easter

hello lovely,

happy easter! hope your holiday was full of family, ham, reese's peanut butter eggs, and jelly beans. mine was! i guess my family only dresses up on easter because for some reason it is our annual family portrait session. this year we got some pretty great shots. i can't believe how fast my non so little cousins are growing up. it seems like it wasn't that long ago i was holding tia in every easter picture. now she is almost as tall as i am. oh how time flies. enjoy the easter pics! i have a few fun posts coming up soon including a totally awesome 90s birthday party, my $8 dream dress, & a few showers we are planning in the coming weeks. 

xoxo,

alyssa renee 

the winner of the golden egg hunt!

a friendly craft session

truth.

hello lovely,

one of my very best friends is getting married this june. since i know how time consuming wedding crafting can be, i tagged along with some of my best gal pals for a night of wedding crafting. rachel, the bride to be, decided she wanted us to practice making her centerpieces. so, using a tutorial like this and 5 bottles of wine we got to work. it was a night of great talks, a few tears, messy hands, and bonding. since most of the time my hands were covered in goop i didn't get many pictures. 

in other news... remember our friends corey and colleen? well we are having a shower for their indie rock bundle of joy in our backyard next weekend. i will for sure be taking pictures of this joyous event. stay tuned.

xoxo,

alyssa renee

the bride to be!

hello lovely,
a few months ago i was messaged by a high school friend asking if i could make her wedding veil. i of course was thrilled and said yes. when i got married i made the mistake of paying $100 dollars for my veil! it was lovely, but once i found out how inexpensively you can make your own i couldn't believe it. i used this tutorial as a guide to making mary katherine's veil. here are the materials i used:

- 2 yards of russian veiling 

(they didn't have this at any local craft store so i had to order from fabric.com)

- silver beads

-thread (white & blue)

-a hair comb

- sheer white fabric

- something blue fabric

-stiff felt

first, i cut my sheer white fabric into about 20 flower shaped pieces. i then made three stacks and molded my flowers. then i sewed the silver beads into the center of each flower and stitched all three of my flowers together. next i cut out a circle of stiff felt to use as my base to mount my flowers and comb to. since all i had was red felt on hand i covered it with a nice linen fabric. i actually really like how that turned out but when i covered it up with the flowers you never even saw it! i then glued my flowers and veiling to this circle. as a special touch i took some blue fabric and stitched a pretty little "M" for mary katherine and attached the hair comb to it. and voila! my first veil. i definitely recommend you trying to make your own if you are getting married soon. or of course, just send me a little message and i'd be happy to make one for you. it was fun! and very rewarding to see the lovely bride wearing it on her wedding day. congrats chuck and mary katherine!

xoxo,

alyssa renee 

P.S.

I wasn't able to get very good pictures of it, so sorry for the poor photo quality :(

photo courtesy of the beautiful bride

oh, and thought is was my first wedding veil, it wasn't my first wedding accessory i've made. here are the others:

a bridal flower to go with my friend shannon's wedding veil. complete with pearls and beads to match her jewelry

shannon's reception flower

and the flower i wore at my wedding reception! 

sewing date: the roommates make a circle skirt

hello lovely,

i had a sewing date with my college roommate a few weeks ago. taylor and i have always bonded over our love of all things crafty. it was easier to find time to craft when we lived together, but we don't get to see each other as much these days. that just made this craft date even more special. we decided to make the circle skirt from made. i took a few pictures of the journey. the skirts turned out pretty cute and the tutorial was really simple to follow. the hardest part was making the pattern! but, once it is made you can use it over and over again to make more lovely fun skirts. you should try it out!

xoxo,

alyssa renee 

this looks simple enough. but don't be fooled. this took us a good hour to make. it was the toughest part though and once you make this one you can use it over and over again so don't give up. 

i chose a springy seersucker 

taylor chose a sassy print of course

aren't they cute? i want to make another one soon.

happy crafting!

blog backup: valentines day! (not an april fool's joke)

hello lovely,
yes. you read correctly. this is no april fool's joke. i am just now blogging about valentine's day. isn't that sad? i've just been so busy i haven't taken photos off my camera. luckily i did remember to at least take photos of the sweet things around me for the past few months. other backed up blogs coming up: roommate reunion skirt making, my first wedding veil, beaver wine and crafting session, and a few "bits & pieces" of our house as of late. so, back to valentine's day. i love giftwrap. it is one of my favorite things. so, for valentine's day i set up a sweet little package for my honey. this year was our first valentine's day as husband and wife. it was very simple. we ate falafel at home and watched a movie. i got niles a harmonica because i'm trying to turn him from electronic rocker to folk singer. he got me a coupon good for one 30 min long massage from him and benjamin button on bluray. (one of my most favorite films) it was a sweet way to spend the halmark holiday without spending too much money.
here are a few pictures. i will also leave you with my favorite quote from that film. i have this one up at my desk at work and read it often.


"For what it's worth: it's never too later or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you'r not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."


xoxo,
alyssa renee

our valentine's we got in the mail on display

valentine making supplies

niles' gift all wrapped up

i hope you see things that startle you...

valentine's from my coworkers 

this wasn't my valentine' but it was too pretty not to share. a beautiful rose my coworker had on her desk. so lovely!

hope you feel loved today.