So where were we?

Oh yes. Extensions. Again, it can have a bad connotation, but why should it? It's all in HOW you use it. I heard something along the lines of : On your wedding you should look like a BETTER version of your everyday self, but not UNLIKE yourself. The idea is that you don't suddenly transform yourself that it's almost unrecognizable, but that you also don't treat it like any other day of the week.

My bestfriend, ironically, ALSO went for a Spanish look on her wedding (4 years ago!), and she wore a simple, low bun. Actually, my Godmother styled her hair :) Well, she DOES have thick hair, but it wasn't long enough to make the bun look FULL. You know, those luscious hair buns? So my Godmother added some extensions to increase the volume of the bun and viola! The perfect touch.

So! Back to me screwing up. I managed to make a hair appointment in Houston, and I wanted to have the extensions for the hair trial. She told me to wash my hair the day before our trial so it wouldn't be so silky clean the day of. I stayed up that night till almost 1 a.m. sewing those extensions! I had to wake up early and I just LOOKED so tired. I threw on a dress, and looking still half-asleep I left for the appointment that was 45 minutes away. By the way, I was staying at my cousin's house in Houston once I left Atlanta for Texas the month of my wedding.

My hair decides to feel extra greasy today, even though I had washed it the day before. I think because I kept running my hands through it when I was stressing over the extensions that the oils in my hand made it more.. matte-y. Meaning, it didn't feel flowy and just.. drabby. Am I making up words?! Blogger keeps underlining them in red! Anyway, I was NOT feeling my hair and KNEW this was going to affect the styling.

I show the stylist the photos, describe the looks, but also emphasize that I am VERY open to ideas. I want her to be inspired and use her skills to do what she does best. The first thing she does is start curling my hair. I notice that she doesn't even change my hair part. I start to shift in my chair when I see the curls slide out of the curler and they look so tight. Ugh. When she gets to the last layer, I speak up. She informs me that the curls will start to become loose as time passes because they lose shape, so it's better that they're slightly tighter. Slightly? Um.. okay. Also, the curls aren't that bouncy because my hair is heavier from the natural hair oils + product. So much for the romantic curls :(

Once the curling is done, she begins the styling. I interrupt and ask about the extensions. And guess what? Guess w-h-a-t. Dummy here picked extensions that were the actual LENGTH of my hair! Meaning, I wouldn't have layers .. I would just have a LOT of hair at the same length. I needed to get them a few inches longer so that some curls could be longer than others. Y'all, I REALLY thought I had picked some long extensions (12 inches!!). But I didn't realize how long my hair had gotten and how SHORT it becomes when you curl it. Clearly 12 inches isn't long enough. Who would have known. So make note of that ladies. Hold the hair to your ear and see how long it drops.

Blah. She tells me that on the wedding I can just buy longer ones from them ($20 per/track) or bring them myself and that it "should work out." I don't know about y'all, but I DON'T want to see my wedding hair on my wedding day. I want to see it BEFORE because that might not be my wedding hair if it doesn't turn out well!

Finally, she starts pinning things so my hair can cascade down my shoulder, except -- the curls are so tight, it's not really "cascading." It's just sitting there. POP. That's the sound I heard in my head when my bubble busted. Plus, my part is STILL on the same spot when I came in, and she didn't do anything special when she pulled it back.

Biggest mistake brides make: Do NOT go home and complain about your hair style if you have not said a WORD to your stylist. Your stylist needs to know if she can make any changes because she can't read your mind. She could probably read my body language...

And my body language was saying "Weeelll.. I was picturing something a little different." I explain to her what I was hoping for, and she re-does the side section. It came out pretty. Very pretty. I would be alright wearing this to a bridal shower. But NOT my wedding. I asked her to take a photo and I'm sorry it came out blurry!

I shouldn't necessarily call this "DIY" because you don't actually do anything. But since it's not meant to hold fruit per say, I figured throwing DIY in there isn't completely false ;)

Anyway, I want to share with y'all Jose's little Martha Stewart moment.

This here..


... turned out to be one of my favorite pieces in our kitchen. While shopping in Pier 1, Jose pointed out these wooden boxes with fruits and vegetables painted on them. Of course, being the platano addict that I am, my eyes lit up at the plantain box. If I had painting skills, I would be inspired by this to paint more wooden boxes -- but that, my friends, I am not.


He suggested making it a fruit basket and I knew God made this man for me!! Haha, jk. Anyway, all you do is add a beautiful decor napkin (mine is from Anthropologie because it's about the only thing we can afford there!), and voila!


You've got yourself a colorful, Spanish, vintage fruit holder. So clearly my wedding theme is more of a "Alejandra's Life" theme. I can't help it... my love of Spanish design + vintage runs deep! (and NO those plantains were not planned for the shoot! I promise. I really am an addict ;)

Like it?

Here it is! The long awaited Save-the-Date tutorial! It will be divided into two parts. We'll begin with the first today and second tomorrow.

Before we begin, I need to say a few things. Any brides who are honestly considering this, don't let this be a burden!!! The whole point of this is to work on a budget and NOT stress about Save-the-Dates. Even if you're NOT a bride, photoshop is incredibly intimidating and let me tell you a secret: I first learned photoshop by following a tutorial. YES people, I do it part-time professionally and I only learned it a year ago by following a tutorial. I was SO scared of photoshop that following a tutorial helped me to get "my feet in the water" by actually having an end goal. Obviously since that first tutorial I have done a lot of research, reading, and educating myself to be where I am today. If you're a beginner, give yourself at least 45 minutes for this first part of the tutorial. If you're experienced or advanced, you can probably scroll through this and get the first part done in 5-10 minutes.

You can use this SAME tutorial or use it as an inspiration for your own invite to a wedding, baby shower, or birthday party. Or just to make pretty stuff! I'm going to share some photoshop tips.

First tip: USE YOUR RESOURCES! You can use FREE photoshop brushes the way you can use free fonts. The place I go to for my brushes is Deviant Art. Remember that a majority of these brushes are for NON-commercial work (meaning you can't sell or make money from the product that you used these brushes with). BUT if you do want to make $, you can contact the individual artists and get a license.

Step 1)
Download the following brushes & font:
Swirls by IvyPhotography
Birds by Falln-brushes
Lace by ashzstock
Font for names (cursive)
Font for date (western look)

A HUGE thank you to these DeviantArt artists for creating these materials to help us designers & brides out!

So have you downloaded your brushes? Remember to click "Extract All Files" after they are downloaded. After you extract them, double click the brush-icon and it will open automatically in photoshop. Except your fonts! If you don't know how to install a new font you downloaded, here is a tutorial.

TIME FOR PHOTOSHOP!!!

Since I took screenshots of this, my suggestion is to CLICK ON THE IMAGE to see a bigger view of my computer screen. Then click back to read the instructions.

Step 2)
Create a new document by going to File > New. On the "preset" drop down box, select photo.


After selecting photo, under the size drop-down box, select Landscape 4x6 > OK


Your nice white canvas should pop up, but before we get started on designing it, go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 (degrees) CW (or skip the rotate canvas by selecting Portrait 4x6 in the beginning :)


-- The reason I am making this as a photo canvas is so that you have the option to save your final invite as a JPG (i.e. photo) and get it printed as a postcard or even at CVS as a photo!

Step 3)
Design! Select your color by going to the little colored boxes on your far bottom left. You can see how mine are already red & teal but typically your photoshop default is black & white. Click on the image to read the # on the color-box to see the exact shade of red I used.



Next you are going to create a NEW layer by simply going to the VERY bottom right hand side of your screen where you see tiny icons in the shape of a trash can, a square, a file folder, etc. Click on the square that has a little square inside of it.



For photoshop beginners: In everything that you do, you always want to "draw" or "design" on a NEW layer. This allows you to erase specific parts of your image. For example: if you opened up a photo in photoshop, created a NEW layer, and drew a silly mustache on the face of the guy in the photo but you accidentally made it in white. You can erase JUST the mustache that you drew on your NEW layer and re-draw it. BUT, if you would have drawn the mustache on the PHOTO (without creating a new layer), then when you tried to erase it, you would erase THE PHOTO too! Make sense? Think back on middle school and lamination sheets. Yup, the old school way of doing math & grammar when the teacher would use her red lamination marker on the projector sheets. THOSE are layers.

Ok... back to the design.

Now we have our color and layer. Select your brush icon on your far left toolbar (refer to image). Then go to your brush selection by clicking on the tab labeled "brushes" on your right. This will pop out a list of brushes you currently have. Select your lace brush (mine was number 2413). Shift the size of your brush by moving the slider at the bottom of the brush box until it is at 1269 OR you can just type in that number in the box.



Next you will copy (or duplicate) that layer by dragging your layer to the layer icon at the bottom (remember to hold it down and drag).



Now you can rename your layers by clicking on the WORDS of your layer (Layer 1). This should allow you to rename your layer similar to renaming photos on your desktop. I called them "bottom lace" and "top lace." Your top lace should be on top of the bottom lace -- so don't mind my ordering in the picture.



Then rotate your lace using the arrow button (located on very TOP of your toolbar on your left) so that the top one has the edges waving up and the bottom one facing down.



After you have rotated the top lace, click the little checkmark button on the top besides the tab that says "workspace" (refer to image).



To look like this:


Now make a new layer, click on your brush tool again, and select the bird brush (mine is numbered 215) at size 243 px. Stamp the bird on the 4th lace piece at the top like so:



Step 4)
Time for the font! Click on your colored box again (on the far left bottom), and a box should pop up. If you want the same teal I used, the number is 4da7a0. Then select your Mesquite STD font and type the city + state of your wedding. Then in a separate text box, type the date numerically.



I used size size 30 (smaller) for the location, and 48 pt for the date.



You can see on the next image how I have 2 text boxes: one for the date and one for the location. Double click one of the text layers (but make sure you double click the right side) and a box should pop up like so:



This is where I'm going to make your text look good! First, check the box "Inner Shadow" and make the following changes under this category (make sure the "inner shadow" box is HIGHLIGHTED so you're working on it): change blend mode to multiply, opacity at 75%, angle = 120, distance = 8, choke = 0, and size = 8. Refer to image:



Last, check your outer glow box and make the following changes: blend mode = screen, opacity = 75%, size = 8, and range = 50. Like so:



Now hit OK! Repeat with your other text.

Let's make the location font the same width as the date.

Select the arrow on your far TOP left of your toolbar (make sure your LOCATION text layer is selected!). After you click on the arrow, a box should appear around your text. Reduce the size by using your mouse and squeezing the letters together. You can even make it a little taller, but make sure the width is the same as your date! Then click the arrow at the very TOP of your screen (towards the right like you did for the lace) and it will save your re-sizing.



So now you should have THIS!



We'll cover the rest tomorrow or Friday. If you have any questions -- ask away in the comments! Especially for photoshop beginners -- I know this can be a bit nerve wracking. Don't let it be. Play around with brushes, try searching for more brushes on DeviantArt, and play around. Let this tutorial teach you how to save it as a JPEG (photo) so you can get them printed for cheap and to get you experimenting with photoshop & available brushes.

Hope this helps someone! :)

DIY BROOCH BOUQUET!!

This post has moved HERE :) Seriously. You don't want to miss it.

Aaaand the exciting RESULTS (i.e. w-e-d-d-i-n-g photos)!! Those are here!



Just a few teasers. Now get over there and make one!

My mind just EXPLODED with wedding projects from OnceWed!!! If you're getting married, I can't recommend this site enough! Not only do they have a "used" wedding dress section, but they have a DIY section! This is what a girl needs in this economy. Though unfortunately I couldn't find the dress I'm looking for used =\ Oh well... money saving will occur w/everything else!

Speaking of. G L A D I O L U S .... have you seen these babies?!?