The Shower

Our exciting weekend of my daughter's bridal shower is over. All the planning and preparations and then ~ woosh ~ it's over before you know it! What a lovely day it was though. The weather was perfect....sunny, but not too hot which allowed everyone to sit outside on the deck for the entire party. Of course after it was all over I realized that I didn't take nearly enough photos. That made me sad because this is a once in a lifetime experience. It's hard to take pictures and still make the rounds to talk to everyone. I hear it will be even worse at the wedding. I guess I will have to work on my mingling technique before the big day. Of course there will be a photographer there, so I don't have to worry about that part of it. There will be plenty of other things to attend to I'm sure. Pictured above is the darling cake and my sister-in-law also had a huge cheesecake, an endless variety of homemade cookies, and lots of fresh fruit, nuts, chocolates, etc...and that was just the dessert course! She is a gem and I refer to her as "the entertainer" of the family because she does it with such ease and grace. What a wonderful array of gifts my daughter received. I couldn't believe how generous everyone was. And we all agreed that we wish we could have our own showers again after seeing all the lovely things she got. One of the highlights of the day was when I over-heard a friend of mine telling my daughter that she has such good taste and I choked up when my daughter replied that she gets her good taste from me! (Sigh) Right now our living room is a sea of gift boxes ~ actually it looks like a Crate and Barrel stockroom! I don't have a clue as to where we are going to put all of it for the next couple of months until the wedding. I wonder if my daughter would notice if I slipped a few of the things into my own kitchen!

Store Bought vs Handmade

Today was a busy day running here and there with my daughter on one of those rare occasions that we are both free at the same time. I worked hard at trying to transform some of the things on my "to-do" list (see previous post) into "ta-das." How did that go, you ask? Not as well as I hoped, but we did manage to cross off one major item ~ finally making a decision on the invitations for her wedding. N wanted them to be simple, yet still unique to her style. She also preferred that we make them ourselves. What? Oh dear! She told me that "people will expect us to make them." Oh really? But never shying away from a challenge, especially when it involves my child and the chance to play with paper, we drove out to this store......

Being a frequent customer of the store, I already knew that they would have the perfect color of paper we would need for the base of the invitations - pool and chocolate. Wendy, the nice lady at Paper Source, was ever so helpful and turned all the decisions as to the sizes and weights of all the papers and envelopes we needed into a total breeze. She even wrote down all the dimensions that we will have to trim the various layers of card stock down to. She was an absolute angel and you could tell that she truly enjoys her job!

I must admit after all these years of shopping at Paper Source and seeing young brides deliberating over which of the many beautiful papers to use for their wedding invitations, I became slightly "verklempt" while standing there today with my own darling daughter doing the same thing.

Speaking of handmade cards and things, I mentioned in an earlier post that I went to a bridal shower that was held for my daughter last Saturday. And as much fun as it was to shop for gifts to give her, I think I had the best time putting together the handmade cards for her. The one above I made using vintage bridal shower wrapping paper, along with a sweet little bride and greeting cut from a vintage greeting card. I glittered up the flowers on her skirt and added some bakers twine to the fold. Below is the sentiment I put inside the card.....
On another gift I attached this shipping tag instead of a traditional greeting card. Again, the image is from some vintage wedding wrapping paper I found at the antique mall. The white lace trims were sent to me all the way from Spain from my sweet blogging friend Mercedes....just because! The aqua lace is another vintage trim I had picked up along the way. I added some soft blue polka dot scrapbook paper I found at Michael's and some "pearl" dots I made with a product called Liquid Pearls.
Well, I guess I'd better get started cutting the huge stack of cardstock I have piled up on my diningroom table. I am determined not to be my usual procrastinating self on this project! I'll keep you posted on how that goes!