Etsy Find of the Week: Sweet Lydia's

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! In honor of this day of love, I thought I'd share something sweet for this week's Etsy Find. Enter Sweet Lydia's and her delicious gourmet s'mores. These aren't just any old campfire s'mores. With tasty flavors like carmel, peanut butter, and raspberry, these are a chic version of the comfort food classic. They would be such a cute and unexpected favor at any wedding. The perfect late night treat for your guests to take home. Cause who wouldn't love to end the night with a gooey gourmet s'more?

I hope you and your Valentine have the sweetest of days today!

DIY WEEK: Food and Favors

I hope you all have been enjoying DIY Week for far! Today we are finally getting to the good stuff: food and favors! DIYing food for your wedding might need a little more skill than some other DIYs out there, but these are still pretty simple and definitely worth the effort!

[A little guide for the DIYs: Those marked with ** come with downloadable content!]

1. My Sweet and Saucy | Ruffle Cake *video tutorial

2. Our Best Bites | Pie in a Jar

3. Bridal Buzz | Sweetie Pies **

4. Bubble and Sweet | Ribbon Candy

5. Blush Ink | Chocolate Spoons

6. Austin Wedding Blog | Marshmallow Fondant

7. Wedding Chicks | Strawberry Jam

DIY favors are one of my favorite DIY touches. It is personal and sweet and lets guest know that you really care and took time to give them something special! Here are some of the cutest and unique favors I've seen!

1. Grey Likes Weddings | Tea Envelopes

2. Style Me Pretty | Ice Cream in a Jar**

3. Elizabeth Anne Designs | S'more Love

4. Style Me Pretty | Sugar Packets

5. Style Me Pretty | Coasters

6. Style Me Pretty | Lemon Drop Favors

7. Style Me Pretty | Apple Roasting Favors**

So which ones are your favorites? What DIYs will you be doing for your wedding?

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the last day of DIY Week! I'm going to overload you with the best DIY stationary and TONS of free downloads!

excuses.

In the past week (where I have been woefully absent), the following things have happened:
*We hosted 8 extra people at our house for a toddler filled weekend of fun.
*I made dinner for 12 on Saturday night.
*I had the flu.
*My husband had the flu.
*Niko had the flu.
*Niko had Croup (not recommended)
*Our beloved babysitter got a great job and is off for greener pastures.
*We had to track down new long term daycare for Niko.
SO. For this reason, I am posting about caramels, because this is about all I can wrap my brain around right now. To be fair, they do look exceptional. From Fusion Sweets. Taro Butter Caramel? Rose Orange Blossom Vanilla Butter Caramels? Come on! I'm not sure candy could melt away a bad week but this something else entirely!

succulents!

Oooooo. Succulents! Sold in collections of 100, 18 or 6, these are perfect for favors or centerpieces! From Succulents Galore.

pies in a jar

Fantastic favor idea from All Jarred Up - single serving pies in a jar! YUM!
Have a great weekend everyone!

eye candy

So (as you may have guessed), it turns out that I am not allowed to share my news. Suffice to say that I was very busy last week traveling for some exciting press coming out on Kenzie Kate this fall. I know, that was such a tease. You'll be the first to know when it hits the news stands.
In the mean time, please allow me to make it up to you with some Monday morning eye candy, perfect little treats to beat these summer heats.
Peruvian Chocolate Caramellows
Nutty French Nougat
Vanilla Fleur de Sel Caramels
and Assorted Macarons

Trend We Love

Vintage lace details have been popping up everywhere recently! I am so digging this trend! What a great way to add texture and detail! Whether transforming old doilies into flowers for the bouquets, or using lace ribbon in your favor packaging, it adds a little warmth and a sweet handmade feel. Speaking of handmade, how fabulous is this headpiece created with handmade lace?? So unique and completely fun!

[ The Sweetest Occasion ]

[ Martha Stewart Weddings ]

[ Kate Slater Textiles ]

What do you think? Will you be adding some lace details to your day?

love buttons

Are you especially bookish? Are you in need of wedding favors? This idea's for you! These adorable little buttons are made from an old dictionary, all featuring a different romantic word. Such an awesome idea, from Button Empire.

DIY: Welcome Box

I am so in love with this welcome box I found over on The Bride's Guide! This adorable piece was created by Suann Song of Simplesong Design. I love how customizable it is! You can change the colors and items to go with your wedding and location. Plus, the total cost was only $15! Such an adorable and chic gift for your guests! You can find the details here, including some downloadable templates!

Simplesong Design creates fabulous custom letterpressed goods and has a ready made shop on Esty here you must check out! Plus she even teaches letterpress workshops at The Hive at 1511 in DC!
I would love to learn letterpress! How fun!

Food for Thought

Maybe its the Southern girl in me, but I love the idea of jarred goods as favors! It is a great DIY project that all of your guests will love! Pick an item that will really compliment the colors and feel of your wedding. Plus, you can get creative with cute ribbons and custom tags! I pulled all of these off of myrecipes.com, where you can find the recipes to make all of these delicious jams and sauces.

Having a Southern affair? Warm your guests with this great apple butter or some peachy barbecue sauce!

 

Having an ice cream bar? Send your guests off with some fudge sauce or homemade carmel sauce to continue the fun at home!

Going more Italian? Try this Sun-Dried Tomato Jam or some Lemon Verbena Vinegar (these would even be beautiful as decorations)!

Or try some twists on classic preserves like ginger-pear or raspberry almond!

floral favors

They're magnets! What a cute idea for favors for a garden wedding! From The Poetic Life.

a do-it-yourselfer's wonderland

My sister (the super-crafter) told me about this amazing website, Save on Crafts, and the DIY'er in me just peed myself a little from joy! They have anything you could possibly want for DIY decor projects. Bulk feathers? Yes. Branches? Sure. Solar powered lanterns? Yup. Moss? In large quantites. Beautiful vases for cheap? Ok. Cake Stands? That, and so much more. If you are trying to do your own wedding decor, or are looking to score some craft supplies I would highly recommend checking this place out.
Have a great weekend everyone!

message cookies

In keeping with yesterday's dessert theme, I spotted these adorable cookie cutters yesterday over on Ohdeedoh. I thought they could work beautifully for cookie favors i.e. "Ann and Bill 1.29.10". OR! place cards/seating cards that double as favors! I realize this would involve resetting the type for each cookie then stamping a different name on each, but wouldn't that be cool? No doubt it would be kind of tedious for a large wedding (I wouldn't recommend it if you were expecting say... 400 people) but it wouldn't be expensive, and in my opinion, the best seating cards are edible seating cards! Message Cookie Cutters from Williams Sonoma.

twiggy favors

Christmas shipping (not shopping, shipping)! Arg. I'm signing off for the week to go battle it out at the Post Office to get my presents to Cananda ahead of Santa.
In the mean time, wouldn't these make adorable favors? From Alliebeans.

genius

The most fantastic idea for an outdoorsy-type wedding favor. S'mores kits. Yup. Can't believe I've never seen this before. From Twig and Thistle.

nice package

Happy Friday everyone! I'm elbow deep in ribbon this afternoon, so I thought I'd post a great source for trimmings and such. Nice Package (don't you love the name?) sells gift tags, twine, ribbon, pendants, and all sorts of creative paraphenalia for making... a nice package! Check them out and have a great weekend!

patience

I'm back from a very productive weekend of Ikea shopping and house cleaning. With my due date about a week away, I realize that my days of solo shopping trips to Ikea on lazy Saturday afternoons may be limited, (which is really too bad, because solo shopping is one of my favorite sports, I'm very good). Hopefully this next chapter in our lives will be just as much fun as solo shopping, and I will not miss it one iota! Speaking of which, I should warn you that it's possible that sometime this week or the next (hopefully not the week after that) I may be mysteriously absent for a few days (maybe not that mysteriously absent, but absent none the less). Rest assured, I will be back with photos of the little one and updates just as soon as I am able. In the mean time, I will just keep on bloggin about pretty things. Keeping busy keeps me patient!
Speaking of patience... I found these amazingly detailed cookies on Sweet Ambs. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out! They are just so... perfect! I made lemon cookies the other day and got so sick of scooping batter after about 20 cookies, I started making them HUGE so I could be done. I can't imagine having the patience to create these little wonders by the dozens.

pretty popcorn

Amy from Sweet Designs just sent me these amazing pics of a poolside dessert table she styled for a Hampton's birthday party. Aside from the amazing table scape, I LOVE the idea of popcorn in little boxes! I'm a huge popcorn lover and I love it when people fancy it up, it really is the perfect party food - an inexpensive crowd pleaser every single time. I would be delighted to see boxes of caramel corn on the dessert table at any wedding, and the boxes are such an adorable way to display your monogram or your wedding colors. These would even be great as favors, if you added a little wax bag to keep the popcorn fresh. Everyone loves a late night salty snack after a few drinks!
Photography by Dawn Giarrizzo.

i'll take 17 rolls.

What is this, you ask? Ribbon? A candle? What? Nothing less than masking tape, my dears! Japanese masking tape to be exact. I can think of about 9 million creative and handy ways to use this pretty tape; from gift wrapping, to invitation making, to favor packaging, to book binding, to flower arranging... I could keep going, seriously - on and on. Available at Ginko Papers, via Black Eiffel, my newest blog crush.

Have Your Cake & Eat It Too!

One of my favorite parts of any wedding is getting to taste the delicious cake! I'm always sad when my piece is gone. :) Of course we got excited when we came across these edible favors from The Crumb Runner Cookie Co. Edible Favors are always our favorite! If you can believe it, these are actual stacks of cookies, iced and decorated to look just as elegant and fun as the wedding cake!

There are so many different flavors and styles to choose from, which makes it fun!

We also adore the look of these boxed iced sugar cookies from Martha Stewart Weddings. so cute!... so cute you might not want to eat it...(ohhh who are we kidding!)