My Marble Magnets

I was bored tonight, so I ran down to our local dollar store and picked up the things I needed for marble magnets and decided to give them a try. It was stupidly easy and cheap. It took more time for me to decide what pictures I wanted to use than it did to put them together.

I bought:

- 4 Packs of 12 magnets at $1.50 each

- I bag of flat bottom marbles at $1.50

- I tube of "Amazing Goop" at $5.50

I made 12 magnets tonight, so it probably cost me at MOST $2.00 for those 12. I still have TONS of glue and flat marbles left. To figure it out, The bag I bought will make 24 sets of 4 magnets, with a couple left over marbles. So that $0.0625 per 4 marbles. The magnets I will try to find cheaper in super bulk for the favors, but using these ones they are $0.50 per 4. And say I use one tube of "Goop" per bag of marbles (although I think by tonight's findings it'll be much more than that) the goop works out to $0.23 per set. So totalled up it would cost me time and $0.7925 per set of favors. But if I find cheaper magnets, that could drop significantly.

Here are the pics of my bored night creations: (Sorry for bad light reflections)

My Mood: Artistic

Colored Flames

Dan was actually the one to point this out as a possibility for wedding decor. He really liked the idea and if it's something that he will actually voice that he likes, I will try my absolute hardest to put it to use. I already wanted candles of some sort, and he doesn't care much whether I put it to use in normal candles or oil candles or whatever, and I think it'll make a really interesting touch.

I had posted on my old website from my late teens the chemical additives for getting your flame to burn in a specific color, but really other than thinking it was really cool (and I still do think that), I never did anything with the information. But I sure will now. Imagine this, Blue, Orange, and White - yes white - flames on all the candles in the ceremony and reception.



I couldn't find a better pic of a white flame, so that'll have to do with just the half white flame. I wonder how many people will notice right away...

Sites I researched:
Rainbow Moments: These are what we saw in the store that caught Dan's eye.
More Than Light
Magic Color Lamp Oil
We R Beyond Candles
EOil Candles
WyArt
Aura Oil: For oil candle building supplies
WickStore: Again supplies for building candles

My Mood: Geeky

DIY: Poetry by Any Other Magnetic Word

I have always loved magnetic poetry. I don't own a lot of it unfortunately, but I love it a lot. I was thinking about this while going along my idea of using magnets for our wedding favors. Can be easily personalized for our wedding and also practical. Come on, who ever has enough fridge magnets? But to buy the suckers it is friggen expensive! So I've searched online for DIY instructions, and really only came up with the same ideas I already had. So here it goes:

Materials Needed:
This is really broad.
- Words. Yes, Did I mention broad? Anyway. I suppose you could do anything, cut them out of magazines, print them on plain or sticker paper off your computer, write them on, the possibilities are endless here.
- Magnet Sheet. I've seen instructions where people glue or stick the words onto old fridge magnets that they don't want anymore, others will pick up magnet sheets or magnet strips.
- Glue - that is, if you aren't using sticker paper.

Instructions:
Step 1:
Collect your words.
Step 2:
Stick or Glue them to your magnet. Let Dry.
Step 3:
Cut the magnets to separate your words.
Step 4:
Enjoy. Stick on your fridge (or anything else magnetic), Give as gifts, Whatever.

Simple as that. I found the picture of the fridge in Google Image Search, if it's yours, let me know. I found the close up from DIY Maven on Curbly.com.

My Mood: Mellow

Hospitals Suck

Don't get me wrong - they are there for the better. But I just got back from visiting one of our friends who is laid up in the hospital. Our dear Tom has gotten salmonella and has been stuck in the hospital since Friday. We just found out tonight, so I headed up for a visit. If nothing else to give him some company for a while because it's so boring trying to pass time in there. He's got a TV and whatnot, but it's just not the same. Besides, somebody has to go and bring the poor boy a cigarette from time to time. But he's feeling a lot better by the sounds of it and hopefully he'll be out by this Friday. In the meantime, must remember to pick up a Maxim and disguise it as a National Geographic...

My Mood: Exanimate

Weekend Buys

It was a cheap weekend in the shopping department. Nothing wrong with that I suppose. I found some new golf balls. Not thrilling to many I know. A stop at LaSenza for some pretty little things. I found a cute little charm for my Italian charm bracelet, it says Bride. I also bought my mom one that said Mother of the Bride. I couldn't help it, for $5 a piece how can you really go wrong. Besides, hopefully at least, you only get to be a bride once in your life. So the odd little bridal but non wedding related expenditures I'm sure can be forgiven.
That's okay, because on that note, we bought Dan's mother a charm bracelet this weekend too. It's for mother's day, so we're prepared early, but she seems to like mine and we thought we'd give it a shot. We bought her 3 charms already for it and I have 2 more coming from my cousin who used to sell them and is trying to sell out. Of those 2 - one says Mother of the Groom. It'll get her a good start. My mother and I ran into the same problem last night with each of ours, I bought us those charms and neither of us had a space left for a new charm! Time to put all the blank links back together and start number 2 I guess.
And a real wedding related expense... I found that necklace I blogged about before, the one with the crystals. It's almost perfect, I do have a slight change I want to make to it, to add the something blue if I need, but we'll see what I need to do first, but since it does have the chain extension, I thought it would be cute to remove it and put the ribbon on the back.

But at Chapters I picked up 2 wedding related books, The Wedding Survival Guide (it looked interesting and was on sale for $5, I gave it a shot) and Offbeat Bride. I'm reading the Offbeat Bride right now, it's very entertaining and hugely helpful for those not set into tradition.


My Mood: Hot

River View Room, Great Concert, Fantastic Weekend

What a great time we had. It was fantastic to say the least. We headed up to Saskatoon for the weekend. We left Friday morning and leisurely made our way to Saskatoon, of course when I say leisurely I mean we were only traveling at about 20 km over the posted. We stopped in Regina at Chapters of course. A few books and a Starbucks later, we had a quick lunch and were back on the highway. We checked in at the Radisson and had supper at the hotel restaurant. We picked up our tickets for the concert and headed back to the hotel to lounge around the sauna and hot tub, me - of course - with one of my new books, The Offbeat Bride.

We made it to the concert around 11:30, about an hour late and missed one of the opening bands. The second opener was really pretty good. "Art of Dying" out of Vancouver. We were pretty impressed, but they were nothing compared to the leading band of course. Who were they you ask? Econoline Crush. I love them. I've now seen them 3 times in concert and I would go again and again. It was a great time, Dan had a great time too. They played a great show and a even better encore. We made it back to the hotel around 2:30 / 3 a.m.

Saturday we did some shopping. We walked down to the Midtown Plaza Mall and wandered around there for quite sometime. We didn't find everything we were looking for, so we grabbed the car and headed to the Center at Circle and 8th to find a couple stores that I wanted to check out. For supper we parked back at the hotel and wandered around downtown checking out all the little stores and looking for someplace that struck us as someplace to eat. We ended up at Winston's English Pub. The food was fantastic, the place itself was very good looking, very interesting, and we would highly recommend checking it out if ever looking for someplace to eat in downtown Saskatoon.

After supper it was back to the hot tub and sauna. Guess what is one reason why we pick the Radisson so often? Lol. Later we went to see "Reign Over Me", the new Adam Sandler film about the man who loses his family and is found by an old friend. It was better than we had expected. It had a little bit of everything, comedy, drama, suspense even. We went to the new Galaxy Cinema that was just recently built up there.We love the Galaxy Cinemas, they are designed so well in tiered seating that ensures that you aren't fighting to see through anyone's head.

Yesterday was pretty low key. We got up early for one last crack at the pool area before we went for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We checked out and headed to visit one of Dan's friends that we hadn't seen in a while. We had a good visit there and then we left for home around 2 ish. It's a good 5 hour drive, so we didn't want to leave too late. We got home around 7, picked up Jessie, who was one happy happy puppy to see us back home, and even happier to see what toy we brought home for her.

It was a fantastic weekend. We had a gorgeous river view from our room on the 16th floor with a king sized sleep number bed. We relaxed, we laughed, and we had a great time. But it's always nice to get back home.

My Mood: Relaxed

DIY: Bubble Magnets (Marble Magnets)

I have seen these in the stores before, and I never gave them all that much thought until now. I think they are adorable, and thanks to so many great blogs (see list below), I have realized that they are incredibly easy to make, although seemingly time consuming. But I have some crafty friends, a very talented mother, and a mother in law and grandmother in law to be that want to help any way they can. I imagine I could even get Dan to help with the assembly. This seems like it would be fairly inexpensive, even when making sets for guests. I think for very special guests, ie: my parents, his parents, bridal party, and attendants, I will make up different sets that are more tailored to them. I think it would be cute for his parents to get some of his pictures from when he was younger and then some with the two of us for their set. And likewise with myself for my parents. We'll see what happens. I can tend to get right into these kind of crafts. They pass time well and it seems to be something that one could do mindlessly while watching tv or something.

Bubble Magnets:

Materials:
- Flat glass (or plastic if you'd like) accent marbles with one flat side, or cabochons as per Not Martha
The accent marbles I've seen almost everywhere, although I think I'm going to visit my nearest Michael's to get them, since I have a few other items I need from Michael's and a 25% off my total wedding purchase coupon. The cabochons are available at Tap Plastics as per Not Martha.
- Powerful round magnets (also available at Michael's) Size will depend on the size of your marbles or cabochons
- Clear craft glue OR Silicone Sealer (such as made by Crazy Glue Company): Some instruction sites say glue, some say silicone sealer, I'll see what I can find around my area.
- Scissors OR Round Craft Punch in the size of your marbles. I'm going to find the punch because I have so many to make.
- Some people say that they could see the magnet under their picture and it ruined their magnet. If this happens they say to glue down a layer of white cardstock between your picture and magnet. I'll run a test first with my glue and magnets and see what happens. If they don't turn out, I'll use the cardstock and stick the test runs on my own fridge.

Instructions:

Step One: Gather Pictures.
Punch/Cut pics out of magazines or whatever. You may want to use on of your marbles as a guideline to check the picture size first. I plan to print them off in pages off my computer since I need so many of the same.

Step Two: Glue Picture to Marble
Drop a bit of glue/sealer (about the size of a pea) to your picture and squish it to your marble. Squeeze out any excess glue or air bubbles.

Step Three: Glue Picture Marble to Magnet.
Drop a bit of glue/sealer (about the size of a pea) to your magnet and squish it to your marble.

Step Four: Let Dry.
Read the instructions on your glue I suppose, but most sites say an hour, some say overnight. Viola! Finito!



Sites I researched for this project:
Roxy Craft: Patterns that Don't Suck
Not Martha
Little Cabbage
Mormon Chic
Curious Girl
Moon Arts
Jesser.org
Save On Crafts
My Mood: Artistic

Wedding Favors

What a mission it is, trying to come up with an inexpensive, yet interesting idea for wedding favors. I keep searching for something that not everyone has done, something that may be practical and won't get thrown into the trash in a little time, and something that still reflects us and our wedding. So what do I do?
I have found some ideas: Candles, Candies, Coffee Items, Golf Favors, Magnets, etc., etc. But I have really fallen in love with the magnets. I love fridge magnets and it seems I never have enough of them, or at least enough of them that are strong enough to hold anything up. I'll scour the net here this morning and see what I can come up with.
My Mood: Okay

Nomination: Blogger's Choice Awards

My blog has been nominated. I have been nominated under the categories:
Best Blog about Stuff
Best Hobby Blog
Best Blog of All Time
Best Pop Culture Blog
Check it out and give me a vote if you see fit:




My Mood: Ecstatic

Shoes

Shoes. I haven't ever been a huge shoe person, but I know I have to look at shoes for the big day. I have always loved the style of shoe that has the ribbons or strings that wrap up the calf, and I really want to get a pair like that for the wedding. I love these options shown below because they come with any color of ribbon that you want. I hope to find something really close to them that is reasonably priced. As long as the ribbon will come out of the loops on the shoe, I can buy and put in any color I want. Something blue maybe, maybe orange which would look good on nicely tanned legs...

My Mood: Sick

Invitations

I found a style of invitation that I love so much more than my original favorite. This one looks great in our wedding colors, which was a problem with the last style. These are available at Jean M but I think with my mother's scrapbooking expertise, we'll just do them ourselves.

My Mood: Sick

My Fine Is... $468.10

Here’s how it works: You don’t need to give up all your secrets - you just tally up your fine based on what you’ve done (not per incident). Then post it on your blog with the title “My Fine Is…”

Smoked pot — $10
Did acid — $5
Ever had sex at church — $25
Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you — $40
Had sex with someone on MySpace — $25
Had sex for money — $100
Vandalized something — $20
Had sex on your parents’ bed — $10
Beat up someone — $20
Been jumped — $10
Crossed dressed — $10
Given money to stripper — $25
Been in love with a stripper — $20
Kissed some one who’s name you didn’t know — $0.10
Hit on some one of the same sex while at work — $15
Ever drive drunk — $20
Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk — $50
Used toys while having sex — $30
Got drunk, passed out and don’t remember the night before — $20
Went skinny dipping — $5
Had sex in a pool — $20
Kissed someone of the same sex — $10
Had sex with someone of the same sex — $20
Cheated on your significant other — $10
Masturbated — $10
Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend — $20
Done oral — $5
Got oral — $5
Done/got oral in a car while it was moving — $25
Stole something — $10
Had sex with someone in jail — $25
Made a nasty home video — $15
Had a threesome — $50
Had sex in the wild — $20
Been in the same room while someone was having sex — $25
Stole something worth over more than a hundred dollars — $20
Had sex with someone 10 years older — $20
Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 — $25
Been in love with two people or more at the same time — $50
Said you love someone but didn’t mean it — $25
Went streaking — $5
Went streaking in broad daylight — $15
Been arrested — $5
Spent time in jail — $15
Peed in the pool — $0.50
Played spin the bottle — $5
Done something you regret — $20
Had sex with your best friend — $20
Had sex with someone you work with at work — $25
Had anal sex — $80
Lied to your mate — $5
Lied to your mate about the sex being good — $25

Monograms

I have been thinking a lot about monograms and I found one woman with a great blog and later discovered that she did monograms. Aylee Designs is her website and she does some beautiful work. You can have her make you up one free monogram or you can order multiple designs for $5 for 2, or $20 for 10. Here are my favorites, I have some talking to do with Dan to decide which variation of our names we want to use, but I am definitely going to be ordering some of these.







My Mood: Giggly

Cake Bling

Today at lunch I got home to discover that we didn't have power, at least for the first 40 minutes I was there. So I was flipping through my new JC Penney Wedding Planner.
(For anyone interested and close to a JC Penney, if you register with them with a list of at least 15 items, you can print your registry off your home computer and take the list to any JC Penney and receive a FREE wedding planner binder. I was very impressed with the binder, it was much better than I originally expected.)
And whilst flipping through my binder, I decided to - gasp, oh yes - cut some pictures out of one of my bridal magazines and stick them into my planner. A combination of being bored and wanting to see options side by side. Of course, I ran across a website I had to take a look at. I found their actual website wasn't much help, but a website that sells the products was. They also carry the tear drops spray I featured in a past entry, which was the same as used on the Carmen Elektra cake.





You can find these at Expressions Cake Jewelry or at Advantage Bridal. The other idea I really loved was this shadow box frame for showcasing monogram toppers after the wedding.

For the bride who wants to DIY as much as she can, like me, because these things are stupid expensive, two wedding bee bloggers have posted their DIY instructions and results. See JustABride and Miss Pearl.
My Mood: Mischievous