Great Deal: Chair Covers, Table Covers

I am so excited to share my experience with eFavorMart.com! My package came Monday and this is what I ordered: 

2 banquet chair covers ($2.38 each). Available in 4 colors

2 Taffeta Flocking White/Black Chair Sash ($1.99 each). Available in 8 colors

1 Taffeta Flocking Table Runners ($4.29 each). Available in 8 colors

I read some reviews on this company that were hit or miss but, based on the prices I decided to take a chance. I was not disappointed. Come to find out the distribution center is located in Southern California. My order was placed Dec 9th and delivered on Dec 13th! The quality of the the items I ordered didn't disappoint either. I was a little worried, based on the price, (you know the saying "you get what you pay for") but, I was completely thrilled and I would recommend ordering from them for any event.

TODAY ONLY! Get Bride's Magazine for $4...a YEAR!

Attention, all Brides to be!! This is such a great deal: Brides Magazine for only $4.00/year (up to 3 years) with code KRAZY

This special rate will be live through Sunday (12/11) through midnight (EST). You can purchase this deal as a new subscription or to renew your existing subscription. You can also purchase additional subscriptions as gifts! This is such a great price for this magazine, and you are getting an entire year for the same price as the cover price of one issue!

Just head on over to DiscountMags and enter the code at check out! But, ACT FAST! This deal is only good today until midnight (EST). 

A glam package giveaway from Bonny Bridal

What's black, cream, full of glam and best of all....free? A wedding giveaway of epic proportions! Bonny Bridal has partnered with some amazing wedding vendors and are hosting a $1250 Vintage Hollywood Glam wedding giveaway - that ends NOVEMBER 30th!

One lucky bride will get all kinds of goodies including: The dress, a vintage handmade brooch bouquet, a Tessa Kim feather fascinator and birdcage veil, 25 couture wedding invitations, paddle signs and a wedding banner! There are only 4 days left to enter this fabulous giveaway! GOOD LUCK!

Wedding Shoes - Add a little color at bargain prices!

The idea of adding a little color under the dress has been widely popular. I see a lot of "real wedding" pics with brides showing off their shoes. Having a color shoe that matches your wedding theme makes options endless - and I love shoes! I fell in love with this purple silk shoe from Nine West and what a bargain it is from Amazon's shoe site 6pm.com:

Original Price: $89.00 - On Sale for $27.95

This particular shoe is also offered in Black Silk and Taupe Silk. Add in free shipping and you just scored! 6pm.com offers name brand shoes and sometimes you can score these shoes at deeply discounted prices! It's a great site to shop at and they have (literally) 1000's of shoes! I was browsing the Clearance section and look at these deals:

Regular Price: $69.00 - On Sale: $20.70

HOT! This Martinez Valero shoe is regularly $149 but you can get it for $36.99

It is also available in French Blue, the color shown above which is a pretty popular wedding shoe color!

One of my favorite bridal shoe designers is Pour La Victoire. Gorgeous shoes but, they are not cheap! So, finding them at bargain prices is a big deal! Many white and ivory satin designs feature blue leather soles that read "I DO" in sparkling rhinestones. But, their colored shoes are also trendy, well made shoes you would pick as your go-to favorite! This morning I saw a "Real Wedding" on La Magnifique and the bride was wearing the "Divia" by Pour La Victorie in Royal Blue Satin! I found the same pair, in a pretty Silver satin:

Original Price $166.00 - On Sale for $41.99 (only in select sizes!)

I do love the Royal Blue Satin color though so I had to sneak in these! The "Baylie" is available in 5 colors and lots of sizes are available!

Regular Price: $155.00 - On Sale for $39.99

Stock up on baking liners and cupcake wrappers from Bake It Pretty!

All Baking Liners & Cupcake Wrappers 50% off for 48 hours   It's a great time to stock up on cupcake liners and wrappers from Bake It Pretty!  Shop early -- popular styles will go fast!  Shopping this sale is easy: just add items from the Baking Cups Categories to your cart and the 1/2-off discount will be reflected at checkout.  Sale ends Wednesday at 5pm EST.   Bake It Pretty has plenty of sales planned for the Holiday season, so stay tuned!  Orders over $50 ship free to US destinations until 2012.  It's a killer deal - what are you waiting for? GO SHOP...and when you are done make sure you bake it pretty! :)

Tis the season...to BAKE!

Do you ever get that feeling that when the weather starts getting cooler you need to turn on your oven and get baking? Maybe it has something to do with all the holidays that come up between October and December. Baking just seems to be on my mind a lot lately. Seeing pictures like this does not help this baking bug I have:

Williams and Sonoma

Looks yummy huh? I think seeing all the goodies and gadgets in the stores, now that they all have Christmas displays up months in advance, has something to do with my current baking obsession. I keep seeing all these new baking gadgets too and I REALLY want to try them! Those little mini pies above were made using the Breville Pie Maker, available exclusively through Williams Sonoma for $99.95 (ouch). But, I also saw a mini pie maker from Sunbeam - I think it made 5 mini pies for $29.99 at Target. I can't seem to find that one online though! And there are some books filled with mini pie recipes:

Amazon

If mini pies aren't your thing, you can find a little gadget for every type of dessert! There are so many I would love to try but, finding storage space for all these gadgets could prove to be a problem...not to mention all the calories from these goodies...but they are mini right??

Sunbeam Mini Donut Maker

Tasty Treats - Donut Hole & Cake Pop Maker

Babycakes also makes all kinds of plug and bake dessert gadgets. They have the Cake Pop Maker - you can bake 12 cake pops in just minutes, then add sticks and get creative with the icing and decorations:

Cake Pops - 24.99

Another recent obsession: pie pops. Love them. And guess what? There's a gadget for that!

6 Pie Pops for 24.99 (or a red one is available for 29.99)

And this one has to be my favorite: Whoopie Pie maker. I do like these little guys! Babycakes also includes ALL the things you need to make these little heavenly cakes:

Whoopie Pie Maker $29.99 - includes all accessories! 

Are you in the mood to bake yet? Have you ever used any of these gadgets? I would really love some comments on this one! I have the mini cupcake maker and it's just ok. They are quick and fun to make and I am seriously considering purchasing these guys to add to the fun of my holiday baking!

Candy Buffet Bar

I am a huge fan of candy bar stations at weddings or any party. They are always a crowd pleaser - seriously, who doesn't love candy? When I was doing my vendor reviews for the Bee theme party I talked about Candy Pros. Well, I got an email the other day from them and they saw my review and they generously offered my readers a 5% discount off their already low prices so, I wanted to make sure every one knew about this! The code to enter at checkout is: "meanttobee". Pretty appropriate since it ties into our Meant To Bee Giveaway  going on now! Have you entered? I hope so! There are some pretty awesome goodies up for grabs but, back to the sweet stuff! So, over at Candy Pros you can shop by color - which makes finding exactly what you need pretty easy!

For wedding candy bars you will find items such as popular Jelly Belly beans - these are great items for candy bars because A. Jelly Belly has the best beans B. Jelly Belly offers the most amazing colors and C. Every one loves Jelly Belly because of their awesome flavors. One of the most popular Jelly Belly wedding items is called the Champagne Bubble - its a small white jelly candy with little white balls all over - we have all seen them, they look like this:

Every website I compared to Candy Pros did not even come close to their price! For a 5lb package the cost is $27.96. I did this on similar popular candies like the popular Whirly Pop lollipops:

Candy Pros sells them individually for about $1.12 per pop - this is a great price! Even our local Smart and Final (a warehouse discount store) can't even sell them for that price and if you are looking for individual colors at those discount warehouse type stores? Forget about it! Usually, you are going to find only the rainbow colored pops. 


You will also find all the popular candy like the Nostalgia Candy, Movie Theater Candy, Kosher Candy and even Gluten Free Candy! 


Some of my favorites for decorations are the super larger Shimmer Gumballs and if you are thinking about maybe offering something like an ice cream bar - guess what?? Candy Pros even offers specialized theme toppings! Super awesome! I could go on and on talking about sweets but, I am sure you get the picture - awesome prices, excellent customer service, fast shipping and good packaging - hands down a super win in my book! And, again...don't forget our special discount code "meanttobee" that will give you an additional 5% off!


Thanks Candy Pros! I am a super fan now! :)

Meant To Bee - Invitations and Paper Goods

I thought we should start off with the first thing you need to send out when you are planning a party - the invitations. Your invites will be the first insight your guests have to the type of party you are planning and what theme you are going with. All of your paper goods will also coincide with the invites. As I have stated (numerous times) I consider myself "craft challenged" and my instinct is to head straight to Etsy to find the real "pros". I had someone in mind to do my invites and paper goods but, I found myself 14 days out from the party (not good advice and please do not follow my lead on this!) without a confirmed order. I was close to panic mode and knew I had to get the invitations done so, I ventured into what I consider a foreign country - Michael's Craft Store. I found some A7 card stock with envelopes, a 4x6 white card stock and some little wooden bee self-adhesive stickers. 

I have a program called PrintingPress from Moutain Cow that I bought years ago - a good investment at $29.99 since I have been using it for many years now! It makes printing invitations, RSVP cards, envelopes and more super easy!


I knew there would be certain paper goods I would need: stickers, banners, table tent cards, decorative cupcake sticks and address labels. The stickers and the address labels proved to be the easiest out of the bunch! I have used these labels (the same boxes mind you!) for years and multiple projects! I have perfected the round label using MS Publisher! I used the round labels to print the invitation envelope seals and stickers used on the push cake pops. I changed the sticker up, a bit, for this post. But, this can be used to seal the envelopes to the party (before, during and after!) or to seal a favor bag or box. There are so many uses! This is what it will look like:

This file was created using MS Publisher - if you use any other program you may need to change a few things to tweak it. This can also be reinvented for so many other needs like changing the text to say - SAVE THE DATE and then add your date underneath or change the words to "THANK YOU" to use on favors! CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE BEE STICKER

*Should be used with Avery 8293 labels

One of the next projects was creating table tent cards. These are pretty easy to make. Simply print out on heavy stock paper and then cut into four. I actually used a heavy photo paper I had (to give them a shiny look) but, card stock will also work. I then used some ribbon I had to go with the theme and used a little bit of gorilla glue. Boy, that glue really could work on a gorilla...it's amazing! You can download the template for the table tent cards here. Simply change the text to work for your party - these can also be used for seating cards or escort cards! I do all my work in MS Publisher - if you use another program you may have to adjust the specs.

Cupcake topper or party sticks can be used for a variety of goodies. These were fairly easy to make - the hard part was finding the right size puncher to use! I think checking online would be a better way to go because, honestly the selection at craft stores  near me was somewhat limited! They had a lot of them...just not the perfect size or shape. My first purchase was for a scalloped 2 inch circle - that just did not work though! It just seemed too small once you punched them out. I then purchased a 2.5 inch round circle punch. I bought some fun scrapbook paper at Michael's ($0.69 per sheet). I used the 2.5 inch puncher to get the polka dot circle, printed out the smaller decorative circles on photo paper and just used some household scissors to trim and of course some 6 inch lollipop sticks. The lollipop sticks were $4.99 for 100 sticks! My gorilla glue came in handy once again to assemble. These were fun to do and I plan on using this idea for some other upcoming parties. You can download this image to use for the smaller circle - just add text or image you want to use. You can also use your photo editing software to change the color of the circles!

One of my craft friends, she is in the "pro crafter" category, made the Happy Birthday banner for me. She has all the fancy gadgets, like the Cricut, which would have made a lot of my DIY projects easy! I couldn't see investing that kind of money into my own projects although, I do think that it would be fun to own one to see what I could come up with! Bee Creative, my friends business, has all kinds of banners, invitations and well, pretty much anything you can think up - she can do!

This finally wraps up my post on the invitations and paper goods! I hope all the files I uploaded will help you with your crafts projects! And if you are on Facebook, head on over to Bee Creative and "like" them! Now, let's talk about one of my favorite things: the sweets!!

Our Meant To Bee Giveaway is now open! 

Click here to enter now!

Busy as a bee!

I have been a little quiet on the blog lately but, not without good reason! I have been working feverishly to plan my daughters 5th birthday. Without a doubt, any party planning always makes me think about weddings - because a wedding, engagement shower or bridal shower are simply parties. They are celebrations where you have a lot of people coming together and they inevitably cost a lot of money. One of my goals with the blog is to show you how to save money on your wedding - or any celebration you are having! My daughter finally chose her birthday theme: Bumble Bee and my wedding brain kept telling me "Meant To Bee" with every detail I was planning. Because there is SO much information and detail to share, I am going to break it down into a couple of posts so, bear with me, because at the end you, my faithful readers, will be rewarded for buzzing a long with me on this journey! I will provide you with all these great things to make your event and planning MUCH easier:

• Tutorials - how to make all the DIY items
• Templates - blank templates for you to use
• Vendor tips and reviews

And...finally, you will be rewarded with a giveaway! I have an amazing giveaway planned for you! Please share this blog or these posts with your family and friends: anyone planning a party or a wedding - especially if you feel it is meant to bee!

Body Shape Wear - DEAL!

I have always heard wonderful things about Julie France body shape wear (think Spanx). It's pretty much all the same! I also think it's super important to have on the RIGHT undergarments on the big day! Even if you are just getting started with the process of shopping for a dress you should have your undergarments 1st! That way you know how the dress looks with the right "body amour" on! So, I just found an incredible deal on Totsy so, of course I wanted to send you over! The deal lasts for THREE MORE DAYS! Plus sizes are available too! Yay! 50% off is the deal you get - so...BUY BUY BUY! 

If you have a Totsy account just go and sign in! If you don't have an account click this link:

HURRY! Click here to get this deal!! 

Invitation or Save the Date Deal!

Open my email box to this great deal from yet another new deal site! I think I get daily emails from 5 or 6 different companies now but, I have also bought some amazing deals! It's hard to give up on getting the emails - you know what I mean right? So, back to today's deal: $20 for $50 worth of invitations from Paper Culture.

Paper Culture has some unique differences when it comes to ordering online invitations - they have a nice comparison chart but, let's look at a couple of things that I think are pretty cool about this company! 

• All Cards & Envelopes: 100% Post-Consumer Recycled
• They plant a tree in your honor w/ EVERY Order
• All Cards: 130lb Paper
• FREE Mail & Addressing Service

I absolutely LOVE that they offer the mailing and addressing service - talk about a time saver! WOW. You only have to pay for the stamps - there are no hidden fees with this service and that really impressed me!

The deal is on now for $50 worth of invitations for $20! There are only a limited number of deals available but, you  have until August 26th to purchase this deal (unless they sell out!).

Paper Culture offers: Save the Date Cards, Moving Announcements, Thank You cards and so many other choices! This is definitely not a deal to miss! 

Red, White and Black Wedding Inspiration

It's the beginning of a new month! This summer has been flying by! I continue to be amazed by the enormous talent of artists who hand make gorgeous details for your wedding or bridal shower! Today was inspired by seeing these gorgeous red poppies:

They are actually sugar flowers made by Two Sugar Babies. You can dress up any plain cake with their amazing creations and voila! You have a work of art! Two Sugar Babies  makes cookie toppers, cake pop decorations, and even brownie toppers! Their creations even coordinate with social stationary designed by Kelly Lyden of WHHostess. 

So, finding the poppies led me on an adventure of red, white and black! I fell in love with this sassy feather fascinator (veil is not included in the price but can be purchased individually) paired it with bridesmaid dress style 7104 from Bonny Bridal (about $165 suggested retail price) and then found these adorable peep toe pumps! The price is AMAZING - only $39.99 and free shipping from Your Shoe Store. Lastly, I headed back to Etsy for one more look around for wedding items in my color theme. Luckily for me (and you) I found these handmade paper flowers. The price is awesome: $3.75 for 25 flowers. These flowers gave me all kinds of ideas! They are small (approx. 5/8 in diameter). My mind started racing with all the things these dainty flowers could embellish for your wedding and DIY projects: invitations, placecards, will-you-be-my bridesmaid cards and so much more! Are you using Red, White and Black as your wedding colors? If so, share any of your amazing finds!

Deal of the Day - Flowergirl Dress - Act Fast!

Just saw this "deal of the day" and always you need to ACT FAST if you want to get in on this! Classic neckline, cap sleeves, sweet bows and sequins. This dress would be perfect for your little flowergirl - and at 50% off it's priced at $25.00! You can not beat that price when dressing your little princess! Sizes available are 5 - 12

Click Here to Buy This Deal of the Day!