The beginning...Our wedding day

Yay!!! My 100-th post! In honor of that, I will be blogging about our wedding. 

I have been busier than usual so I apologize for not getting a chance to blog this as promised a couple of weeks ago.

J & I were officially married on a fine spring day in April 2011. The day after our Nigerian ceremony.
Funny enough, J & I got into an argument the night before because he was "complaining" about having to entertain his family while I was working hard to clear up things after our Nigerian ceremony. Mind you, by entertainment, I mean drinking with his friends and family...oh the horrors! He has since repented and besides, I knew he didn't mean it :-). Anyways, I digress...
I found out the day after we were married that J wasn't sure of what state I'd be in (mood-wise) on our wedding day. I on the other hand was completely sure I would be having a fabulous day. 

It was a fabulous day indeed...if you don't count the very very very slow hair stylist. We got there at 7am and I didn't leave until after noon! I had to rush to shower and have my makeup done before the photog got there. My sister took this pic cause at this point, I was PISSED!

Then it was on to makeup. I think she did an awesome job! My makeup held up the entire day/evening. 

Me in the limo with my dad and mom.

The girls all wore different shades of red shoes. They looked awesome in the actual professional pics.

Having a quiet moment before walking down the aisle.

Both my parents walked me down the aisle. I am so glad I made that decision to have them both do that. I figured since they both had a hand in raising my, they should both be there to "give me away". My mom was really honored by that. Side note: I made each and every one of those pew pomanders! That was definitely a labor of love :-).

The back of my dress. It was a cathedral length train. That dress was HEAVY! At the end of the night, my stomach felt tighter! I didn't even have to wear a girdle or do sit ups for that :-).

Both sets of parents praying for us.

I am officially a Mrs!!  Yes, I was dancing and hubby as usual was smiling at me. This was pre-goatee...look at my very hot hubby! :-). He looked so dapper in his tux.

Ceremonies over. Now time to PARRRR-TAY!!!

My father/daughter dance. I enjoyed dancing with my dad. 

Yes, we had a change of clothes. It was time to dance dance dance!!!

The cake was DELICIOUS! The top layer was carrot cake. My favorite. It was GONE by the end of the week. Considering we got back from our mini-moon that Wednesday, ummm...it took me 2-days to eat the entire thing. YES I know, gluttony is a sin. The cake was sinfully goooooodddd :-).

DIY ITEMS:

Like I said earlier, the wedding was a labor of love. As most of you know, weddings are EXPENSIVE and since we had 2, it was twice as expensive. So to ensure that ALL of our vendors were paid before or on the day of our wedding, I took on the task of making a lot of items myself. Hubby helped quite a bit but we weren't living together so a lot of the work fell on me. I don't mind though cause I got a lot of back and feet rubs :-). 

Our party favors. I made all 160 boxes! First, the rhinestone buckles arrived sans rhinestones. I had to individually glue the stones on there because the eBAY ad failed to mention that. Needless to say, when all was said and done, I had inhaled A LOT of glue! 

The boxes had biscottis since hubby's family is Italian. Hubby and I spent 2 days baking each and every one of the biscottis. They tasted FABULOUS but ummm...I haven't had biscottis since then. I don't plan on baking them anytime soon. 2-years later and I am still traumatized. See the end of the wedding pics for my DIY items.

The ring bearer's pillow. This was one of the easiest ones to do.

Flower girl's baskets. I made 2.

One of the pomander's.

Using PowerPoint and wax paper, I made these. They actually turned out OK.

Did the menu cards. Some were blue base with white menus and others were white base with blue menus.

The table numbers. I had to cut out each individual number and then glue the blue card stock behind them. This took some time but it wasn't hard per se.

Our signature cocktail drinks display. This was another easy one.

Wedding activity books. I made bags for the kids with crayons, glow in the dark sticks, candy and these books. The books were for drawing and coloring. 

If you haven't already guessed it by now, our colors were Tiffany blue, Silver and White with red accent colors. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed re-living the day. 

More DIY, morning room decor and dining set

It has been a busy few days. I have done quite a few of my DIY items and I love the way they turned out.

We ordered a dining table for our morning room. We already had  the chairs from 2 other sets hubby and I had so we only had to paint them.

My inspiration is at the top and the final finished product is at the bottom of this pic.

We had a mix of similar chairs. Hubby had 4 and I had 2. Thankfully, the table sits 6 so it was perfect. 

Before and after look of the chairs.

On the left of this pic was my inspiration for our bedroom art. They did theirs on wood boards but I used canvas instead. Also, since I am not an artist, I created my own stencils using MS Word, used a pen knife to cut out the shapes and then just painted over the canvas. Hubby will be hanging these up this weekend.

Also, on the left is the inspiration I found on Pintrest (my new obsession). I made the middle and right one. These are hung up in our morning room. It ties in all the colors. 

Yes, it is PRAY and then EAT. I know a lot of people will walk in and wonder why I hung up PRAY before EAT. It is a conversational piece. I'll just let them know I pray before I eat :-).

Weekend festivities...baby dedication & more DIY

It was a fun but VERY busy weekend. My family came to town to celebrate JOE's dedication at church. It was awesome to be surrounded by friends and family from bother sides. JOE truly is a lucky gal. In true fashion she did great all day yesterday and proceeded to be a crying mess after we got home. Its all good. She slept from 8pm until 7:15am this morning. SCORE!

Here she is with her aunt/godmother.

I made good on my promise and had a dress made for her from my wedding gown. It looked great on her and I am glad I did it. We are also having a romper made for a boy incase our next one or the one after is a boy :-). I am keeping the top of the dress and will have a different colored skirt added to it later. Perhaps it I can wear it for our 10-year anniversary. That dress will certainly be put to good use! It cost a pretty penny afterall and I refuse to only get 6-hours of wear out of it :-).

JOE with her grandparents (my parents).

More pics on JOE's dedication later. The photog (my brother) had to leave early to catch a train back to NYC so he couldn't download the pics before leaving.

More DIY Projects

I saw this picture on Pintrest and wanted to recreate something similar.

J & I inherited this buffet from J's grandmother.

I got the frame from eBAY. I already had the mirror. The glassware was from our unity candles and also a couple of flower vases I have received in the past from J. My dad used painter's tape to cover the areas we wanted to protect and I went to work on this. It took a total of about 1 hour to paint and a full day to dry. 

Here's the finished work.

Buffet: Free

Glassware: Free

Stones in vases: Already had these at home

Frame: $35

Flowers: $24 (from Michaels. They were on sale @ $3.97 a piece)

Paint for frame: $6 (2-small bottles of glossy black paint)

Brushes: $1 (got 2 @ $0.49 per brush)

Another flower vase I received from J in the past. He buys me flowers often. I love that man...

Candle holders: Free (we already had these at home. They were a gift to J from way back when)
Vase: Free
Flowers: $12 (they were on sale for $3.95 from Michael's)

Hope you had a fabulous weekend!

Making our house a home...dining chairs DIY project

I managed to get another DIY project completed. Rather, I was forced to. 

It all began with a dining room set. We inherited the dining set from J's grandmother. The chair fabric was pretty worn but the main furniture pieces was pretty solid so I decided to keep and use them in our dining room. Any way to save a buck!

So last Friday, I started to remove the old fabric. 

On Saturday, I picked up the fabric and chair cushions from Walmart.

Fabric: $13.44

Cushion: $13.66

On Sunday, we picked up a heavy duty staple gun and staples from Home Depot. 

Staple gun: $18.99

Staples: $4.25

Well, things got quite busy since we were celebrating our anniversary so this project was put on hold.

However, because J had already unscrewed the chair bases and I had already started removing the cushion and fabric, J and I had to immediately finish the chair since we're having guests this weekend.

So while I put on the fabric and stapled it to the chair base, J screwed them back and helped with stapling when my hands got tired. 

Here's the finished product.

It was a 2-hour effort but that kept us up until late on Wednesday night but it was worth it.

On Saturday, while I was out shopping, J put together this coat rack/sitting piece for our front door. This was a wedding gift. We can FINALLY use the items we received after 2-years of marriage :-). 

We figured guests can sit there while they take off their shoes.

Furniture piece/mirror: Free

2-Baskets: $12.98 (I used a 40% off coupon I had for Michael's)

I purchased the baskets from Michael's on sale. On holds clean socks and the other will be used to put dirty socks.

While out shopping on Saturday, I found a nice set of towels at Wal-mart that I figured would look nice in the half bathroom downstairs. So I purchased them and put ribbons I already had at home (I keep ribbons from gift wrappings).

2-Towels: $9.96 total

Ribbons: Free

On another note, here's a picture of our happy baby. Right before she proceeded to keep mommy and daddy up most of the night :-). I love love love that smile!

Hope you had a great week. Have an awesome weekend! I am looking forward to spending time with my family this weekend.

Beautiful weekend and nursery pics

It was a pretty good weekend. J, JOE managed to get a lot done. 

On Saturday after J left for class, JOE and I hung out at home for a bit before bundling up and heading out for a walk. JOE really enjoyed the walk. She smiled at everyone and was a little chatterbox. Thankfully, the weather warmed up while we were walking so we were able to stay out for a bit longer. 

After we got home, we got cleaned up and headed to Michaels to get some items to complete JOE's nursery and also to frame the mirror I have. 

I thought it'd be OK to take JOE out of her carseat and just wear her in the baby bjorn while shopping. Hmmm...not the best idea. She got really fussy after about 20-minutes of browsing. I had to quickly pay and leave the store. No fun! Lesson learned though. She's not ready for that yet. I think she still needs her stroller and/or her carseat. Oh well!

Sunday, we made it to Church somewhat on-time (as in before the sermon :-)) and then we headed to the in-laws. J's aunt and godmother will be making JOE's baby blessing (similar to a baptism) gown using my wedding gown. I figured I won't be wearing it again and this was a good way to make use of the very AMPLE material from the dress. I will share pics after it is made. 

After Church, we came home and relaxed for a bit. We were planning on getting our patio done but after getting some estimates, we are going to wait until next year to get it done. Plus one of the guys who came out CREEPED ME OUT!!! He said "your daughter is very cute. Can I hold her?" Ummm...I don't know you from jack! Needless to say, even though every fiber in my body was screaming to run, I just said "ummm...no..." Hubby added "first time protective mom and all." Hubby said I handled it well :-).

So here are some pics of JOE's nursery. We are almost done! The window valence go up tonight and then it'll be done! I like the way everything turned out. I think JOE does too :-).

The room BEFORE transformation.

The room AFTER transformation.

I got the letters, stars and base board from Michaels. I sprayed them and used tacky glue to attach the letters to the board. Then put a ribbon on the back and hung it up on her door.

Total cost for all materials including taxes was $18. 

Total time spent was about 30-minutes.

I got vinyl wall decals from amazon.com.
Total cost for decals: $24
Total time spent putting it up: 1-hour (J had to help me put up the higher ones and JOE was quite fussy during the process)

I got these letters from amazon as well. I thought it was a good way for her to learn her ABCs. It is on the wall across from JOE's crib.
Total cost: $12.99
Total time spent putting them up: 20-minutes

I got 3-frames from Michaels. My goal was to make framed 3-D art to put on JOE's wall.

This frame is of her foot print card and bracelet from when she was born. Written on it are her stats...Date of Birth, Weight, Time of birth and length.
Cost for frame: $4.99 each
Time spent putting it together: Less than 10-minutes.

The toy chest was a gift from J's co-worker. The colors go so well with her nursery.

I framed 2-cards I received from my baby shower. I thought the cards were perfect to use so I kept them after my shower.
Cost for frame: $4.99 each
Time spent putting it together: 20-minutes total

Clearly, my 3-D framing skills is a work in progress but so far so good.

The last item are her window valence. They go up tonight.

J also scored a couple of pairs of sunglasses while we were out. Here she is feeling really cool :-).

Hope you had a nice weekend!