Use what you have, use what you find.

Since starting to plan my wedding, I have found a new self within myself.

I call this my pack-rat self.  The self that keeps each and every extra scrap of paper.  The self that doesn't throw away the one-and-three-quarter's inch wide and 7 inch long piece of foam board just in case I might need a piece that size later.  The self that throws a random pallet in the backseat of my car.  The self who has taken over the living room with wedding supplies.  The self that can't sleep because I'm thinking about how many wedding crafts I have to do within the next less-than-four months.

Okay, you get the point.  Wedding planning takes a person to the edge between sanity and insanity.  
(Okay, yes, some people go way beyond the border of insanity.)  
(I really hope I'm not that person.)

Regardless, back to today's topic.

I wanted to talk to you about how a small degree of hoarding, and a small degree of awkward carelessness can help you find the resources you need to plan your wedding.

I recently have been working most on table decorations and on signs for the wedding.

If you've been around my blog, I'm sure you already know our wedding will be rustic in nature.  In my opinion, the more eclectic the decorations, the more they will fit my rustic atmosphere.  While cleaning out my magazine rack, I found an old sample booklet from my early days as an interior design student.  The booklet had full length pages of beautiful examples of hardwood floors this company offered.  It literally looked like a color photocopy of a slab of wood.  I decided to cut this page out, and other pages like it from the book.  I glued them onto foam board with the intention of using them as a wedding sign.

Can you tell that this is not really wood?  It is a picture of wood glued to foam board.  Talk about light weight wood.

Yep, just a picture of wood mounted on foam board.  

Amazing what you can do with things that you ought to have thrown away three years ago!  Now this sucker is ready to be mounted onto a dowel rod and turned into a sign for the wedding!


The story regarding how being awkward and careless also helped me toward achieving my wedding supply goals.  Tyler and I went apartment shopping for the first time on Sunday, which was exhausting.  Miraculously, though, we viewed one complex with pine trees that produced the most beautiful pine cones.  As the apartment manager took us to the apartment to look around, my eyes were really envying the beautiful pine cones just sitting on the ground, asking me to snatch them up before they got mowed or crushed.  But, when you're around the manager of a possible future apartment, you don't really want to bend over and start picking up all the pine cones. (Side note:  I have been looking for some good quality pine cones for a while now to use for my wedding decor, so I felt like this was my opportunity.)

Once we had taken a look at the apartment, thanked the manager back at the clubhouse and gotten into our car, I requested that Tyler drive back so that I could go get the pine cones.  Yes, I must have looked silly getting out just to pick them up...but I now have done two awesome things.  I have saved the lives of poor pine cones just waiting to be crushed or mowed, and I have fabulous supplies for wedding decor.

Look at those beauties.  So glad I saved them from the lawn mower.
See here to see what I made with these beauties!

As my motto said in the title of this post:  Use what you already have, and always keep an eye out...because you never know what you might find.

POST EDIT:
Curious what I made with my look alike foam wood?  Here it is in full wedding action!  Thanks Birds and Coffee Design for taking the photo!  

All it took was using paint pens on the top to write the letters.  Outlining in a contrasting color definitely helps the writing be more visible.

'All You Need is Love' Sign