Alexandra + Ryan's Eco-Friendly Maryland Wedding

Despite the fact that I sell mostly boutonnières for men, most of my clients are brides. Ryan is actually one of the few grooms that have contacted me.... getting boutonnières was one of his only wedding responsibilities.  I was surprised when he messaged me a few months later to tell me that their awesome eco-friendly wedding had been featured on the DC-area blog, United With Love.  Even more to my surprise, United With Love has become the top referring site to my Etsy shop, with over 800 views!  

This green and blue wedding is cheerful and preppy with lots of Etsy-sourced items and eco-friendly elements, including composting and recycling as much as they could! The reception was held at a family friend's property and family and friends pitched in to DIY many parts of this wedding.  It looks like such a bright and happy labor of love!

All images by Jessica Schmitt Photography

THRIFTY WEDDING DRESSES: Neiman Marcus

When I think of Neiman Marcus, "thrify" isn't exactly the first word that comes to mind.  So I was super surprised that while browsing through their formal dress section (just for the fun of it), I came across a $350 dress that looked almost exactly like a Pnina Tornai dress (from Kleinfeld's of Say Yes to the Dress fame).   

If you're not familiar, here's an example of one of Pnina Tornai's dresses:

Pnina Tornai

Most definitely not my style, for the record.  Still though, I was pretty excited when I found something like that for so cheap.  It wasn't this exact dress and I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture, but here's a similar one:

Jovani 1531

This dress is no longer available online, but inspired by my find, I starting hunting through the Neiman Marcus website for other evening dresses that could work as wedding gowns.  It's no secret that tacking "wedding" onto anything instantly increases the price, but it's still shocking how many thousands of dollars cheaper white evening gowns can be. (Edited to add: While hunting around the website, I did notice that some of these dresses were also included in a "bridal" section, but I don't think these were manufactured to be bridal gowns, hence the lower price.)

SHOP LOCAL: Thrifty Chix

I love cute little shops and small businesses and it's always exciting to see new ones in the area, it seems like we just don't have enough of them.  Mom took me to a new shop in Winter Haven this weekend called Thrifty Chix.  It's located in a cute little house on the corner of First Street and Avenue A NE.

Thrifty Chix is operated by a retired nurse who had "open a shop" on her bucket list.  She's got a good mix of vintage items, new decor, and repurposed furniture.  The prices are reasonable.

I got a graphic, colorful pillow that says 'I am the light of the world' for only $15.  It's also weather treated, so I can use it inside or outside.

I also got a vintage wood and brass wine rack.  I've always wanted a wine rack and this is a good one, plus it was a steal for only $7!

Thrifty Chix is open Tuesday- Friday 10-6 and Saturday 10-3 and is located at 98 Ave A NE, Winter Haven, FL 33881.

Shop local!

THE PAINT CHIP BEAST

This commercial came on TV today and B told me that my paint chip hoarding tendencies would unleash the Paint Chip Beast upon us!  Yikes!  I wouldn't say I'm normally paralyzed by color choices though.... just for front doors!

PART TWO OF HOUSE PAINTING: The door color saga

So as I posted about last time, I've been painting my house and generally revamping the exterior.  We just got back from a (much needed) vacation, so in the time before we left, it was quite a push to get as much done as possible.  We got the shutters built and stained (tutorial to come later), most of the body of the house painted, and the front door painted.  I had done a Photoshop mock-up to see how everything would look together....

Photoshop mock-up

The quality isn't great, but you get the idea.  The Robin's Egg Blue door looked great with the ashen, cooler-toned wood on the shutters.  HOWEVER, when we went to pick stain, that wasn't quite what we ended up with.  There were some great options in transparent stain, but we couldn't get those in a tester size.  So we decided to go with a semi-transparent color instead.  None of the options were great, but we decided on Cedar Naturaltone.  It looked super orange when we put it on a test board, but when we held it up to the house, it looked great.  So, I proceeded to stain all 6 shutters in the Cedar Naturaltone.  We hung them on the house and I also painted the front door in the the blue color.  Then... I was working in the yard one morning and I saw the shutters in full shade for the first time and freaked out.  They were bright orange.  And they really didn't look good (to me) with the blue door.  Everyone else thought I was crazy, but it was bugging the crap out of me.

A quick photo that we took of the blue door.  Not awful, but not great.

PART ONE OF HOUSE PAINTING: it's spring and my house's birthday, time to paint....

It's spring (and has been for awhile, I'm kind of behind, I guess)! Spring and Easter are associated with new beginnings and I've recently taken a leap of faith and I quit my awful job.  If all goes as planned, I'll have a job waiting for me when we get back from vacation in May, but for now, I have a few weeks of downtime to work on the Etsy shop, blog, and my house.  

Bizarrely, we've had beautiful weather for the past two months, which almost made me forget that we live in Florida.  It actually felt like real spring for a little while.  We were able to take advantage of a few oddly cool days to paint the house.  (The nice weather is all over though... it's 95 today! Ugh.)

I've been wanting to paint the house forever and with time off from work right now, no time like the present, I guess. The exterior of the house is kind of like the kitchen, in that beyond basic repairs, it's been put off at the expense of everything else.  Last week was my house's "birthday"-- it's been two years since I closed!  I'm celebrating by giving the house a new look.  When I bought it, the house was all contractor white.  It was obvious that they just sprayed it all down in the white.  I hated it and it got dirty so easily.  

I went back and forth for months on what color to paint the house.  I wanted green for awhile, but decided that would blend in too much with all the foliage surrounding my house.  So, of course, I took to Pinterest to attempt to figure out what I wanted instead.  

Some of the pictures I pinned...

via kbhome.com

SAY YES TO THE DRESS!!!

I've been wanting to write this post for awhile... I have the time now and I can't wait to share it.  So, as I've mentioned before, I'm a little obsessed with watching Say Yes to the Dress.  It's even worse now that we've got Netflix and I can watch it on a pretty constant loop.  So not too long ago, we were watching SYYTD and I noticed that the boutonnière on the groom looked crazy familiar. We backed it up (the wonders of Netflix) and looked again... yep, looked like mine.  I went and checked my records and sure enough, that was one of my orders. Craziest surprise ever!

Screen shot from TLC's Say Yes to the Dress

And more of a close up...

Screen shot from TLC's Say Yes to the Dress

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN... KATE + BRAD'S WEDDING

I've recently made some major life changes which will allow me more time to focus on my shop and my blog.  So to kick off this new beginning of sorts, I'm going back to were it all began: Kate and Brad's wedding!  When I first started my shop, I made mostly pincushions and other little things.  Then my college friend Kate approached me about making boutonnières for her wedding..... and now I've made bouts, bouquets, and other wedding-related items for dozens of weddings!