Mini Bottle Mania

As many of you know, Rhys and I took a long weekend in Gatlinburg, Tennessee with his brothers and sister and their spouses.  We had an absolute blast!  Brandon's birthday (we won't mention which one) was this past Monday, so we all took a mini-vacation to celebrate.  We played Cranium and Marcus somehow went straight from amoeba to triceratops when Brandon attempted to sculpt during their turn.  Sounds fishy to me... :-)  We played Euchre, took a ski lift to the top of a mountain (yes, I went as well), relaxed in the hot tub, and went to a murder-mystery dinner.  We all met at the farm and decided on Cracker Barrel for breakfast on Friday morning.  While we were there, a few of us ordered pancakes and an idea was born.  

We had already decided to make some out-of-town packages for those traveling to attend our wedding.  I had the idea to put together a "wine tasting", but wine isn't sold in mini-bottles like liquor is.  I was having trouble finding mini-bottles online even, so we were thinking about canning the idea, but I didn't want to take away all Mom and Charlene's winery trips (a perfect task for the two of them).  Mom talked to Carousel Winery in Bedford and they said they had mini-bottles pre-packaged, but their idea of mini and mine are completely different.  Mom and Sue picked them up last week and I saw them on Sunday.  I was picturing a bottle about 4" in height.  These are mini in comparison to a full bottle of wine, but are about 12"!!!  They won't fit in the packages, but they'll be a great addition and will give them a full 2-3 glasses I think.

So while we were at Cracker Barrel, Stacy and I realized that the mini-bottles of pancake syrup were the perfect size for my "tasting".  We scooped up all the bottles that we'd used and rinsed them out in the bathroom.  When we got back to the table, I mentioned to the waitress that we were collecting them for a wedding project and that if there were any empties, we'd take them.  I love this lady!  She came back with not only about 6 or 7 full bottles of syrup, but also gave me a couple of the little jelly jars.  I'm not sure if we can use these yet, but we may be able to come up with something.  We ended up with 11 jars that morning.

The next morning, we didn't go to breakfast until about 11AM and some of us wanted breakfast and some lunch, so we ended up at...Cracker Barrel again!  Of course, we snagged the couple syrup bottles from our table, but right behind us was the jackpot!  After a table of about 10 people left, Stacy and I went over and grabbed all of the bottles from the table and headed back to the bathroom to rinse them out.  We ended up with 16 that day.  So in all, we had 27 mini-bottles, of which we only needed 25, so our "wine tasting" is on!!

When I went to look for them tonight, we realized that we actually lost the first round.  We think we left them at the cabin, so it's back to Cracker Barrel for us again. :-)

UPDATE: Shalee rescued our other set of bottles!!!  Picking them up on Saturday and will start re-labeling. :-)

Crafty Card Box

My shoes finally came in yesterday, so of course, we bedazzled them last night with my something blue. Since this only took a few minutes and we were feeling productive, we moved on to the card box.  My mom brought this to me over the weekend and it looks AWESOME!  I never could've gotten the corners of the fabric to lay nearly as well as the fabric queen!  It looks like it was store-bought and she even brought a few finishing touches that we hadn't planned on, but were absolutely adorable.  The little flowers are so cute and, to top it off, we had half the package left and that's going into my scrapbook haven.  When I get around to making the wedding album, they'll fit in perfectly!  So we glue-gunned everything on last night, used the Sizzix for some letters, and voila!

I LOVE that he takes my crazy in stride!

As we are nearing October, my obsessive side is coming out.  There are so many things left to do. 103 things to be exact.  Many of those are on my "make" list, which means they take time and that's a luxury most of enough don't have enough of.  Between working and cleaning and laundry and grocery shopping, I'm refereeing fights between the kids, running them here and there, or having "cuddle time".  Breanna just posted a little bit ago the following conversation between the boys:
                                   Cade: "I'm gonna kick your butt!"
                                   Christian: "Oh yeah, say that to my needle!"

Where do these kids come up with this stuff?  Well, we are almost 100 days out with about 100 things left to do, and as my super-optimistic mom says, that's just one thing a day!  Since I know my level of freak out is going to drastically increase in about a month if everything isn't made, I figure I better get on the ball and start working now.  The good news is that I have found my shoes and my veil and I'm awaiting shipment on both.

The vases that will hold the bridal party bouquets are now finished.--Bre's design!!

I also finished the vases for our deceased grandparents that will be going on the altar next us when we say our vows. :-)  Finally found the last vase we needed (I ordered us one less vase than we needed).

The guestbook pages are almost done; if I could just swing by Walgreen's and pick up the photos I need to complete it.  Mom has made great progress on the card box, but no pics yet.  I stopped at Archiver's last night and got some paper and ink to work on cards.  I'm still working on the kids' tables, the out-of-town packages, and the day of "survival" kits.  All this flurry of activity going on and Rhys just kisses me and says, "Relax."  The man can really take my crazy in stride and I love and adore him for that!