Wedding Hair Trial :)

Happy happy happy Friday everyone!! It’s a beautiful day here in Virginia and I cannot wait to get my weekend started! And to top it all off my amazing fiancé sent flowers to my work today just because :) what an instant way to brighten someone’s day! So sweet :)

Today I wanted to show you what I’m almost certain will be my wedding hair do! I of course, found the inspiration for it on Pinterest. I took a few photographs to my hair dresser and we talked it through and she said she knew just what to do! Alabama is a pretty humid place, even in October so this was one of the main things we had to take into consideration. I wanted an up-do because the ceremony is on the beach and there is a lot of wind on the beach. The last thing I want is my hair flying in every direction in every picture! But, I also wanted something flexible that I could then take down for the reception. I love the idea of having “two looks.” Kayla, that’s my amazing hair dressers name, first curled my entire hair like the picture below.

Then she took each curl and pinned it up, in a circular motion so as it sits in my hair it will maintain the curl when I take it out.

Here is the finished product! We wanted to keep the bangs minimal because of the wind, there's nothing worse then getting hair stuck in your lip gloss! I LOVED the way the back came out. It was exactly what I had in mind. I can't wait to get it done on our wedding day!

 

Because I have so much hair it took me a good 15 minutes to get all the bobby pins out, I wasn’t too happy with the curls once they were out, but I think that’s something we can fix together in October! I am also hoping to have it grow a few more inches.

During the week and most weekends if we aren’t doing anything I don’t put any moose, hair spray or styling products in it. After I shower I always put in some kind of moisturizer or repairing agent. For the past few months I’ve been alternating between coconut oil and Moroccan cream. I also love the Garnier products, I use their leave-in conditioner as well as a smoothing silk. My hair has definitely improved in quality. It’s not growing as fast as I’d like, but the feel of it is significantly better. When I do blow it out or straighten it it feels so smooth and has so much less frizz! I’ll definitely keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully I’ll get the length that I’m looking for!

Drybar Hair Fun

Happy it’s almost Friday everyone! I cannot begin to express how excited I am for it to be the weekend! We actually don’t have any real plans, we’re getting our AC system replaced (woohoo!) but that’s really the only major thing on our list. Having been so busy the past few weekends we both enjoy getting these quiet, relaxing weekends to ourselves :)

Today I’m going to tell you about an amazing hair place that will completely change your life! They’re pretty popular so you may have heard of it, but the chain is called Drybar. They have more than 25 locations scattered throughout the US and they specialize in gorgeous blowouts only. They don’t do any cuts or color and they charge a flat fee of $40 for every blowout and the best part is they serve you champagne while all of the magic is happening! I know, amazing huh? Too good to be true? Well it’s not. I visited Drybar for the very first time this past weekend to get my hair done for my wedding shower. I called about a month before to get appointments at the location in Georgetown but it was already pretty much booked! So I decided to head to their Bethesda, MD location instead. It was actually almost the same distance to both from my house so it worked out great. The Drybar in Bethesda is located in the cutest area, there are tons of little boutique shops and a pretty cobblestone courtyard with shops on both sides. Definitely a great place to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon. They only have a few blowout options, but really that’s all you need. I chose the one called The Cosmo, which was lots of tight curls. From start to finish she washed and blewout my hair in 40 minutes. I have thick naturally curly hair, so I was overjoyed that she worked her magic so quickly! Inside it's so cute! Everything is white and accented with bright yellow, as you can see from the picture below of the blowdryer!

Unfortunately the Bethesda location does not currently serve champagne, something about their license being taken away…but it was still such a fun time! They were playing Clueless on the TV’s and did serve us sparking pink lemonade which was refreshing. I loved how my hair turned out, it held up all day and it felt and looked so full and voluminous. Everyone gave me so many compliments on my hair and now they all want to try it too! I can’t wait to go back and get another blowout, I’ll definitely have to head to the Georgetown location though..I mean who doesn’t like being pampered while sipping champagne?!

Great Grapes Wine & Food Festival 2013

It’s hump day everyone!  I hope you’re all having a great week so far. Oh, and happy 1st day of May! If I had to pick a favorite month out of the year it would be May, not only because is it my birthday month, but the weather just seems to reach those perfect temperatures and the dreary, rainy days of April are far behind you.

Not only was this past weekend my beautiful wedding shower but on Sunday we also attended the annual Great Grapes Wine & Food Festival in Reston, Virginia. It’s nestled right in the middle of the Reston Town Center which is a cluster of delicious restaurants and some fun adult night life. Great for happy hour with the girls too! We attended because one of our good friends wanted to celebrate her birthday there with friends, what a fabulous idea! The weather did not want to cooperate, but when there’s wine involved we knew we’d persevere! The festival included over 20 different Virginia wineries and over 200 different types of wine and some food tents as well.

It was a great afternoon spent with friends! The first half of our day was spent under a heavy drizzle so we spent some time in the covered area where they had about 10 tables set up. We then ventured out onto the grass area where we had amazing lamb kabobs and purchased a pre-made salsa mix that is out of this world!

We tried so many new wines, I fell in love with a new white wine blend called Vidal Blanc, I can best describe it as tasting like a Viognier. I don’t drink white wine too often, but when I do it’s almost always a Viognier. It has a fruity after taste, almost peach-like and tastes amazing on a hot summer day. It’s a particularly difficult wine to make, as the grapes must be picked at exactly the right time, but I can say to the wine makers, truly worth your efforts! This was probably why I only found 1 tent that had it, I might have missed it among the others, but I was ecstatic that I had finally found a sampling with a Viognier! I ended up buying a bottle of a fabulous Viognier from the Potomac Point Vineyard & Winery. We also ended up getting what I believe was the best wine there, a beautiful Cabernet Franc from the Lake Anna Winery. We tasted a few Cab Franc’s throughout the day, but this one stood out amongst the rest, it was by far a group favorite. We are looking forward to making some delicious steaks on the grill and enjoying our wine :)

If you ever have a chance I would highly recommend attending your local wine festival. It’s a great way to sample new wines and a great way to spend an afternoon. When the weather is nice everyone brings blankets & chairs and we split a few bottles and listen to the live band, you sure can’t beat that for a Saturday afternoon!

My Breakfast at Tiffany’s Wedding Shower

Happy Tuesday everyone! What an amazing weekend it was! I was blessed to have my second wedding shower hosted by my bridesmaids and attended by all my favorite girls! I couldn’t have asked for anything more, it was so much more fun and amazing than I could have imagined. The festivities started at 2pm where everyone got to mingle and load up on carbs and champagne. We had tons of different food options, some things on the menu included:

My spicy bbq meatballs

Mini turkey and ham sandwiches

Guacamole and chips

Pasta salad

Fruit salad

Piggies in a blanket

Cupcakes and cake balls!

As for the drinks, we had the usual fun girly things to drink, I think everyone’s favorite was the Blushing Bride Cocktail. I found the recipe on Pinterest, but instead of Grenadine we used Blue Curacao so that it matched the party better :) We had two different champagne cocktails, red & white wine and a make-your-own mimosa station. After about an hour or so of chit-chat we started the games, the first one we played at my request was having teams create a wedding dress out of toilet paper and dress up one girl, it was so much fun to watch all the girls get creative and have fun with it!

Next up we played the question game, where my maid of honor asked Mr. Tan Lines a series of questions about me or us and then I had to answer them and try to match what he said! For every question I got wrong I had to put a piece of bubble gum in my mouth! Luckily I only got four wrong, or else I would have been in some trouble. Following that we played the purse game where there was a little checklist and girls marked off whether they had the items in their purses or not. Kudos to my future mother-in-law for being the only guest with a picture of the bride in her purse!

Following this we played a cute game that I hadn’t seen before, on a sheet of paper there were 7 pictures of me and 7 pictures of Mr. Tan Lines from different years. Each guest had to guess what age we were in each of the pictures, very fun but difficult, I could hardly guess my own age! After this came the presents! I had asked beforehand that presents arrive un-wrapped; I just wanted to save some time and sanity from unwrapping each gift in front of everyone. This made for a quick run through of each gift which felt like the perfect amount of time. We also decided to put sticky labels on the gifts with the name of the giver instead of writing out the long list. This seemed like a great idea at the time; however now I cannot work on thank you’s at work because I don’t remember what everyone got me! So in hindsight I would say just to have one of your bridesmaids write out what everyone got you. During the gift opening one of my bridesmaids was secretly writing down my reactions to each gift, so at the end she read them out loud as the commentary that would ensue on our wedding night, it was pretty hilarious. Luckily it wasn’t anything too embarrassing, just a lot of “Aww I love it” and best of all “Oh it’s just my Dutch Oven!”

The shower completely flew by! It was scheduled from 2pm-4pm however we didn’t finish up until around 5:30pm. I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun huh?! I don’t think I can say thank you enough to all of my bridesmaids for everything they did in preparation for the day. From helping with set up, to cocktail making and then even staying to clean. It was truly one of the best afternoons I have ever had. I couldn’t have asked for better and I am so thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life :)

Happy Friday Darlings!

This week seemed to drag on but I am so excited that it is finally Friday! :) Tomorrow is going to be a very exciting day for me; it’s my second wedding shower with my friends & family here in Virginia! I have been looking forward to this day for months, I’m so happy it’s finally here. The theme was developed by my sister and maid of honor who will be affectionately referred to as Luti. Luti loved my color scheme selection and after viewing some of my ideas on my wedding board on Pinterest she immediately thought that this would be the perfect idea! We then began to plan the event, I wasn’t involved too much as she wanted to really lead the effort and ask me for opinions here and there. We developed a yummy food menu and most importantly we came up with a delicious drink menu. We are having some fun cocktail punches that I can’t wait to try! I will give you a full run down on Monday, along with pictures!  

I mean, who just doesn't love this movie and Audrey Hepburn, she is the epitome of elegance! I’ve long had a respect and love for Mrs. Hepburn, especially of her outlook on life & love. I also think she was and is still a great inspiration to us. She spent the second half of her life devoted to UNICEF and helping impoverished children all over the world. Just reading about her legacy is inspiration enough to give to others when they don’t always give back to you, and to always try to help those less fortunate :)

In my first apartment I had my favorite quote from Mrs. Hepburn matted to the wall above my bed so that I could read it every day and remember to stay happy and be myself. I love this picture too because it's the first bouquet of flowers Mr. Tan Lines got for me, after surprising me at my apartment! Here is the poem so you can read it better :)

184 Days To Go!

Happy Thursday everyone! Today I wanted to share something special that I got for Mr. Tan Lines. I always try to find little ways to surprise him and tell him in a new way just how much I love him and how important he is to me. I wanted to do something for him this particular weekend because it’s my Bridal Shower, and it being a normal girls-only shower, I knew that he’d miss being there and celebrating with our friends.  So I wanted to give him something special, to make him feel just as special on Saturday as I’m going to feel at the shower. So I was browsing Etsy one day, if you haven’t heard of Etsy shame on you! It is the most amazing site to buy crafts on. It has anything and everything you could ever think of. Personalized items are endless and if you take the time to email sellers, they will usually do a custom order for you at no extra charge! I have bought countless items through Etsy including jewelry, clothing, items for our home, paper items and most importantly this is how I found the dress maker that made my wedding dress! That’s another amazing story that I’ll have to share with you some other time. But seriously, if you’ve never visited it before, take my advice and go there now, you won’t regret it! So anyway, I was looking for a pretty card to give Mr. Tan Lines and came across the seller named Chloe’s Crafts. I was immediately hooked, she had tons of different cards with colored cut-outs and designs. I didn’t see the exact color I wanted so I sent her an email, asking if she could do a turquoise color in the background with the wording “I can’t wait to be your wife.” She emailed me back and said she would have to see if she could find the paper. Within a day or two she emailed me back saying she had found the paper and my card was a go! I received it within 10 days and am in love with it! With shipping I paid $12...for such a high quality custom card, I think it was well worth it! I’ve had it for over a month and I can’t wait to finally give it to Mr. Tan Lines!

Here is another item I purchased off of Etsy. This I got from the seller Staci whose shop is wiremajigs. It was incredibly easy to place the order and I received it within 2 weeks! Best of all, I got it for less than $20, this is just one of the custom accessories I plan to wear on our wedding day!

Arts & Crafts Fun

Happy Hump Day everyone! I hope you’ve all been having a great week so far! It has been okay here, just wishing these work days would go by faster!

Today I wanted to share some of the latest arts and crafts I have put together for our wedding and my 2nd wedding shower happening this Saturday! I’ll start with the wedding DIY, dying my own mason jars! I should start off by saying that I really don’t know how I could have planned my wedding without Pinterest, it is the most amazing and helpful site. If you haven’t heard of it, I’d be surprised! It’s the most wonderful place to get ideas and learn how to do lots of DIY crafts. If you’re not a member, you need to join asap! Here is a link to my page! http://www.pinterest.com/AundreaLily23/

So for our centerpieces we are using different colored jars of different sizes for each table. Because my colors are pool/turquoise blue I wanted to find jars that matched that color. After research though the tinted blue ones seemed a bit priceyer then the clear jars. So after a little more searching around I found sites that provided instructions on how dye them yourself, and voila, I was ready to go! I read 5-6 different methods and settled on the most common one; pulling steps from each one. I purchased my mason jars on walmart.com and had them delivered to the store nearest me, super easy. Then from Michael’s Arts & Crafts, or heaven for some of us : ) I went looking for everything else that I needed. Here is what I purchased:

1. Hodge Podge with a gloss finish

2. Small sponge ended paint brushes

3. Teal icing food coloring, most instructions asked for “food coloring” but my       local Michael’s only had icing coloring

4. Spray can of sa finishing sealant with a gloss finish

And off we went! The steps were incredibly easy and from start to finish I think it took us about 1.5 hours to dye 12 jars. I say us because Mr. Tan Lines wanted to help me paint the jars :) Sorry I don’t have pictures of the step by step process, but here is what we did.

I mixed 5 tablespoons of hodge podge and 1/4 tablespoons of the icing coloring with 1 tablespoon of water. I mixed that well then proceeded to coat the outside of each jar with the glue mixture. I found it easiest to start at the top, then place the jars upside down on a baking dish and finish the bottom. After they were coated we baked them for 20-25 minutes at 200 degrees. This was much longer then the instructions I read, but I think our oven just cooks a little slower than most! Afterwards we pulled them out and let them cool. We sprayed them with the finishing sealant a few days later. Bam! We were done! It was one of the easiest crafts that I have pulled off of Pinterest and one of the most rewarding since it was for our wedding! Here is a pic of the finished jars after they were done baking.

One tip I would say is wear gloves!! The icing coloring was very powerful and took a few days to rid my fingers of the color!

Now the second craft I did was also for our wedding, a sign instructing guests that there was no “side picking” for seating at our wedding.  We had an old piece of wood in the garage that was the perfect size and I purchased a cheap set of paint brushes for $6 at Michael’s.

We found the perfect color at our local Lowe’s store. We just purchased standard wall paint in the color we wanted. Then I used the paint brush, a very thin one because I had to apply a good amount of pressure to the wood to write the letters.

Mr. Tan Lines will add the stake later so we can place it into the sand near our ceremony.

The third craft I did is for my wedding shower this weekend. I’ll talk about that more later but the theme is Breakfast at Tiffany’s, going with my teal/turquoise color scheme. I saw this amazingly cute sign on Pinterest that I just had to have. So Mr. Tan Lines and I purchased a large sheet of thin wood at Lowe’s, and sawed it almost in half, it roughly had dimensions of 36x40 inches. We then measured out the different sections with painters tape, painting the white first and the teal an hour later.

Then, it was my turn to shine. With the brush in my hand I was ready to go. I wrote the words as closely as I could to my inspiration on Pinterest. I think the entire writing process took me almost 45 minutes, it took various layers of the black paint to form thick clear lines.

A few hours later we sprayed both signs with the finishing sealant and we were done! It was so much fun putting all of this together and it was even more fun getting to do it as a couple! I can't wait for everyone to see!