Sustainable & Creative Living
On December 9th, 2017 I got married! If you’ve been following along with our blog, you know it’s been a long time coming. I’d been planning for over a year, and now I want to share it all with you! So if you’re interested in some nerdy barn wedding ideas or just love wedding stuff like I do, you are in for a treat!
Photography by Lifelong Photography Studio
I recently got married and I could not have picked a better venue. It was absolutely perfect for me and my husband. It totally checked all of our boxes because we knew exactly what we wanted. It’s funny because some friends of ours got married about 5 weeks after us in one of the venues we looked at and almost booked. And even though they are both farm venues, they were completely different feels. That’s why it’s important to ask yourself what you really want when choosing a wedding venue. In our case, we knew we wanted something outdoors and rustic but not too fancy or too country.
Valentine’s Day is traditionally known as a holiday for couples in love. But it doesn’t have to be. Expensive gifts, fancy clothes, and high dollar wine don’t have to be all that Valentine’s Day is about.
I still remember getting Valentine’s Day gifts as a kid from my mom and dad. Usually, they were small boxes of chocolate and sometimes even money, but it felt like the best thing in the world.
Fast forward to life as an adult—we are conditioned to think Valentine’s Day is more about the stuff. Especially when you’re in a relationship. [Read more…]
Just over a month ago I got married! And now I can finally share all the intricate details.
Related: I Got Married
One thing that was really important to Nate and I when planning the wedding was to get the ceremony right. We’re not religious people and we didn’t have the traditional officiant so we planned the entire ceremony ourselves. From the beginning, I knew that I wanted unity ceremony. But not just any unity ceremony, I wanted something that truly reflected Nate and I’s interests as a couple – in other words – something nerdy.
A struggle I face on a weekly basis is trying to prevent tossing out my fruits and veggies that have either wilted or gotten moldy too soon. Fresh fruits and vegetables can be costly, especially if you’re buying organic – so I’ve started making a real effort to not just toss at first glance. Instead, I’ve been making a conscious effort to use wilted veggies like celery, spinach, and kale. But in order to prevent real waste I also needed to figure out a way to [Read more…]
I’ve been taking the last few days, like a lot of other people, to think about goal setting for 2018 and beyond. But this year, goal setting is more of a struggle. Most of this is due to the fact that I’m going through a lot of transition and change in different areas of my life. There have been so many milestones in my life this past year—finally finishing my bachelor’s degree, my youngest graduating high school and then starting college, and of course Christina’s wedding and all the preceding festivities.
After over a year of planning, stressing, and more planning – we did it! I got married on December 9th, 2017! It was on a farm with a big red barn and animals everywhere, and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. There were so many times during the planning process that I literally said: “can we just elope?” But in the end, it was more than worth it. I wish I could just relive it.
In my house, the #1 way most food is wasted is from my picky 2-year-old throwing food on floor when he doesn’t like it. A challenge I face daily is finding the balance between offering new foods and foods I know he’ll eat. All in effort to reduce food waste.
The second most common way household food is wasted is [Read more…]
I tend to save scraps and odd pieces that are supposed to be discarded. I always think, “Hmmm…could I make something out of this?” That’s how I came up with these Snowman Ornaments. They are made from Ashland candle jar lids from Michaels (but you can use anything circular).
Every time I get a candle with a lid I [Read more…]
Every year I try to incorporate as many eco-friendly practices as I can into my gift wrapping routine. This time of year is already a stressful time but that doesn’t mean we put our eco-friendly practices on hold. It just means that we get a little more creative with our holiday wrapping.
Around my house, there’s one thing that’s synonymous with the holidays and that’s my Grandma’s Apple Sheet Pie. For the past 15 years, I’ve been making my Grandma’s apple pie recipe exactly the way she taught me so many years ago. Up until now I never dreamed of changing it, not even a smidge! While I still didn’t change the ingredients, I did mix it up a little with these [Read more…]
Crafting is one of the most enjoyable Christmastime activities there is. Eating yummy treats is about a close second. Making these Christmas Lollipop Candies combines both of these holiday pleasures. They only need 6 ingredients so they’re super simple to make and they taste delicious. These ones are peppermint flavored but other extracts could be used to create different tastes. These Christmas Lollipop Candies can also double as DIY holiday decorations.
This year Christmas kind of snuck up on me. If you haven’t been following our social media, you may have missed that I just got married. For the past year, wedding planning has just consumed my life. Now I’m finally ready to get into the Christmas spirit, and I wanted to do something a little different this year.
Instead of buying more (expensive) wrapping paper from all over, I wanted to make my own. And what better way than to use some materials I already have at home. First of all, a roll of kraft paper from the Dollar Tree or Walmart is perfect and will go a long way! It’s so much cheaper than a roll of traditional wrapping paper that won’t last the season. Secondly, it’s just a little more heartfelt to make your own paper. You can do all kinds of variations of this design but I thought Christmas trees were a good place to start.
