Décor Inspiration: DIY Water Bead & Hydrangea Centerpiece

A couple weeks ago, I had the honor or coordinating a wedding for two wonderful clients and friends, Kim and Francis, who recently spent the past week honeymooning in sun-kissed Cancun. Their wedding day was incredibly beautiful, and I of course can’t wait to share more details and photos very soon.

In the meantime, I was so inspired by Kim’s vision for a quick, easy and eye-catching centerpiece that I just couldn’t wait to share it with all of you. Taking only mere minutes to assemble, this centerpiece is perfect for a wedding or dinner party, and could even be tailored to add a splash of prettiness to your home and office décor. 

How's it made? Read on! 

Items Needed

* Wide glass containers in the style and quantity of your choosing

* Glow sticks

* Water beads, also known as jelly beads, in the color of your choice

* Hydrangeas or another flower type of your choosing

Instructions

* Place one or two lit glow-stick necklaces in the bottom of a fish bowl or other type of wide glass container.

* Cover the bottom of the container with a layer of water beads, filling as high as you desire.

* Cut a hydrangea stem, or the stem of another type of flower you prefer, so that only a small portion remains beneath the head. Place the cut flower in the center of the bowl atop the water beads, inserting the stem to help hold it in place.

And that’s it – fun, fast and lovely! Have you ever experimented with water bead décor, and what are some of your favorite DIY ideas? 

Grad School: Round 2

Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and diligence. 

~ Abigail Adams 

After several blissful weeks of travel, weddings, reading and writing, Tuesday's the day I’ll kick off my second and final year of grad school. Though I’m excited to get back to learning and ever closer to graduation, I also can’t help but look back over the past year and feel that as far as I’ve come and as hard as I’ve worked, I still have just as far left to go.

Without a doubt, my going back to school has required my husband and I to make some major life choices that haven’t always been easy, including the decision to continue living on the East Coast for the time being. Plus, though I’ve truly enjoyed my program, professors and classmates, going back to school after five years as a working professional has been one of the biggest challenges of my life, especially since throughout my first year, I continued working full-time while going to class. The majority of my classmates did the same, all of us succeeding through a great deal of effort and determination.

Even so, after a year of juggling classes, a career on Capitol Hill and then with Weddzilla, serving on the board of a charity, earning my wedding coordination certificate, and starting to work with my own clients, something simply had to give for me personally. That's why this year will bring about yet another big change, even though it’s hard for me to fathom no longer working full-time, instead accepting that I realistically can't do "it all" right now.

Image Source: uhclthesignal.com

Still, I absolutely plan to continue coordinating weddings, taking steps toward building my business and seeking out part-time or freelance opportunities, knowing without a doubt that this is the best decision -- one that will allow me to get the most out of my education and continue pursuing my dreams at the same time. My husband, family and friends support me 100 percent, and I’m incredibly thankful that my own advance planning throughout the years has left me in a position where I’m able to make this type of personal choice.

More than anything, the past year has shown me that as much as I'd like to believe it at times, I really can't take on the entire world at once, and that sometimes the decisions we make can feel like little more than a shot in the dark, a leap of faith, with an outcome entirely unknown. That scares me, but also exhilarates me. When all is said and done, I’m here for the adventure, and I’m doing my best to live it to the fullest every day. Year two, here I come!

How do you find balance when it comes to school, careers, pursuing long-term goals and making other major life choices?

P.S. Thank you all for your fabulous blog suggestions in response to Friday's post, and for your well wishes ahead of Hurricane Irene. We made it through just fine, hunkering down for the weekend with good books, a couple bottles of wine and our trusty iPhones as we waited out the tropical-storm force winds and rain. Other than a few downed trees and a temporary power outage, it looks as though our immediate area thankfully made it through without any severe damage. My heart goes out to all of those facing serve flooding and destruction as a result of the storm. 

Share Your Favorite Blogs!

Making the leap from wedding blogger to lifestyle blogger has been tons of fun, especially when it comes to discovering new and inspiring blogs to add to my ever-expanding Google Reader. Since I’m still pretty new to the scene outside the wedding realm, I thought I’d use today’s post to ask for your help getting acquainted with some of the top blogs you just can’t wait to read each week.

Help me get inspired by leaving a comment sharing a couple favorite blogs you think I should check out, and take a look at my Savvy Reads column at the right for a list of my own top faves. Don’t see your blog listed there? I’m adding to it as I go, so just leave me a message!

Image Source: justinachenheadley.blogspot.com

I’m also still blogging over at Bicoastal Bride about all things wedding, and am on Facebook at the Bicoastal Bride and High Heels & Flip-Flops fan pages. Stop in and say hi when you have a chance! You can still find me on Twitter @Bicoastal_Bride, too.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! I’m hoping to attend a makeup line launch party in Baltimore tomorrow, depending on the latest hurricane forecast, and I hope to have lots of fun tips and tricks to share here soon. Cheers! 

Horseback Adventures, Undersea Snorkeling & Surfside Sunsets

Once upon a time, when I was 4 years old, I was thrown from a horse at a family friend’s ranch. Though I was young, I remember this experience vividly, from the sound of the skateboard that spooked a normally gentle animal to my crashing to the earth as my parents struggled to catch me. Though I’d never have the makings of a jockey after this experience, I luckily wasn’t traumatized to the point that I never wanted to ride again.

That’s why 24 years later, when choosing our excursions in St. Maarten, Stephen and I were incredibly excited to see the option of riding horses on the beach. After signing up and traveling to family-run Bayside Riding Club on the French side of the island, we set out with our guide for a private hour-long tour on Aztec and Wizard, two of the gentlest horses in the stable.

As novice riders, we both had some mishaps to start out. First, we weren’t holding the reigns the right way, and the horses kept stopping to snack on plants and trees growing alongside the trail. This made us fall behind our guide, who kept admonishing us to keep up. Add in a pop-up rain shower that left us all soaked, and this trip could easily have turned into more of a hazard than an exciting trek along the shore.

Luckily, we continued having fun in spite of these few hang-ups, becoming better at guiding our horses as the tour went on and actually enjoying the rain, which cooled us off after a hot and humid afternoon in the sun. And, of course, we were far too mesmerized by the stunning views to really care about much else!

Yes, I'm riding barefoot because the only shoes I packed for this trip were -- what else -- flip-flops!  

The next day, we set out on another adventure – snorkeling with Captain Allan, an outfit popular with resort and cruise tourists alike. Heading out on a catamaran with a group of about 10 other visitors, our guides took us to two different snorkeling spots, interspersed with stops at Happy Bay Beach for a skin-softening mud bath and Pinel Island, a small tourist enclave that's home to restaurants, shops and the most massive iguanas I’ve ever seen!

Relaxing beside crystal blue waters at Pinel Island. 

Post-snorkeling, hair a mess, covered in mud & feeling silly at Happy Bay Beach.

Isn't he huge? 

After we arrived back at the dock, we waited out an afternoon rainstorm with lunch at a local beachside café and then headed to our resort for a little beach time, followed by dinner in Grand Case, St. Maarten’s culinary capital. 

Though we had planned to eat at a specific Italian restaurant we’d read about in a magazine, once we arrived, our taxi driver recommended instead a local hangout called Calmos Café, where the tables extend right down to the water’s edge and a live band plays island music late into the night. This unexpected detour ended up being perhaps my favorite experience of the entire trip, as we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset, fresh shrimp and scallops, and a couple samples of the restaurant’s homemade banana rum.

All in all, it was an amazing highlight of a truly amazing trip. I can’t wait to head back to the Caribbean again sometime soon, maybe to one of the next hotspots on my must-see list – Puerto Rico!

Travel Tip of the Day: While it's good to plan ahead, stay flexible and take locals' suggestions to heart when in a new place. Had we not listened to our cab driver's advice about Calmos Café, we would have missed out on a truly incredible experience! 

Which places top your vacation wish list right now? 

Hurricanes & Earthquakes

It’s been a déjà vu kind of day.  

Back in 1994, I was just 10 when the infamous 6.6 Northridge Earthquake hit Southern California, damaging our home and my grandparents’. Over the years, I’ve felt plenty more earthquakes but have never, ever gotten over my fear of them, and have certainly never experienced a strong one here in the DC area.

In fact, whenever I felt inclined to complain about East Coast weather or start to miss certain things about the West, I’d laugh and think to myself, “Well, at least we don’t get hit by earthquakes.”

Memories of Northridge. Image Source: NASA Ames Research Center

Apparently, I was wrong, and you can imagine my shock when I suddenly felt the familiar shaking and heard the telltale creaking this afternoon during a 5.8 quake centered right here in Virginia! As much as I'd like to say my Cali girl experience left me cool as a cucumber, that couldn't be farther from the truth. Yeah, I freaked out, majorly, just like I always have. 

Now that it's over, I’m just thankful our brick high-rise held up OK and that the shaking didn’t last longer than about half a minute. Plus, I now hear Hurricane Irene is set to wreak havoc throughout the Mid-Atlantic and potentially along the entire East Coast this weekend.

Well, at least we don’t get hit with tornado warnings or struck by major blizzards, right? Oh yeah, wait…

Are you calm when faced with a natural disaster, or do you freak out the way I do? Anyone else experience the Northridge quake or any of the other California big ones?