Packaged Lip Balm Favors Tutorial

Well, the honeymoon’s over, but I only mean that literally - as in, we’re back from Costa Rica. Sigh… I’m still wearing my Paradisus Playa Conchal wrist tag though. I can’t bear to cut it off!

This post is about some super-cool travel accessories I bought for our trip and wanted to write about.

This is the PacSafe Metrosafe Secure Shoulder Bag from REI. Our Costa Rica travel book warned that bag-snatching can be a problem for tourists, so when I saw this slash-proof and tamper resistant shoulder bag that ALSO converts to a waistpack (and oh how I like waistpacks), I picked one up for myself for peace of mind. It worked out perfectly, although I occasionally wished it had slightly more room. My favorite things about it were its sturdiness, the ability to hook the strap around my seatback or armrest at restaurants, the many zip and slip pockets and of course the waistpack option, which I used at least a couple of times so that I wouldn’t get a strap tan while hiking about.

My next favorite item - actually this one might have been my most favorite - was my REI clothesline! I used this thing every day to hang my swimsuits dry, and it was sooooo handy. I used it my little plastic clothespins with it that I had bought from Daiso awhile back. The suction cups are really strong so I used those most often to hang the clothesline again windows or sliding doors, but in our last hotel I used the silver rings and hooked the clothesline from one curtain tieback hook to another.

I even made my first-ever purchase of Croakies for our sunglasses! Jimmy refused to wear his at first because they’re so dorky and a little bit ugly (and indeed, there are my sunglasses either hanging from my neck or strapped onto my face in almost every single photo), but I finally guilted him into it since I’d already bought them. But anyway, they were great because our sunglasses were always on hand. Too bad REI didn’t have any cuter ones at the time I went, but whatever. Heh heh heh.

Two more to come…

Maybe we can the aisle with 18 of these:

…where each of the above candleholders would have one of those flickering LED tealights we bought in it, then we could cover the base of the candleholder with a little bit of moss. Or maybe not moss. Maybeeeee…uuuuuuuhhhmmm…something else. Liiiiike…sigh. I don’t know.

Or is that too precarious. Will people kick them over? The base might need to be weighted down with something, like a little beanbag and THEN covered with moss. Or other “ground cover”.

…and Xine and Clara and Jenn?!

It’s down to the wire and today I find myself at Costco’s last ordering date to guarantee delivery in time for T-3 days, so I’ve decided to go with Flowerbud.com instead.

My faves from Flowerbud’s current selection are the roses, tulips and surprisingly - mini calla lilies! I’ve read that roses are a pain in the @$$ to strip, and the LA Flower Team warns that tulips can be a bit high maintenance. In browsing through endless bouquet galleries, I find myself drawn to the ones with either calla lilies alone, or with cymbidium orchids.

So here’s what I’m thinkin…

Mini calla lilies in either pink (left) or flame (right), $250 with shipping for 120 stems:

Alone, or paired with tulips ($171 for 120 stems):

Or possibly with roses ($129 for 50 stems):

Mark from flowerbud.com also recommended these two colors! Although he said that the Esperance (right) might be too big and overpower the lilies:

And sprinkled with some filler ($90 for 8 bunches, 2 bunches of each variety). I like the bear grass:

I actually love this little guy from a how-to article on theknot.com, and in fact, after typing up the prices above, I’m leaning towards ordering just calla lilies and filler alone.

Not sure about trying to find those variegated ginger leaves though, so will probably just go for wrapping it up in ribbon…

images from: theknot.com and marthastewart.com

Our weddingchannel.com six-week alert email says it’s music-picking time, my dear fiance! And I agree, we should probably let our quartet know what they’ll be playing, assuming they show up that day.

Lists galore:

• SFCM’s, the one Frederica pointed us to
• Wedding Channel’s classical music suggestions

Colleen suggests we play 15 minutes of prelude; a processional; something for the candle lighting instrumental reflection after a reading, or as a blessing; and the recessional.

I only have only one request! Can I come in to either the Entrance of Queen of Sheba (heh heh heh) or if that’s too weird/fast, which on third thought it probably is (but the name is so cool), then maybe Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring instead of the Bridal March or Canon in D?

I like both of the latter two songs, but with Bridal March I envision a grandiose cathedral filled with tulle bows, ribbons, rose petals, and an endless aisle runner. And then Canon in D evokes images of outdoor garden wedding - green grass, blue skies, butterflies…as opposed to our uh, dark…concrete…jail?

Which by the way, I think will be plenty lovely anyway, dammit! I mean who wouldn’t be drawn to the aesthetics of this? Do you think anyone else we know can say that they get to get married in a church with a pulpit that looks like an outdoor rock speaker?

image from calnewman.org photo album

Jimmy and I met with Father Charlie on Saturday to discuss our wedding liturgy selections. Here’s how my favorite part of our meeting went.

Jimmy: So, do you do many weddings here?

Fr. Charlie: Um, I do a lot of wedding paperwork, but no, I don’t actually do a lot of weddings.

Jimmy: Oh really?

Fr. Charlie: Well, we don’t actually have a lot of weddings here.

Jimmy/Eleen: Oh…

Fr. Charlie: I mean, don’t get me wrong, but you know. Not a lot of people like to get married in you know, a big…concrete…jail. Or, like, in the dark. (laughs)

Heh heh. Cool.

I super-heart this guest reply card from Anna’s mum ‘n dad, which I got a couple of weeks ago.

Haaaa ha ha ha haaaaa. Does it just make your day or what?! Heck, it made my entire planning period! Hooray!!!

I’m posting this for Roberto and John, who Jimmy said would be in need of this info sometime soon!

Our reception at The Faculty Club (TFC) will utilize five adjacent areas of the facility: the Kerr Dining Room, the Great Hall, the buffet area (dancing), the hallway (placecards), and the Howard Lounge (cocktails).

For dining, we’ve chosen to use as many of the long rectangular tables as we can in the Great Hall, which means that we’ll be going with this layout.

Subject to our final number of guests, that breaks down as up to 20 tables in 3 different sizes:

• Six 72″ rounds (seating 10 each)
• Six 10′ x 45″ long rectangular tables (seating 12 each)
• Eight 58″ square tables (seating 8 each, to be confirmed)

We’ve only got two things decided in terms of decor. One is to place our wheatgrass boxes on the long rectangular tables, and we’ll be using four of the 9 ½”l x 5”w x 4¼”h boxes per table. Christine and Don will be staining each box a dark brown, as well as growing the wheatgrass centerpieces for us!

The other is what to use for our placecards in the hallway, which will be bamboo trays filled with rice, in which the cards will sit.

Clara is dreaming up ideas for the cupcake table, which will most likely sit between the Great Hall and the dance floor on a table size to be determined…

I decided to take a break from the gown today, mostly because I ran out of muslin, and I started thinking about the ring pillow. Pei showed me a really cute pillow from her friend’s wedding that was made of fresh flowers, and it made me think of personalizing ours a little bit.

I kind of wanted to use the green taffeta fabric I bought for the trial bridesmaid skirt awhile back, but I’m not sure if the shade will be weird against the bridesmaids dresses, which are leaf green. “Ooh! Leaf green!” I thought to myself. And visions of green felt leaves atop a fuzzy brown pillow came to mind. So here’s my trial run, using corduroy instead of felt so I don’t waste any of that precious stash.

Actually the corduroy’s kind of cool because of its texture and somewhat vein-like lines, but I think it’s still maybe not clean enough of a look. The pom pom center cracks me up, but I don’t think Jimmy likes it too much. I guess maybe it’s kind of too funny. I’ll have to sleep on it.

Here’s a view from the side. You can see the brown suede-like material that the leaves are sewn on to.

Anyway I can’t decide if it’s a little too fairyland or not. At the very least though, I think it’s worth giving the felt version a try.