David and Tessa's wedding

Since I'm blogging I'll post this one on my blog.  I did a wedding in August 2014.  It was photographed by Amy Steed.  She's given me permission to link to her blog.

http://www.amysteedphotography.com/2014/10/21/david-tessas-shabby-chic-wedding-lethbridge-wedding-photographer/

Jasmine's Woodland Wedding

My friend Jasmine was getting married in Italy, where her fiancee is from, but a change of plan brought the wedding to Waterton National Park in Canada.  (side note: she was so fun to work with on this wedding, she's really the age of my kids, but I feel like we are kindred spirits.  She is such a sweet girl and was such a beautiful bride.  I'll have to add more pictures when I get some of her and Fausto on their wedding day)
She told me that she really wanted to get married in a camp kitchen by the lake.  I hadn't been to that particular camp kitchen so we drove over for a look.  I immediately fell in love with this old log building.  The basic bones of the structure were AWESOME!  Log trussed roof, log walls, 2 giant stone fireplaces at either end.
Immediately my mind started whirling!  

Here is what it looked like that day.  There was a family having a wiener roast.  It was in  February.  

She sent me some sketches that she had done.  We talked lots about how it should look.
I suggested instead of trying to make it look Italian, we should have it be truly Waterton (Canadian Rookies).
The Wedding dinner was held at the bride's parents home in Waterton
and was an elegant 7 course Italian meal.  Decorated in true Tuscany Style.
So I suggested the "Waterton Meets Italy" theme.  

No vegetation was harmed in the actual National Park.
We gathered the Willow and Saskatoon branches from the Jasmine's 2 brother's land.
We cut them down 4 weeks prior to the wedding and then forced Mother Nature's hand
by forcing the leaves to come out early.
They were kept in a warm garage in buckets of water.  

The pine boughs were from our friends tree that was blown over in the wind.  
We called it a "environmental upscaled" project.
We were just recycling natures beauty.

The forced Saskatoon branches.

These pussy willows are actually off a poplar tree that we had to winch down because it was rotten at the roots
and was threatening to crash into our little cabin's roof.
So after it was down Pete noticed these awesome pussy's.
They were perfect on the ledge on the stone fireplace.
Thanks to Jon for climbing the rocks and doing such a great job of bunching!!

This is one of my favourite parts.
I had seen a wind chime made out of sea glass, it was so airy and cool looking.
How to reproduce the sea glass in less than a week?
What did I do before the internet?  I found that you can rock tumble glass.
So I tumbled a bunch of glass in 3 tumblers over 5 days.  Each batch would take over 12 hours.  
Then I tied them into strings to replicate icicles.  

These are willow branches that I bunched around the centre white pillars.
It made it look like a willow bush was growing around a birch tree.  

More poplar pussy's.  Jasmine wanted lots of different textures, and be true to the beautiful natural setting.
 I think we accomplished that!

Since the wedding party consisted of 30 people we divided the camp kitchen in half.  we hung canvas drop clothes then draped sheer fabric in front of the canvas, and draped burlap along the top.
 I "swagged" it up with the hope that it would look like a mountain range.
Again the willow branches on the centre pillar. 

Vases of Waterton rocks (returned to the beach after) with snap dragons flanked the aisle, sitting a top log stumps.
We were hoping they would look like Bear Grass.  We were able to order Bear Grass (the greenery) from Costco.

Bear's Grass and Snap Dragon's hanging off the backdrop where the ceremony happened.  
The tumbled sea glass hanging off it as well. 

I couldn't get enough of the florescent green baby leaves!  Especially the ones we made
swags out of and hung over the windows.  

You can barely see the rug, but it's from Turkey!
A treasure that Jasmine found while in Turkey!

The corner the ceremony happened.
Again the Bear Grass from Costco.

The view out the window, this was the morning of the wedding.  Mount Cleveland in the background.

A stand of brave wind blown spruce trees
with Vimy in the background.

I am so lucky to have this fabulous photographer that follows me around all the time.
He has such an eye for detail, I love it.
I love that he's also my best friend and husband!!!  Thank you, Pete!
He took this shot outside looking in with the reflection of the lake!
How cool is that?  Like I said, great eye for detail!

Carriage and Horses arriving

Bear Grass backdrop

Wait, what?  A storm blowing in right at the time the carriage is to pick up the bride?  That's Waterton for ya!  

Good thing we had a roaring fire going in the massive fireplace.
Actually we had fires going from Friday, when we started decorating, through the night and all morning.
The rock fireplace was actually warmed up, it radiated the heat.

Thanks Jasmine and Fausto for letting me be a part of your wedding!
I loved every minute of it!

Shout out to the "Low" men, they were such fun to work with.
They would do anything I wanted!  Bunching, draping, sweeping, chopping, climbing, hanging!

My niece Heidi's wedding

So my niece got engaged after I had rented my 9 doors out for the same weekend. So we needed to create something new. Here's what I came up with. 

First I found 2 French glass doors (on kijiji of course) and painted them cream. I had this big window frame that I had used at Kelsey's wedding for all the lights to hang off in the centre of the room. So we hung it in between the 2 French doors. Then I was lucky enough the morning I was putting this together to find (on kijiji) 2 matching solid fur doors that I could pick up right away. I was going to paint them but after I washed them off at the car wash and sanded them I really liked the plain wood. So I hinged them to the French doors and the mantle I had for Kelsey's wedding fit perfectly under the window and in between the French doors. 

I found 9 panels of sheer curtains at value village which couldn't be more perfect ($9.99). I love value village!! So using those tension cord rods I hung them on the backsides of the doors and window!

I had 2 ikea scrolly frames that I tied random crochet lace to and hung them from the wood doors. 

The mantle was used to put pictures of heritage wedding photos. 

These flowers are in the chippy shabby chic cast iron planters I found at the vintage white market!  They looked perfect beside the wood doors!

Sydnee's Wedding

I had such a fun day decorating for my good friend's nieces wedding.  I used a lot of the things that I had used for my daughter's wedding but with different things hanging on or around the big pieces.  We used the hinged doors

We also used the fences as the receiving line backdrop

I made a new free standing back drop using old shutter style closet doors.  I painted them to look like weathered wood.  Then added a curtain rod and 2 lace panels from Ikea.  I love doilies, so made a doily bunting to hang over the lace.  It was a great backdrop for the vanity that we used for the guests to sign the wedding book.

We tented the ceiling and draped the walls with Gossamer material.  It was awesome.  I love what it does to the atmosphere.  

Syndee had sprayed a bunch of trees gold, we added some white lights and then a vintage brass hendrick's bird cage!  A gold framed chalkboard with their names and wedding date!

The center pieces were painted cans will fresh flowers

Burlap runners with lace edges.

Tin cans and barnwood

My antique hutch was used for the Sundae toppings.

We had a lot of paper doilies and jute twine, so we made some doily bunting

We hung the canvas pictures from the airplane wire with fishing line.

It was a fun wedding to decorate, such a cute Bride!!

Inspired after a trip to Kalispel

I went to Kalispel Montana this past weekend, just for the day. 4 gals who all live the same things!  So fun!  

We left super early to get down there when the shops opened. Oh, and we took our utility trailer...because well, you never know what you might find. 

Our first stop was at our favorite store, Station 8. Last fall I bought a column there and ever since I wished I had bought the other one. So I did. 

The one with the numbers. I'm going to cut it down just a bit. Then I spoted the little one! 

Then we headed down the road to a place I'd never been to (hard to believe) called Pickets. There was a booth almost completely filled with pink vintage. I spotted a couple of treasures. A pink iron and a pink hair dryer with a inflatable cap!  

We went to a couple more stops and found a couple more treasures when Brittney asked if we could stop at this lady's house. She had been messaging her and she had a couple of things she was going to buy from her. So we make our way into the historical district of kalispel and pull up in front of an adorable house complete with a picket fence. We all go in.  I wish I could have whipped out my camera because her house was AMAZING!!!  I asked her if she blogged or had ever been in a magazine and this is when I was informed that she was the organizer of the Vintage Whites Market!!  What? Yup, and I can't stop thinking about all the cuteness I saw there!  So I've been totally inspired. She told us of a new vintage store that had just opened with more industrial stuff. It almost 5 by now but we race over to try and find it and find it we did. Kelsey jumped out to see if it was still opened and it was. So I parked the truck and trailer (always having to really plan that out). I walk in and Kelsey had already found what I had been looking for.  The base of a wood burning stove!!!  Oh happy day!  It's a cute place with lots of neat stuff. Kelsey also got a big green wooden box for blankets!

It was a grand day out (to quote Wallace and Grommet). 

So I headed out to my garage to finishe some long waited project and here's what happened. I wasn't even thinking about these shutters until I was out there for a few hours. 

I bought these shutters last summer and wasn't sure what I was going to do. I'm helping with a wedding this weekend and dreamed this up. 

It's so cute that I needed to find a place in our house for them. That prompted me to rearrange my our living room. 

I also made this barn wood sign

My collection of lace doilies and bits of this and that has come in handy.