When planning our Philly wedding, the budget was a priority, as we were in the process of buying our (first!) house at the same time. And y'all, cakes are expensive! If you've gotten married, I know you know this. As with most of our wedding, we decided to DIY it.

One of D's favorite sweets (and one of the only ones he'll eat, I know he's crazy. #CHOCOLATEISLIFE) is the cake-ball. It seemed easy enough, make a few cake-balls, dip them in white chocolate, stack 'em, voila! Turns out, the cake balls took HOURS, but I couldn't be happier with how it came out.




We used a tutorial from RoseBakes for how to put this together but decided to get adventurous with the icing drizzling and flowers, our vibe was anthropologie inspired garden, so gotta have some flowers! We made about 400 cake-balls (only needed about 250) over about a month and a half, icing and all (against the better judgment of D's cousin, CakeBashNYC, she warned us they might sweat, and they did, but after a while, the summer heat cleared that up). And we froze them until two days before the wedding.

So should you DIY your wedding cake? If you are on a tight budget? Yes. Do it. It takes time, but enjoy the process of putting together your special day! Some other simple options we looked into are Naked Cakes, which would be very easy to tackle with some practice! If you have any questions on how we put this together, drop them in the comments and I'm happy to help in any way I can! And you totally CAN DIY your whole wedding, I believe in you!

Most years I hand make our Christmas cards.  I head to Micheals, stock up on blank cards and spend a day crafting them with my bestie. (See my Moose Christmas Card from 2014 here!) But this year, my best friend and I will be spending the holiday season apart as she is still living in Dallas and I'm back in PA. (I know we are strange, we've been mistaken for a couple in the past...).  Anyway, this year I decided to go the photo route and as my fiance is anti-photos, who else would I feature but our puppy Jake! Enjoy these photos that didn't make the Christmas Card cut!

One year ago I posted this fun post and it quickly became one of my most pinned posts.  This is one of the easiest ways to add some Thanksgiving decor and it'll keep your money on the side for Christmas!  By the way,  what is the standard practice with Christmas decor and Thanksgiving?  Do you keep your fall decor out or do you bring your Christmas decor into the mix??  Let me know because I am at a loss.

Its no secret I am in love with acrylic paint.  I use it on, well almost everything.  Painting objects is the easiest way to bring them back to life.  And painting discarded bottles is one of my favorite ideas, I even use painted bottles as a bracelet holder.  So I decided to take the six pack we drank over the weekend and turn it into Thanksgiving decor! 

Since our tree is so big we need a few lot more ornaments!  I love making my own ornaments, they just seem a little more special.  So when I found a bag of pinecones in our stock of christmas decorations I decided to add a little snowy charm to our tree.

Happy Holidays!  Our house is completely Christmased out!  This past weekend we picked up our gorgeous BIG tree!  We had our own Charlie Brown experience.  After walking around the trees for almost 20 minutes, we found a tree that was completely lopsided, but huge!  It was like a hotel tree, very full, but nobody noticed it because it was in the stand wrong.  Once we got it home and put it up, it was the most full, beautiful tree I had ever seen.  I'm so excited to do all my holidaying around "Pliny".  Yes, our tree has a name...



But as I mentioned before, every where is our house is Christmas!  So when I saw an empty spot next to our record player, I grabbed so tinsel to make this easy DIY...

Dab a dot of glue onto the bottom of your cone and wrap the tinsel around and up, adding glue dots along the way to keep it all in place.  Done!

Lets talk nails, I shared ^ this ^ instagram pic but never shared the DIY behind it...  I love a good fall manicure and wanted something pretty and different.  But come on who has time to go get a manicure and actually wants to spend the $$$ for a professional to paint your nails. (I secretly do, but my pocketbook does not.)  So I researched how to do the elusive half moon manicure.  I couldn't figure out the heck you get a perfect half circle on the top!  Answer: Binder rings stickers!

The struggle is real... in finding a Halloween costume.  Next Saturday is the day we'll be celebrating Halloween in costume and I'm no closer to deciding what to be then I was in July!  My main "want" for my costume this year is make-up.  I've scoured Pintrest and Youtube and have narrowed down my options to these three... BUT WHAT SHOULD I BE!?  Help me decide and vote below :)



So what will it be?  A Roy Lichtenstein Pop Art gal, a deer with awesome sticks in my hair, or the fox?  See my dilemma?  Which do you like!?

What should I be for Halloween?

foxy fox

pop art

doe a deer

pollcode.com free polls

This might seem like a random DIY project but I'm always on the search for cheap decor.  And with fall starting tomorrow I've been adding pieces to my home that make you feel warm and cozy.  What's more cozy than some wool yarn!  I've always loved the yarn balls they sell at Target but the price was ridiculous.  $4 for a yarn ball.  So I put the Target yarn ball back on the shelf and headed to Michaels to grab the supplies to Taylor them myself.

I've decided that next week will be a crafting week!  I've seen some great ideas online lately and am excited to tackle them!  Doing it myself makes my new items so much more special.  And I think they typically turn out looking better than if I'd bought them... AND CHEAPER!  So here are some of the projects I plan on doing...

I absolutely LOVE Carolina Charm's site.  Her posts are always interesting and she has a great layout.  I think her Pretty Pen Pots are so lovely!  Its a great way to add some color to an office setting :) Head over to her site to see her great tutorial on how to make these pen pots!


Sticking with the office theme, she has another great office DIY!  If you have a lot of notes/papers you need to always be looking at when you're working, a cork board is a necessity.  Hence this DIY fabric cork board!  Click HERE for the simple how-to!