Last month Abby of Style Me Pretty asked all her Little Black Book vendors to dream up and create a DIY capable tablescape for her readers. I love any opportunity to dress up a table and quickly went to work on a simple Spring design using common household items. This tablescape was featured here!

Yellow has become my new FAVORITE color. I’ve become so inspired by it and now have a ton of new yellow cardigans, shirts and dresses. It has even worked its way into the redecorating of my living room this weekend! I love is cheery disposition and ability to brighten every room. The color yellow was my inspiration for this design and I set out to find all the pieces!

I didn’t have to look far — I opened up my pottery closet where I store way too many platters, dishes, and glassware. I pulled out items that we all have — a white cake stand (by Martha Sewart), some standard household vases (no doubt purchased at homegoods), and some vintage glass coke bottles passed down to me by my mom (a flea market or tag sale find, I’m sure). Real simple stuff, nothing super fancy, expensive, or unique. I knew I wanted to use these items but didn’t know what to put in them.

I took a drive over to one of my favorite florists, Flore in Southbury and asked the owner, Lori, what she had chilling in her cooler. Here is what I purchased on the fly:

1 stem white hydrangea
1 stem green hydrangea
1 ½ dozen circus roses
1 bushel of fancy yellow tulips (5 total used)
2 football mums
3 stems white lisianthus
Total Price: $60 wholesale

On my way home I stopped by the local fabric store to find something for our table runner. I spied some really gorgeous eyelet fabric and walked out with three yards (which proved to be a bit too much, but excess is always best!). I also popped over to the craft store and grabbed some yellow 8.5×11 heavy card stock (for the “charger”) and lacy inspired corner punch. Last stop: the dollar tree, where a good bargain is hit or miss. Fortunately they had some pretty yellow pillar candles and I scooped up two.

I had previously designed the menu card, which you can see, once I had decided on my color scheme. My inspiration for the menu was certainly my kate spade black and white tidbit plates, which I also incorporated into the tablescape. I love those plates! I had the menu cards them from a 8.5×11 sheet of standard white card stock and used this particular corner punch to add a little femininity.

After I had purchased my materials it was only a matter of putting it together. No one ever comes home with all the right ingredients and has a perfect centerpiece — there was a lot of playing around, new ideas, eliminations, and additions. In the end, this is what I came up with in about 20 minutes after focusing my ideas. I love it! After I was finished photographing it in my home studio, it graced our dining room table for the week.

Our tablescape can translate into any event and would look gorgeous at a wedding, mother’s day brunch, bridal shower, baby shower, or any other special occasion. You can dress it up, down, and adjust the formality pretty easily.

I’m too excited to share with you guys the absolute awesome that came from Tom Morlock of Paradigm Digital Video during my Trash the Dress photo shoot with raw photo design. Enjoy!!

This week Style Me Pretty is featuring amazing DIY projects from their readers… a bride can find herself in heaven (and a bit overwhelmed!) at all the gorgeousness going on over there. Here are some of my favorite projects they’ve featured:

DIY: Tea Tins designed by Jennifer at Pigweed Press

DIY: Sugar Packets by a loyal bride and reader with a destination wedding in Barbados

DIY: Farewell Bells by Kathleen of Twig & Thistle

DIY: Southern Style Treats Mekala of Tie that Binds

Elisabeth from BLUSH floral design posted a fabulous purple centerpiece on her blog and I wanted to share. I just love these carnations in varying shades of purple. Believe it or not, carnations in bulk (like these) can look so gorgeous. The key is to use a lot and make your centerpiece very full. I agree with Elisabeth, too, that with these flowers the you can use the container to dictate the style of the arrangement. You can use square chunky vases, tall cylinders, old candy jars or medicine bottles, or mint julep cups. Although, I really love the antiqued vessels she used. And the sequin balls? Gorgeous! They’ll sparkle too in candlelight and are a touch of necessary glamour.

If you’re too busy for arrangements this season, give Elisabeth a call. Blush is offering holiday inspired arrangements at a really fabulous price. Get all the details here!

We’ve all seen a really cool yet simple idea and thought, “Why didn’t I think of that!”

This isn’t one of those ideas.

Most brides indulge in the tradition of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Well, if you’re having difficulty finding your “something blue” the folks at Betty Beauty: Color for the Hair Down There (yes, really) has launched a new product called Bridal Blue. Shall I continue?

The BRIDAL betty in Malibu blue is “just what the blushing bride needs for her special day!” Each BRIDAL betty kit also comes with a free (as if we’d pay for it) stencil shape in a heart or kiss which presumably adds an additional bit of “flare” for the hair down there. Immediately after I saw this product all I could think about was that Sex in the City episode where Samantha dyed her hair down there and fondly referred to herself as “Bozo the Bush.”

I had a difficult time trying to choose where to file this point for the archives. I’ve decided that “DIY” is the most appropriate.

The internet is such a resourceful place, especially when you’re planning a wedding! There are so many blogs and sources of information out there and because the internet is so vast, it can be hard to digest and utilize all the info that’s available to you. Trust me, I know. As a part of my job I read dozens (and dozens) of blogs and visit a lot of sites daily to see what’s going on in the wedding industry. It would be nearly impossible for me to keep track of all the latest trends, news, and ideas without a little bit of help (and I imagine the case is the same for you!). There are a lot of ways to save and utilize all the information you read as you scower the internet for a tablescape idea and the gown of your dreams. I’m going to share with you some information to make your wedding planning a lot easier!

My first recommendation is to subscribe to your favorite blogs. I have no doubt that as a bride, you’re reading a lot of blogs and magazines. Whether it is weddingbee.com, stylemepretty.com or wedconnecticut.com (that’s our blog in case you didn’t know!), it can take a lot of time to go through your favorite blogs for new postings. How do you “subscribe” to a blog? Well, it’s pretty simple! The easiest way is to have the blog entries delivered right to your Microsoft Outlook (or Thunderbird for all you Mozilla junkies). Almost all blogs have a link to their RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed (to learn more about RSS visit its Wikipedia page). Look for the RSS icon on a blog page for a subscription link, or, they may have a link that says “subscribe to an Atom feed.” Once you click the link it will immediately set up a folder in your outlook, thunderbird, or email program to receive the author’s blog posts. So, every time the blog author(s) write a new blog, it will be delivered to their very own folder in your email program!

Sometimes while you’re browsing the internet you come across a great idea or picture that you’d love to use for your wedding. Our instinct is to usually bookmark it in our browser or save the image to our hard drive. The problem with that is it can be extremely difficult to find these links and files later. Also, a lot of times you forget that you’ve even bookmarked them! The solution to this is to use an internet bookmarking system which a.) allows you to bookmark any page you come across. The beauty of it is that it’s saved to an internet website that you can access from ANYWHERE (aka your 9-5, home, and your MOH’s house), and b.) you can categorize your links with tags. So, if you come across a picture of a beautiful invitation design that you just love, you can bookmark it and tag it with “invitation.” Later, when it’s time to discuss with your Wedding Coordinator and stationeries the ideas you have for your invitations, it’ll be so much easier to sort through your bookmarks and find the invitations you loved!

There are a ton of internet bookmarking sites and they all offer the same advantages. I use delicious and love the versatility it offers with no unnecessary frills. I also use Firefox as my browser, and there is a delicious extension available which adds it to your toolbar for super fast bookmarking and tagging. Even if your bookmarking system doesn’t have a browser extension, many blogs and websites have little icons (like ours) at the end of a post that quickly allow you to save and tag the post for future retrieval. Besides delicious, you may want to check out digg, stumbleupon (one of my other favorite tools), and technorati

I hope that this post helps you in saving all the information that the internet has to offer. There are so many talented professionals, writers, and designers out there who have blogs worthy of subscribing to and bookmarking. Be sure to check out some of our favorites on the right hand side. If you have any questions about configuring these systems on your computer please leave us a comment!

I love weddings and I equally love to plan smaller, more casual and intimate affairs. When our clients approached us with their décor ideas for a brown and green shower, we ran with it and really made every penny go as far as we could. With a little preparation, creativity, and persistence, you can come up with equally beautiful and affordable tablescapes for your next event. I wanted to share with you where we purchased all of our vases, crafting items & supplies. I also wanted to give you a step-by-step tutorial on how we pulled all these small details together which I’ll follow up with tomorrow.

But first, our shopping list:

8 chunky square votive candle holders
$1.97 ea, Wal-Mart

5 Tall, thin vases
$1 ea, The Dollar Store

3 Tall and chunky mosaic vases
$1 ea, The Dollar Store

4 round, traditional vases (not pictured)
1 ea, The Dollar Store

4 packages (two per pack) of 7 inch & 9 inch tissue “bells” (for the kitschy factor!)
$1 ea, The Dollar Store

6 packages of tissue paper in brown, green & hot pink (8 sheets per pack)
$2.29, Wal-Mart

3 packages of stick-on crystal embellishments
$2.29 ea, Martha Stewart Crafts

3 Rolls of ribbon (thick brown, brown/white polka dot, thin green)
$2.97 ea, Wal-Mart

1 Roll of cooking twine
Free, because we don’t cook!

80 stems of fresh assorted mini gerbera daisies
$79.80 (with overnight international shipping!) farmstogo.com

Grand Total: $135 (give or take some cents)

Items used but already owned by us:
Stampin’ Up! Engagement Stamp Set with rubber stamps and ink pads
Cardstock for tags
Hole puncher
Floral wire
Wire Cutter
Circular paper cutter
Fabric glue
Tealights

Not bad, right? The key to beautiful and affordable décor is to shop around for the best bargain. I recommend looking in the stores we’ve mentioned, plus places like Home Goods, The Christmas Tree Shops, Ocean State Job Lot, Big Lots, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Target, Michaels, Joann Fabrics, and your local discount store. These are all wonderful resources and you can sometimes find the “find of a lifetime!”

Shopping for discounted flowers can also be really difficult. To be sure that you order the correct amount of flowers, do a trial run of your centerpiece beforehand. It’s always good to have some extra blooms on hand, as the shipping process tends to eliminate a few beauties from the bunch. Also, if you are ordering the flowers yourself, make sure they are delivered no more than two days before your event (unless otherwise specified by the floral company). You want to make sure that the flowers you’ve chosen are at the peak of their blooming cycle and are as fresh as can be (no one likes half-dead flowers!) If your floral budget is limited you can do what we did – tie the blooms together to mimic a bouquet. I think it’s just as elegant as a lush and full arrangement.

Tomorrow I’ll provide you with some tutorials on how to take all the ingredients we’ve purchased and turn them into our décor!