Before & After

*before*

Spray painted the wood yellow

trying my best to recover the chair

close up of the fabric and color combo

 *after*

Meet Ginger

Chris and I rescued a mini pinscher named Ginger.  Here, she is helping me fold laundry.  She really likes to be underneath things.  At night she climbs under the covers and goes to the foot of the bed! She's a hoot!

She's precious!

Wedded Wednesday

We are one of those crazy couples that is trying to do everything ourselves... so first we tackled the invitations. Here's how:


First we typed up our invitations on my little computer, using microsoft word.


Then we went to the Samford University Print Shop and had 200 invitations printed AND cut to size for a whopping 20 bucks!


Then off to my sister's house in Louisville Kentucky to have her help us design our lovely invites.


We started, simply by rounding the corners.... As my sister always says, "Rounded corners makes everything prettier."

*before*

*after*

Then we got to cutting... and Little Cat said we were doing it wrong, so he taught us a few things....

some wrapping around the invitation...

and then some tying... and for the grand finale....

SO CUTE!
.......


.....welll.... turns out we had a problem... that beautiful knot we tied (hours and hours of knot tying... and lots of trouble finding enough of that ribbon) wouldn't mail very easily.  It would get caught in the mailer machine and would probably arrive in the mailbox (if it made it) all ripped up and junk. NOT COOL. This made me angry, I wanted to have cute invitations... not boring ones. Well.... turns out, my sister had this stamp and embossing powder and a heat embossing gun (she has every craft supply ever!) that she thought would be cute to use for something for the wedding but didn't know what. 


I decided that the ribbon had to go. :( trust me, this made me verrrryyy sad.  I said I would only let the ribbon go if we could find a way to use all of those precut ribbons somehow, someway at the reception.  A friend of my mom's had a great idea for the ribbon (a deet I can't let you in on until later... I don't want to give away everything).  Soooo off to embossing Chris and I went.  Actually.... Chris did most of the work, and he did such a great job!

cute, huh?

a close up

The stamp is a birdcage with a little birdie inside.  This is perfect for our wedding because our wedding theme is "lovebirds." I am happier with the second grand finale, so I'm glad I had to stress over what to do with the ribbon and such. :)

I just found out that I might have fashion sense....

I'm sure you've all heard of the blog Kendi Everyday... if not, go check it out, she's hilarious and has serious fashion sense and not to mention, absolutely gorgeous.  WELL.... I was looking at her blog last night and this post caught my eye.  This outfit of hers looks strangely familiar.... It's very similar to the outfit I wore to my wedding shower about a week ago.  Lookey here...

Kendi's outfit:

kendi everyday

that's me, in the middle with the ya-ya's :)

pic from sister's blog blacktagdiaries

pic from sister's blog blacktagdiaries

I was so excited to see how similar our outfits were! I might have fashion sense after all!

Couponing.... is it worth it?

I'm a fan of the TLC show Extreme Couponing, not because it's interesting (because, really it's only cool the first time or so...) but mainly because it got me started on couponing and saving money.  Now, the trick to save money with coupons is to combine your coupons with the sales.  For example, say you LOVE yogurt... and yogurt is on sale this week buy one get one free. They would normally cost $1.25 each but you have a coupon for 35 cents off one yogurt.  My store doubles coupons for up to 50 cents so really we're getting 70 cents off each.  Since you're buying two, you can use TWO coupons (just read your coupon, the instructions are very specific)... so combined with the buy one get one free sale and two doubled 35 cent off coupons, the store would actually be paying you 15 cents for every two yogurts that you buy. Neat, huh?

SOOO, here's how I coupon.   First off, I buy two Sunday papers (best for those buy one get one sales to have two coupons).  Then I clip the coupons and organize them into my coupon book (Chris always kindly jumps in to help on this part, and also the shopping part... it's actually a fun activity to do together) by like items (hair products with hair products, etc...).  Moving on...

Then, to get ready for a shopping trip I plan the trip and put the coupons for one shopping trip in a ziplock baggie.  This is usually the most time consuming part, finding the best deals for your money... 

This week, I went to CVS and Winn-Dixie... I would recommend knowing your store's coupon policy before hitting the stores.... it can help you save some serious money!




 I know CVS is not a grocery store but you can do some serious damage there! For example, this week they had a promotion where if you bought $30 dollars worth of certain items, you would get a ten
dollar gas card.  NOT too shabby!! And really watch the extra bucks! Do all of your purchases that will give you extra bucks first, then do a second purchase of non extra buck items and use your extra bucks and coupons to pay for it. So the other day I purchased about $280 worth of stuff including:


five 2-liter bottles of sprite
eight gatorades
two packs of pork tenderloins
four bags of chips
schick hydro razor
six jars of peanut butter
two 36-packs of tampons
two bottles of lotion
one body wash
two family packs of voila frozen meals
two family packs of frozen vegetables
two packs of twizzlers
two packs of sandwich rounds
two packs of bagels
two boxes of cereal
three pringles cans
two mashed potatos
two boxes of fiber one bars
two bottles of purex detergent
two packs of Finish dish detergent

...and lots and lots of toilet paper.

ALL of this and I spent just about $130.  I know... it's not extreme... but it's about a 50% savings and I'm PROUD!

Ask me coupon questions, and I'll do my best to help you out!

Why keep something the same when you can change it?

I want this.... I dream of that... Trying to make my house a home for me, my soon-to-be husband, and two roommates has taken over my mind.  I'm trying to organize my thoughts and hoping that this post will help me to do so.  Now, I know that I can't have all of this... or it would just be silly to do all of this in a home that we will only be in for a couple more years...

I want a wall of mis-matched frames, old and new and lots of different prints/photos to display

And I want to add some shelves to add for some pretty storage in the kitchen, kinda like this...

I have to go through my master bathroom to get to the closet, and the closet door is always in the way unless it remains closed... which is NOT a possibility. So, we would like to put in a pocket door.

I would also like to put either a bench or a banquette in the nook between the end of my kitchen cabinets and the window wall for the eat-in space of the kitchen.... like this:

hopefully, I'll have some before & afters for you soon enough. :)

Back to Reality

Hey there blog-land! Long time no see... and I mean lo-oo-ng time no see.... I have done a couple of posts in the past 2 months but not many.  We have one more final and then I'm officially a 3rd year pharmacy student! With my very last true summer to spend.  Next summer we start rotations and then it's off to get a big-girl-job after that year.  So... what's that? How will I be spending my summer you ask? Let's see...

In June I will be going home to Houston with Chris and doing lots of wedding planning!

I will try to keep you updated on any fun things!

In July, I will be going on an amazing cruise to Alaska in honor of my lovely parents for their 35th wedding anniversary.

In August, I will be getting MARRIED!! Can you believe that it's less than 3 months away?!

And in September (I know, not really summer, but it's still exciting...) me and my family will be going to Germany for another wedding!

So excited!

Not too shabby if you ask me.  What are YOU doing for your summer?