Cards

When I was researching what to do with my leftover cards, I found a lot of posts on what to do with "gift" cards that people send/give you during the whole getting married "thing". I loved seeing these ideas, so I thought I would share.

First of all is the obvious. . .turn them into another card. See here.

If you are a bit more sentimental, you can always store them in a box.

But sometimes, you want something prettier than just a box. Perhaps something that doesn't take up as much room as a box might? I thought this was a pretty awesome idea. However, if you aren't super-crafty, you can always have a book of cards made for you by a company like this one. (I could see this also being awesome for a baby!)

Thank Yous (Picture)

Just wanted to share a picture of my Zazzle thank yous. I've talked a lot about how much I love them and how glad I am to be finished writing them, but I have not posted a picture!

Pink and beige borders were added by yours truly (and her help).  Thanks to Justin for the suggestion on how to make beige and white look good together (making the save-the-dates and invitations go together! woo!). Also thanks to my parents who dealt with days and days of confusion followed by lots of rubber cement. We won't mention Atlanta traffic, stupid MARTA bus drivers, or paper stores that are only open Monday through Friday (*ahem* Xpedx *ahem*).

Thank You Notes

Justin and I finally completed all of our thank you notes last night. It was a grueling task, but we made sure to spend time when writing thank yous to consider the person who gave us the gift as well as the gift itself. We especially appreciated the many people who took the time to come see us on our wedding day. (Then again, the kitchen appliances and feathers are pretty awesome as well!)

After the realization that we were done... yet still had a large number of thank you cards I left, I hit the internet in search of an eco-friendly way to use my thank you cards in another type of project. Honestly, I haven't had a whole lot of luck in my search just yet, but I did find a service that surprised me.

With three months involved in carefully crafting the perfect imperfect thank you notes, I cannot even imagine using That's Gratitude to write my thank yous for me. That's Gratitude is a company that will handwrite unique, individual thank you notes anonymously for you and have the task completed in 3 weeks. They guarantee that individuals from the same household and people that sent you the same gifts will not get the same thank you note. On top of their thank you note service, they also provide stationery! I'm not sure how I feel about this service, but I definitely like the idea of having all of my thank yous done in 3 weeks. That would have been nice.

I have not yet decided what I will do with my left over thank yous. The biggest problem I have is that my notes have our wedding date on them. I may be able to craft unique ornaments out of them. Then again maybe I should just recycle them? We ended up recycling over 50 of our wedding day programs!!! I still am sick at the amount of time and money that ended up just being recycled. *shrugs* We got lucky in not having a single save-the-date or invitation leftover!

Do you have any creative, crafty ideas for recycling/reusing wedding stationery?

Love and Food

Whoever tells you that the way to a man's heart is through food ... lies. While Justin may appreciate my attempt at cooking, the true way to his heart is allowing him to make the good food.

In the past few weeks, Justin has made:

- na'an

- bread

- waffles

- ice cream

- peach frozen yogurt (from fresh, local peaches)

- a tomato sauce (from fresh, local tomatos)

- vegetable stir-fry (I cannot believe some people don't know what zucchini is!)

- whipped cream (without sugar; surprisingly just as good)

- squash casserole

- cheese spaetzle (more or less homemade mac and cheese, sometimes with onions)

And I am making us seem like we eat awful things! Keep in mind that we only consume small amounts of these things at any one time ... usually with vegetables or fresh fruit. 

On top of the wonderful creations Justin comes up with, we've had the opportunity to spend every Friday having dinner with Justin's parents, talking and experimenting with different foods as Justin and his dad try to create something new while trying to maintain a balance of what I and Justin's mom will eat. I definitely provide them with a challenge. Obviously the food is not good unless I like it and will eat it. haha. :)

One of the best things about being married so far obviously is the food! :)

Finances

I have to admit that when we put in our final payment for the wedding, I thought finances would get easier. THEN, I thought when we made the last payment for an apartment rental and the first payment for the house rental in one month things would get easier.

Yeah. About that.

Now we are looking to put out about $1000 for getting my car fixed. Granted my car is not falling apart. I/we would just feel better if the car was in the best shape it can be in since it is the one car we rely on the most heavily. With lots of diy mechanical work done by Justin and my dad, I am certain we are saving quite a bit!

However, one thing that I did not even think about considering was the fact that both Justin's and my debit card numbers have been stolen and used in the past two months. Why? This really make me grateful that we are still keeping two separate accounts. Justin and I both are very lucky that our banks caught the fraudulent use fairly quickly. Somebody tried to buy $800 worth of goods at Wal Mart with Justin's card; they tried to buy a Parisian magazine with my card.

My point: Just because a big expense is over (i.e. wedding), don't think your big spending is necessarily done. Apparently, life is full of surprises!

Creepy Crawly Wiggly Bugs

Obviously when you move into an older house, you get the remnants of whatever the last owner/renter had. Given that the landlord pays for an exterminator, we weren't expecting a big bug problem. Maybe we should have been.

Since we've moved in, we've had to deal with:

1. roaches

2. little ants

3. big ants

The list keeps getting longer the longer we live here.

Apparently the people before us did a very good job of keeping a messy house. (Especially since the landlord claims we are doing such a great job of keeping a clean one.) Nevertheless, the pesky bugs keep seeming to find their way in.

We have sprayed insecticide all the way around the outside of the house as well as herbicide on all of the ivy that grows outside our house in an effort to maintain a bug free lifestyle. So far these efforts have helped, but they have not gotten rid of all of the bugs yet.

Any suggestions?

Ring Shopping

One of the first big purchases a newly engaged couple makes is that of the ring. I just thought I would share my perspective and things worth considering when going ring shopping.

1. Don't settle. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Easy enough, right?

2. If it isn't the right price, don't buy it. Do your homework. Search other shops. There is probably a ring out there that is stunningly beautiful and much closer to your price range. If not, you can always go back to the original store and buy the expensive one. (Try etsy, craigslist, or ebay. There are a lot of newly divorced or broken up people that are getting rid of rings for much cheaper.)

3. If you don't like the shop, don't shop there. Simple, right? My husband bought my engagement ring from Solomon Brothers. My first experience there was very negative. Beautiful location but the employees did not seem to want to help. We had to wait in line. Then we were told what we wanted was obviously not in stock and could not be ordered. If we wanted to see a product that was not in stock or had to be ordered, we needed to talk to someone specific who wasn't actually there that day. On top of that, they didn't really want to help us since we were just browsing (and probably looked as though we didn't have tons of money to spend). Ok. Thank you very much.

We ended up going to Helzberg. Not quite Tiffany's. The employees were helpful. We walked in and they asked what we were looking for. They offered to clean my engagement ring so that I could see how my two rings would look together. Even though we originally walked away from Helzberg, we eventually came back to order my wedding ring. I appreciated the time the employees took in making sure that I had the perfect ring for me. Even after ordering, the ring came within the week.

Picture CDs

As a thank you to family, Justin and I put together some cds to give to them. I really like this book I ordered to hold the cd. It looks stylish, 2 of our favorite engagement pictures are in there, and it makes it hard to lose the cd. It's hard to have a problem displaying something that looks so nice.