from russia {and italy, and france...}, with love

A sweet, thoughful, handwritten, sent-via-snail-mail note is my favorite thing to get in the mail {except for maybe a surprise package from my husband or a dear friend}. And I especially love postcards from far-away places.

Over Christmas, I found this envelope of vintage stamps from around the world on sale at Anthropologie and I just had to have them. I love the idea that these stamps have adorned love letters, thank you cards, just-because notes and, of course, postcards, from people I'll never meet. I'm sure some of these stamps may have traveled quite a distance to reach their destination.

I decided to create an easy weekend DIY project, so I painstakingly sorted through the collection and selected a few of my favorites to display.

I'm loving the way it turned out.

beautiful bunches of blooms

Lately, I haven't been able to get enough fresh flowers in the house. I love to pick up bunches of single flowers {my faves of late : freesia, tulips, antique blush roses, daffodils} and drop them in vases as a quick and easy way to bring some cheer to a room. And while these single-style flower bouquets are pretty on their own, I decided it was time to up my game and gain some skills in floral design.

One of the local community colleges offers community education classes that are hosted near my house {think yoga, photography, computer skills, pottery, etc.}, and I was so excited to see they offer a four-week floral design class!

Last night was my first class, and I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with - a pretty Easter arrangement and a rose corsage.

~creating the structure~

~in progress~

~buds, wire and floral tape for the corsage~

::: And the finished designs :::

Full disclosure: immediately after taking this shot, I tried to put my corsage on my wrist and it pretty much exploded like a glitter-rosebud-wax flowers-floral-tape bomb. Sad face.

sleeping beauties

A few weekends ago, I invited some of my fave girls over for an old-fashioned sleep-over, filled with lots of food, movies, popcorn and an adult twist {besides the wine and beer, of course} - spa treatments.

I discovered some great kitchen esthetician recipes for face masks and decided to make two, one for ladies with combo/oily skin, and one for those with dry skin {I bought raw honey, but the recipe actually called for organic honey - which, thankfully, I had in my pantry. Phew!}.

~i picked up this clay at a local farmers. mix with water et voila!

We whipped up the masks, slathered our faces {or hands, in some cases} with the treatments, painted our nails and enjoyed girls-only conversation and fashion and gossip magazines.

We then headed down to the theatre room for popcorn and movies.

The next morning, we enjoyed bagels, coffee and OJ.

As a party favor, each girl left with a homemade, all-natural lavendar vanilla sugar scrub.

a diy project : anthro-style letters

Have you seen them at Anthropologie? Maybe on Pinterest or maybe in a friend's home. These zinc letters all the rage.

~via~

And I found a way to get a similar look for significantly less thanks to this DIY tutorial {isn't this blog just the cutest?}.

I picked up my papier-mache letters {$2.50 each} and spray paint at Hobby Lobby. They have a weekly coupon you can access from your smart phone and it's usually 40 percent off!

a personalized birthday gift

My friend, Amy, is celebrating her birthday this week and I wanted to do something special to commorate her day. After a trip to Paper Source during my San Francisco excursion, I was inspired to create something personalized for Amy. She's a total girlie-girl and so stylish and creative herself, I knew her gift had to be spectacular.

I picked up some pretty paper in her favorite colors and set about embossing some cards with her initials, birds {she loves to put a bird on it} and other cute images. I absolutely love the way they turned out.

a wreath for all seasons

Now that we have a display door - not one tucked around a corner and imprisoned behind a gate - I'm inclined to make sure our entrance is warm and welcoming. What better way to do that than with door decor?

Thanks to Pinterest, I found so many different ways to adorn my door. I'm currently obsessed with this metal monogram number. Simple and stylish.

But I wouldn't mind adding these darling ideas to my DIY to-do list:

~via and via and via~

How do you put your mark on your entryway?

invitation station

Our wedding invitations are a DIY labor of love : my MOH designed them, I wrote the copy, Mark prepped them for printing and took them to the printer, I'm hand-addressing {while I love the look of modern calligraphy, there's something so personal about receiving an invitation hand-addressed by the bride or groom} and my mom and I are packaging, stuffing and mailing.

If I'm not at work, at the gym or out on the water, I'll be spending my evenings and weekends working here.

Welcome to project wedding central.

Happy weekend, lovelies!