~~ Hostress gift bag ~~

Over at the Glue Arts blog there’s a whole series of what you can do with a Scor-Pal.
I’ve been drooling for one in like, forever, but never found one when my LSS have had sales going on, so I gladly jumped on the chance to receive one for this collaboration between Glue Arts and Scor-Pal. I love mine and use it so much now that I actually do make cards every now and then :)

I made a hostess bag thanks to a step-by-step I found at this Norwegian blog – and recreated it in English over at the GA-blog, as seen here (actually, when I started folding this one I remembered this one from the Cosmo Cricket blog some years ago, I folded like a dozen of these to create some Halloween-bags for my coworkers. Lots of work, don’t expect me to redo that this year! :p).

Nevertheless..here’s some images..paper’s from Websters Pages, bits and pieces from Prima, Hambly Screenprints and stuff.

 

I’m pretty much engulfed in work atm , whether it’s work-work (love when I get to pursue my own projects, atm I’m working on two new series which started/were released last week) or photography-editing-work (finally got my new Eizo-screen!! YAY!!!JOY!!), so..there’s not much newsworthy stuff to share from me these days…other than the fact that we’re counting the days until we can go to PARIS! First vacation abroad for all four of us in what, 4 or maybe even 5 years..since we went to Hungary/Austria when Amalie was like, 2 or so…!

Erika and Ariel - Love-wrecked!

~

We encountered quite a few setbacks prior to Erika and Ariel's shipwrecked-themed concept. First, during our e-session, we found that the venue we booked for the shoot was, well, a total wreck. The owners apparently forgot to tell us that they were demolishing a good part of the whole place. Thankfully, we found some tight spots and you can see below that the pictures we got was still eye-candy. Fast-forward to the wedding, it wasn't exactly the sunny-beach setting as it rained most of the day. Whatever the challenges, weddings are always beautiful events and it's our part to put the sun and happiness through the images - rain or shine.

This is a 2-song onsite video with a slow build up so make sure to see it to the end!


--


















v





















































--

Monogram Mondays

A view of WETV's PlatinumWedding episode of Lynda & Alex

Last week our post focused on dance floors.  Well, we know some of our party animalbrides don’t get to appreciate their dancer monograms as much since they aregetting down with their guests on the dance floor.  What is a girl to do?

A Perfectly lit room DreamDesigned in Washington D.C.

Put it on the wall of course!  Now your special design can be viewed all night no matterwhere everyone is sitting.  Notonly that, but it as even more customization to your venue by getting “customwall” that coordinates perfectly with your vision of the room.

Another Tiffany Original-Monogramming the Waterfall Wall Outside of the Four Seasons, Miami

Now you know at dream design we like to customize everythingabout your night- even if that includes a first touch of personalization whenyour guests arrive at the hotel. After all, sometimes bigger better!

A Complete Custom Room for former NFL Pro Bowler Marty Booker and wife Migdalia Sosa

By this point, some brides might have trouble decidingbetween the monograms for the dance floor or the wall.  Fear not ladies, follow the lead ofMrs. Marty Booker who (above) opted for both!

 Happy Planning! -Elissa

Beach Wedding l Strandkombuis l Cape Town

We could not wait to share this small sneak peak from Kobus and Lynette's "Kaapse Liefde Fees" (loosely translated as Cape Love Fest for our non-Afrikaans friends) which took place yesterday at Strandkombuis on the west coast not far from Cape Town.

We cannot stress how beautiful and amazing these two people really are. They spoiled us (yes us) rotten on their very own wedding day, said yes to everything we asked of them and made sure that every moment together ended in fits of giggles.

Amazing couples make amazing pictures. It really is that simple.

love
welovepictures

~~ Craft Origine ~~

Here’s my proof that why yes, I can stamp!

Or something like that *wink* *wink*

My first layout for Craft Origine!

Which brings me to a nice reason for being on a stamp-DT: A non-paper DT means I’ll get an excuse to dig into my non-DT-manuf stuff more often! Because yes, I’ll freely admit that when you have obligations for this and that manuf you’ll use your older, beloved non-DT-stuff less and less (although I think I am pretty good at balancing this atm, having a number of non-paper-DTs already :) ). Stuff on my layouts include American Crafts, papers from Prima, Crate Paper, KaiserCraft and Pink Paislee), tags from Elle’s Studio, Pink Paislee, MME and yeah, random bits and pieces from here and there.

So, I’ll freely admit I don’t have much experience with stamps, hence I’m probably easily impressed..which I’ll admit I became, using the Craft Origine-stamps. It took the ink (Archival Ink) so easily and yielded such crisp, detailed and rich impressions. I don’t think I really needed to push as much as I did (I do that when I’m afraid the stamp won’t stamp off easily sorta).

Nice, aren’t they? (Yes, yes – I didn’t notice until it was too late that I didn’t make sure the duck-stamp had ink all over before I pressed it down. In fact I saw that just as it touched the paper…and when I redid the stamp, well, I didn’t hit exactly on the lines :p)
Nevertheless. The stamps I’ve used comes from Anniversaire (the numbers), Enfance (the duck, sentiment and rocking horse) and Recettes (the bunny!).

Alright. I’m excited and honored, and looking forward to see how I’ll solve this with “I’m-no-stamper”-thing combined with being on a stamp-DT =)
Feel free to check out the Craft Origine store, the Craft Origine blog (it’s in both English and French) and the other (French! I’m the only Norwegian there o.O) girls’ blogs: Céline Le Guay (Marianne), Gaëlle Fauglas and Karine Cazenave-Taipe.

Wedding tips, planning a "Platinum Wedding" for less from Tiffany Nieves-Cook on NBC Live Miami

I had the pleasure of doing a live wedding segment on NBC Miami today which was a blast! 


I was thrilled to be able to cover the topic of how to plan the "platinum style" wedding for less. After 6 seasons with WE TV's hit show "Platinum Weddings" it seems many brides think they can only have the Platinum or celebrity wedding look if they have a Platinum budget. I was pleased to be able "show and tell" that this is not the case. Have no fear ladies, you can have your very own Platinum style Wedding on a less then platinum budget. Check out the video below to find out how.





For more information on planning your very own platinum style wedding, contact Dream Design Weddings and speak with one of our planners at 888-478-6534

~~ Chalkboard Paint Fun! ~~

You can find this post over at the Maya Road blog aswell! :)

 

Alright, I guess I might be late to the party - I read lots of DIY-projects involving chalkboard paint like, a year ago or more - but only recently actually got to play with it myself. But my oh my - what great fun you can have with just a little chalkboard paint! Truly!

For this project, I used the Pennant Chipboard Album.

Here's the instructions, although it's fairly easy to do so you shouldn't really need instructions =)

1. Find the clean edged chipboard and apply chalkboard paint on it as per its instructions (the paint, that is. I have no idea if all chalkboard paint acts the same :) ). For mine I tested it both with and without gessoing the chipboard. I think I actually prefer to do this without gessoing the chipboard - without it took me two layers of chalkboard paint, with gesso I needed three layers for a proper coverage.

2. Find the scalloped chipboard and either spray or paint it. The front chalkboard was covered in orange acrylic paint, the back chalkboard was covered in Maya Mist (one layer of Bublegum Metallic Mist then topped off with Dragon Fruit Pink Mist). Note: I adhered the chalkboard layer upon the scalloped chipboard, hence didn't need to paint/mist all of the chipboard, only the scalloped part.

3. Find some ribbon (here: Candy Striped Ribbon) or twine to decorate the top of the chalkboard. Optional: I wanted to decorate the twine some by adding small, cute trinkets to it: Wooden Mini Spools and Trinket Beads: Hearts and Butterflies.

4: I decided to attach the chalk pen to the chalkboard. This by securing the twine to a wooden button before hot gluing the chalk pen to the button.Tip: Depending on whether your kid is right or left handed - make sure the twine is on the "right" side for your kid.

There you have it - an easy peasy chalkboard project your kid will love! Mine sure did (aged 6 and 10)! And - it really didn't take that long to assemble - like 90% of the effort was spent waiting for paint&mist to dry.

Hope you enjoyed this mini-inspiration project and is now tempted to try it yourself. Remember - just because it says it's a mini album doesn't mean it have to be used for that, you know! :)

Have a lovely week!

-Ania