For my veil, I bought birdcage netting on Etsy for about $5. Then I bunched it on either side with thread and pinned it to my hair with a bobby pin. Looking back I realize the veil looked stupid from the side so I probably should have done something to fix that, but whatever. I also think this veil ended up in our second photographer’s pocket and I never got it back. As you can tell from the work I put into it, I’m not too broken up about that. I kept a few things from the wedding – those earrings were one of them, but I didn’t really feel too sentimental about the veil. Total cost $5.

This necklace-turned-hairpiece is something I have also included in a future post, if I ever get around to posting that one. I bought two identical necklace/earring sets from ALDO for $12 (total). It was buy one get one free. I wore the earrings and took the necklaces apart to make a hairpiece and a bracelet, which I don’t have a good picture of. The hair piece anchored my veil and then served as a pretty lil accessory when the veil was removed. Total cost for all accessories – $12.

I carried my mom’s Bible down the aisle instead of flowers. She carried the same Bible when my parents were married and I decorated it similarly with a white flower and ribbon. Total cost, I dunno… a dollar?

For WHATEVER REASON (no idea), I wanted our vows on scrolls. So I bought naked scroll headers on Etsy for $8 and spray painted them gold. Then I got a roll of paper from Ikea for $5 (which also came in handy when we were moving) for the parchment part of it. One thing that was awkward was that you have to put some weight into the scroll headers (seriously don’t know what they’re called) so that it doesn’t keep rolling up while you’re reading it. So we just used nails or something and masking taped them. You can see it a bit in the top pic, but the guests at the wedding couldn’t.

We were at a wedding when we first started dating and the groom said his vows first and read from a recipe card. Short, succinct. Then her turn came and she noisily unfolded a full sheet of paper. The attendees laughed, even though this wasn’t planned by the two at all. Now, Graham is definitely the wordier of the two of us, so we planned something similar but in reverse. Even though we said the same vows, his scroll was about 5 feet long, while mine was only about 2 feet. I read my vows first and, when he unrolled his scroll and it was down to his shins, our guests nearly died with laughter. I’m convinced that antic might be the only thing people remember from the day! Total cost $18.

We put out Kleenex (I can say that because those puppies were NAME BRAND) at the front for our guests, even though our ceremony wasn’t a particularly tear-jerking one.

Our guest book (guestbook?) was a typewriter that I had sourced via a “does anyone have an old typewriter I can borrow?” tweet. I really loved this and the things that people wrote were hilarious because they couldn’t find the apostrophe and couldn’t correct their mistakes etc, but not everyone wrote something because it was a bit of a hassle. And now our guestbook is a bunch of loose leaf sheets of paper. Total cost: free.

I asked my girls to wear turquoise shoes. And in the photos they look great. I wanted us to all have the same colour (vs them having one, me having one) and mine to be closed toe. I found these Nine West Ambitious shoes (which also come in black and pink) at an outlet in Buffalo, NY. Total cost: $40.

We used scrabble tiles for our signs, and for the Mr and Mrs place cards.

I desperately wanted this ampersand because I wanted a picture of us holding it between us WHICH I FORGOT ABOUT ON THE DAY OF THE WEDDING. TIP: WRITE THESE THINGS DOWN! This puppy was a bit tricky as we made it (My FIL cut it) out of MDF and we bought the wrong spray paint. So it basically drank all the paint we put on it. Then we finally got it to work and the back just needed one more coat, but that coat went onto the front instead (cough these things happen when two people are a bit stressed and not really communicating properly) and the ampersand rebelled against that last coat and got some kind of rash. So I attacked it with sandpaper and it ended up looking perfectly distressed. Voila. Total Cost? I have no idea. $30?

If people wanted us to kiss, they had to make a donation. I think we raised $180 or something like that. Not too shabby.

Our centrepieces were a mason jar with a lemon slice on top of a stack of three books. I made book covers for the books that paid homage to our relationship. That top one there is The Philosopher’s Wife, and the one underneath is The Pretty Girl at Camp. No idea what the cost was, but it was minimal. We also used Uno cards and clothespins for the table numbers which is another nod to hanging out at camp.

Finally, my friend felted (no idea how one does that) us two birds and I made the veil, top hat and bow tie for them. It was their gift to us and so our cost was free. That cake was also our MOH and MC’s (they’re married) gift to us  – I gave them a rough idea (two levels, here’s the ribbon) and they made this lemony masterpiece for us.

And that’s about it! You might notice we don’t have any flowers in the wedding – that was a cost that I seriously wanted to avoid. I had the Bible so I didn’t need a bouquet, and the girls carried a bunch of white fake flowers and I bought from a craft store, basically so they’d have somewhere to put their hands. They were already wearing yellow with aqua shoes – I didn’t need to add anything to that. I bought their necklaces and earrings from Etsy (after trying to make them myself and getting annoyed).

And there you have it! If you want to see more pictures, I’ll just go ahead and send you over to Cassie’s site.

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So, I have a male friend who I have known for about 12 years. He’s 2 years younger than me and we’d always see each other every year at camp. A bunch of camp friends would hang out every night for a week, laugh and joke and have the best time ever. We never saw each other outside of camp, and never thought of being a couple of any kind.

Recently, I playfully commented on a picture on Facebook of his… and we laughed and chatted for a bit and both thought it would be nice to meet for coffee while he was in town over Christmas. Then he called me “pal,” so I was pretty sure it wasn’t a date, which is fine. It’s actually fine, and not “I’ll-say-it’s-fine-while-secretly-plotting-your-death” kind of fine. I don’t do that kind of fine.

We ended up meeting for breakfast for a non date just after Christmas. I left my wallet UNINTENTIONALLY (srsly) in my gym bag. I got there before him, realized I had ZERO dinero, and texted him to tell him so. He showed up a minute later all “Oh suuuuuure. Breakfast is on me.” So anyway, we had great conversation and laughs for two hours. THREE parties came and went in the booth beside us. I mentioned the last time I saw him was probably at least 5 years earlier and he said that he would think “the conversation would be more difficult than it is.” Knowing he was paying, he could really decide when we left. The bill sat on the table for over an hour while we drank coffee and chatted.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time, hugged goodbye, mentioned meeting up again when he was in town next and went on our way. I bought him a nice journal afterwards that was about the same cost as breakfast was and will mail it to his apartment in Ontario to thank him for paying. So if this was a date, I would be over the moon excited about him. Instead, I know it wasn’t a date, and am now just kinda spending too much time thinking about him.

Happy three years together, Graham!

Our first picture together, 4 months after the non-date.

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Basically what I’m trying to tell you is that our dishwasher broke. SIX. WEEKS. AGO. And the dishes never stop. BUT I DIDN’T WISH FOR THESE DISHES!

What’s amazing is that we ran the dishes through, then Graham was home that day and I went to work. I got home and the dishes were still in the dishwasher so I thought he hadn’t gotten to them. I opened the door and started unloading and realized they weren’t clean. So I ran the dishwasher again. It turns out that Graham ran it during the day. Then me running it equalled THREE times. Then we realized there was a serious puddle of water inside the washer. Good thing it took us three times to realize that. I watermarked this picture so the internet doesn’t steal a disgusting picture of the gross water puddle in my dishwasher. I’m watching you, internet.

We took the dish rack out and scooped out as much water as we could, with anything we could find – cups, ladles, bowls. And the water took a long time to bail out. Gross gross water.

Then we washed all the dishes by hand (heaven help me – my most loathed activity) for the rest of the evening. And for the following six weeks. In that time we casually looked in store and online for one, decided what we wanted to spend, and sought council in a plumber who said it usually wasn’t financially worth it to call someone in to fix it. Also, below is a picture of our settings on the dishwasher. Thank you previous owners, but I like a little more from my dishwasher. If we had LOVED this washer and spent a lot on it, we would have much longer considered fixing it.Finally last week after many an hour spent breaking my back at the sink, we decided maybe it was time to stop dragging our heels. So we bought a new one that will be installed by the time you read this.

And this whole experience has me having equivalent-to-acid flashbacks about how I grew up without a dishwasher and my brother and I would “help” with the dishes every day. And it was horrible. We would get in each others way, complain about the dryness of the other’s dishes, casually step on the other’s foot as we walked past, you get the idea. I think my mom eventually wised up and we had alternating days. When I moved out, my roommate wanted laundry and I wanted a dishwasher. And it’s amazing how fast one gets used to hiding the dishes away and having them miraculously come clean.

In related news, I think our water bill is like half of what it usually is.

For example, this from Centsational Girl is a major feat in Ikea engineering:

And perhaps better suited to a home IMPROVEMENT project than as a “we just moved in, let’s get the books off the floor” project.

We knew we needed BULK book storage in Graham’s office, as we have a couple of decorative bookcases elsewhere in the house, and Billys are great for bulk. Billies? Whatever.

Anyway, our office is black. Here it is empty.

The bookcases are to go on that wall on the left. But then you’ll notice that because two walls are windows and obviously the third wall is big enough for me to take that photo through, that our plan leaves z-e-r-o walls for things like degrees and guitars – and frankly, where else are we going to put those things?!

I’m assuming Centsational Girl doesn’t have a random uncovered fireplace against the wall she’s building those onto. And that her walls aren’t at an 80 degree angle in a billion year old house. So we thought “ok, let’s skip the crown moulding, and just do wall-to-wall Billies that kinda look somewhat less like Billies than just plain Billies do.”

So we bought:
Two wide, tall Billies (80x28x202cm)
One wide, short Billy (80x28x106cm)
One thin, tall Billy (40x28x202 cm)

So the idea was to go wide, thin, wide, short across the room front to back. Then we could hang degrees above the short one and call it a day.

So we were off for a THRILLING evening at Ikea where we tried to figure out if the ones we were buying were all the same DEPTH, and nobody seemed to know what we were talking about (because they only come in one depth), and somehow we got out alive. Here’s an actual picture I took in between tearing out my hair and looking at the measurements AGAIN.

Just give us the Billies, and nobody gets hurt.

So we got home and, weeks later, put them together, which was tewtelly not fun at all considering we were surrounded by boxes and also if there was a fire, our alternate route was really REALLY blocked. Actually Graham mostly put them together, so a round of applause for him. *clap clap clap clap*

Here’s where I come in. My *plan* was to make the Billies look kinda sorta like they belonged there. So I wanted to paint the back of them the same colour as the wall. Easy, peasy, right? Well sure, when you know what paint was used on the wall in the first place. So we grab about 30 swatches of black and hold them up in the black office to see which black is the blackest.

So, you want some black paint, do you?

So once we settled on our shade of black (which ended up BEING THE PERFECT ONE), I took the backboards down to the basement and sanded the crap out of them. LIKE REALLY SAND THESE THINGS because I swear they’re made of olive oil, which paint doesn’t like. Also, I’m not sure we even used the right paint – something thinner might have been better? Anyway, more on that later. Paint two coats and let them dry a LONG TIME. At least overnight. I sound like a spaz with my emphasis on this project.Ok, so then you just slide the boards into the bookcase and nail them in place. But then we realized when we flipped the bookcase over that a ton of the paint at the edges had scraped off in the sliding process (read: olive oil) and so we had to tape them and do touchups, which sucked. Maybe you’ll want to even tape off a section near the edges and not paint there. It was tricky getting the backboards in with two layers of paint because it’s Ikea and everything is made to fit JUST SO. Anyway, I love how they look, here’s a picture of them semi-empty. And also look at the top left shelf. SOMETHING IS MOVING UP THERE YO, and there’s nothing but books in the room! WHAT IS THAT?!

Annnd now they’re covered in binders and loose papers, so just ignore that. And you also can only see the black on parts of the bookcase. Overall, I really like these, and I recommend this technique if you’re doing decorative shelves especially.

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I had a great plan to make a t-shirt into a baby onesie. Mainly because I work for a baby store, and I thought I would take our work shirts and make a shirt for a doll. Cute. And then I effed up the project time and time again, until I had basically shreds of fabric, and no baby onesie to be seen. So here’s how it’s NOT EVER TO BE DONE. Honestly, fail and fail again on this one.

First, make sure you DON’T CHOOSE A V-NECK SHIRT. An adult v-neck on a baby onesie means that the v will end somewhere around the top of their diaper. Hello inappropriate baby version of J.Lo at the 2000 Grammys. So that’s roadblock #1 and because of sleeves and whatnot, you can’t just hike up one part of the shirt and leave the back.

So you have to take the shirt apart. TAKE THE SHIRT. APART. THE ENTIRE SHIRT. APART. Which is only about 17,000 stitches and guaranteed arthritis. It will take you about two hours to do this. All because you chose a v-neck shirt.

Don’t forget how to install the bobbin because TRUST ME, it will need to be put in there correctly. Or you’ll get nowhere on your project.

Don’t sit down to start sewing before you’ve even looked at your thread [non] collection. I have about 3 colours: black, white and grey. Neither of which I really wanted to use on this pink shirt. So I used the white. But then oh wait, I have about 80 different colours of bobbins, so there was a pink that matched POIFECTLY. So I decided I was going to sew with two different colours of thread. It doesn’t allow much for imperfections, which we all know this project was going to be rife with.

And finally, make sure that you MOST DEFINITELY don’t cut without M-E-A-S-U-R-I-N-G. YES, I know the measure twice cut once rule, but I thought I was just trimming it. I was apparently not trimming it – I was cutting off 2/3 of the shoulder on only one side. Then I gave up and threw it in a box with the supplies. Hopefully I can post the correct way to do this one day. But probably not with this poor pink shirt. I try and just remember that my mom had disasters like this back in the day as well, and now she can whip up things like nobody’s business.

What about you, dear reader? Any sewing/crafting disasters to speak of?

Then Graham asked me something I knew he would ask: “Why did you have your phone in the bath?!” and my response was “I usually hold it over the side!” Sarah. Fail. Instead of “Yeah, that was dumb of me,” I said something equally as dumb.

I thought I was such a  hero by saying “no electronics in our bedroom” when we got married. Which has been amazing, by the way. I don’t need to be startled awake just as I hit REM sleep because Off the Rack or Shoppers Drug Mart has timed their email to send out at 2am. I certainly don’t need to spend any time in my room playing Angry Birds, Bejeweled, or worse: Candy Crush (sidebar, they’re the same damn game. I don’t know how Bejeweled hasn’t sued Candy Crush yet). We have an alarm clock and so we don’t use our phones to wake up. And it’s honestly amazing. I’m not trying to have a serious conversation with Graham while he is distracted by the NHL app, or vice versa with me and Reddit. And also, love you guys, but the only things/people that should be in our bed are us. I don’t want to read about anything on Facebook while I’m lying in bed.

Anyway, that boundary is weak. It is the bare minimum in not letting your life be taken over by your phone and your apps and your being completely connected at all times.  I realized I hadn’t done anything [extracurricularly speaking] really since we moved here. Now Sept-Dec is a bit of a write off because we changed homes every month/week/two weeks, but then I feel like I descended into some sort of iPhone dependency mode in January, February and March.

I realized I needed to limit my time with my iPhone. So a couple weeks ago I turned off ALL of my push notifications on my phone. All except Twitter and text. I turned off Facebook, Instagram and my email, as well as all the other stupid games that are like ‘HEY HEY HEY COME BACK AND GET YOUR SUPER BOOSTER TODAY! YOU NEED TO PLAY TODAY!” Yeah, thanks but you’re cluttering up my life, not to mention my carefully crafted iPhone background. Then I set the Do Not Disturb to turn automatically on and off before bed and after waking up. So fast forward past the bath incident to the day after. And so there I was, sitting on the couch with my husband, trying to figure out why it’s SO HARD to get up and get moving, and have any motivation to do anything. Winter is ending (daylight-wise) and yet I don’t feel any more motivated. And so what do I do when I’m not motivated? I play Candy Crush or browse Reddit. I stare. At a screen.

And so I did what any normal person with a problem would do: I removed it. ALL OF IT. I didn’t want my phone functioning as a distraction any more.  I removed most of my games, INCLUDING CANDY CRUSH (it still hurts a bit, but it’s liberating really) and Reddit (run by an app called Alien Blue). And just like that, my phone is back to being a productivity tool that houses my shopping list, helps me stay connected with family across the country, find a reliably good restaurant in an unfamiliar area, and buy movie tickets while on the way to the theatre.

Today was my first night without my small screen distractions and it was quite lovely. We ate dinner, went to Target, watched The Walking Dead and then I [put on my one-piece and] had a bath while reading my book. And it was awesome. I have a couple of projects in the cue that I’m mustering the energy to do, and sitting there mindlessly distracted all the time wasn’t helping.

I encourage you to declutter! Spend less time in front of your screen! What do you do to keep your mind on things that matter and off of technology?

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I got my first “salon” quality flat iron (imho, the only kind that does anything at all to hair other than cuddle with it) when I was 20. And it’s been a battle ever since. Now, my hair is mostly straight. I use my straightener to polish it and set it, or to curl it. I don’t KILL my hair with the straightener, and my hair doesn’t overwork the straightener either. But I CANNOT keep one for longer than a couple of years. YES, I know that all of you straightener ABUSERS with your thick, curly hair have had your *insert brand name here* for more than 5 years. I know. Everyone can hang onto them but me. Because they break. Here is my track record:

1. (I can’t remember the brand of the first two) 1 year, 10 months (JUST UNDER WARRANTY, HURRAH!)
2. *NEW* replaced – just over 2 years
3. Chi  – 1.5 years (I thought I’d have this for 30 years!)
4. Chi – 2 years
5. Paul Brown – 2 years (I had seriously high hopes for this one)
6. Zazen – 11 months

And that brings us to current day. If each of those were $150, I have spent nine hundy dollars on flatirons in, let’s see, NINE YEARS. $100 per year. I also spend $100 per year or less on things much more crucial to my life than a dang hair straightener. Like light bulbs. My dramatic conclusion being – flat irons are ruining my life.

When I bought the Zazen in February of 2012, I was out of all options. All of the *top* (quote) brands had failed me and my cooperative, mostly-straight hair. I had exasperatedly thrown my hands in the air and admitted defeat. But not really, because I like to look presentable and not look like I’m rocking a mostly-straight hula skirt on my head. I also like try to wash my hair every *cough* three days but I’m only able to do that if I can iron out the effects that my sleep mask (our room is very bright, ok?) has had on my bangs overnight.

So I bought this $80 straightener with a 1-year warranty. My logic being that 1-year at $80 is WAY BETTER than 1 year at $150. And then it broke, JUST BEFORE THE WARRANTY RAN OUT! I WIN, ZAZEN! I happily carted it over to the store I purchased it at and traded it in for a new one, making SURE to take good care of the warranty slip as I jovially stapling my new receipt to it, whistling all the way – because I won. I finally felt like I had won. But seriously, who am I kidding? I haven’t won. WHY DO I HAVE SUCH BAD LUCK WITH THESE?! Is there anything you seem to have consistently bad luck with? HOW DID YOU WIN?!

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Which outfit do you like the best?