DIY Cacti Wedding Centerpieces

I absolutely love that cacti and succulents are "in" right now. I live in Phoenix so cacti and succulents come a plenty and, the best part, they are so hard to kill! You literally do not water it for weeks and they will thrive. These are pretty much the only plants that I can keep alive I am ashamed to admit.

Since my wedding was in Phoenix, I thought it would be cute to use these in my centerpieces. You have to remember that my wedding was very DIY, so doing the centerpieces was something I was really excited about. I wasn't nervous or scared about doing them because I knew the cacti would be hearty and I could make them weeks ahead of time.

This was my inspiration from Pinterest.

I knew that I wanted it to be a little more vintage than the picture above. My friend (and bridesmaid!) Cindy suggested that we buy princess bowls to make them somewhat consistent from table to table.  I ran all across the valley searching antique and thrift stores buying a huge variety of princess bowls; I think I ended up buying 15 in the end. It's funny, I still catch myself searching for these bowls when I go antique shopping; I can't break the habit!

My mother in law and I went to Lowe's (my favorite!) to buy all of the cacti and succulents. They cut me an awesome deal since I was buying so many; it never hurts to ask!

We tried to buy them so that they would be really packed into the bowls and there would be a good variety of height and color in each centerpiece.  My bridesmaids, mother in law, and I got together and had a "potting" party. We brought food and gloves ready to tackle some prickly cacti!  We lined each princess bowl with a circle of paper and used special cacti soil. We then topped each mini garden with small river rocks.  

I loved that each and every centerpiece was different, but they all tied in together. Haha, I think that was the theme of my wedding; mismatching yet coordinated. I anchored all of the mini gardens with vintage crocheted doilies to add some more color and oooomph (technical term).

The best part is that my guests were able to take them home after the wedding. I reserved two of my favorite bowls (I have a picture of one of them here), but the rest were up for grabs. I hope you all enjoyed my lovelies!

Cheapest Wedding Bouquets EVER

I was on a budget bonanza for my wedding! When I got bids for the flowers I swear I almost peed my pants out of sheer shock.
Ummm, $300 for my bouquet alone?! Are the flowers plated in gold? That was the cheapest quote that I got from recommended florists.

No offense to any one who does or has had professional florists prepare flowers at their wedding; they are absolutely beautiful and mine at the wedding were no where near the quality or caliber that a professional florist would be able to produce. Florals just weren't where I wanted my money going to... Food, yes. Photography, yes. Florals, eh.

I had been on Pinterest researching how to make your own bouquets and found that I was not alone in this search for a cheaper alternative. There were a ton of tutorials on how to turn grocery store flowers into flower arrangements so I figured, well, couldn't you do that for a bouquet?

And then my $30ish flower bouquets were born.

My flowers all came from Trader Joe's. They are such a good deal and so beautiful!

Since one of my colors was mustard yellow I knew that I wanted sunflowers in my bridal bouquet. My bridesmaid and friend Stephanie was able to combine a perfect combination of white and yellow. Both my sister and I used part of our mother's wedding dress for our wedding bouquets. My sister wrapped the lace around her bouquet tightly, but I chose to keep the ends long and free on mine for a more bohemian look.

My bridesmaids and I made our bouquets the night before the wedding. It was such a fun way to bond and relax before the big day. Each girl made their own bouquet so it was unique to them. They wrapped their bouquets with green floral tape and then with white crocheted ribbon from Hobby Lobby. We secured them with pins and hot glue. 

I love the way that they turned out. The bouquets look great with the girls' yellow dresses but also tie into my bouquet so beautifully.

Would you ever or did you make your own bouquets for your wedding? I ended up saving over $1000 on flowers! Trader Joe's is the way to go! (Rhyming seemed necessary to send my point home...)

January Favorite 5

I am so glad I have gotten back into the swing of blogging this past month. I have really missed the blogging community and am so happy to be back!

I was thinking every month I would do a little walk down memory lane to look back on some of my favorite posts from the past month. Sometimes I think I post too many posts and people miss them. Do you ever do a "look back" on your past posts?

Here are my January Favorite Five:

My Affirmation Bags! Love them and use them every day!

I loved all of my honeymoon posts, but the most special was probably the first one. I loved sharing my memories with all of you!

My favorite vintage finds - this post just makes me happy...

My Etsy finds for the wedding - I just love Etsy, don't you?

And finally, my absolute favorite post from January, was my paper flowers DIY post for the arch from my wedding! I loved making these and I think they looked absolutely adorable, not to mention they disguised the ugly white lattice arch beautifully. <3

Wedding Items Repurposed

I have been able to repurpose some items from the wedding. It makes me feel a little more useful in this world.

I had pilfered my parent's house a few months before the wedding looking for things that they did not want anymore. They had a really heavy mirror that they weren't planning on using anymore so I threw that bad boy in my car and was ready to do some serious DIY. Of course, it would be too perfect it I had taken a before picture; that would have been much too sensible.

I spray painted a primer all over the mirror. I think taped off the mirror section and sprayed the frame a pretty sunny yellow. The actual mirror part just got a really good coating of chalkboard paint. I also did not take a picture of this..........

Here it is on the wedding day! I used my great grandmother's toothpick holder collection instead of table numbers, that is why there are random titles with names underneath them. I will write more about that later.

It worked perfectly and it was so heavy and huge it actually ended up being a really convenient door holder as well!

I loved this giant chalkboard so much I knew I wanted to keep it but wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. It's much too heavy to hang on the wall.

I decided to make a little sign for our house and have our guests sign the board whenever they came to visit as a little memento.

The only issue if that I keep forgetting to have people sign it when they come over! Oh well... one day it will get filled up.

I think it is cute right by our front door and it adds a nice splash of color to a pretty blank space. I figure I can change out the saying too when holidays come around.

What else would you guys use this for?  I would love to hear your ideas!

Etsy Finds for the Wedding

If I could write a poem to Etsy it would go something like this...

Oh Etsy, I love you

I think I love you more than fondue

OK, well I never claimed to be a poet. Here are some of the Etsy purchases that I bought for the wedding along with their sources just in case you are interested in purchasing some of them.

Robes to get ready in - these also double as my bridesmaid gifts. A different color for every girl. The best part about these is that you can adjust anything and make them totally custom with the seller. I made our sleeves 3/4 length just because in Phoenix it is necessary.  Get them here from BridesmaidsRobes.

The ring bearer was wearing a jaunty little outfit from RockingHorseLane.

The corsages for the mother and grandmothers were from SpringDews. 

We got these super cute banners from FunCult. She was able to make it custom for us as well and was really easy to work with. 

There are so many creative cake toppers these days. I found these and fell in love. I loved that Clootielugs let me pick the colors and the accessories of the sweet little birds. Note the donut that has fallen off of the cake, haha!

I loved these library cards for place settings that I bought from KNOT & BOW. They were absolutely adorable and I received a lot of compliments. It also doesn't hurt that it fits with the whole teacher thing that I've got going on, you know since I'm a teacher... get it ? Get it? ;)

I bought my headband from PowderBlueBijoux. I wanted something with a little bit of bling, but not overdoing it. I like that it tied in the back making it a little dainty and feminine. 

I bought my veil from LoBoheme. I absolutely loved this veil and wish I would've been able to wear it longer. It kept smushing down my bangs. :(

And finally last but not least, I bought this vintage yellow travel suitcase from journeyspast for the guestbook setup. 

I love everything I bought from Etsy! What's your favorite thing you have bought from Etsy?

Paper Flowers Craft Part 2

Remember this project?

I wanted to do a follow up so everyone could see how they ended up at the wedding. It's hard to believe that was so long ago; it feels like just yesterday!

I wanted to use eleven giant paper flowers to arrange on the arch for my ceremony, the only reason for that is I had heard that odd numbers are better for decorating. And I always do as I am told. :) However only 10 actually fit on the arch; math apparently is no longer my strong suit.

Since the ceremony took place in a rose garden, I wanted to make sure that the flowers didn't upstage the natural beauty that was already all around us! I chose creamy white flowers with pops of green for the leaves. I think they ended up look like magnolia flowers.  :)

This is how I "MacGyvered" them to twist on to the arch. I picked this picture so you could see the back of the flowers and how they worked.

The wooden craft sticks mentioned above are the ones that you can find at any craft store. 

I loved the results! It definitely made the ceremony space special and unique for us. It was a relatively easy project for a big result!

If you have today off, I hope you have a wonderful day! If you don't have the day off, I hope you have an even better day! :)

Honeymoon - Portland Day 7

Our last day of our honeymoon was so bittersweet! We had such a wonderful time; it was so sad to know that it was coming to a close. At the same time though, I was kind of excited to come home and start playing wife with my new husband in our home.

Here came Black Friday! Portland does something pretty cool and does something called Little Boxes. This encourages people to shop in local stores instead of cramming into nationwide stores. This was perfect timing because we were able to find out where all of the local shops were located and also, ummmm, go shopping because it's my favorite. Oh my, I bought so many beautiful hand crafted goodies, it was wondrous.

Here are just a few glimpses of our last day.  I didn't take too many pictures this last day; we were just too busy!

I can't wait to go back again! The best part was spending that one on one time with George after the craziness of our wedding. I love that I can document this on my blog so that I can see and remember the good times any time I want. :)