Happy Valentines Day!  It's 6am, do you know where your love is?  Mine is sleeping in, and I've been debating for the past half hour if jumping on him with a big plate of heart-shaped pancakes would be viewed as loving or antagonizing at this fine hour.  Maybe I'll wait until I finish this post before I rip the covers off of him!  :)

Along with weddings, Valentines Day is one of the biggest occasions to send a note or a card to someone.  Some of us are the Hallmark aisle kinda people, and some of us are happy to make something to send to our friends and family.  

Because I love our QCWeddings.com readers, here are ten free printable stationery items for you to use whether it's for today, your wedding, or any ol' occasion.  Click on the pictures to take you to the downloads!  

an I Heart You Card from Clever Someday

Valentines Day garland from Whisker Graphics

a favor box template from Don't Eat The Paste

envelope labels from Domestica

save the date set from Ruffled

place cards from Creature Comforts

table numbers from Creature Comforts

tags from Creature Comforts

thank you card from Ruffled

an entire coordinating wedding stationery suite from Inspired Bride

an entire coordinating wedding stationery suite from Wedding Chicks

If you have cable television, you have probably stumbled upon the many shows centered around weddings. One of my favorites is Say Yes To The Dress which centers around the Kleinfeld bridal store in New York. This particular bridal store is famous for carrying all the top line designers who often charge more for one dress than I plan on spending on my entire wedding! While most bridal dress budgets do not reach the multiple or tens of thousands of dollars range, it is fun to watch the show and see the beautiful styles.

Now, there is a chance for one of you to win a dress from the Kleinfeld store! Check out the Kleinfeld Experience contest that is going on right now and ends on Valentines Day this year...

- a $5,000 gift certificate to Kleinfeld

- a private store opening in Manhattan, New York

- personal styling services provided by Randy Fenoli and a Kleinfeld Bridal Consultant

- free airfare and five-star accommodations

To enter, simply click on this link.

Remember to say you heard about it from QCWeddings.com! Good luck!

First off, ladies and gents, I wanted to remind you all that tomorrow is the WeddingMax Bridal Show at the iWireless Center.

Check out all the info here! I hope to see you there!

Next on my list of to-do's... If you remember from a few posts ago, one of my new year's resolutions is to become more organized. Certain aspects of our wedding I have certainly paid close attention to lately, and others have fallen to the wayside because a) they are things we haven't decided upon yet, b) they look like boring tasks to me, or c) I am a procrastinator. I am trying to eliminate option C from my repertoire of excuses.

Recently Donna sent me an email about a company called Places Everyone which sells sets of magnetized shapes and a lay out that you can customize to look like your reception hall. The magnetized tables come with magnetized seats on which you can write your guests names. This is a brilliant idea especially for those of us who need a visual or who learn by touching and moving things around. On the site you can see the different options for purchasing, and as I was going through the site, I thought to myself, Self, you could probably make something like this with materials you already have. So for those of you who can do a little scaling math and don't mind scrounging up some construction paper and childproof scissors, go nuts. If not, Places Everyone is there for you.

One word to describe me would be procrastinator. Another would be Cheap A$$. The thought of plunking down $50 for this kit made me cringe a little, so I did a little researching and came upon the mecca of wedding planning, Martha Stewart, of course! On MarthaStewartWeddings.com, you can register (for free) and find not only a virtual seating chart program, but an entire set of wedding planning tools of which I will be taking full advantage. Here are a few things that I am excited about...

1) The Seating Chart Planning Tool. There are options to change the size and shape of the reception area lay out, different sizes of tables, and the program will upload info right from your guest list that you can also create with the MSW planning tools! Neato!

2) The Budget Planner Tool. I've seen a lot of budget planning tools, and I've even kept our budget on an Excell sheet, but this one has so many bells and whistles! For example, if you end up underspending (ha ha), it will ask you how you'd like to redistribute the funds. It will also keep track of payment dates and send you reminders! Swell!

3) The Checklist Tool. Are there others like me who leave things off until the very end? This one's for you! For example, right now my check list tells me that we are overdue on making a wedding webpage (ironic). Dandy!

I really think I owe good ol' Martha a thank you note because her wedding planning tools are going to be really helpful here in helping us to stay on track with our wedding and to eliminate my procrastination problem. There are other organizations and websites that offer free and subscription based wedding planning tools. What are some of your favorites? What programs have saved your life and your sanity as you plan for your upcoming nuptials?

I have an obsession with ruffly, fluffy, feathery, paper things.  And lately, it's been my luck that ruffles are back in a big way in wedding decor and style.  Recently around the web I have seen more and more tissue paper poms, and I thought to myself, "Self, you could make these...", so I gave it a whirl.  As it turns out, the project was easy-peasy, inexpensive, and yielded some very pleasing results.  Here's the lowdown...

My materials:

1)  Tissue paper...lots of it.  You could do any color, but white will probably be the easiest and most affordable tissue paper around.  I found a pack of 120 sheets of white tissue paper at Hobby Lobby for under $4.  Each small tissue pom will take one sheet of paper while the larger ones will take anywhere from 2-5 sheets, depending on how full you'd like them to be.  

2)  GOOD scissors.  Do not be foolish and try to make your crappy kitchen shears work for this project when you are making 1000 of these bad boys.  Your hands will hate you.

3)  Ribbon.  I used 1/8 inch white grosgrain ribbon, but you could probably use any color and width.  

If you can follow me around the horn here starting with the top left corner, I'll explain my steps.  

1)  Lay out 1 piece of tissue paper.

2)  Fold in half once. 

3)  With the "short side" facing you, start to fold your tissue paper accordion style with about 1" folds.  

4)  Snip off the end that has your original crease from step 2.

5)  Double knot your ribbon securing the knot in the middle. 

6)  Use your GOOD scissors to round both ends of your tissue paper.  You can do pointy or more rounded.  Experiment.  :)

7)  Admire your work thus far.  Consider tying this around your neck as a bow tie.  Giggle.  Continue to step 8.  

8)  Pull the ends of the folded up tissue paper apart on both sides. 

9)  Gently pull the layers of tissue paper away from each other.  Curse yourself for any rips that occur then realize that no one will notice.

10)  Fluff, fluff, fluff.

11)  Account for any lopsidedness with more fluffing. 

12)  Acquaint the new flower with its brothers.

13)  Let your cat inspect your work.  

14)  Repeat steps 1-13 nine hundred and ninety-nine more times (not pictured). 

Try this one out!  I really think these tissue poms could be worked into many different types of wedding decor as garland, table decor, maybe even as favors for your guests.  Go crazy!  Let me know if you have any questions or successes with this project!  Go ruffles!  

My father and I have this standing date for 3am coffee and game plan huddle on Black Fridays.  We usually scour the ads in our post-Thanksgiving meal comas and decide the night before who's getting what and how we're going to get it.  The nice thing is that we usually don't have a specific need to get any certain item, so if a store looks scary (ahem...ahem...Kohl's), we laugh and point at the people in line and then continue on our merry little way...

With Black Friday shopping, one usually makes sacrifices in sleep and personal bubble space in order to find that special gift for loved ones at a whopper of a deal.  This year, well folks, this year, I sacrificed my sleep and my personal space in order to get something...for me.  :)  

This is what I bought...

You may be thinking, what the hell is it?  A printer?  It is a Cricut Expression.  While usually retailing for around $450, Walmart had these babies on sale this morning for $188.  Yippee!!!

You may have heard of this coveted craft machine during a lovely infomercial that airs around 4am on HGTV.  Maybe not.  Basically this is your really cool die-cutting machine which means it will cut out anything in any size in any number for you.  I plan on using it for all things DIY paper related including some really cool upcoming wedding craft projects.  More on that to follow...

The issue lies in that I've never used one or even seen on in real life, and I'm not sure where to start.  Probably the manual, right?  

Have any of you QCA bride or grooms used a Cricut?  What about other essential crafting gadgets?  Leave a comment below, and tell me about your favorite gadget or experience using the Cricut!