christmas in july

why? cause I found these vintage goodies at the thrift store and had to get them!

and to answer your questions:

yes, I'm already thinking about christmas...I can't help it, it's a disease

and yes I did make sure to post this today so I could use that title...just keepin' it real

ballerina sunday

so since this skirt has layers of tulle...

and i decided to be nice on my feet and wear ballet flats...

i figured i might as well go all out and rock the ballerina bun.

i swear it looked much less awkward in person

a word on shopping dates

the weather has been so bipolar lately

a day or so before this was so warm and i was looking forward to wearing a different outfit on sunday with no tights, but alas as sunday rolled around it was cold and cloudy (though it made for some great lighting)

the boots are from this (though i originally wore a cuter outfit with them)

so brian brought me this dress 3 years or so ago

occasionally when we were bored and couldnt think of anything to do (you know...no good movies out, not hungry, already went bowling and whatnot recenly) brian would actually suggest shopping

i know! crazy right?

anyway i pretty much only had a job when i needed one so i almost never had any money so sometimes we would window shop but sometimes he would tell me i could get whatever i wanted to a certain amount of money

it was super fun for me obviously and i think he liked how excited i got

plus since he was buying it i wanted him to like it so i let him help pick it out

and normally he doesnt like most of the stuff i buy ha!

anyway this was one of those dresses and when i put it on it makes me so happy to know that my love bought it for me

sorry for the icky photos

it was raining outside

so this is what we ended up with

since the weather has been acting crazy lately, it was raining again

and since im not a fan of wet feet i wore my rain boots to church

(i did have a jacket, but those pictures were blurry)

and since sassy wanted to be in the pictures:

i took one with her

solo sunday

so i had my sister take these pictures cause brian was here (he was very excited)

my mom wasnt feeling well so my dad stayed home with her so it was just hannah and i going to church

im not sure where these tights came from (probably target or the like) but i do know they are childrens tights

..and i now know why i hated tights so much as i little girl, these babys are itchy

(note to self...invest in higher quality cream tights)

lulu is in the fashion post too because after church i made this for her:

a tutu for lulu!

doesnt she look like a swan princess!

recent thrifts

so i went to this thrift store recently, its a pretty good one but i only go there when im in the area

look at all the goodies i found:

mirror tray (ill probably paint it), super nice napkins, some books, and my favorite:

theses babys

$2.00

♥

thrifty goodness

so a couple weeks ago my little sis and i decided to do some thrifting so we hit up the goodwill by her place

she found a super cute jcrew top and a yoga mat (it was in the new stuff section)

and i got these lovely goodies:

an adorable sewing basket (i have been looking for an affordable one of these at antique stores forever!) some super cute vintage shoes that ill have to wear to church soon and this vintage little lamby hanger that will hang in my childrens room someday

now dont get me wrong i find some great stuff at the goodwill but i usually dont find anything of this level of vintage awesomeness...especially all in one trip

we ended the night with chevys happy hour

so all in all a pretty successful evening

wedding: decor

so considering its been over six months since the wedding i need to wrap up all my wedding posts!

our wedding took place in my parents backyard.

the colors were white with shades of pink (my favorite) and i wanted a sort of vintagey/antiquey/shabby chic/garden party theme

here are how the tables looked, we put three 6ft tables together to make one really long table, there were four of these super long tables, two on each side of the aisle

i wanted it to be more like a family dinner then a wedding or banquet with circle tables, i also wanted the centerpieces to go all down the center, which wouldnt work with round tables

speaking of centerpieces we made those by collecting vases, candlesticks, and nicknacks in shades of white clear and pink at thrift stores and swap meets (and our own houses and decor)

my mom and i went to thrift stores weekly during the six months we were planning it was so much fun!

i also wanted to have mismatched china for the dinner and dessert plates and since i couldnt rent them anywhere we decided to by them at thrift stores too

goodwill has 50% off sales every holiday (like presidents day and all the ones on mondays) and that made the large plates .50 and the dessert plates .25 and considering it was .40 to rent each plain white one of either size it worked out pretty well

we also used my moms china as well as my grandparents china that my aunt had (which she gave to me!!!!!)

we decided to make napkins that would double as name tags for seating and gifts (i guess thats actually triple, not double)

one of my aunts has an upholstery business and she got us the fabric for wholesale and let us use her serger to finish the edges

we got some martha stewert stamps and some waterproof ink pads and i stamped all 100 names

i found this little ceramic menu and knew i had to put it on the buffet table!

i put various pictures of us through the years (most from high school dances, actually they were all from dances because the more recent ones were from sorority formals) along with pictures from our parents weddings on the guest quilt table

for the kiddos i made a coloring book (there were also little crayons i got from dollar tree and removed the cartoon paper and wrapped in ribbon) as well as vintage little golden book we collected from thrift stores

we drank pink lemonade (regular and adult) out of little quilted mason jars, and for my sorority sisters there was a single red carnation (our flower) and toast printed out with our names and date

heres a close up

we got an arbor with a coupon from beverlys and put it at the end of the aisle

heres what it looked like when it started to get dark

all of the trees in the backyard had twinkly lights on them that we got on sale after christmas

and heres the canopy we made for the dance floor (aka the patio) my dad built the frame and added the lights and my aunt made the fabric cover

my mom did the flowers and we just had various pink and white flowers

it turned out exactly how i imagined and now i have all of these little goodies from our wedding to decorate our place with!

oh and btw when i said we did...i meant me and my mom, brian was not involved in the wedding decor ha!

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

just a sneak peek at some of my chirstmas decorations...

vintage ornaments from goodwill...

signs from the dollar tree...

tinsel and ornaments...

vintage decor i begged her for

and the all needed nativity...

and theres much more where that came from

wedding: the cake

so as it happens one of my best friends and sorority sisters mom makes wedding cakes

she wanted her gift to us to be to make the cake and i was thrilled! the cake totally exceeded my expectations! it was beautiful, so perfect and absolutely delicious!

...no seriously! i want the steal her butter-cream frosting recipe and i dont even care for frosting that much!

the toppers are actually vintage salt and pepper shakers! i got them at a swap meet probably at least six months before we were even engaged ha! but i have know for a long time that i wanted my wedding cake to have vintage toppers on them and when i saw these i had to have them...something like that doesnt come along everyday

the cake stand was in this boutique section of a thrift store i frequent for the longest time and i wanted it so bad...problem was it was listed at $140!!! outrageous right? well the good thing about this thrift store (cause even the non boutique items are often overpriced) is that every week they have three different colored tags on sale, one 25%, one 50% and one 75% off

well at 75% of it would be $35 which isnt bad but every time its color tag was at 75% i never had the extra money

this happened for months before we got engaged but it never sold and i went to the thrift store after we got engaged to see if it was still there cause i knew i wanted it for the cake so we could have a cute small cake that didnt look puny

as fate would have it its color was 50% of which meant tuesday it would be 75%

with a reason to finally purchase it (and money from my parents for the wedding :) i went bright and early tuesday morning and snatched it up!

...and now its mine forever :)

a halloween peek

i have many more halloween decor posts to come (including some where i got crafty)

but heres just a sneak peek at what i did on our table

most of my decorations come from thrift stores or the dollar tree except for the jewlery tree which i did once use for its original purpose but never set it back up when we moved over a year ago (though i did use it for decor at the wedding, so thats partially why), and the sign was from walmart last year and the orange laugh candle i got there on clearance this year

the pumpkin and ghost candle are from the goodwill and the crow is from the dollar tree

let me just tell you... dollar tree has the best decorations!

...im so serious, some of it does need to be spruced up so it doesnt look so cheapy but most of it actually looks great and it is cheap!

the only problem is you have to get it a couple month ahead because they already have whats left of the halloween and thanksgiving decor in one small section and christmas it taking over the place (yes i relize neither of these holidays have passed yet, the world is going crazy)

..so go there and get your christmas decorations now...im serious, if you wait till anywhere near december all the good stuff will be gone!

pattern love

a recent thrift score...these pretty vintage patterns

maybe ill sew something out of one of these someday...

vintage globes, olympians, and mermaids, oh my!

i saw this post and knew i had to get a vintage globe the next time i saw one...and on saturday when when i was at the swap meet (at 7am...but thats another story) i saw this wonderful gem!  The guy wanted $10 for it but i only had $6 and he took it and now its mine!

Its going to look so great on my desk when its finished! Just look at the detail on the metal! lovely! and its already come in handy...the day i got it some olympian from tunisia won a gold medal and i whipped out my globe so my sister could see where that was
And speaking of olympians, lets talk about Michael Phelphs, who is pretty much the only reason i watch swimming...hes just amazing! and so cute!
And EIGHT gold medals in a single olympics, beating out Mark Spitz (who, by the way, trained at the country club that we would have our end of the year swim parties at in elementary school) AMAZING!
And i cant talk about the olympics without talking about gymnastics, which has to be my favorite olympic sport by far!  Ever since i was 9 and watched the US women win the gold i was hooked...i totally wanted to be Dominique Moceanu!
And the outfits this year were so cute! Those girls totally have on the right color for there skin-tone (though the pink wasnt as peptobismally on my tv screen) 
And why do i leave you with mermaids?  Not because i absolutly LOVE this Disney starts series, not because this picture was taken by Annie Leibovitz who i totally want to be, and not because i have some weird fascination with mermaids...no its because that merman upfront is Michael Phelps! so cool!

flee-mart weekend

here is some jewelry i got at the flee mart last weekend (why do they call it flee-mart anyway...eww gross) but anyway

i just thought they were so much fun! and everything was .25 to .50 each
the heart pin and ring are so shabby chic and i LOVE shabby chic! the little owl is so whimsical, i have no idea what that other pin is but its really cool, and that b pin is just so fabulous that i HAD to get it (even though neither my 1st or last name starts with B (but my boyfriends does so if anyone demands a reason for the B i can just use that (i cant believe i just put a () in a () and now in a ()!!!!))

i got that book too and i have more fun finds to post later, but i will stop now since im rambling

vintage apron swap

this was the first swap i hosted and it was fabulous! this is the apron i sent to Kathleen

look at the cute little guy on the pocket!
I also had SO much fun embroidering these tea towels!  im gonna have to make some for myself!
i also left a little (and i mean little) surprise in the pocket
and these are the aprons i received (thats right...i said apronS, plural, 3 of them in fact!) this one has got to be my favorite! it has the cutest little kitty batting at a butterfly...im in love!
this is the second.  its so light and pretty
it was just to hot to stay out and take a pic of the third but look at the pattern Dawne sent with the aprons!  now i can make my own vintage apron!
once i was back inside i snapped a close-up of the pretty print on the third apron
I dont think i have used so many exclamation points in one post!  thanks soooo much Dawne!! and Kathleen i hope you enjoy!

so suffice to say my latest obsession=vintage aprons

well its not pink...

but it was only $3 at the thrift store

and the blue is pretty too