Friday Photo #55

What a beautiful summertime wedding cake!

I just love the cobalt blue and yellow.

Hurry up summer!

Speaking of Jam Favors...

A Canning Party

What better party favor than jars of tasty canned goods that can be enjoyed year round?

Making jam can be delicious sticky fun, but the real adventure comes when you take it to the next level: the canning party. Perhaps you’d like to share the magic of jam-making with a dozen friends? Or maybe just have someone to talk to while you pit 40 pounds of peaches?

Why not turn canning into a party? Send out invites to friends and family and include several recipe cards so they can fill them out and share their favorite recipes for jams, pickles, sauces, and more. Decide if you’d like guests to arrive with their ingredients, or if you’d like to include a trip to a nearby farmers’ market or U-pick farm as part of the day’s activities. Also, ask guests to share in advance what recipe they will be preparing to avoid duplications. Be sure to have plenty of extra recipe cards on hand during the party for recipes created on the fly, and have plenty of labels and tags, too, so everyone can label what they made and share with the other guests.

There are plenty of resources on the web to help you figure out what supplies you'll need if this is your first time canning. Lots of recipes, too!

Pick Your Own is a fantastic resource for learning how to can pretty much anything.

Fresh Preserving has step-by-step videos on canning different types of goods, and they have an online shop where you can purchase canning jars and more.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is another great resource with plenty of safety tips and recipes.

Sunset has a great article that gives you a basic outline for throwing a canning party. Recipes included, too (like this one for raspberry blackberry jam!)

I like the site Canning Across America, too! Lots and lots of resources there. 

Want more canning tips? 

-Follow directions and use only tested recipes. Do both of these things and you won’t need to worry about botulism.

-Can foods that taste much better in season than out of season.

-Make large amounts so you get a good payoff for your time.
-Don’t double the recipes For reliable results, stick to the amounts given. If you want to make two batches, start the second while the first is in the canner.

Guess what the coolest part is? All the adorable paper goods you're feasting your eyes on are... drum roll... free printables!! Thats right, you can download and print the invitations, envelope liners (fit 4 Bar envelopes from Paper Source), jar tags, recipe cards, and circle labels. Since the canning party labels and tags are completely blank, you can print them out and write in whatever you’d like. Or, if you have access to a graphics program (FotoFlexer is a great online tool!), you can open the files and use them as a background for a text layer containing your information.

So, who wants to have a canning party with me?? 

Thanks DOMISTIFLUFF for the idea and free printables!

Advertising

Recently I have been getting more requests for advertising with Love Made Visible (Thank You!). Since starting LMV in October 2009, my readership has increased steadily over time, so I am excited to have finally decided to allow LMV the opportunity for sponsored ads and posts, and giveaway sponsorships. If you would like to be considered for Love Made Visible, please tell me a little about your business and your website so I can determine if your brand is a good match for my lovely readers. Please contact me for more information, I am excited to hear from you!

Kalea@LoveMadeVisibleEvents.com

Since receiving all our dreamy winter engagement pictures, all I have done with them is promptly upload them to facebook and look over the album again, and again, and again, and again. Shame on me! Thats no life for such beautiful pictures. I haven't printed any yet because a) I have a very hard time narrowing them down to like, a couple favorites b) I refuse to just put them in an album. I want to frame them and display them oh so creatively! and c) I'm lazy? (sorry Jenny!) But the story gets better! I received an email from Build A Sign asking me if I would review their new product - a wrapped canvas print. I was giddy! What a perfect excuse to finally print an engagement photo! Plus I'm just obsessed with the look of stretched canvas prints. BuildASign.com, an online sign company, just launched a product line for custom photos on canvas--where you can upload your own photo and have it printed out on gallery wrapped canvas. (drool, seriously) So I put my butt in gear and got online to EasyCanvasPrints.com.

The whole process of ordering my canvas was much less time consuming than picking the actual picture! It really just is 4 easy steps. 

Want to know what picture I ended up choosing?? 

This pretty picture!

I could not be more excited to find just the perfect place to hang my new canvas print. Plus it really got me thinking, printing my picture via EasyCanvasPrints.com was so wonderful,  wouldn't a wrapped canvas print be the most wonderful present for our Moms after the wedding (or for Mother's Day!)? I'm thinking so! 

If...

If our reception was going to be in this gorgeous barn...

I'd make these for centerpieces....

And these for dessert / favors!

(barn, centerpiece, pie in a jar)

Bought new shoes?

Having a basket full of flip flops is one of my favorite little details at a reception. Baskets of various sizes and colors of flip flops are placed on the dance floor so that stilettos can be kicked-off and the dancing continues. My favorite sources for inexpensive flip flops is Old Navy  and Target.

(my favorite sign!)

Yes please! I just l-o-v-e the idea!

Friday Photo #54

Hey Gorgeous

L-O-V-E

You know what rocks my socks right off my feet? (seriously, I’m sitting here sockless)

Monogram mugs from Anthropologie! 

(especially when they are used to spell LOVE and are filled with flowers!)

(found here : one, two, three, four, & five)

Want some to call your very own?? (you know you do!) Hop on over to Anthro. 

Easter Loves

Itching for a super cute Easter (or Spring) project? Check out this easy paint chip garland! Its just too cute. 

Complete DIY instructions on this very cute blog! 

Bride + Groom shoes

I know you love wedding shoe shots (who doesn't?)... but want to know what I especially love? Couple shoe shots. So super cute!

Top to bottom : one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven. 

Become who you are

You may have noticed, but I'm feeling a bit lackluster : lacking in vitality, force, or conviction; uninspired. Spring is showing up every so often here in Seattle, so I have been trying to fill my days with fresh air as much as possible (which means not looking at a computer screen). I'm facing a lot of changes in the next year - 25 will be a year of transition (and my very last year as an un-married lady, which is strange). I'm in the midst of a minor quarter-life crisis...Couldn't 25 have waited one more year? Either way, its here now. I'm craving the beautiful newness of Spring, trying to figure out where my path will take me next, and feeling generally a little off balance and uninspired. 


Not much is new on the wedding front either - I wish I had some grand update to report, but its business as usual. Still over a year away from the wedding - seems so far away but considering we are already over 1/3rd of the way through our engagement...its going by quickly. I can't believe I have been engaged for 7 months. Funny how that works. Time dragged on before we were engaged but now its zipping by.

So instead of publishing a lukewarm blog post - no one likes unenthousiastic, thoughtless posts! - I will just leave you with two pictures. And they aren't wedding related! (Hey, there are no rules in blogging!) Its almost been a full year since I came back home from Austria...and today, I miss it a lot.

I hope you are having a wonderful Monday! Bis Bald (Until Soon)....