Wedding Planning Update!

The beau and I spent our weekend in Amador County meeting with potential wedding vendors. Now that the sticker shock of these sort of appointments isn't quite so nauseating, we're beginning to enjoy the process a bit more.

Saturday we met with a few caterers and were reassured that our front runner is definitely still our front runner. We also dropped by our venue to take photos of the grounds and ask catering, rental and DJ related questions of the owner.

 

I haven't gone to any local wedding faires since all the vendors are likely to service only the greater Bay Area, and the faires here are generally too pricy to attend just for the heck of it. When I heard there was going to be a small wedding faire at Preston Castle in Ione while we were in town I couldn't resist!  

The entry was only $5 per person and benefited the Preston Castle restoration project. It certainly wasn't your average wedding faire packed with all sorts of vendors doing raffles and sampling - think small town, haunted castle, local vendors - but that's just what we needed. Our preferred caterer was there, a DJ we're really interested in, and we met a backup photographer just in case our current plans fall through. 

The best part of the faire had to be wandering around the haunted castle! That place is seriously cool... Maybe a happy alternative to a "trash the dress" after the wedding since the mere suggestion of partaking in the photo sesh trend sent my grandmother into cardiac arrest?

Wine Cork Birdhouse

Sometimes I get these bursts of creative energy, usually after perusing the internet and shouting out, "That costs how much?! I could make that!" Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't, but oh how I have fun trying.

My latest crafty venture was this wine cork birdhouse! My grandmother collects birdhouses, which are mostly displayed along her wraparound porch. All the family will be gathering Sunday to celebrate her birthday, so I thought this would be a fun little gift to bring along. I'm wishing I'd included some sort of wire hang for it, but she mostly places them on the porch alongside her flower beds, so I suppose it's just fine without.

Supplies:

Bag of assorted moss by Ashland

Two 6x6 wood squares by Art Minds

45 wine corks and 1 champagne cork

Hot glue gun

Instructions:

- Line up the corks next to the bottom wood square before you start gluing.

- Try to keep the glue lines toward the inside so it won't squish out and become visible.

- Glue bottom row of corks to wood square, reinforce with extra glue on the inside.

- Leave space for a door on the front.

- Glue second row of corks to first row of corks, reinforce with extra glue on the inside.

- Glue three corks laying down in the doorway as a perch.

- Glue second wood square to the top of the birdhouse.

- Glue champagne cork chimney onto roof.

- Glue as much moss as you'd like on the roof, allowing some to hang down slightly to cover any gaps where the roof wood square is not flush with the corks (this will happen since they're not all going to be the exact same size).