So, yes, “Wedding Stuff” is the short way of saying “I’ve been keeping busy DIY-ing just about everything!” Well, at least in my lingo it is!

After I finished one, I went ahead and did my entire box of blue mason jars (totals 9, remember 1 broke?).

Can I reveal to y’all that this was my most rewarding DIY project thus far? It was also the easiest. I had so much raffia left over, I’m thinking about what else I can use it for!

Pardon Sophie, she likes to get her glamour shot on from time to time! Oh, BTW, I finally bought a DVD player(mine broke about a year ago-see it in the back?!) I rock.

I think white ribbon would be perfect against their damask flower girl dresses, right? I purchased my baskets from JoAnne’s for $2.00 (total!) and the turquoise liner fabric from JoAnne’s.

While I was at it, I decided to get rhinestone crazy (again) with my hotfix tool & rhinestones and attempt to make some “Mrs.” undies. I completely free-styled and the results were okay. I’ll wear them, just maybe not as the official Mrs. undies.

Now that I’ve had some experience, I think I’m settled on bedazzling some bridal party stuff and leaving the rhinestone undies to the pros. Ebay anyone?

After printing the labels out, I cut them down to size.

After I cut them down, I trimmed off the extra white space!

(I stacked the boxes, for the picture, but they are separate and ORIGINALLY the top one had black ribbon too!)

I’d been looking for something that would practically allow me to place a table number AND a menu all in the same place and kept drawing a blank! In my eyes, it’s not very cost-effective to place menus at EVERY place setting. It may fit someone else’ budget…but, honey, not mine! So I set out to find something…anything that would give me the look (and the cost) I was looking for.

And, ladies, this was (as the bride put it) the ‘easiest’ DIY project she did. Wowzer. Yes, I’m doing this!

Here are her words of how she accomplished this beautiful project!

• I laid out an 11×17 (tabloid) sized sheet in Adobe Illustrator.
  I wanted to get 2-3 out of each sheet of paper but still have each table tent a decent size. I ended up with 2 per 11×17, landscape oriented sheet. Each table tent, flat, measured 17? wide x 4.5? high. Since the printer I was planning on using doesn’t print full bleed, the artwork took up about 16? wide by 4.5? high each. The extra, blank half inch became a tab to which I affixed double stick tape to hold the thing folded together.
• The one at work broke a few days before I finished designing the layouts, of course,
  and my company decided not to replace it until we move (a month after the wedding). And yes, I had my boss’ permission since it was only 10 pages total (20 tables, 2 numbers per sheet).
• My wonderful former roommate printed them out for me on her Epson inkjet printer that can print up to 11×17 size.

• CIAO

  Ebonee Monique

• A friend and I cut each one out, to get the full bleed look.
• Said friend and I scored each into thirds, plus a little score line at the end for the 1/2? tab.
• I folded each, used double stick tape on the tab, which was stuck onto the back of the other end. Voila!
• Bonus tip #1 – Find a larger format inkjet printer if you can, over a color laser. The color lasers at Staples and Kinko’s just don’t cut it when you’re trying to print photos. I did some test plots there before bugging my old roomie, but the photos came out horribly. Photo printers (I know, still technically inkjet) work even better, but it’s hard to get a hold of one that can print up to 11? x17?.
• Bonus tip #2 – If you don’t have access to
  anything that can print pages this large, you can also do tall, skinny table tents made of an 8.5? x 11? sheet of paper folded in thirds.
• Bonus tip #3 – If you’re as cheap as me, buy a ream of 11? x 17? and have Kelly Paper cut some of it down to 8.5? x 11? for you. They’ll usually do it for free as it’s just cutting it in half. You get double the number of sheets, if you cut the whole ream in half, for less than the price of buying two reams of 8.5? x 11?.

Why hello double chin!

Here’s our final proof of our Save the Date cards.

Oh. My. Goodness. It is love.

Honestly, when I started thinking about this and researching other Save the Date cards, I knew I wanted something to set the tone (fun, unique and simply us) as well as something that kept with the theme. Well, my loyal readers, I’ve found just that!

My new e-bff, Chris, over at On Your Time (@ Etsy) is the designer and is, without a doubt, the BEST thing that’s happened to my design in a while. This was $15.00 I did NOT mind spending. She’s affordable, extremely easy to work with and so very friendly. If you aren’t sure what to do (or if you’re a budget bride trying to save $$ like me) with your save the dates, invitations or thank you cards, then head on over and check her out. She also does custom designs for $30.00! Be sure to tell her that you read about it on my blog!

I will print the Save the Date cards on VISTA PRINT and continue to save a lot of money.

Get this; Chris liked my design so much that she’s going to add it to her shop. Oh yeah!

What do you think?!

Okay. Let me hype myself up about this fantabulous introduction.

::blasts Kriss Kross “I missed the bus”::

That’s better. For some reason, I always feel hype after listening to Kriss Kross.

Hey everyone. My name is Ebonee Monique and I am one of the newest BABBIE bloggers. For those that don’t know me, here’s a picture of my mug!

And here’s yet another when I thought I was giving the photographer the sessay face. Yeah, it turned out to be the constipation face.

I was so extremely excited when Senam reached out to me to blog; of course I couldn’t say “yes” quick enough! So here I am, blogging about my upcoming wedding on March 5, 2010 (don’t burst my bubble, I know it’s not upcoming, exactly).

A little bit about me: I’m 27 (ugh…that’s hard to type as my birthday was Sunday 5/24), I’m a published author (pick up “Suicide Diaries” TODAY!) and I’m pretty much the definition of awesomeness. Well, maybe not the definition…but I’d like to think I rank within the top 10 of awesome people. I’ve always worked a full-time gig to support my writing habit and up until May 8, I was working advertising/marketing for a tourism agency. Yeah, you guessed it…I got the dreaded pink slip. I wish I could’ve been more devastated…but the truth is I know God has all of this planned out and I’m not questioning anything that’s in his plans.

My fiance, Marvin, and I have been together for 3 years. We were strictly friends (didn’t even think about dating each other) for a year and a half before we realized we were what each of us needed in a mate.

Here we are 3 months into dating!

(by the way, only true players go to Bonefish Grill!)

And a few more pictures of us!

We are planning a laid-back, family-oriented, wedding that will definitely not break the bank. Now, don’t get it twisted, just ’cause it’s not breaking the bank doesn’t mean it won’t break trends, boundaries and any myths that budget weddings aren’t as classy, fun or nice as bank-breaking weddings. Shout out if you’ve got $50K+ to devote to a wedding, but since I didn’t grow up dreaming about a wedding, Marvin and I refuse to spend crazy $$ on one day (even though it’s the biggest day) and be in debt later on because of it. I’m claiming now that the wedding won’t go over $12,000 and I guarantee it’ll be nice!

Our ceremony will be outdoors and the reception at the same venue, but inside. Here are a few pictures of our venue.

For a while, we were struggling with our theme and how we could tie it in to who we are as a couple. I love how our venue feels reminiscent of North Florida (where we live) and also the southern states we both grew up in. Because of that, we decided to tie all of that in together and go with a SOUTHERN COMFORT theme.  Here’s the inspiration board for our theme!

As you can see, our colors are teal/aqua and black and white damask.

Something new pops in our heads everyday and I can’t wait to share the ride with y’all.

As a warning: I have indecisive days so don’t shoot me, m’kay?

CIAO

Ebonee Monique