I Love the Library!

It's silly, but I go through phases where I forget about all the great books and dvds I can borrow from the library. I search through second hand stores, look on Amazon.ca for good deals, and often give up. Silly!!

Luckily, I somehow magically remembered the greatness that is the library borrowing system the other day. And to make things even easier - all I had to do was log in to their web site using our library card and request all the books and dvds I wanted. In a day or two, I'll go to our local branch and (most) of our items will be waiting on the pick up shelf for me! How easy is that?!

On my current request list are 5 dvds and 5 books. The topics cover birth, prenatal yoga, vaccines, caring for infants and a couple books about the Montessori way of teaching/raising kids. I can't wait to devour all of them!

Also, for those of you who are pregnant, or thinking about heading down that road someday, remember this: there are a million books about everything, but if you want your partner to get the information too - get the dvd! So many of the books have a dvd option and they cover the same material in a more user-friendly manner - genius!

Excitement!

I just had a great meeting with a local non-profit that provides education, counselling and support to people living with HIV and Hep C. I'm going to be volunteering with them and my first gig is next week! I'll be happily handing out free condoms to students at the college's orientation day. Want free condoms? Come visit me!

Dress Giveaway!

I'm so excited! Today is my wedding dress giveaway! Swing on over to 2000 Dollar Wedding for more info!

Free Books!

Free books. You can't get much better than that. No, I'm not talking about library books. You can get your very own, new or used, books for free. To read on your own timeline and then lend or give to friends when you're done! How great is that?

I buy almost all my books on Amazon using my Swagbucks (click out the button on the right of my blog) which I redeem for Amazon.ca gift cards. I've also redeemed my Swagbucks for Paypal credit which I used to buy stuff on Etsy for the wedding, but that's another story!

So, I opened the mail yesterday and received my free copy of Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson. I read Three Cups of Tea so quickly because I was so enraptured, I literally can't wait to tear into this one. If I didn't work for my husband, I might just call in sick today just so I could read it!

Giveaway: No Plastic!

There's a great giveaway happening over at Progressive Pioneer! If I were you, I'd check out these pictures of what you could win, then hurry over to enter your name for a chance to win! While you're there, check out the rest of the blog - definitely one of my new favourites!

Swagbucks

You may have noticed this button on the side of my blog. Well, it's actually my way of paying for some of those great wedding accessories without ever dipping into my wallet! Swagbucks is essentially a search engine (with other features added on to it that you can choose to use, or not use). The great thing about it though is that when you search the internet, you occasionally win 'swagbucks.' Then, when you have a certain amount of them, you redeem them for items in the store. I redeem my swagbucks for Paypal credit. So I earn swagbucks for free just by searching the internet, and then get money in my Paypal account. Then I can use this to buy whatever I want!

My swagbucks helped me purchase quite a few things for our wedding! We got our bridesmaid's gifts, items for our photobooth, and much more on Etsy without ever emptying our bank accounts.

Did I mention Swagbucks is completely free to use and there are no strings attached? Check it out!

Seating Chart Savvy

Our seating chart is a work in progress. It started with a vision and has been a work in progress ever since. The vision was a cork board with strands of twine draped across it. I envisioned plantable paper hearts hanging from the twine by vintage clothespins. Well, some of this worked out and some of it not so much.

I got a corkboard through our local freecycle network, however, it's a bit smaller than we needed. So, instead of having one heart per person, I decided it would work better to have one heart per couple or family, since they will be seated at the same table anyhow. Problem one solved.

Next, I attempted to make my own plantable seed paper. While it's not the most difficult DIY task I've attempted, it was a bit too fussy and time consuming for my liking. It was hard to make the paper thin enough to cut easily and it takes a really long time to dry. Giving up my kitchen table to a bunch of drying paper for a week was not part of my vision. Instead, I settled for handmade paper that I upcycled from various craft projects I had on hand and no longer needed to keep. Problem two solved.

Now for the vintage clothespins. I tried to get free clothespins through our local freecycle, but apparently nobody was willing to part with their beloved clothespins (which is good, it means they're using them instead of a dryer - cheers for eco-friendliness!). Instead I opted for purchasing new ones, however, I chose to go with bamboo since it is a wood that can replenish relatively quickly. Problem three solved.

So, the picture above is still a work in progress. In the end the hearts will overlap slightly in order to fit them all on the board. But overall, I like it!

One Woman's Junk...

Could be the very same woman's treasure! I happened to have some cedar lying around from a project I did in university (I made a bentwood box in the style done by local First Nations). It occurred to me that this would be perfect to use as a sign to point our guests towards the chapel for our ceremony, since the location is a bit tricky. I used leftover black and white paint and voila - a pretty wedding sign!

I still want to touch it up a bit (the white paint didn't stick so well in a spot that had tape on it), but I really like how it turned out! I purposely left our names off of it so I can also give it away to another future bride after our wedding.

Have you created anything for your wedding using things you already had lying around? If you'd like to share your project or idea, send me an email and picture and you can have your very own guest post on this blog!

Free (or nearly free) Wedding Decorations!

I have to admit, I would rather have no centerpieces at all than rent them at the ridiculous prices decorators charge these days. Naturally, I decided DIY was the way to go. But if you're not careful, DIY projects can cost just as much as renting, and then you're left with an excess of wedding decorations (which also means you may have purchased newly produced items when it would have been more eco-friendly to rent them). My challenge then was to create centerpieces (and other decorations too) without purchasing too much new 'stuff.' That's when it occurred to me: Freecycle!

Our city has a great Yahoo group where everyone emails one another things they are offering for free or wanting to get for free. All I had to do was decide what I wanted to make, and then send an email and hope for responses. I ended up getting almost everything I needed to make our centerpieces, seating chart, favours and invitations!

Our centerpieces are going to be glass jars partially filled with bird seed with a candle in the center (like the photo above, although these are a work in progress - I don't plan on tying the string around them, although raffia might work). In some cases I got even more of something than I asked for - one person gave me 6 boxes of glass jars when I had only asked for about 2 dozen jars in total!

Does your community have a forum like this that you can make use of?