Retro Housewife Maternity Shoot

I've been holding on to these photos for months now. My sister and I actually took these maternity shots on New Year's Eve. Wow, has it really been that long? Time flies when you're taking care of a little human.

This shoot gave me an excuse to get all dolled up. Much needed, because at nine months pregnant, you don't often feel glamorous. So I painted my nails, threw on some rouge, and wore heels for the first time in six months.

An apron is the perfect accessory for maternity photos. It cinches at the waist and accentuates the baby bump.

Rustic Maternity Photo Shoot

We took these photos in late December, when the weather was absolutely gorgeous here in Northern California. Only a few weeks before, we had a few inches of snow covering the ground. Despite the fact that we threw this photo shoot together extremely last minute, I absolutely adore the photos!

Pretty much the only thing I had planned ahead of time was this dress I found the day before (50% off!). An hour before sunset, we were still running around the house. I was looking for shoes and throwing makeup on, Ryan was shaving and picking out a shirt, my sister was checking to see if the chalkboard paint had dried, and we were all throwing props in a bag.

We had about 40 minutes before the sun went down. We headed up to our barn and just started shooting. My sister doesn't claim to be a photographer, but she stepped into the role with ease. She was standing on wine barrels, moving like a ninja to get different angles, props hanging out of her pockets. She was a rock star.

I sure do love chalkboard paint!

Sneak Peek: Rustic Maternity Shoot

Here's a sneak peek at our maternity photos. My sister claims to not know what she's doing, but they turned out amazing! We did both a rustic shoot up by our barn and a retro housewife shoot. For now, here's a preview of our rustic maternity photos.

Gender Reveal Baby BBQ

Here's the long overdue photos from our gender reveal baby BBQ. I blame the lack of keeping up on posts on the wee babe I'm currently cooking. That's one of the perks of being pregnant, right? Our gender reveal barbecue was only, let's see, four months ago. Forgive me.

We found out the sex of Baby Turner at our ultrasound, but decided to do a fun reveal for our family and friends. We invited everyone over to our place for tri-tip, beer, and a gender reveal. Above is the invite. Below are some of the crafty details.

As folks arrived, they had the opportunity to bet on the sex of the baby. Guests dropped a dollar in the jar and then wrote their name on a slip and circled boy or girl. We framed a list of old wives' tales used to predict gender. They turned out 50/50.

After the gender reveal, we pulled out all of the slips with the correct gender circled. While everyone was chowing down, we drew a winning slip and gave the winner a mason jar filled with all the cash.

DIY Pregnant Baseball and Umpire Costumes

In posting this, I realize that I haven't even shared with you all that I'm pregnant! After planning the wedding, then getting knocked up, and teaching high school on top of it all - I just have so little energy. Little energy = blog not being updated. So sorry! I'll do my best to continue to share all of the crazy and creative things we come up with (including our Gender Reveal BBQ). 

For now, here's the last minute costumes that my husband came up with using crap we had around the house. 

An hour before a costume party, out in the boonies, we were left with few options. My genius idea: I'll be Super Baby-maker, just tie a cape around my neck. But he insisted we have some sort of couple's costume (guess he didn't want to be the Super Impregnater). 

So he came up with these baseball-inspired costumes. Quick, easy, cheap, and best of all (for me at least) comfortable.

Love Story Save the Dates

For our save the dates, I wanted to do something more personalized than just a postcard with a date or a photo. I had seen examples on Etsy of Love Story Save the Dates. I took the inspiration and ran with it. The end result was fun and different. It gave guests, who may not have known, insight into our love story.

I'm sure there are many amazing programs that are better suited for a project like this. But I'm a girl that likes to stick with Word. It's simple and user-friendly, at least to me. 

I knew I wanted a long skinny look. So I started by picking out the envelopes at Michael's. Each pack of envelopes was originally $5. They were 40% off, and after my teacher discount of 15%, I got them for $2.54 each. 

The dimensions of the envelope dictated my margins in Word. You want to make sure that guests don't have to wrestle with the cardstock to get it out. I adjusted my margins so my usable area was 4" wide and used regular 8.5 x 11" cardstock that I had laying around the house. 

Our Vintage Country Wedding

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted in what seems like forever. I got caught up in wedding projects, then came the wedding, then after the wedding seemed like "phew, I need a break!" Now I'm back. And I want to share some photos of the wedding with you all.

Ryan and I paid for the wedding ourselves. Neither of us make a ton of money, but we were creative, included as much DIY as possible, and had help from tons of amazing friends and family. 

We had bought our dream home in January (a screaming deal!). Twenty-two beautiful acres in Northern California. After looking around at outrageously expensive wedding venues, we thought "Why not just do it at our place?" Instead of paying several thousand dollars to rent someone else's barn, we could put that money into building a barn of our very own. 

So we did. A high school friend of Ryan's has a family-owned construction company. He came up to take a look at our place. He asked if we were sure we didn't want to just do a metal barn - it would be cheaper. We told him that we were set on a pole barn with a tin roof. Just like they would have built 50 years ago. 

In true procrastinator's style, barn construction began in the second week of March, the wedding date was the second week of April. Cutting it close!

The flowers turned out beautiful! I actually have a friend that teaches a floral arrangement class at a local charter school. She offered to have her students do all of our flower arrangements for free. We just paid for the flowers wholesale through one of her contacts. It was a life saver!

We kept the attire comfy casual. The guys wore pressed wranglers and vests. The girls wore sundresses and cowboy boots. Pretty low budget. I'll break down the cost in another post.

We filled mason jars with true homemade Apple Pie Moonshine for favors. The real deal. If you've never had it, it's ridiculously good! Most people broke into their favors early, which made for a lot more people shaking it on the dance floor.