It's Like Christmas Came Early!

Another awesome thing about planning this wedding is the fact that I am ALWAYS getting stuff in the mail. It may be as simple as a stack of envelopes, and as extravagant as these little cards, but regardless, it all seems like Christmas has come early. Damon knows where to find me most nights now, glued to the computer, perusing the web, and punching in my credit card digits aimlessly.

This week's surprise was my Moo MiniCards! 

.ray.

Table Numbers

The table numbers are done!

This was EASY. 

Use quart size mason jars (make sure to buy them with the zinc lids). 

Tie some bakers twine around the lid and the mouth of the jar.

Put a sticker on the lid (got my stickers at Michaels-$4.99, with a 50% coupon it was $2.50).

Then added some buttons in the bottom.

The only thing left to do-the day of the wedding-is to add a candle!

Thanks for the first set of stickers, Aunt Lorraine!

.ray.

Plate Dress Up

I am watching my plate collection start to dwindle. My mom has taken on the job of hand-washing every single plate and packaging them nicely in plastic tubs. She has spent the last few weeks taking a few stacks at a time to her house. The good news...I ONLY have about 250 dessert, salad, and dinner plates left, waiting to get their turn in the bubble bath. No big deal, right Mom? 

.ray.

Scrabble Pieces Framed

Hey Charlie.

My $2 Scrabble game has been put to crafting use.

Add an IKEA frame to the mix and you are set.

.ray.

xoxo

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

© 2011 Simple Life Portraits

.2.

.ray.

Button Swap Meet

So, I have buttons out the wazoo, but, unfortunately, I don't have the right colored buttons.  : (

Buttons?-you ask. You'll just have to wait and see.

I need different shades of purple, gray, and green. If anyone digs out their bag of random buttons and wants to do a button swap meet, please message me!

.ray.

Honeymoon

WE BOOKED OUR HONEYMOON!

We may not have a caterer, an officiant, or a lot of the other details figured out for our wedding, but we do have our honeymoon flights booked. I mean that's pretty important, right? After hours and hours on Orbitz, we finally decided on a destination and travel dates. Ok, let's be honest, "we" didn't decide on anything. I may or may not have told Damon where we were traveling to. We aren't doing the typical: get married and run off to an exotic location immediately after the wedding and reception. We are actually waiting an entire month after the wedding to venture across the Atlantic. We are headed to Venice, Italy (September 1), and have 14 days to travel and do whatever our little hearts desire. I already have an overly ambitious itinerary, but hopefully Damon will force me to take a little time for R & R.

Our itinerary will hopefully include:

Venice-day trip to Verona, 

Slovenia

Salzburg, 

Vienna, 

Prague, 

Nuremberg
(Realistically-I doubt we will get to Prague and Nuremberg)

or

 Part of me wants to explore areas of Italy where I have never been...
like the Amalfi Coast or Cinque Terre...

I guess this is all a good problem to have.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

.ray.

R + D

My new stamp arrived. :)

Etsy: Doodlebug Design

Charlie

She ALWAYS sits at the top of the steps waiting for Day to come home from work.

I am well aware who her favorite is!

.ray.

Succulents

My mom has taken the succulent project to an entirely new level.
Here are a few of my mom's newest additions.

I am wondering if she will really be able to give them up come time for the wedding???

And will they survive the winter...??

.ray.

Jack and Jill Baby Shower

Who will baby Horn look like?

Every time I see Alyssa, I can't get over how big her belly is getting. The thought of her having a baby inside that tummy still blows my mind. Alyssa looks fantastic and we can't wait to meet the little man! 

10 more weeks to go!!!!

.ray.

Engagement Photo Session

© 2011 Simple Life Portraits

We had our engagement photo session on Sunday in downtown Harrisburg. The day was perfect-it was in the 60s and the sun was shining. We had fun spending the day with our photographer but let me tell you, engagement pictures are kind of awkward. I never thought of myself as an awkward person, but when you are asked to repeatedly kiss, hug, and gaze at each other, all in front of a complete stranger-keep in mind, you start to feel a little bit awkward. Damon was a natural, OF COURSE. He could smile, gaze, and laugh all on cue, and I remember Dan, the photographer, repeatedly saying, "keep that face Damon, but Rachel try to do this." Sunday was a re-confirmation that modeling will never be my calling. I think Dan was ready to kill me. Every photo I was asking a zillion questions about where my hand should be placed?, should I smile?, should I be leaning?, bending down?...you get the idea. He was very adamant about trying to get candid pictures, but when you're so obsessive-compulsive, like I am, candid moments are few and far between. Dan told us the pictures would be on his blog in the next three weeks, but lucky for us, Damon got an email first thing this morning saying he had posted a few on his blog. I saw a few of the pictures and they weren't as awkward as I thought they would be. He did a great job, the scenery and the quality are awesome, but I am still not convinced that I will like any of the faces I was making. Here is hoping that they turn out ok!! Check out Simple Life Portraits' Blog because there are more pictures there http://simplelifeportraits.com/blog/.

.ray.

Adding Music to Your Blog

As you can see (top right), I have added music to the blog. I am trying to make your reading experience that much more enjoyable, haha (I pretend to have a huge following). I have been wanting to add music to my blog for some time now, but wasn't able to figure it out. I am no coding genius, but after reading forum, after forum, I think I have it figured out.

Go to: http://grooveshark.com/
Search for your song or artist
After the lists displays, find what you are looking for
From the drop down menu: click share song
Then share as you wish (in my case as a "widget")
Click copy to clipboard
Go to your blog
From your Dashboard
Go to : Design-Page Elements-Add a Gadget-HTML/Javascript-Paste code in content and save

The great thing about this player is that you have the option of playing the music or not. Meaning it won't start up as soon as you enter the blog, I don't want any of you getting caught at work on the internet ;)

.ray.

Ray and Day

"I'll stop the world and melt with you" ~Modern English

Harrisburg, PA 2010

.ray.

The Living Room/Dining Room

Today I will once again take you through a part of the home Damon, Charlie, and I share together. I hate to say this, but I don't think we will be in this house many months longer. We will DEFINITELY live here until the wedding-there is no way I am dealing with selling/renting our house on top of everything else going on. As much as I loved-and still love this house-it's not practical, especially when you own a 100-pound dog and she has more energy than you would believe. I thought running up and down the three floors, and the small patch of grass in the back would be enough for Charlie, but every time we take her to the "country" we are reminded of how cruel city living is for her. We have our eyes set on a  farmhouse with A LOT of land, but we unfortunately need to convince the current homeowner it's time to move. Anyway, enjoy taking a look around-maybe you even want to make us an offer... ;) 

If you have never dried hydrangeas, you should try it. They typically dry nicely and add a little something-something through the winter months. The secret is when you put together an arrangement of hydrangea bunches that you keep the original water and let it evaporate. Don't refill or replenish the water in hopes of keeping the flowers longer because, at that point, they will die before they can dry.

I have quite the thing for mid-century modern furniture; maybe it started with from obsession with Mad Men, or maybe it's just...those "lines."  I have two matching Heywood Wakefield end tables that I got at Atomic Warehouse.  Atomic Warehouse has a ton of mid-century modern furniture but the prices are a bit steep, especially for someone like me who knows with time and patience I can find the exact same items for a fraction of the price. The throw and pillows were all scooped up from IKEA, and the huge AWESOMENESS of a painting was done by Kevin Catlin. We have a few other pieces he has done, but we will save that blog post for another day!

I bought this Drexel credenza and a matching cabinet for $150 dollars off of craigslist.  It was such the steal since the same credenza sells for $1,000 online. There is my footstool turned Plant Stand, and that bowl on the left was picked up at a yard sale across the street before I moved in. 

I scooped this Heywood Wakefield table up from my neighbor's yard sale for free. 

I have yet to sand and re-stain it, but that project will come soon. I am in the process of trying to convince Damon to do it.

The Danish-modern dining room table and wooden chairs were purchased from Atomic Warehouse. 

The black chairs are from Pier One-boring. 

The Drexel cabinet was the other half of that $150 steal.

The framed picture above the cabinet is just fabric from IKEA thrown in a frame (ironed first, of course).

The white cabinet was handmade in my dad's wood shop. My mom and I took a trip to Vegas a few years back and saw a similar cabinet for a hefty price tag, a price we were not willing to pay. With a piece of paper and a pencil we took the design home with us, and after a few hours spent in the shop...our homemade version was created. The artwork, is the embroidery hoop and the framed button heart was another one of my d.i.y. projects.  

.ray.

LOOKY LOOKY

 Here is what I am still looking for:


Vintage Floral Dishes (dinner plate, salad plate, dessert plate, tea cups, saucers)
Buttons
Milk Vases (only large and small bowls)
Blue Mason Jars  
Pint Size Mason Jars
Platters, Pie Plates, Cake Stands
Fabric
Skeleton Keys
Antique Books (anything wedding/love related in the title)
Pitchers (all glass/all different sizes)
Vintage Brooches for the Bouquets
Mirrors (neat frame)
Suitcases
Vintage Baking Utensils (Sifter, Whisk, Scale, rolling pin, cookie cutters)
Hankies
Scrabble Game 
Shepherd hooks
2 Old Wooden Doors


.ray.

Mason Jars

It has become quite the task, collecting pint size mason jars. I have gone from flea markets, to yard sales, to auctions, and to craigslist to find old mason jars. Yeah, I could have gone to Walmart and got their latest design of canning jars, but that just wouldn't seem right, and not fun at all. 

I spent the last few weekends washing every single jar to make sure it was completely clean and free of any canning remains. The task is finally finished, and the jars are packed up nicely and ready to be used. 

Here is how it relates to the wedding, as you can see from the picture taken in my "staging room"-also known as the wedding room. 

.ray.

Lace-Covered Mason Jars, AGAIN

When the lace-covered mason jars were all said and done, I felt like something was still missing. 

After a few changes, I think I am finally happy with the jars, and I have finally figured out another use for those skeleton keys. 

.ray.

Where should we go on our honeymoon?

I think a little European excursion would be nice...

Maybe Venice again...?? 

..and Switzerland...Austria...and Slovenia??...I think we could swing it. 

I better get to Orbitz and start searching for those cheap airfares that don't exist anymore.

Here I am in Venice in 2006 with two of my future bridesmaids.
If I remember correctly, we were already a few bottles of red wine deep by this point...?

.ray.

The Dress

Finding "the dress" hasn't been top on my priority list. Little girls are supposed to dream about what they will one day look like in their wedding dress...I wasn't one of those girls. Maybe it is for the fact that I was the middle child, between two boys, and being "girly-girl" was never an option. Well this past weekend,  I got to be "girly-girl". I went with my friend Megan to her wedding dress fitting. She looked amazing! Megan is getting married in June, a month before me, and I can't wait to be apart of her big day. Megan has been a long-time friend, and she convinced me to bring my mom along to her fitting-just in case I wanted to look at some dresses when she was done. Before I knew it, I had pulled about 10 dresses and into the fitting room I went. I tried on dress number two, and by golly, there she was...a little lace number.

.ray.

Oh, Charlie

Honestly, how cool is she??

Unfortunately, I think it is time for another haircut... :(

.ray.

Jess and Joe Are Getting Married!

Sorry fellas, another lady has been taken off the market...that lady being one of my best, best friends and one of my maids of honor-Jessy. Congratulations Jess and Joe on your engagement!!!!!



.ray.