How cute is this?!

How many times have you caught yourself saying that exact phrase about some wonderful thing that has caught your eye?

Well, I just found a lovely little Custom Designed Paper Purse maker who has named her company, "How Cute is This?" and I can tell you the name does not lie.

Each of these gems below are hand made by Iris Adams from the most beautiful papers. Every purse is unique, although you could certainly order matching bags for all your lovely bridesmaids!


The purses are all covered in a clear gloss, which protects them from the elements while lending them a pretty sheen.


The insides are lined with paper that compliments the design...and not one stich is used to put them all together.
Seeing these makes me wish I could turn back time and order these up for my maids using paper that matched my invitation suite.

Iris Adams can be contacted by email: irisa7795@msn.com or by phone: 978-475-7795.

If you haven't read it yet, start reading now...

...Mrs Corn here, reporting the final installment of our visit to Paper-Source this weekend for their wedding event. Earlier installments include:

Defending oneself from Miss Toucan brandishing a hot embossing torch
and
Satiating our appetites for both yummy sweets and delectably calligraphic writing

By far, the most exciting thing that happened during our visit to the store was that we (or rather, our Weddingbee shirts) were recognised by Hayley Hoffman, the East Coast Area Manager of Paper-Source. She had read Mrs Raspberry's post last year about the paper-wedding dress that was on display in Alexandria.

Now, I will be the first to admit, it was great getting recognised...but the best part of meeting Hayley was that we got to discuss printers with her. So why is that so exciting? Basically, Hayley gave us the rundown on the best printer to use with Paper-Source materials for all of your projects.

The printer they used in the store during the demonstrations was the Epson RX595.

So what makes the Epson the go-to printer for all of your DIY printing needs? Specifically, it is a back loading printer, which means you can load up some pretty heavy cardstock in it and it will still feed properly. Additionally, and this is key, it will feed small paper right through the printer. So when you have some scraps left over and you want to print on them and make your RSVP cards, or favor tags, or whatever you can just load it in the back of the printer, set up your document and print away. Additionally, the inks that the Epson use are very high quality and produce beautiful documents.

Hayley was very excited to talk to us about the printer because one of the biggest questions they get, and one of the biggest topics of conversation around here, is what is the best printer to use for my DIY needs. She even went so far as to say that Paper-Source is working with Epson to have their printers in all of their stores.

So there you go, the piece de' resistance, the gold at the end of the rainbow, the answer to the unanswerable question. Now THAT was worth sticking around for!!

This has been Mrs Corn, dutifully reporting to you from the field with Canary and Toucan!

I'm out!

And now back to Corn reporting to us not-so-live...

...from the wedding event at Paper-Source.

We were all exhausted from our crafting-gone-wild experiment, making our lovely, embossed take-out boxes. Luckily, I can smell wedding cake from a mile away and I was able to focus our energies on getting to the other side of the store where there was a cake tasting!

The owner of Athan's Bakery in Brookline, MA was offering up samples of their totally divine, white chocolate wedding cake. I am an absolute sucker for white chocolate, which is essentially sugar and butter, so I was giddy with excitement to get a piece of this cake.

The outside of this cake was all white chocolate shavings piled on a white chocolate buttercream frosting. The cake had moist, delicious layers of chocolaty, mocha and raspberry goodness. I could have died right there on the floor and been happy. It seriously was a phenomenal cake.

As Toucan and I were having our cake and eating it too, Ted Clausen, a calligrapher, was setting up shop at a bench next to us. He had just arrived so we watched him warm up. Ladies, can I tell you that his 'warming up' examples were by far some of the prettiest things I had ever seen come from a pen?!



It honestly was mesmerizing to watch him write names on paper!

Don't be frightened Mr Calligraphy man...Toucan won't hurt you...uh...and neither will the cake guy ;)

Have you been to a Paper-Source wedding event? How was your experience? Any vendors you would like to share with us?

Reporting to you from the field...

Miss Canary came to Boston this weekend for a visit and included a stop at the Paper-Source in Brookline in her itinerary. The store was holding their annual wedding workshop complete with demonstrations and refreshments.

Miss Toucan and I, never ones to miss an opportunity for free cake (not to mention the opportunity to meet Miss Canary in person), took it upon ourselves to meet up at the store as well.

The event was very well organized and we all had a great time. In fact, there were so many great things to share about this event that I am breaking this into three posts. I also took lots of pictures for all of you out there who could not attend. Enjoy!

At one of the 'stations' they were demonstrating how to make a save-the-date from start to finish. They included the printing process (more on that in a later post), how to emboss a design and how to assemble everything right down to a label on the front of the envelope.

Elsewhere in the store, Miss Canary was getting an order for letterpressed cards filled. The lucky bird apparently won the raffle from last year's event!!

One of the many great things about Paper Source, is that they have access to a bazillion different designs AND they have sheets to show you what each type of print looks like in each color ink they offer on each type and color of paper! It is so helpful to get to see it in person!

After watching the demonstration on how to make a Save-the-Date, Miss Toucan and I headed over to the 'Make and Take' table where we had a hands-on tutorial on how to use embossing powder to make favor boxes even more special!

Here is Toucan with her favor box template.

We stamped a pattern onto the favor boxes using Versamark ink. The ink itself is clear, but when applied to paper, it is a shade darker than the paper you are working with. It is great for watermarking effects. In this case, we used it so that we could adhere the embossing powder to the ink.

Here I am with the magical embossing gun. It is a bit like a hair dryer, in that its main function is to blow hot air**, however it runs at a higher heat with a lower fan setting. You can actually see the embossing powder transform as you use it. I swear to you it was the most amazing thing!! We were addicted.

Below is the best picture we got that really shows how the powder changes to a gel-like substance right before your eyes.


Um...yeah...far be it from me to ever get in the way of Miss Toucan and her embossing tool!!

After the embossing fun, we took a white gel pen and made itty-bitty, tiny little dots in the centers of the flowers that were in the stamp pattern.

I handed that tedious task to Miss Canary who was back from her paper-ordering adventure in the other part of the store.

Here is Toucan with her (mostly) finished product...
And Miss Canary...
The final steps were to fold up the boxes and attach them with white brads so they would stay together. Then we tied a chocolate brown ribbon around them for a finishing touch.

Soooooo pretty. Of course, my favorite part was Miss Toucan's face as I mentioned to her during the tedious process of dotting all of the little flowers that it was all fun and games until you had 200 of these to make the night before your wedding!

There was lots more to share from the event so until my next post, this is Mrs Corn coming to you not-so-live from Boston, MA.

** please hold all comments from the peanut gallery on how Mrs Corn's main function also seems to be being a tool that blows hot air.

looking back...

It has been forever since our wedding but I never got around to sharing with you all what about the day I would do again, and what about the day I would do over.

I'm going to start with the former for this post.


Mr Corn and I were married in Newport, RI, which is 90 minutes away from our home in Boston. It was apparent that we would not be able to get ready at our house so eventually, we ended up renting a condo for my bridesmaids and I to stay in/get ready in. (We kicked the ladies out for our wedding night though ;))

The condo was bright and airy and perfect for getting ready. And, considering the cost of hotel rooms in the area 'in-season' it was financially a better deal!



The only issue was that there was no full length mirror in the place. So, what's a girl to do, but rent one! I got mine from a "large scale event decor" company in Boston called, Party By Design, they also do small prop rentals.** They serve the greater Boston area, but you can certainly search for prop rental places in your area...or speak with your florist and see if they have any resources.

I am so very, very glad that I did this, because if I hadn't, there would have been no way for me to see myself in my dress the day of my wedding!! Believe me, I get it, there are a bazillion things that always seem to pop up when you are planning a wedding that make you think, "really, now I have to think about THAT!?", but I truly think that it is worth at least a moment of thought in the planning process to figure out if seeing yourself on your wedding day is a priority for you and if it is, making it happen.

* All pictures by Kate Whitney Lucey.

**This is the only one of my vendors that I had a personal relationship with. I used to work for Party By Design. But they fired me, so you know that I am only passing along their information because they truly are a great resource.