FYI...

I just wanted to post a little diddy and let you guys know that the CCB is on Facebook... I am a Facebook (well, social media in general) addict and I follow all of my favorite blogs on Facebook, just to see what little tidbits of information they might offer via FB that is not on the blog. 

If you're interested, here is the link for FB. The CCB is also on Twitter, so if you Tweet, be sweet and follow me. (Sorry, bad joke.)

It's Sunday morning and my mom and I already made a quick trip north for one of our flowergirls to try on her dress (which fit AWESOME btw, a little big, but that is good since she had 6 months to grow.) Can't wait to see our other flower girl in it.

On the agenda for the rest of the day? Clean the house, laundry, pack for my work trip this week, get a workout in (outside hopefully - it's a whopping 40* outside!) and perhaps do a mock-up of our boutonnieres. Maybe I'll also finish glueing the crystals on the unity candle...

What am I going to do with all my time after August 27th? 

Practically Stealin'

The MIAB (Missing in Action Bride) is back! Reason for my long hiatus? Lots of wedding projects of course. :) Lots of updates coming. But I wanted to post a couple of STEALS I have gotten in the past month.

First - the flower girl dresses. I was walking through Target about a month ago when I stopped dead. in. my. tracks. Right in front of me was a rack of beautiful, poofy, little girls dresses in white. I told myself there was no way there was a 2T AND a 5T on the rack, but I calmly walked over to the rack to check it out. Low and behold, there was a dress in each size I needed for the girls, in the color I wanted!!! Best part!?! $20 each!!!

I am having my seamstress add a couple of extra layers of tool for some extra poof - you can never have too much poof before age 6. We are also going to add a Lapis sash to each of them, which are only $10 at David's. Hopefully with the extra tool and sash, the total for each dress should be less than $40, not bad considering the cheapest alternate I had found was $80!

Next up: my rehearsal dinner dress... Yes, the wedding is still 6 1/2 months away and I have a dress for rehearsal dinner, but wait until you hear this... I had been eyeing this dress at Younkers since right after Christmas, but I just could not justify the $168 price tag. (And I am VERY good at justifying ANYTHING). So I was at Younkers today with my mom, looking for a MOB dress and I wandered over to the clearance rack. The 75% off clearance rack. And I saw my dress. There was only one left on the rack. "It will be a size 12" I told myself as I reached for it. I turned the tag over and... SIZE 6!!! My size!!!

I tried it on to be sure, and it fit PERFECTLY. With 75% off, my grand total came to $37 and some change. Yep! $168 to $37. Done deal. 

This dress also gives me a chance to wear the kick ass purple Jessica Simpson heals that I impulsively bought before I bought my wedding dress and figured out that I am too tall and need to wear flats with my wedding dress. Now I just need to find a really awesome necklace for it... Preferably purple... 

My advice: Be patient, check unconventional places for what you're looking for and keep checking back for sales. 

DIY: Pomanders

I've got a lot of work ahead of me in the next 7 1/2 months... Here is my list of DIY:

• Pomanders (about 40 to be exact.)
• Boutonnieres 
• Personalized water bottles
• Out of town bags/boxes
• Centerpieces (30 of them, 3 different styles)
• Bathroom baskets
• Petals for the flower girls
• Guestbook
• Signage
• Programs/invitations assembly
• Aisle runner
• Table numbers/escort cards (we are still up in the air as to wether or not we are going to do these.)
• Unity candle (almost done... and just realized I forgot to get more crystals at Michael's today...)
• Photobooth
• Flower girl baskets

Yea, time to get started.

Last weekend, I worked on the unity candle (ran out of crystals at the very end!) I will hopefully be able to check that one off the list by the end of next weekend. I also did a mock up of our pomanders. You read correctly above, we will need approx. 40 pomanders! Here is the breakdown:

• 20 - 5" pomanders with cream colored roses for the church
• 8 - 5" pomanders in blue, aqua and teal mums for the entry doors and head-table
• 10 - 8" pomanders with purple mums for 1/3 of the centerpieces

I started my first attempt with cream, opened roses I picked up at the Dollar Tree and a 6" styrofoam ball.  (I originally thought I wanted 6" pomanders, but quickly figured out that the finished product would be too big...) I also started with 2" ribbon, a hot glue gun and floral wire. 

I first started out by making a small loop with the floral wire and by twisting together the ends of a small piece... My original loop was way too big, you honestly only need the loop to be about 1" in diameter.

You do this part at the end, but you will eventually stick your little loop in the mess of flowers and this is what you will loop your ribbon through.

(Before I stuck the floral-wire loop in, I put a dab of hot glue on the spot I stuck it in at and then added a little more hot glue after it was in to secure.)

Next, I used some kind of weird tool in Bryan's tool box to cut the buds off of the stems... PSA: Don't use scissors to cut anything on the fake flowers - it will ruin them. 

I then stuck the flowers in each "pole" of the pomander... Kind of like the north, south, east and west pole. I have seen in other posts on DIY pomanders, people say that they secured with hot glue. I am here to say, this is unnecessary. Just make sure when you cut your  buds off, you make your stems about 1" - 2" long. The longer the stem, the more secure it will be. 

I then started filling in the rest.

One of our Fur-Babies wanted in on the action too...

Then I cut some ribbon... This will need some tweaking - I cut off waaaaayyy too much. I think about 18" will suffice in the future.

I then used a lighter to singe the edge to prevent it from fraying

Then looped it through the floral-wire loop I had installed by this time and tied it in a tight knot. I then secured the knot to the floral wire with a little more hot glue. 

Ta-da! Finished product:

This pomander was done on a 6" ball and took about 55 open rose buds from Dollar Tree. As you can see, it turned out HUGE. I am going to downgrade 5" balls in for the real-deal pomanders and hope they take up less flowers.

I have on order and am not so patiently waiting on about 500 buds from silkflowerfactory.com. I'll be sure to post on the quality of these little babies once they get in.