{dream kitchen inspiration with Delta Faucet}

Today I'm back with part two of the Inspired Living with Delta Faucet series- check out part one right here where I revealed the new faucet I chose for our kitchen from Delta's new Touch2O line!  In this part of the series, I'm discussing my dream kitchen inspiration.  I have always been drawn to kitchens that are almost a blank slate with a very neutral color scheme of black and white.  I'm particularly in love with crisp white subway tiles used with dark grout- especially the massive wall of them at my favorite restaurant.  Ideally, I would mix the clean lines of the white subway tile with contrasting black cupboards/cabinets, luxe carrera marble countertops and a natural wood island.  

In our current kitchen, we don't have my ideal color scheme since we have very dark granite countertops mixed with orange-y wood cabinets that almost match our wood flooring too closely. Since we live in a rental and I'm not about to go painting cabinets and putting in new countertops, I try to achieve a look similar to my dream inspiration by keeping our counters free of clutter and trying to only use white or steel appliances/accessories.  

You can check out all my dream kitchen inspiration as well as get the sources for the images you see above in my Inspired Living Pinterest board right here. 

Be sure to check back next month when I show my new Delta Faucet installed in our kitchen along with some other fun upgrades! 

Delta Touch2O Technology for your kitchen and bathroom is precisely in tune with your every touch. Take the quiz to learn which faucet style best describes you at deltafaucet.com

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Delta via Glam Media.  The opinions 

expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or 

positions of Delta.

{bachelorette party supplies}

Summer means wedding season which is great and all, but the really nice part about wedding season is the cooresponding bachelorette party season!!!  I love a good excuse to throw a fun girly party for a night out filled with champagne and confetti.  My one complaint with bachelorette parties is the obnoxious decor- can we all just agree once and for all to leave the penis crowns and pink zebra striped decorations at the tacky party store where they belong?  Here's a little round up of some fun alternatives for any bachelorette parties in your future:

For the bride:  No need to over-do it, but the bride to be HAS to wear a little something.  This is not negotiable.  When else in her life can she parade drunkenly around in a wedding veil.  Simply inform your bride-to-be friend that this is happening and buy her a simple veil.  And grab the adorable ring sunglasses to go with it!

Groupwear: In addition to the penis crowns, please also leave the matching rhinestone tank tops at home.  You are all better than that and your wardrobes deserve more.  That doesn't mean the ladies shouldn't get the chance to wear a coordinating accessory because like the bride's outfit- when else do you get to parade around with your friends wearing the same cute flair?!?  Colorful flower crowns (diy tutorial here) or bow headbands (see them in action here) make a nice alternative.  Personally I love the chiffon or tulle pouf for the ladies to wear, but I am biased since that's what we did for my bachelorette- see an easy tutorial for those here.   You can't go wrong with a simple pair of earrings like these or festive Lolita sunglasses.

Decor:  If you can just recreate the decor from this amazing 30th birthday party then you will be all set!!! Throw in a pink + gold tassel garland from The Flair Exchange to fancy up your hotel room and add a cute fringed heart on the wall- perfect for photo ops!

Activities:  Since most guests will expect a game, why not make it enjoyable for everyone and have a little blindfolded champagne tasting contest.  Buy a few different bottles of champagne- have all the girls blindly taste them and see if they can guess which is which! Don't forget to pick up a cute blindfold!

Favors:  Whether it is the bride to be or the main party planner who buys some favors for the guests, it is always fun to have a little something to thank everyone for coming.   Load up a cute tote bag with custom cocktail bottles, nail polish and other fun items- see some more ideas what to put in these bags here. 

Special Extras:  These are just some fun items to bring along for extra credit- girl's night table topics would make for a fun late night activity, custom name krazy straws would be perfect for guests to keep track of their drink and of course a secret stash of confetti never hurts!

{4th of july party inspiration}

While I am excited to get the chance to spend another year in Huntington Beach for the 4th, I am a little sad to be missing the all out celebrations that Chicago and the midwest have for the holiday (I hear it's huge!).   In anticipation of a great day of bloody marys, bike rides, pool lounging and firework watching, I thought it would be fun to put together a little inspiration board for next week's holiday!

the attire: I love these breezy dress options from J. Crew (solid blue) & Indah (printed).  I will obviously be pairing it with my patriotic flower crown from last year (see a diy tutorial here), but if I didn't have that as an accessory I would definitely opt for the understated red/white/blue statement necklace from BaubleBar. 

the spread: I would definitely start the day out with our doctored up bloody marys and glasses of champagne from Chandon's seasonally designed bottle (although I liked last year's design better!) and in the afternoon I would serve blueberry and blackberry caipirinhas.  In addition to the normal grilling fare of hamburgers and sausages, I think Joy the Baker's pretzel dogs would make for a fun snack.  Berries make it so easy to create a patriotic themed dessert like these mini trifles, but if I didn't have time or energy to whip those up I would just stick a sparkler in some ice cream and call it a day!

the activities:  The fourth is definitely not one of those type of holidays to be overly planned.  Our day will most consist of lounging poolside and then watching the fireworks on the beach at night, but we might venture out on bikes to see the parade in our hometown. 

Hope you all have wonderful plans in store for next week's holiday!

{our wedding: the little details}

In the time that we were engaged, I think I was consistently following over 20 wedding blogs on a daily basis (my favorite one being this one).  Since we nailed down a lot of the big vendors early on in our engagement, I became obsessed with looking at all those little details that wedding blogs capture so well.  Here are some of my favorite little details from our wedding:

  {the rings attached to my bouquet were my Grandmother's wedding rings and 

they also served as my "something old" & "something borrowed"}

 {my mom embroidered our wedding date in blue thread and sewed it into the back 

of my dress to serve as my "something blue"}

 {I created these little mint green hearts to be sewn inside all the groomsmens' jackets 

as well as a special one for Chris with our wedding date.  I followed the same method I used to create these bags}

 {maybe this one isnt such a little detail, but I definitely want to share details on the ceremony backdrop we created by following this tutorial.  It was originally supposed to all hang down like a solid back drop curtain, but hours before the wedding we almost got rid of it completely when we realized the wind was making it look incredibly messy.  Our amazing bridal party fixed it by making it into a pulled back curtain!}

 {for our guest book we asked our friends and family to write us little messages from the categories: past (a memory) , present (marriage advice) and future (an idea for our 5 year anniversary).}

 {little gold heart garland I created for the back of our chairs at the head table}

{my favorite macarons from Bottega Louie served as a great platform for our ring shot}

{these swans might be my favorite thing ever.  I purchased the pair almost immediately after we booked our venue (get some for yourself right here).  They hung out in the smaller pool next to the cocktail hour and then stepped into the spotlight during our day after pool party the next day- here & here}

{our wedding: the decor}

When we set out to create all the decor for our wedding, we tried to remind ourselves not to get caught up going overboard with decorations.  This was mostly because we didn't want to take away from the beauty of our venue and partly because it is so easy to get carried away making things that some weddings can end up looking like a craft explosion.   

Chris and I picked a color scheme of grey, white and mint  green with pops of gold, black/white stripe and kraft paper- basically I took all my favorite things and threw them together.  People always try to give wedding color schemes a name (vintage modern, rustic chic, etc)- quite honestly I couldnt tell you what our focus was other than Chris didn't want it to be too girly and we didn't want to absolutely hate our choices in 10 years.  

For the ceremony, we kept the decorations to a minimum since guests would only be in that area for 30 or 40 minutes.  We put all of our effort into a ceremony backdrop since that is where all the focus would be.  We created the strips that make up the backdrop "curtain" out of crepe paper which we fringed- following this tutorial.  Each guest's seat had a program and fan with our custom crest on it since it was going to be solid 90 degrees during the ceremony.  We also asked our caterer to set up a refreshment table so that our guests could stay hydrated in heat.  I made some small labels for each drink dispenser and a dove grey braided garland for the front of the table.

The cocktail hour was held in the back of the estate around the smaller of the two pools.  Lets all just take a second and be honest here- the cocktail hour is really only about the drinking- maybe a little bit of chit chatting with people you haven't seen in a while, gossiping with old friends or debating the bride's dress choice, but mainly it is about getting a cocktail in hand as fast as possible.  With that in mind,  we mostly focused the decor for the cocktail hour on the bar.  

I created a huge bar menu sign to alert guests to their options for the evening (tutorial on how to create that sign coming next week!).  I adorned the bar with multi colored braided fabric garland, festive drink stirrers & custom cocktail napkins.  The cocktail tables sprinkled around the pool each got their own little succulent from our garden.  Alongside the pool we set up a mini croquet course and created another large wood sign to designate the area.  Floating around in the pool were two enormous inflatable swans which I thought served as a great reminder to our guests that we weren't taking our wedding too seriously.

The reception was held in the largest area of the estate next to the enormous main pool; dancing was a concrete circle in the center of it all and dinner was spread across the expansive lawn area covered in palm trees. It is surely not news to anyone that Chris and I love to entertain in our home so the dinner area was very important to us as well as overall vibe of our wedding.   

The Cree Estate technically works best with round tables because of the large lawn area for dinner is uneven, but I really wanted to have the dramatic look of long dinner tables put end on end creating a seemingly endless dinner party.  We set the tables with long runner of kraft paper topped with another thinner runner of black/white striped fabric.  We accented the place settings with custom table number napkins (diy post on those next week too!), gold flatware, a custom menu and gold chargers.

Above the dance floor we hung over 100 feet of triangle fringe garland (tutorial here) and alongside the DJ booth,  we set up the photobooth with another large wooden sign.  Across from the dinner and dancing, there was a private gazebo above the main pool where we set up Chris' cigar and whiskey tasting area.  This area became a very probably place to be late in the evening and since it was complete with several different whiskeys, bourbons and an array of cigars, it isn't hard to see why!

In addition to our traditional wedding cake, we ordered an array of desserts including mini donuts and mini cupcakes.  The dessert table was set up with my ridiculous collection of cake stands and milk glass glass containers to house all the various flavors of dessert.  On the front of the table hung a huge fringed tissue "sweets" sign created by my bridesmaids (tutorial on that one coming next week as well!)

{all images via EPLove}

next up tomorrow: all the little details

 

{engagement party inspiration}

Next month some of my friends and I will be throwing a little engagement party for newly engaged couple, Jeff & Katie.  Kay & I got to work brainstorming the decor/theme about three seconds after the idea of hosting a party was presented to us.  After throwing around a few ideas for the color scheme, we decided on following Amanda's lead with a darker more modern color scheme that while it includes pink wouldn't get too girly.   Somehow despite my undying love for all things Confetti System, I have never actually made it in a big way to decorate a party so there is definitely plans for some of that along with a big balloon statement, mini floral arrangements, cocktails and of course- champagne!  Here is a little inspiration board I put together for the upcoming festivities:

You can follow the pinterest board for this party here and be sure to check back in a few weeks for a run down on the party!

{holiday party inspiration}

 {all images via Pinterest}

This year we decided to throw our first holiday party ever!  In the past we have always done a big party in September for our birthdays and then a Halloween related party in October.  By the time December rolls around, we are never up to throwing another big party.  We decided to do a plaid themed cocktail party and request all the guests to wear some form of plaid.  I have been gathering up some inspiration for food and decor since the party is only 2 and half weeks away! Hopefully I can actually get the invites in the mail by tomorrow so that we actually have guests at the party!

 {outfit inspiration}

 {food inspiration}