300% MORE Wedding Projects

The other day when Kevin and I were knee deep in various wedding projects, he asked me what percentage more DIY projects were we taking on than the average couple. To which I laughed... A LOT MORE. It's partially because we're trying to plan a wedding in one of the three most expensive places in the country on a modest budget. It's partially because we're nuts and have five million ideas.

We bought this old window at a barn sale a couple months ago. Kevin painted it (yet again risking life and limb) and backed it with chicken wire. I picked some choice random photos from various vacations and trips to Butler's Orchard and made them vintagey looking in Photoshop. Too cute?

We also got this vintage briefcase at said barn sale for cards. I sewed the little flags with a bunch of blue and white fabric I've been hoarding. See?

The rest of this going to become more little flags once I actually get the motivation to break out my sewing machine again. What you have to realize is that I only get this kind of creativity in spurts so when it happens I have to knock out like four projects in one weekend.

So I also sewed these burlap 20x20 squares to go on the white table cloths. I used a decorative zig zag stitch and I didn't realize that it would eat through two spools of blue thread. So yeah, some of them are different colors... no big deal.

But the good news about zig zag? It's a little more forgiving if, like me, you cannn't really sew in a straight line. So yeah, don't examine that too closely :) More projects to come soon like our invites/RSVP cards that we designed and ordered from Zazzle this weekend. 

Welcome to the Creative Farm-Tastic World of Weddings

Save the date! (Yep, I designed it)

So just when I thought I'd have some free time... grad school being finished and all... something super fun happened! Kevin proposed! Which has brought on a flurry of brainstorming, Pinterest-ing and, well, panicking (that's just what I do, I mean, besides being super happy of course). Almost immediately we knew we wanted to do something creative and outside. Being from Florida, I had always dreamed of a beach wedding, but Maryland's beaches leave something to be desired (sorry Ocean City). So what's that Maryland equivalent? A farm wedding!

That's our barn!

We quickly picked a beautiful farm here in Montgomery County called Bussard Farmstead at the Agricultural History Farm. I originally saw a blog post a while back on The Bitten Word and fell in love with the rustic, DIY-ness of the barn. There are also goats and chickens. Who doesn't need wedding photos with 4-H show chickens?!

Those are some pretty chickens.

Not that anyone here cares, but we also have picked a photographer called Sweet Tea Photography. Totally in line with the theme right? We decided to hit up the barn sale in Frederick again to start picking up some fun farm-y accessories for centerpieces and the like. Our favorite finds were a barn wood frame, an antique briefcase (for cards or something), four antique mason jars and two sets of fun numbers to represent our wedding date, August 26.

So stay tuned for more fun barn-y goodness though out the next few months. I'll still keep doodling and eventually get back to pattern making but for now I'll be using most of my creative energy for this. I feel like I need to say something deep now about love or weddings, but I'll leave that to others for now. WoohoO!

A Trip to the Barn Sale

Today we final headed up to Frederick to check out the barn sale at Chartreuse & Co. that we heard about back in February. There was a pretty good mix of re-finished and needing-to-be-refinished furniture. Best of all, most of the prices were pretty reasonable. Only a few pieces were over $500. The old library card catalog to the left may have been one of them. Kevin loved the Scrabble pillow on top.

There were more than a few pieces that we really loved. Sadly, due to our complete and utter lack of space, we just couldn't commit to bringing them home. The whole experience made me desperately wish we had a house but it was really fun just to poke around.

I loved this industrial workshop cart. The color was like a deep teal. The little herb bottles were really fun. We actually brought home this window frame for about $30. I'm trying to decided whether to turn it into frames, a chalk board, a magnet board... so many options. Any ideas?

I really love this desk. The top was so nice. We were both pretty obsessed with this cabinet which was a blue-y gray color (there was definitely a weird "antique blue" theme throughout the sale... as if all re-painted antiques should be blue).

So what do you think? Should we have made room for any of these treasures? Ever been to a barn sale? It's literally in a big barn in the middle-ish of nowhere.