sake of remembering these dear times.

March 12, 2011- Bridal Shower #1 hosted by family

April 2nd was the Grand Opening of our store!

Ribbon cutting took place at 10:00am on 4.2.11 with our city mayor & the city council members!

Bella is growing so big.

Sad to say, but at this time she is living at Cliff's dads. We are working on her pen...still.

Cliff kills turkey #1 of the season..

April 10th: My home church CWF ladies threw me Bridal Shower #2

Easter Weekend

Saturday was spent driving to Jasper, Florida where Cliff's dads family lives.

The women were throwing me a Bridal Tea at a beautiful historic inn about 45 minutes from their hometown.

All of the pictures are currently on my Mom's camera.

It was a great experience & very uplifting!

Easter Sunday: 

{did you notice I missed the "blue" memo?}

Heading out to the farm!

Easter afternoon was spent at the famly farm. Even though our great grandparents have passed on, we still meet at their home for every major holiday :)

 Cliff kills turkey #2... I was able to witness this one.

Actually, it should've been my bird.

Long story.

This was past weekend, we finally got to meet these babies!

Right:  For Madison's {Cliff's half-sister} 14th birthday, Mom & Dad bought her this beautiful palomino named Star.

Left: Meet Tim-Buck-Two. He's for the rest of the family to ride!



This is how I spend most of my days.

Our store is BUSY.

I'm thankful.

Yesterday marked my LAST clinical day EVER!

I just finished up ten 12-hour shifts with my preceptor in the neonatal intensive care unit at Memorial Health!

It was an awesome experience & definitely made up my mind as to where I want to work.

I miss my babies already!

This weekend is our Couple's Lawn & Garden Shower thrown by a few of our dear friends parents!

We are looking forward to settling down & enjoying everyones company :)

Next week, GRADUATION!

Thursday is our class picnic & pinning ceremony practice.

Friday at 7 p.m. is the Nursing pinning ceremony.

Saturday I will officially be a four year college graduate with a nursing degree!

Life is flying by.

Graduation in 9 days.

Getting hitched in 36 days.

What comes next?

Babies?! hehehehehee.

{just kidding Mom!}

Life is great!

DIY: twine vases

For the reception, we have rented a 40x80 tent, 24 round tables, blah blah blah.

We've been collecting wine bottles, mason jars, clear vases, 40 oz. beer bottles, etc. for our centerpieces for over a year or so now.

Literally.

Take a look at the spare bedroom wedding room.

We are working on decluttering! All those mason jars on the left side, are finished being decorated and are stored and labeled in their own storage containers.

Anyhoo, we bought a few fresh daisies a while back and was playing around with the different vases trying to figure out the perfect centerpiece set-up.

Something was missing.

As you may have figured out by now, I'm a mini craftaholic. 

So as I'm browsing some of the craft blogs I follow daily, I ran across this cute DIY tutorial about an old carnival cruise line cup.

It sparked my interest and got my little wheels-a-turning.

After a few days, I thought of the perfect project for those old fishbowl vases.

What you need:

• roll of twine
• vase
• glue gun/glue sticks

Start out by flipping your vase over and hot gluing around the base.

Continue circling the vase and waa-la. 

You have this!

For home decor, I want to make some of these precious twine balls too!

I think these new vases will add that rustic touch we were missing previously.

I'm in love with the way they turned out!

This post is linked up with craft-o-maniac!

wooden wedding sign tutorial

Our wedding theme is rustic elegance and I think these are going to be perfect signs for guests out of town trying to locate our venue. Plus, the remainder will be for ceremony/reception decor.

I practiced on a sample piece of wood today to see how hard/simple this project would be.

I plan on finishing up the remainder of signs within the next two weeks.

Here's what you do:

First, measure the wooden board you are going to use. Adjust the letters to fit and cut them out with your vinyl cutting machine (i.e. Cricut). 

Next, peel out the letters the machine cut & keep the stencil portion on the original backing.

Apply clear transfer tape over top of your stencil and rub. Peel the vinyl backing off by pulling back the transfer tape gently.

Next, apply the stencil to your wooden board. Smooth out the air bubbles with your hand.

It'll look like this:

Pull back the transfer tape, leaving only the stencil behind.

Apply tape around the edges of the stencil to secure the lining & keep the spray paint from getting on the extra wood.

Because of the type of wood I chose, white spray paint wouldn't adhere to the board. 

I recommend testing it out on the backside prior to in order to make sure it'll stick.

The only open can of white paint we had in the closet was ceiling paint, so that's what I used for the base layer.

After I painted on the base layer with this, I let it dry for about 10 minutes then applied indoor/outdoor white spray paint on top for a second coat (not pictured).

{1st coat}

This is the final product!

Here are a few I've gotten inspiration from..

This post is linked up with Craft-O-Maniac!