Just what I need...

Another obsession. How ah-mazing is this paper receipt altar that I found here on 100 Layer Cake. I am literally dying with envy and drooling all over my keyboard. I wants. A lot.

If I had a million dollars (great, now that song's going to be stuck in my head all day), I would so make this out of silk ribbon. Mmmm...

Where have you been my whole life,

Groupon!? (You thought I was going to say Chris, didn't you? Well, him, too, but seriously people we're talking major discounts here.) I'm not going to lie, saving money makes me super excited. I'm one of those people that if given a compliment such as "I like your sweater," I respond with "thanks, it was originally $148 but I paid $30!" (That just might be the case for the sweater I'm wearing right now.)

If you don't know about groupon, you should come out from under that rock. :) Living Social is good as well. They send you daily emails for 50% off (or more) restaurants, spas, gyms, experiences, etc. in your city. They were quite handy for buying Christmas gifts this year. Wait. Technically last year, I suppose. I always have a hard time with that the first week of January.

Every once in a while Groupon makes my week. (I'm easy to please, I guess.) This is one of those weeks!
Today Groupon had a sale on photo books from Photobook America. Hello 70% off super nice guest book! This means I paid $35 for a $115 gift certificate to the website! And if I don't use it for a guest book (because I'm still considering guest book options such as polaroids of each guest), I will likely use it make a nice keepsake or gift for our families after the wedding! Love!

It's the little things...

like personalized wedding dress hangers that make me swoon over weddings. How gorgeous is this!?




With that lovely swooping "f!?" Mmmm. The dress photos are going to be that much more gorgeous hanging from this!

I purchased it from lilafrances on etsy, but be forewarned, there is a 10 week turnaround time.

And, yes, for the record I will be changing my name. I have two last names, both beginning with "F" so at least my initials won't change. :) And after writing two last names for my entire life, I'm going to be happy to have just one. And, while I appreciate all of the name options I've been given by friends and family ("Triple F" topping the list), I'm very sorry to disappoint you all with my decision to stick with one name. Ok, I'm not sorry at all. So there.

Biting off more than you can chew. Mmmmm...

I've been hemming and hawing (sp?!) about what to do for prettiness behind us during the ceremony. I've seen a number of things, but most just don't seem right. A big floral arrangement...meh. I detest many of those. I've seen displays using branches, but at the end of September, who wants to be reminded of fall and winter? Plus, dead branches make me kind of sad. I want something neat-o, but not overly ornate and not too...alter-y? Clear as mud, right?

My current insane idea is stolen from Martha but then changed up a bit to make it more fancy (read: difficult). I want to make this out of fabric garlands (the paper ones seem a little cheesy to me):


I know...I know...I'm crazy. I'm a little concerned that I won't be able to make garlands that are long enough, but maybe I'll be able to pull it off. Stay tuned! :)

It's my lucky day!!

What a fun and incredibly lucky day! I just learned that I won two giveaways today!

First is a very pretty hairpiece from Flourish by Lillie given away by our fantastic photographer Abbey Hepner.

Check it out here! So pretty with the feathers and the lovely small vintagey broach...plus just a touch of veiling in the center. Mmm... I'm not sure what I'm doing with my hair on my wedding day, but if I don't work the hairpiece into the wedding, then perhaps I'll use it for the engagement photos. I'm not sure, but either way it's so pretty!

Amazingly I also won Amy Atlas' giveaway for the cutest Williams Sonoma gingerbread house bunt pan. How cute is this!?:


I'm ridiculously excited to have my name on Amy Atlas' blog since she's my "job hero" (lawyer turned dessert stylist - I mean really, that's amazing!) and I have a big fat crush on her.

Also, on the job hero front, if I could make a job from wrapping people's gifts for them, I would. Then I'd be my own job hero. (?) I finally have all my Christmas gifts wrapped and ribboned and fancied up. Here are some of the prettier ones:




I'm madly in love with the red and turquoise combination, if you couldn't tell. Also, that little squirrel atop a present all wrapped in woodsy pinecone paper is adorable!


And sometimes when you keep your hot glue gun on the table so it's handy, and you can't figure out how to attach a giant sparkly star, you just glue it right onto the present. :)

I'm certain there are times when I actually spend more on the wrapping than on the gift, but it's how I show my love. :)

I have a tree!

Ok, so it's not *my* tree, but I store my uncle's fake Christmas tree in my basement. We've had some rains in Seattle. Like, a lot of rain. So, I put on some rain boots and waded (is that a word?) around in the 6 inches of water in my basement to save what I could. Not that there's much to save - most everything's up on blocks down there because it floods every year, but not to this degree. Long story short, the fake Christmas tree had to come upstairs. My uncle got a real tree this year = I get to have a tree my last year as a bachelorette (or something.) So here's my "bachelorette tree."


As you can see in the following very helpfully labeled photo (taken without flash so you can see the pretty glowy), the cat approves:

Oh Christmas...

Every year I think I'm very organized and "ready" for Christmas. Every year I'm wrong, even when I'm more prepared than the year before. It's some kind of horrible unsolveable riddle. However, this will likely be the last year that I go so crazy at Christmas since, gah, I'll be married next Christmas and there will be other people living with me and they may not appreciate my 2am baking projects.

I'm buried in work, presents, baking, etc. so I probably won't post for a week or so, but I promise I have a good Christmas post coming up! Until then, isn't my cat cute!? Yes, I know, this has nothing to do with anything, but she is pretty, so she fits into the "theme."


She loves it when I'm sick and I hang out on the couch all day in the red down blankie.

Oh, here she is under the tree a few years ago. (I refuse verify if I use post-its to label my gifts instead of actual gift tags. Maybe I do, or maybe that one just happened to land on that present there. I will say that gift tags sometimes mess with my wrapping mo-jo, and I usually know which gift is which based on the ridiculous amount of time I spent wrapping it. In fact, without being able to read the post-its, I remember whose presents those were from 2 years ago. Yes, I'm nuts.)


I won't tell you how many pictures I have of Raya...you may never think of me the same again.