I’m happy to announce that I have actually fulfilled one of my New Year’s resolutions, and opened an Etsy shop! At the moment, only the Barnyard Chic Wedding Invitation is available, but I plan on adding much more. Add me to your favorite sellers!
Also, since you’re especially awesome for even READING this, I’m offering all new customers a 20% discount on purchases through May 1st, 2010. Using a coupon code on Etsy is a little more complicated than your traditional e-commerce site, so let me break it down for you:
- Add an item from my your shop to your cart, and start the check out process.
- Enter the code BARNYARD in the “notes to seller” area and the email address where a revised invoice should be sent.
- Complete the order, but do not continue on to PayPal just yet!
- I will get an email from Etsy about your order and discount. I will then send you a custom PayPal invoice with the discount applied.
- Once you receive the revised invoice in your inbox, follow the link to complete the payment process.
Feel free to pass this on to your recently engaged friends and keep checking back here or in the shop…I will be posting as I add new designs!
p.s. I added a direct link to the shop up there to the right of the page 
Just the other day I posted my soon to be office redesign and color palette.
Then what to my wondering eyes should appear! But the new Crate and Barrel Spring catalog.
I was flipping through the pages and stumbled upon this (and audibly gasped):
The same exact color palette that I am going to use for the office! Apparently I am ahead of the trends!
Love the fabric on that chair!!! Way out of the budget, though 
In other office news, I picked up some paint swatches from the Home Depot tonight. They are now hanging on one of the office walls so I can check them out in different lighting situations. I also decided on a rug. I went with this one from Overstock (my go-to source for great quality, affordable rugs):
I am having a little case of buyer’s remorse. I’m slightly worried that it won’t be large enough, and I saw another rug on their site that I hadn’t seen before (and might like better)! I guess I will have to see how I feel about it when it arrives, which should be soon. That’s another great thing about Overstock – super cheap and fast shipping!
Here are a few more details from our wedding.
This is our Tears of Joy basket. The idea was to give everyone something to dry their tears and also keep as a memento of our wedding. I originally saw this on blog somewhere and have yet to be able to locate it since, but I thought it was the cutest idea. I purchased the basket at a thrift store for cheap and collected the hankies on eBay. After thoroughly washing and ironing each one, I displayed them in the basket with a sign that read: “As a memento of the day and for tears of joy (if any), you may take (and keep!) a vintage hankie.”
Instead of a traditional guest book, we decide to do ‘Recipes for Love’. I purchased a vintage recipe box along with vintage recipe dividers (in the original packaging!) on Etsy. I painted the box white and gave it a distressed treatment and added a blue knob to the lid from Anthropologie. I also added the silver label holder and slipped a little piece of paper in that said ‘recipes for love’.
The hand made sign next to the guest book read: “In lieu of a traditional guest book, we ask that you leave us a note, thought, drawing or recipe (for food or love) on an index card for us to file in our recipe box. Next to the guest book was a mason jar full of pencils that I covered in coordinating scrapbooking paper.
A copy of Edward Monkton’s A Lovely Love Story (which was read in the closing of our ceremony), was placed on a table inside the barn for people to look at if they chose to. It now has an honored place on our bookshelf. I just love this story – so simple and touching!
I cut the escort cards out of Kraft paper and glued the ivory nameplates on top. They were then attached to the frames I made (details here) using tiny clothespins. The cool thing about this project is that I am now using one of these in our bedroom as a decorative jewelry organizer, and it looks awesome!
Here are all three of the boards together in front of the barn, untouched.
For the card box, I borrowed my mother-in-law’s vintage milk crate from White’s Dairy Farm. I covered a piece of foamboard with leftover fabric from the escort boards to cover the wire milk compartments. I punched holes in the sign and attached it with grey satin ribbon.
I knew all along that I wanted table names instead of numbers, I just couldn’t decide on a theme. We went back and forth between classic Hollywood romance films and Beatles songs. Although we both (especially Tory) love movies, we settled on Beatles songs because in all honesty, we hadn’t actually seen many of the classic romances. I added a little info about each song for the guests to read if they chose.
I made little tents out of Kraft cardstock, and glued the names to both sides. I added some ribbon because, well, I just love ribbon. You can also see the votive holders in this photo – for those we used small jelly jars purchased at WalMart, added split peas in the bottom for some color, and tied some twine around the opening. p.s. Oh! Darling is my all-time favorite Beatles song
I made menus for the buffet (so everyone knew what they were getting) and the bar. The venue put them in frames that they had.
I wanted a variety of vases for our centerpieces, so my mom and I spent the months leading up to the wedding scouring flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores and our family’s storage spaces for unique and colorful vessels. We gave all of the vases to Martha and she made magic!
I cut the burlap runners to size from a few giant sheets that I purchased in Home Depot’s garden department for next to nothing. I had no idea you could even buy burlap at Home Depot, and this saved us a ton of money we would have spent at the fabric store. I love the juxtaposition of rough fabric against the shimmery pewter linens. We had chocolate chip cookies from Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates as favors. We picked them up the day before to ensure freshness, and spent the evening before the wedding packaging them. Here’s a better look at the labels. This was the “Here, There And Everywhere” table.
This is a look into the reception area from the entrance of the barn. We covered a board with fabric that matched the escort boards and plastered it with photos of us throughout the course of our relationship, including our engagement pics taken by my friend Andrew Nixon.
All photos in this post by Rochelle Mort.
Image by Gabrielle Kai via Decor8
I started this blog to share my wedding ideas and inspiration, as well as photos and projects from my special day. Now the wedding fever has passed; and I’m on to obsess about other things in life! Don’t worry, I still have some wedding photos and projects to share. I am not abandoning blogging; I do enjoy the outlet of writing and sharing my inspiration and ideas. I hope that the few readers I have will hang in there, and who knows – maybe I’ll gain a few new ones in the process!
You may have noticed the name change in the header: Eksquisite Design Blog. Eksquisite Design is the name of my personal site and business. The word is spelled incorrectly because at the time, my initials were “EKS” which made that cool “x” sound I still like the name so I’m keeping it!
I anticipate sharing a collection of things on this blog that are inspiring me at any given moment (which could include wedding-related posts, as I am still very much inspired by weddings). Other, non-wedding related things that interest me are: interior design, graphic design (always), gardening, dogs, and cooking; so expect to see more posts on those topics.
I set a goal for myself this year to re-design my personal website and open an Etsy shop (a daunting task!), so look for updates on those. One of the things I learned throughout wedding planning was that I really enjoy designing wedding stationery and hope to extend that service to a larger audience through Etsy! I hope you stick around for changes in this wonderful ride that is life!
My home office is a tiny 8′ x 10′ light-filled room at the front of our house – just to the right of our front door and off the living room.
Technically, it’s a bedroom, since it does have a tiny closet, which we use to store our coats and my wedding dress, mainly. I have no IDEA why and it aggravates me to no end that the door opens to the left! Switching that is on the to-do list, for sure.
I’m not sure that I would want to sleep in this room, considering the fact that it can barely accommodate a twin-sized bed. It really is my space, though…I use it to do my design work, pay bills and read the thousand and two blogs I subscribe to (slight exaggeration, there).
The room also functions as our home gym – we have a fold-up treadmill and television in one corner, which needs to stay, due to the shortage of square footage in our house. I’m thinking of getting some sort of room divider for this area, since it is kind of an eyesore.
The office has gone unnoticed and neglected for too long – it really hasn’t gotten any love whatsoever since we moved in almost two years ago. So I figured it was time to give it the attention it deserves, and I’m excited at the possibility of working in a brighter, cheerful, more functional and vibrant room.
The things I love most about this room are the abundant light made possible by the two windows, the flooring (although it’s not hardwood, which I would prefer, it’s so much better than carpet), and the lovely french doors. The only problem with the doors is that they don’t offer much privacy, which makes it hard to get any real work done.
I have a couple of ideas for the door.
1. Cover the panels with beautiful paper. I’m thinking old maps or encyclopedia pages. This approach is fun, charming and potentially colorful.
Better Homes and Gardens via Centsational Girl
2. Use frosted window film. I could use it as-is, or add a design, similar to what you see below (but I think I would use the same pattern in each panel). This approach is modern, clean and maybe slightly more conventional.
Via Design*Sponge
Here’s my plan for the color palette. I wanted something that would flow with the rest of our house. I love bright, bold colors and I am not afraid to paint my walls this marigold color!
I like to re-use and re-purpose as much as possible (we’re on a budget, here!), so I’m keeping the furniture: the IKEA Vika desk, slipper chair from Target that our cats lovingly destroyed (I plan on reupholstering it, adding casters, and using it as my desk chair), and bookshelf that I bought at Target years ago. Hopefully I can find the other large items I need (rug, more storage) on the cheap. I think the major transformation will come with paint, a new light fixture and window treatments. I plan to DIY many things in the process, so stick around for the ride!
