{Via The City Sage}

Oh boy, it is going to be a doozy of a week on Peach & Pearl, let me tell you! Seriously! We have recipes, party planning, wedding outfit inspiration, home sneak peeks from two lovely ladies, a DIY home-improvement project, and fall fashion finds. And probably more things that I’m forgetting.

But first, we have an inspiration board. Check back soon for that!

{Please excuse my poor Photoshopping skills!}

Cousin getting married + extended family traveling to my new hometown = the perfect opportunity for entertaining! We’ve settled on hosting a brunch for the morning of the wedding, and these are the invitations I sent out. Stay tuned for many more planning details coming up next week in addition to a few last-minute apartment improvement projects (yay!).

DIY Details:

1. Establish the size of your envelope, then layout a design in the style and graphic program of your choice. I used Microsoft Publisher. If you like the look of my type, try selecting the “distribute all lines” alignment option.

2. Print and cut.

3. For extra pizzazz, I added fabric to the back of the invites with the scraps left over from this project. If you’d like to do this, too, lay out two invites at a time on newsprint and spray them with 3M Super 77 Multipurpose Adhesive (DO THIS OUTSIDE!!). Quickly smooth the paper onto the fabric and let the glue dry for a few minutes. Carefully cut around the edges of the invitation.

P.S. If you’re a member of my family and think you should be getting an invite after reading this post but haven’t received one yet, don’t worry! I only sent them out on Wednesday, so rest assured it is in the mail. And I apologize for ruining the surprise. :)

First, my apologies for the mega post. But as I think you’ll see, the Blue Ridge Parkway* we traveled along last weekend was, for the most part, stunningly beautiful. Of course, it didn’t start out that way…

In fact, it started out a lot more like this:

But let’s back up a bit. On Friday night we ate dinner at the New York Times recommended Early Girl Eatery, in downtown Asheville. It was delicious, and the first time I’ve really noticed a difference between fresh, organic, local veggies and your standard supermarket fare.

The next morning was drippy and cloudy. This was our view for most of the day:

Nevertheless I was rocking an awesome outfit…

and we decided to brave the elements on two separate occasions: once to journey into a mountain laurel forest…

and the second time to explore a set of waterfalls just off the Parkway (Graveyard Fields, milepost 418).

That’s about when it really started to rain, of course, so we called it quits for the day. Luckily the next morning dawned bright and sunny, and we headed back out to the Parkway. We began by driving to the top of Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi.

It was quite windy, which made for some interesting photo ops.

Most of the time we just tried to soak in the beauty all around us.

(Linville Falls, milepost 317)

It wasn’t too difficult.

*For those of you who don’t know, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile scenic highway that travels along the crests of the southern Appalachians and links Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.

…headband. From Bambako. Find it here.