Month: August 2008

  • A template for an easy way to dress up water

      Last year, when we were preparing our Out of Town bags for guests, we knew that water bottles would be an essential ingredient to include. Yet, since it’s me, there was no way the water was getting into people’s hands without some sort of fun intervention!

    We went to Costco and stocked up on 2 cases of water at the high price of $4.49 each. When I removed the label to measure it, I realized that the labels were exactly 8.5″ long… the same length as a standard piece of paper. As the lightbulb went off in my head, I ran to dip a piece of laser printed paper in water… and guess what… no bleeding! It was then that I realized I could save myself a lot of time if I made the labels out of PAPER instead of printing them onto costly and expensive label sheets!
    So, that’s what I did! I just removed all the labels, cut out the sheets into strips, and reattach using the sticky from the bottle (lots will be left on it) and 1 glue strip to fold the ends over!
    [Now, if your bottles were going to meet up with ice baths at sometime, I'm sure you'd still need to get waterproof label sheets to cover your bases. But, otherwise... this really is a super easy way to decorate bottles quickly!]

    While that was last year, I’ve used my templates to quickly and easily dress up the same bottles again for random occasions. People always ask where I ordered them from because the formatting is identical to the Costco bottles (ingredients, bottling info, etc.) except for the background and the custom label. So, I went back and scrubbed the templates clean, and have uploaded them for WeddingBee to customize at will!

    BLACK LETTER Water Bottle Labels: Adobe Illustrator Format (*.ai); PDF format

    WHITE LETTER Water Bottle Labels: Adobe Illustrator Format (*.ai); PDF format

    And just to show you their potential, a set I made with the white text using patterns by Sashiko:
    Adobe Illustrator File (*.ai); PDF File

    I hope you enjoy them! (p.s. if you don’t have Illustrator, remember that you can always use the opensource version, InkScape, for free!

  • The perfect rehearsal dinner needs aliens & sheep

     
    When I went to Roswell, NM to attend the wedding of my BM Meagan, the last thing I thought I’d be doing was eating gumbo on a Friday night. I thought we’d be hanging out with the aliens and chatting it up with the cowboys, so when I arrived for the rehearsal dinner, I was shocked to be suddenly transported to a southern plantation. It was, however, perfectly fitting for the groom’s celebration, since he is a Roswell-transplant via Louisiana.


    (The sheep watched us dine from beyond the fence)

    The tables were set-up on the front lawn of the estate, with the catering stations on the side. And, by catering, I mean home-cooked fixin’s that were provided by generous family friends.

    Each table was set immaculately with colorful napkins, candle holders, and of course, BBQ bibs.  Plus, Meagan got to use the gerber daisies that she loves so dearly… and that her florist outlawed at the wedding. ;)

    And you can’t forget the Louisiana hot sauce! One per table seemed to do the trick!

    Bibs on everyone…. time to chow down!

    And then there was the food!!! While my tastebuds couldn’t handle all of the spicy goodness the gumbo and shrimp had to offer, everyone at the table was “ooohing” and “awwwing” over it. I stuck to the hushpuppies and macaroni. And the mojitos. :)

    See… those bibs do come in handy!

    Desserts were, again, provided by family friends. The strawberries (soaked in Grand Marnier) were wonderful atop ice cream, along with the cookies and lemon bars.


    It turned out to be the perfect summer night, and the ideal way to get ready for the celebration on Saturday!


    The lucky couple even got the chance to sneak in some early dancing.

    In all, they pulled off the perfect welcome reception for their family and friends visiting from near and afar. I mean, they did have to go and top it with a fireworks display the next night… but regardless it was a flawless rehearsal celebration.

    Cheers of milk back to the happy couple of Meagan and Ian! (Seriously… how cute is this! Toasting with milk for the cake cutting? Adorable!)