I have an Etsy store now!

I figured I'd better put my creative abilities to some good use and opened a store.  My first item was the wedding wands that I'd made this afternoon while watching the series finale of Dexter *tear*.

Aren't they just ridiculously pretty!!!  They're not my colors, but it's the only ribbon that I had on hand to play around with, so I went with it.  Anyway... if anyone else would like to open an Etsy store, click on this link and we both get 40 free listing!  Woohoo!!!

http://etsy.me/16RUYFV

You can also visit my shop at http://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/BeadsByMarie

=D

Say "NO" To Chalkboard Signs!!!

Everywhere I look there are chalkboard signs at weddings!  I want signs at my wedding, but I don't want them to look like all the other ones.

I have found a blank wooden heart sign at Dollarama last Winter and it's just been hanging around in all its wooden glory waiting for something big to happen.

This isn't my heart, but you get the picture... Just a lovely wooden canvas!

I grabbed some metallic paints from Walmart and some brushes and decided to have a crack at hand-painting my own sign... This is how it turned out...

Pretty impressed, am I!  I'm going to paint an arrow just under where it says "Photo Booth" but I have no idea where the sign is gonna hang yet, so that'll be done after we book the venue (which might be tonight as I'm going to check out a cute hall later!).  

I've now decided to change my plans from lazing around the house watching TV to heading to the dollar store for more blank signs.  I have visions of the drive to the hall scattered with "nearly there" and "this way for the I Do's" signs!  Perhaps I'll even make my own "Mr & Mrs" signs for the backs of the chairs, and then hang them above our bed after the big day has come and gone!  

I just love DIY soooooooooooooo much.  

A Brides Rant!!!

I have been engaged for exactly 273 days, and I am officially "pinned out"!

When I first became engaged I decided to be super sleuth and create a secret board for all my wedding inspired pinnables, but as that became out of hand I graduated myself to a whole new fake Pinterest account.  This was a place that I could pin freely without any of my friends seeing every pin and wondering if I was going to somehow incorporate that into my wedding for the ultimate Pinterest-Inspired wedding.  I pinned day and night!  If I couldn't sleep, I'd be perusing for unique ideas or decorations.  I found myself pinning at every moment I could.  And what did I discover?

Every bride wants the same thing.

We all want a unique never-been-seen-before wedding filled with cutesy mason jars, cowboy-boot wearing brides and bridesmaids, groomsmen adorned in super-hero cufflinks, shirts, and socks, pictures of the groomsmen fawning over the ring in a girly fashion, secret vows whispered to each other, twinkling lights strung throughout a barn, personalized wire-wrapped coathangers ... Well guess what, Ladies... It's all been done before... and done, and done, and done.

Pinterest is ruined for me.

Don't worry, I still love going there and poking around, but you won't find my wedding filled with the whimsy of a Pinterest wedding (with the exception of the backdrop photobooth... I am soooooo doing that!), but rather an inspired collaboration of all things wedding-y.

I have stopped pinning each and every idea that I think of to Pinterest, but rather to a folder on my computer that I won't be sharing until after my wedding so that no one can accuse me of having another cookie-cutter, burlap-wrapped,  bedazzled flip-flop wedding!


I have also decided to ixnay a chandelier above my washer & dryer!