Top 5 Things to do as a Newly Engaged Bride

Photo from epistolary.net

The love of your life has proposed and your head is spinning. A huge life change is coming your way! Between telling friends, nights out to celebrate and all the planning you haven’t had a moment to yourself. Many brides-to-be will let stress take all the fun out of their engagement, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s our Top 5 Favorite things to do as a Newly Engaged Bride that are sure to leave you feeling pampered and refreshed!

1. Manicure - Treat yourself to a fabulous manicure, after all you’ll be spending a lot of time admiring your engagement ring!

2. Magazine Run – head to your favorite local book shop and stock up on wedding magazines and books. Peruse the eye-candy over a latte and bookmark all of your favorite looks.

3. New Knickers – sexy undies and lingerie are guaranteed to give your smile a little extra glimmer!

4. Chick-flick-marathon – girlfriend bonding time is more important than ever now. Invite the girls over and cozy up with popcorn, candy and a stack of your favorite chick flicks. We like Say Anything, Clueless, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sense and Sensibility, Pretty Woman, and Muriel’s Wedding.

5. Name Game – Remember in 9th grade when you wrote your name with the last name of your crush over and over again in your notebook? Channel those dreamy days and buy or embroider something with your new initial.

What’s your favorite way to celebrate being a newly engaged bride? We’d love to hear from you!

A Chocolate Love Story

A garden variety chocolate bar may be fine for everyday, but for those couture cocoa occasions, especially Valentine’s day, an anniversary, special gift or party you’ll want something special – and hopefully you have a shop nearby like Lucky Chocolates (you can also order online here).

This Chocolateria, located in Saugerties, New York, features chocolates handmade in small batches with organic and fair trade ingredients.  The fair trade chocolate is made from cocoa beans bought from growers co-ops so the money goes directly to farmers. This allows workers to be paid a living wage and avoids slave and child labor.  What’s not to love about that?

With artisan chocolates like these you can taste the difference. You’ll find one of a kind flavors mingling with eye catching colors. Choosing is a delightful dilemma: there’s dark chocolate raspberry bark, truffles with flavors like creme brulee or pistachio cardamon, sea salt shell chocolate turtles, chocolate buddhas and french bulldogs as well as a selection of old fashioned penny candy for kids. They also have vegan treats and take custom orders.

The heavenly aroma in the shop is to make me swoon!  Whether it’s a box of truffles for your sweetheart,  a dessert table or goody bags for your wedding these delectable treats are sure to please. Here are some photos from my most recent visit!

Do you have a favorite local chocolatier? We’d love to hear from you!

Win a Love Story from Suburban Video!

We wanted to share this fantastic opportunity for bridal couples to win a gorgeous Suburban Video Love Story Film. Entering is easy – just make a 3 minute video telling your love story and submit for Suburban Video to post on its website and Facebook page. The video with the most likes wins a professionally produced Love Story Film – A $1,500 Value!

Click here to watch Suburban Video’s most popular award-winning finished Love Story: Vik and Ritu.

It’s the romance of your life so why not capture it on the big screen with the two of you starring? Please let us know if you decide to enter so that Something Fabulous can help you get likes!

Fab Find: Soak Wash Soakboxes

Knitting is a beautiful tradition and teaching someone to knit can be an incredibly bonding experience. For all you brides out there who love knitting what better way to share your love of knitting than with your best girls on your big day?

I saw these Soakboxes by Soak Wash at the Vogue Knitting Live event in New York (stay tuned for more about that next week!) and fell head over heels. Soak wash no-rinse wool wash can be used for wool and delicate hand washables and for machine washables, too. Their product line also features lotions for hands and feet called Heel & Handmaid. All of their products come in great scents like aquae, lacey and celebration as well as unscented.

The limited edition Soakbox includes a bottle of Soak and Handmaid luxury creme, stylishly matched to premium nail polish and custom hand-dyed yarn with a knitting pattern for these adorable fingerless gloves:

At $50 this Soakbox would make a fantastic bridesmaids gift!

2013 Calendar Roundup!

Calendars can serve as a compass for your year, and as 2013 approaches you may feel lost until you have safely secured a new one.  I have a real soft spot for calendars, datebooks, planners, and all things organizational – especially if they are lovely to look at! Although I do utilize technology (I like to use my phone to set up reminders for appointments), I also enjoy having a large calendar on the wall for our whole family to write on, a cute desk calendar, and a datebook for notes and strategical planning. There are a lot of calendars out there, and you’ll be stuck with it for an entire year, so how to choose?
Here are some favorites for 2013 that I’ve been drooling over or that I have used and loved. Enjoy and happy organizing!

Wall Calendars

1. Monthly Calendar Chalkboard Wall Decal, $30, Studio 336 2. Large 13 x 19 Poster Colorful Peacock 2013 Calendar, $35, deKanimal 3. 2013 Paper Source Academic Blotter Calendar, $26.95, Paper Source.

Desk Calendars

1. Tastee Toaster Desk Calendar 2013, $22, DooDaStudio 2. 2013 Coaster Letterpress Calendar, $30, W+K Studio 3. 2013 Letterpress Art Print Calendar – Sunflowers and Bees, $10, Smock Paper.

Planners

7. 19th Annual 2013 Radical Organizer, $6 Pocket-Sized, $12 Desk Calendar, Slingshot 8. 2013 Planner, $35, Red Star Ink 9. Little Otsu Annual Vol. 4 Weekly Planner, $18, Little Otsu.

Tree Trimming Tips

Trimming your tree is a great way to reflect and remember with special ornaments and Christmas tunes; you can’t help but recall years past and feel those childhood traditions. Here are some things to keep in mind while designing your tree:

• Place lights first. Better to catch the burned out strands now before your tree is complete with all the trimmings. First uncoil (and de-tangle if necessary!) all of your lights and test them. Begin placing your lights near the trunk of the tree and weaving them along the inside branches, working your way out. This will create a much bigger impact.
• Garland is next. Be creative with strings of beads, or even some great ribbon (we love Midori ribbon).
• Next up are the ornaments!  The key here is to make sense out of different styles you may have collected over the years. Often we collect ornaments that have special meaning from the past and each year you can recreate a personal timeline in your living room. You want to highlight these ornaments and at the same time create a harmonious visual flow. Filler ornaments are a great way to do this. These are basic ornaments that are all one color or a variety of colors in similar styles. Evenly space all the filler ornaments around the tree, then you will have a great base to start filling in your personal heirlooms. Make sure to put your ornaments on the ends of the branches as well as inside the tree which will create depth and interest.
• Grab some eggnog, sit back with your loved ones and enjoy your beautiful tree!

What are your favorite tree trimming tips? We’d love to hear from you!

Fabulous Find: Drag Queen Bingo

Looking for a fun night out? This week’s Fabulous Find is Drag Queen Bingo, and it’s all the rage in Metro Detroit. All of the hostesses are hilariously funny and entertaining, and there’s a good chance that your sexy server will insult someone at your table (especially if you win!). Hosted by Five15 in Royal Oak, it’s not for the shy or easily offended.  If you are lucky enough to score a bingo, you’ll be the proud new owner of a saucy Five15 coffee mug and t-shirt. Make your reservations now – they fill up fast. Then grab some friends & and get your BINGO on!

Our fabulous hostess Trixie Deluxxe!

Add some punch to your next gathering!

Entertaining guests over the holidays? Skip the eggnog and impress them by serving punch! Try this quick & easy recipe, you can experiment with different kinds of juice or substitute your favorite brand of bubbly for the sparkling grape juice.

What’s your favorite holiday punch recipe? We’d love to hear from you! Cheers!

Holiday Preview at the IDEAS studio

The countdown to the holidays is on, and Something Fabulous is ready to help! At our Holiday Preview Event at the IDEAS Studio last week we opened our doors to friends and family to share inspiration and tips for holiday decorating, stationery, entertaining, gift giving and wrapping. We had lots of fun getting crafty and enjoying tasty snacks together. Couldn’t make it? Don’t worry! We’ll be featuring some of the highlights in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned. And let us know in the meantime if there’s anything we can do to make your holidays merry & bright!

D.I.F.Y. = Do It For Yourself – Tea time!

Head spinning after a sugar-laden Halloween and the holidays looming? Try a tea break, and not just your everyday teabag in a to-go mug on the run. Immerse yourself in this relaxing ritual, perhaps starting with a visit to a local tea shop. These photos are from The Tea Shop of Woodstock, NY.

Just seeing the cheery colors and enjoying the delightful scents of this tea shop felt like a relaxing getaway!

I had never heard of Wedding Blend Tea, which apparently tastes just like a wedding cake! With pink rosebuds and petals amidst Chinese Mutan white tea buds it is beautiful to look at while the lemon and vanilla impart a wonderfully aromatic scent. I couldn’t wait to take it home and try some!

Here are my purchases after I finally made my decision: Muse Blend, Wedding Blend and a Rooibos Chai.  The packaging make it feel even more fancy!

For my tea ritual I bundled up and got outside on my back porch to enjoy the fall weather. Don’t let the lack of a silver service stop you from enjoying your fine tea; my mismatched pieces which came from thrift stores and yard sales are dear to me.

On a quiet Sunday afternoon I sipped my Wedding Blend tea while my daughter was napping. Delicate and romantic with a hint of sweet creaminess it truly felt like a celebration. I’m sure it would make a wonderful wedding favor. Perhaps for my daughter’s second birthday we’ll have a tea party! Ideas definitely were brewing for this tea lover.

I hope you are inspired to have your own tea party for one. I certainly enjoyed mine. Do you have a special tea time ritual that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you!