The Youngsters, Wedding Week, and a Giveaway!

Over on Palindrome at Home, we love Young House Love for their DIY can do attitude and fresh design skills.  Here on Palindrome Bride, we have a new reason to love the Youngsters - Wedding Week!  Check out their blog all this week for wedding related goodness in celebration of their anniversary.  Also, if you're in the market for invitations, check out their amazing Invitation Giveaway from Two Paper Dolls and Louella Press.  This is one of my favorites from the Louella Press Gallery:

 Enter to win by 8 pm EST tonight!

*Contest Alert* - Jenna Cole Photography

Jenna Cole Photography (the Jenna Cole of Mrs. Avocado fame!) is sponsoring an amazing contest for a couple to redo their wedding portraits. If you were disappointed with your photographs, or didn't have any photographs of your wedding, I encourage you to enter the contest (especially if you're in Texas or Chicago, although she will travel if costs are covered by the winning couple).  Click here for complete entry rules.

Source

Winner of the Magnet Giveaway!

Sunday came and went. I was a bad blogger and just let the giveaway slide with out any commenters. Then Christine commented and I decided to award her the giveaway as the first commenter!

Congratulations Christine!

Hostess Gifts

So many lovely hostesses helped make my shower special and I wanted to give them small tokens of my appreciation.  I decided to make them some magnets that they could use on their fridge or in the office.  I loved crafting them by hand and hope that they seemed extra special to the ladies!

I was really excited that I already had most items that I needed to make these magnets.  As a compulsive crafter, I have a ton of crafting supplies that I keep telling myself will come in handy some day.  That day came!

Supplies:

Clear Marble pebbles (from Wal Mart or the Dollar Store)

Glue Stick

Small Rare Earth Magnets (ordered from Etsy Vendor: Ali's Attic)

Patterned Paper (leftover from my invitation belly bands - the  ones in the following pictures were bonus material from Ali in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month)

Tag Punch

Small take out gift tote (from Michael's)

Rubber Stamp for Tags

1. I held the paper up to the clear marble pebbles and cut them slightly at an angle so that no paper stuck out over the edges.

2. Then I rubbed the little piece of paper onto my gigangtic blue glue stick.  It's a sticky situation, but I bore through it.  I then pressed the paper to the pebble and set it aside to dry while I glued the rest.  I'm showing 4 here, but my ladies received 5 each. 

3.  Oh yeah!  You can bust out the E-6000 for this project too!  Just a little dab will do ya to stick on the uber strong magnet.

4. Set the drying magnets far enough apart so that they don't attract to one another.  At best they'll dry lopsidedly.  At worst . . . you'll have a mess of E-6000 and rare earth magnets on your hands that just won't seperate.  Ever.

5. Punch a cute tag out of whatever paper you happen to have handy (in my case white card stock).

6. Reuse your cute little set of Baby Shower stamps.  I used the round circle and bird from the Martha Stewart Baby Shower clear stamp set and a magenta Crayola marker.

7.  Once the magnets are dry (I let mine set overnight make sure), I prepared a nice, green bed of crumpled paper for them.  You will be seeing this green stuff again!

8. Set your little magnets on the bed of grass.

9. Close up your take out box and tie on the cute tag with a bit of thread.

And there you have it!  A fun hostess gift that's big on style and hand made love!

Oh?  You'd love them for yourself you say?  OK!  I tell you what, I'll give this set away!

Yes, that's right - I'm giving this set to one lucky commenter :)  Leave a comment telling me what you would post on your fridge or file cabinet with these magnets and you could be the recipient of some hand crafted goodness!  One comment per person.  Entries close Sunday night at 8 pm.  Winner will be announced on Monday!

PS - Happy Veteran's Day!  Thank a Vet!

Giveaway at Glamour This!

Kelly De Luca of Blush!nk, is holding a fantastic giveaway over at the Glamour This! blog! Sweet B Papers is sponsoring the giveaway and she has some absolutely delightful choices. The collage on Glamour This featured my two very favorite sashes:

If I win, I'll definitely be wearing one of these sashes during my wedding weekend (maybe at the rehearsal dinner, or maybe it'll make a special appearance at the wedding itself!). 

I entered every way I could.  Spread the Galmour This! and Sweet B Papers LOVE!

The Winner!

Thanks to all for participating in my Tea Favor Giveaway!  The future Mr. Palindrome is sitting here watching the Oklahoma vs. Texas game and was very confused as to why I was making him choose a number between 1 and 5 and what the heck a Tea Favor was.  He chose #2 when I kept saying, "PICK A NUMBER!"

Congratulations to Maria of The Carosello Wedding!  I've emailed you about claiming your prize :)

I have the next giveaway planned and my picture taking will kick into high gear as I pick up the charger for the camera this weekend too :)

Tea Favor Giveaway!

I know that I taunted you with a look at my hometown bridal shower. Tonight, I'm offering you no more than another taunt, with a small look at the lovely favors my mom made all of the guests.

A collection of yummy teas is packed in a faux cut glass candy dish and wrapped with a silver bow and demitasse spoon.  The perfect take away for our high afternoon tea.

To make up for my lack of reporting and gift opening pictures, I'm giving away the very favor pictured!

To enter, please leave a comment below with your favorite tea time edible!  The contest will open until Thursday at 7:00 pm EST.  The winner will be announced on Friday morning.  One entry per person please.

*Giveaway Alert* - Jewelry Rental

Head on over to PreOwned Wedding Dresses and check out their fantastic jewelry rental giveaway.

The prize is a $2500 rental certificate from Adorn Brides.  I browsed the collection and was so smitten by some pieces!  In fact, if I won, I would have to consider a dress change for the reception just so I could wear one of the gorgeous necklaces!  Like this Budding Necklace:

 

Or maybe this Riley Bracelet? 

 

The 2500 is a very generous amount and would most likely be enough to adorn your mom or bridesmaids as well! 

What would you choose?

The Winner of the Notecards!

Congratulations to the 5th commenter - Emily!

I asked my officemate at work to choose a number between 1 and 5 and there you have it.  :)  Gotta love a good old random number choice.  Woo hoo - yay for the first giveaway!

You've got a few more hours!

Before the contest closes - check it out here.

100 Posts AND New Functionality!

This is like your Christmas morning. It's ok, jump around and be giddy in your footed pajamas. This is worth celebrating! I've reached my 100th post and I'm introducing two new features!

1. Tags - I worked for two nights last week tagging all of my posts. The tags are at the bottom of each post. If there is a topic you like and want to see what else I've written on that topic, just click on the tag and the full list of entries will be generated. I'll be working on having the list on the sidebar soon as well!

2. Comments - I've opened up comments to one and all. I hope that this fixes the issues that some readers have had with comments. I also turned on my comment moderation feature. Since I opened up comments to one and all, I want to make sure that bad apples don't ruin all the wedding and sunshiney goodness fun that this blog is.

I lied. I have 3 new features! Want to know the 3rd one???? GIVEAWAYS! What better than be checking your favorite blogs on a Monday and realize it's a giveaway day??????????

I am giving away a set of 4 handmade notecards! I made them today with some supplies I had on hand. The doilies will be making an appearance in a DIY Tutorial (another toot!), but for now they add just a little charm to these notecards.

These would be great as Thank You cards, to put with bridesmaid gifts, as "Will you be my Bridesmaid?" cards, shower cards, engagement congratulations, wedding cards . . . You don't even have to be a bride to get some use out of these!

Just add a comment and tell me who you would give these to!  It's that easy.  Entries are once per person and I will choose the winner randomly.  The contest closes on Thursday at midnight EST!

*Note: Click the pictures above for larger images and to see why I need to get a manicure the day of the wedding.  Cute thumb, I know.