Bay to Breakers 2013

Bay to Breakers is an annual footrace, which occured yesterday in San Francisco! It was my first B2B experience, but it is quickly becoming my favorite SF tradition. People dress us in costumes, cheer on the real runners, and just act ridiculous.

Lucas and our friend Connor decided to run the actual race, so we began bright and early. While they headed towards the starting line, I made my way to North Beach, where I started the day off with mimosas, croissants, and lattes with my sweet friend, Tara. We sat in her living room with the windows open and enjoyed the 75 degree day.

Later that morning, we went to over to our friends' Jeff and AJ's apartment. They were hosting a little get together, so we joined for even more mimosas. Their B2B theme was gold and they all looked fabulous. :)

Next we went to Fell Street and Panhandle Park, which is near the center of the festivities. We drank red wine and Coke in the park and did some major people watching.

We ended the day with burgers and beers at Squat & Gobble, which was just about perfect. I love you, SF!

DIY Distressed Sign

When I was home in April, my mom and I made a few decorative signs for the wedding. We're having a rustic, barn wedding, so we were going for the shabby look. 

The first step was to pry apart this old wooden pallet. The boards were naturally old and distressed, so we just sanded them a bit, washed them with soap and water, and left them in the 85 degree Georgia heat to dry.

Next, we painted each board with an antique, off-white matte paint. We just asked the fine folks at Home Depot to mix us up a small sample of this color. It was more than enough paint and only cost us $3. Just take a brush and paint the color almost all the way to the edges. Again, leave it out in the sun to dry. If you want it to look a bit more distressed, lightly sand the board after it dries.

Print out the words/phrases you want to create onto computer paper. We used the phrases "let's celebrate" and "oh happy day", but the possibilities are endless!  Get yourself some tracing paper (we used the fabric kind because we had it on hand), place the tracing paper face down on the board, place your printed phrase on top, and then use a pen to trace each word onto the board. You might want to use a few pieces of tape to hold the tracing paper and computer paper steady.

The last step is ridiculously easy - you just retrace the letters with a fine-tip Sharpie and color them in. For the sake of time, we used a larger Sharpie to color the letters in. That.is.all. I was afraid it would look super shiny, but it turned out great. Again, you could lightly sand it again to make it look even MORE distressed, but we didn't really need to!

And there you have it - all done and ready for the wedding. I also painted this "Welcome" sign to put beside the guest book, but I'm not super happy with it, so I think I'll re-do it next time I'm home. :)

Anthropologie Swimwear

Lucas and I are putting together a honeymoon registry, which has me daydreaming about our November honeymoon in Hawaii. Anthropologie carries the most gorgeous swimsuits, so I may pick up 1 or 2 for our trip. Here are a few of my favorites: {1, 2, 3, 4}

Happy Mother's Day!

I know I've been bad at blogging this week. I'm sorrrrry! The truth is that I started a new job within Google 2 weeks ago and have been working 60+ hour weeks trying to get up-to-speed, we're in the midst of searching for a new apartment in SF (which is pretty much a full time job), and my parents were here Wednesday through Saturday and I wanted to soak up as much parent time as possible. I'll be much better this week, I promise. :)

Just wanted to take a moment today to say HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to my favorite ladies: my beautiful mother, my sassy grandma, my lovely aunt, and my sweet future mother-in-law. I love you all and wouldn't be the person I am without you. I hope your day is great! xoxo

PS - Google released this Mother's Day video - isn't it sweet? I know it's a marketing video but it still makes me tear up. Here's to the Moms! :)

Wedding Hair

I just secured a makeup artist to do hair and makeup for me and my bridesmaids. Since then, I've been scouring Pinterest for hairstyle inspiration. While I normally wear my hair down, I am planning to wear it up for the wedding. I'm planning to get my dance on, and I don't want my hair to look stringy. :) Here are a few of my favorite up-dos that I've found.

Any wedding hair tips?

Found here: {Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3}