Thursday, July 24, 2014

My "Something Blue"

Every bride needs...
"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

I struggled with what I wanted my something blue to be, but eventually decided on this cute idea - my new name put underneath my dress! 

All of these awesome pictures of my "blue" where taken by Sara Thiry of Wonderful Life Photography ...that is why they are so much nicer than the low quality ones you may be used to me posting ;) 



Mrs. Matthew Godfrey
July 13, 2013




It was sewn in upside down, so that when I flipped my dress up, others could read it!
(I really only flipped it up for my husband and the photographer to see though.)


I guess if I ever have a daughter that wears this dress she will have to have her new name stitched on top of mine. Or underneath - that would be pretty cool too!


I was very happy to become "Mrs. Matthew Godfrey" ...if you can't tell!



Okay, so now I'm curious...If you are married, what was your something blue??


Thanks for stopping by and reading along! 
I am thankful for all of my followers. :)


Blessings,
Olivia




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Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Back into the Woods {a first anniversary get-away}

Camping. What better way for a poor, young couple to spend their first anniversary? 

On the 13th Matt and I celebrated one year of marriage...which is absolutely crazy to me, because I feel like our wedding day could have been yesterday. Anyways, to celebrate we headed out on a little camping trip to the beautiful East Arbutus Campground near Black River Falls, WI. 



God took care of us this last weekend for sure... what we had planned would have made me a cranky wife. We arrived at the campground that we had originally intended to stay at, and it was terrible! We thought it was $12 a night but it would have actually been $24 because we would have to pay for the vehicle too. The water was definitely un-swimable, it was miniature and weird, and I was not feeling it at all. 

When we got to that campground it was after 8:00 p.m. and so we had less than an hour of daylight left to figure out what we were going to do. I wanted to cry. We had picked up a camping information booklet at a road-side information stand in Black River Falls, and I told Matt that I was going to the bathroom and he better start calling some of the other campsites in the booklet because I was not staying at this one! (I can get a little sassy when I feel things are going wrong...)

I came back to the car and he had called East Arbutus Campground (a very nice campground that had showers and was on a nice, swimable, lake). They had 193 sites, and 10 of them were still available, and it would only cost us $15 a night! So we drove back the way we came 16 miles and set up our new tent in a beautiful little site! Yay!




Here is our new tent that we were so excited to use. It is a Coleman 4-person tent that we got for $35 at Aldi. When I was at Target I saw the same exact tent in a different color for $50! Woo-Hoo! Score!




We still don't own sleeping bags or a blow-up mattress so we hauled out the down bedding and our 3 inch memory foam topper - it was very comfortable! I feel like we were almost "Glamping"!
(Saturday evening it rained so we spend a lot of time in the tent playing cards.)



My beautiful view of the trees in the morning!




My husband's charming fire artwork. :) 




If you've been on the "outdoors" section of Pinterest, you've most likely seen these two popular fire starters.One is a TP roll stuffed with lint and wrapped in newspaper. The other is a cotton pad dipped in wax. I decided I would make both, let my pyromaniac husband use both, and give me his opinion to share with ya'll. 
And the verdict is....
The dipped cotton pad worked awesome!
In fact, he kinda hated the other one. He ended up taring it apart to just light the lint on fire.




Saturday morning we played tourist and got some ice cream at this adorable shop! They also had lots of cool candies, antiques, and home decor.




Oh and check out the original cash register...that they still use to check people out! 



I have that same clock...in storage somewhere.


While we were shopping at an antique store in BRF I got my first piece of Jadeite! I figured this was a good time to start my collection because I have wanted to collect Jadeite for a while, and when I saw some pieces at the shop I figured our 1st anniversary would be a good way to remember my first piece. I just love the color of it. Let the collecting begin!!


When we got back to La X, we got all cleaned up to go out to dinner.


Then we came home and got to eat our cake topper for dessert!
It survived its year in the freezer beautifully and tasted so wonderful!


It is Italian Wedding Cake and is extra special because Matt's mom made it and all the other cakes we had at our wedding. :) 

 We also opened presents. I got Matt an Acer Iconia tablet, (also partly his birthday gift) and he is loving it! He got me a T-shirt that says Trophy Wife and has a picture of a trophy on it. Hehehehe!

It was such a wonderful weekend for us! I am so happy to be his wife!!



Blessings, 
Olivia



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Friday, July 11, 2014

A Charming Country Cottage


How adorable is this little cottage out in the country? Adorable enough for me to whip out my camera like a creeper and tell my dad to drive by very slowly so I could get a picture. 
That's okay to do right?



When I saw the little arch-way off to the side that was covered in vines I just couldn't resist.
And I love the shade of green on the door!




If I owned this cottage I imagine I would have a lovely garden of roses out back. Ahhh, I can be such a dreamer.




If the owner of this darling charmer ever comes across this post, I hope they are flattered and not creep-ed out! It really is adorable. 


Thanks for visiting or following along!

Blessings,
Olivia




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Monday, June 30, 2014

DIY: Rustic Bible Verse Flower Planters


With my first wedding anniversary fast approaching I thought I would start to do a few posts with all of the amazing pictures I have from that wonderful day!

These flower planters with 1 Corinthians 13 on them are quite lovable... and they were a complete family DIY project. My mom, my sister, and myself all painted the wood signs and my dad built the planters and attached the signs!

Before I say anymore I should mention that all of these amazing wedding pictures were taken by my wonderful photographer Sara Thiry of Wonderful Life Photography in Hayward, WI. Aren't they beautiful!?



I always knew that I wanted to incorporate these verses somewhere at my wedding. When we decided to get married out in the woods at my parent's house, the plan became to "scatter" the verse along the trail that led back to the ceremony site. 
Using pretty flower planters is how we did it!


Here they all are from the beginning of the trail to the end.

These scattered all along the edge of the woods from side to side.


They were one of the very first wedding projects we started working on, because we could paint inside during the long, cold winter.


Our wedding colors were plum, green, and white - I chose green specifically so that we could incorporate a lot of plants. I love plants!





We had the old, weathered wood for the signs next to a fire pit, ready to burn. Good thing we didn't burn it before we realized we needed them for this project!





My mom white washed the planters, which I think helped the signs to stand out more.





















And there ya have it! Love never fails.



And here I am with my love at the beginning of the trail as we were walking back to the front yard area for the reception. You can kind of see in this picture what the spacing of the planters was like on the trail. 


I hope to share more of my favorite day later on!



Blessings,
Olivia




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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Outdoor Table Makeover





I'm sharing one of my creative mother's most recent projects today.

My parents had an outdoor patio table with a glass top, but the top shattered in a storm because the umbrella was left in it. Instead of throwing away the metal base, my mom came up with the idea to cover the top with wood boards (because my dad has a lot of that kind of stuff laying around). :)

So dad cut and attached the wood to the base. 



Then, instead of staining the wood, my mom got some mini paint samples in light blues, greens, and grays and did a sort of "white wash" technique by watering them down.




After that she sealed it to help protect it from the rain and glorious Wisconsin winter weather. 




I think it turned out pretty darn cute, don't you!? Way to go mom!




Before I went to take the pictures of the table it had rained, so I was bringing a towel outside to dry it off.

My mom comes out with me and lifts up one end of the table to let all the water run off before we use the towel on it. Then she looks at me with a little smirk...

"Would you have thought to do that on your own?"
I was like, "uhhhh...no?"
Mom goes, "Huh? No?? Well stick with me kid - you'll be a star."

Hahahaha! She's just so lovable!


Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings,
Olivia


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Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Going on a Camping Trip {and reasons why you should go too!}




Camping is one of those things where people either love it, or they hate it. I think it all depends on what they grew up doing with their family.

I grew up going camping. Camping trips were considered mini vacations, and we would often go with my closest cousin's family, so there was much excitement about it!

Recently I had been dying to go camping for the first time this summer. Then, I discovered the "outdoors" section on Pinterest, which made it that much worse! I started a new board called I'm a Happy Camper! and have been pinning pictures of cute vintage campers like crazy! You should definitely check out how cute they are.

Then, this last weekend I finally got to go and satisfy a bit of my outdoor craving. I wasn't in a cute vintage caravan...just a tent, but it was still so fun.



We were camping on the Holcombe Flowage and our campsite even had it's own dock!




I am ready to go back out again!

I've thought of a list of reasons why camping is so lovable to me and why it's such a good idea to go.





Hope all those wonderful things inspire you to go camping this summer!!


Blessings,
Olivia







Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Words to Live By...

I wasn't sure what I could post about this week (it's kinda hard when I don't have a house that I can decorate and show you pictures of!!). Anyways, I decided to create my own pictures with some of my favorite scriptures. You really can't go wrong with God's words. They are so beautiful, true, and comforting.

Enjoy!






















What are some other great verses? Tell me your favorites! I love reading comments!!

Thanks for stopping by.

Blessings,
Olivia




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