The Total Wedding Show and the Booth Babes

Still catching up with the Total Wedding Show and the blog posts I need to share. This one is dedicated to my beautiful friends and family who gave some of their weekend up to come and help me at the Total Wedding Show. 

With the help of my Mom, we set our booth up with the jewellery of course, but added photos of real brides that were customers and the photos that they sent me to show off their jewellery on their special day. See, it was real cozy.

See... doesn't it look cozy, just like your dressing room in your home?

Here's the little coco mado 'postcard' we were giving out to all the shinny, happy brides.

Some closeups of the big show stoppers....these were a hit for sure. The big chunky bracelets were the only things left on the table. The big chunky necklaces were worn by the models in the fashion show. They looked so nice.

I can't show you their heads (or I would have to pay royalties) ... but look at the pretty coco mado necklace adorning the pretty Bride Model. I took some photos that didn't really turn out. But I will have some better pictures to share that were taken by my Booth Babe Noelle and Booth Babe Julie who have great cameras a little later on for you.

Speaking of my Booth Babes....here's my lovely friend Noelle who drove 4 hours -one-way- to come and help and support me on the weekend. She is a beautiful girl who might have gotten a little, tiny, wedding bug...ok, maybe just the photographers got her excited!

My wonderful Mom who is a 'Pro' at this... it's our 4th year. She doesn't like to smile for the camera though... but she is great at handing out the cards. I feel so proud when she talks to the brides-to-be and says '...my daughter custom designs the jewellery ....'. Love you Mom!

And then one of my BFF's Fancy Nancy came to help me out on Sunday. She was so excited to be part of the whole scene. She is actually one of my best customers too!  She wears it proud!

I just love this candid shot. Armed with her coffee... she looks so excited looking at the chunky bracelet, she looks like an excited kid on Christmas morning!

Here's Nancy and I looking bright and bushy on Sunday morning.

Ok, this is a horrible picture of me. But real nice of Janice. I thought I needed to honour the wonderful lady who has given me an amazing opportunity for the past 4 years now. Thanks Janice, you organize an awesome show!

Here's my little sister helping me out again this year. Thanks for all your help Julie. This year, her shift was a little shorter...

Because she is 7 months pregnant... She's gonna be mad that I put this funny picture of her up... but I had to show you how gorgeous she is! Love you Jul!



The Total Wedding Show- The Planning and Set Up

I know that my blog entries have been less about good healthy recipes and more about my little business, coco mado, and the Total Wedding Show these past few days... it kinda took over my life for the past 2 weeks. So now I am going to share with you some pictures of how I had to rethink of the whole weekend. In the past, snacks and meals were just second thoughts and I would just buy food at the show or eat all the free wedding cake samples. Well this year was different... I planned all the healthy foods and snacks that I was going to bring to the show so that I could feed myself and my booth babes very healthy foods.

Here you have it- the grocery list:

• Apples (didn't eat)
• Homemade Low Fat Banana Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Carrots
• Pretzels (didn't eat)
• Lindt 70% dark chocolate
• Dried fruit and nuts (didn't eat)
• Raw Almonds (didn't eat)
• Margaret's Artisan Bakery Organinc Flour Crisps - Cranberry Pumpkin Seed
• Extra Old White Cheddar (finished by the cheese monster... Noelle the Booth Babe)
• Brookside Dark Chocolate covered berries
• Whole Grain thin buns
• Delicious natural raspberry jam
• Peanut Butter (made delicious BP & J sandwiches)
• Kashi Granola Bars

These granola bars are delicious and good for you. Seven Whole Graind and Almonds and Trail Mix are the 2 different kinds we enjoyed.

1 bar has 4g of fibre and 150 calories. Not bad for a snack on the run.

You know I don't like to buy too many packaged items now, but these are one of the only granola bars out there that I don't mind eating. They are filled with good for you ingredients, and unlike Fibre 1 bars, their first ingredient is not sugar... in fact they use brown rice syrup and cane juice molasses.

So now that I was all prepared with my food, Friday morning I loaded up my car, my Mom and Dad put a few things in their car and we went off to the wedding show.

This is a fuzzy picture of the booth before we set it all up. Pretty ugly right!!! Well except for my pretty purse.

And here is a nicer picture of the booth after setting up. A lot nicer right???

The best part of this whole experience was that for the first time in the 4 years I have been doing this, "I" am the one who loaded my car with all the heavy tables and bins and things. "I" am the one (with a little help from my Mom and Dad) who mostly emptied all the stuff from my car and brought it into the show. Since starting this New Healthy Lifestyle, the side effects of me losing weight and exercising is that I am a lot stronger and have a lot more stamina. I guess that is what 35 lbs off can do for you. Also, my body is not filled with crap, junk and garbage... so during the show I had a lot more stamina, I wasn't as tired and was able to stand up for a lot longer than I have in the past. What a success in deed! 

Another example is that a few weeks ago, we had a little snow fall... maybe 3 cm, so I got home after work on a Friday and the driveway had enough snow there to be shovelled... now usually I would let Brent shovel it, it's always been a 'Man's job', but this year was different. Brent was sleeping and was going to work that night, so I went and got the shovel and did the whole driveway by myself. Since we have moved into our home (almost 10 years), I have never shoveled by myself at all... and when I have helped out previously, I thought I was going to pass out or die of a heart attack.  This time, I was strong, not out of breath, no heart racing, the only thing was I wished I had a hat!!!! I did it all in about 30 minutes. What a triumph and a great big pat on the back for me!



Being Creative- Total Wedding Show

This weekend is the Total Wedding Show in Toronto, so for the past few weeks I have been beading and creating like crazy. Coming up with new designs for brides to see is my passion. You see, I am lucky enough to have the privilege of having the fashion show models wear my jewellery during the 5 shows that run all weekend long. So I have to come up with bold and distinctive designs.

This past weekend I gave up the other parts of my life and created like mad.... my fingers and eyes were beyond tired. But let me tell you, I couldn't have done it without the love and help of my family. Brent was in charge of dinners- he even made soup on Sunday and Melanie prepared us lunch. (see yesterday's post).

So have a look at my new designs full of bold and brilliant beads.

Coco Mado- New Bridal Jewellery Designs

Some of you know that the other part of my life is being a jewellery designer. So this past weekend I was creating some new fancy pieces to get ready for the Total Wedding Show coming up January 20-22, 2012.
For the 4th year in a row, I will be taking part in the show as an exhibitor as well as have my jewellery worn by the models during the fashion show. This is a great show to be part of and I thank my dear friend Janice for making it all possible.

Here are some of the newest designs at coco mado click the link for more design and price information. I created lots of designs using ribbons for the softer romantic look.

Delicious Visit

I had the great surprise visit from my girlfriend Sam (the one who sent me the teas in the mail) this past weekend. We met up for lunch at this great place in Oakville called Stoney's

She is one of my oldest and dearest friends and it was wonderful to see her and catch up over a very long and lingering lunches (yup, my butt was soar- 2 hours +++)

Here she is with her ever-famous hand sanitizer, everytime she eats in a restaurant she puts the stuff on.

She brought me up a couple of boxes of tea and I let her pick one of her favourite coco mado pieces.

We decided to share a couple of dishes (the food is amazing there!). She is a vegetarian so we chose a delicious Greek Salad- we didn't even touch the crouton because....

We shared this tiny little Margherita Pizza.... check out the cheese factory... in our minds it would be a thin crust pizza with lots of tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzerella. But this is what came... I was only going to have one slice and save the rest... But you know, someone once told me that to lose weight, you should eat like a 'thin' person eats... well, this thin person sitting across from me was eating the second piece...so when in Rome... Needless to say, I had a small dinner full of veggies!

Newest coco mado designs

I have been real busy creating some new colourful jewellery designs over at coco mado. I had some great shows and made lots of funky new stuff. So check out the designs scrolling on the right. See a few of my favourites below. I haven't had a chance to put them up on my website but I thought I would show you... just in case you are interested for Christmas presents for your friends, family or even for yourself. Go ahead, you deserve it.

Lady in Red

It's been getting cold around here, so the other day I decided to put on my favourite red sweater. It has great detail and is real warm. Well, with that comes the need to accesorize....
I went crazy over red....

I found this great red lipstick from my stash of old lipsticks. It's O.P.I, and you know how they come up with clever names...

Check out the shine...

I put on my coco mado bracelet...

And my matching necklace...

Et voila! I was a Lady in Red.... there's just something about wearing bright colours that just makes you feel happy. So I sure was a happy girl that day.