Things I Wish I Knew

Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 22
1. Don't smoke.

2. If a relationship doesn't feel right, walk away. Run away, if necessary

3. Before you marry, ask yourself if you have any doubts. If you do, then don't. It's not cold feet, it's intuition.

4. Love doesn't always come in a Calvin Klein package, so don't overlook the odd duck who has character. Beauty fades with time, a kind heart doesn't.

5. Take ballet lessons. It gives you poise and balance. The posture you will develop will take years off your appearance, which is a lot cheaper than plastic surgery.

6. Start saving now, and always fully fund your 401K (compound interest works)

7. Always find time to exercise.

8. Buy property as soon as possible. Whenever you can, follow the old dictum, "buy what appreciates, rent what depreciates."

9. Tolerance is a great gift. If you can learn to look at things from other people's perspective, you will seem wiser, have more friends, and fewer fights.

10. Only worry about things you can have an impact upon. You can only learn from the past, you can't change it. Anything beyond that is wasted energy.

11. Finding a job you love is more important than finding one that pays a lot of money. Forty years is a long time to do something you don't like, even if they pay you a lot to do it.


--From a gift I received after my graduation from MSU

Things Are HAPPENING!

Woah long lull between blogposts. I apologize to anyone who actually reads this thing.

Alright, so the biggest news of all....

The invites went to print!!


Ahhhhh....there are mixed emotions. Those things are my babies! My blood, my sweat....well you get the idea. Sending them to the printer was a wild mix of relief and scariness all at the same time. I know they're in good hands, but I'm at a point now where I'm so anxious to get them back to see them for myself. And fawn over them. And pet them.    ....anyone who knows me knows I'm not joking.

The other thing that followed this up was the biggo order of envelopes and other paper goodies that go along with the invites. Not a big deal to most, but after eyeing this stuff for literally a year now and finally pulling the trigger, I've suddenly had doubts of "what if I don't like these anymore?" despite the fact that I've ordered paper swatches and samples galore. I know I'll love them, but it's all starting to come together!

Which brings me to our most recent (yet-not-so-recent-anymore-since-I-never-blog) trip up to TC over Memorial Weekend. MAN was that a good weekend! My sister was in town and we took her all over the place to see everything from the rehearsal dinner spot, to the reception site, to the church, to another food tasting (still delicious food, don't you worry), to a couple restaurants that we love up there (Red Ginger for the win!), and even stopped by the hair salon. Yes, we got into that much detail. I felt like a little kid dragging my mom by the wrist around at school being like "Now look at THIS! Now wait, look what we did HERE! Do you like it do you like it??"

Luckily, she ate it all up and was equally (if not more) excitable about the whole situation. We are AMPED! We even fit a little wine tasting up on Old Mission for good measure:

Ahhh... 2 lads :)

The other side effect to our weekend was the realization that we're 3 months away from our wedding. YIKES! We actually have to start making decisions on things, which is a weird concept for us since we've been engaged for almost two years now at this point. Things that people originally were like "Oh you have time to get back to us on that" were now saying to us "So what have you decided on that?"

Oops. Guess this thing is really happening :)

So I have many more updates to share, including my gorgeous shower that happened at the end of May and the fun that's about to happen with invite assembly (including an invite assembly party next weekend - yep, we get kind of crazy around here!). Much, much, MUCH more to come friends!

Cake O'Licious

Sorry for the delay in blogging, but things have been ca-razy around here! A few highlights:

• I'm halfway through my winter semester, which means I almost have only 3 classes to go until my Master's is DONE!
• I started a new job at Universal McCann in Birmingham, and I'm managing In-Market and Search Campaigns now for Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram and Fiat - completely, new, exciting, and awesome (and BUSY!)
• Whittling our way down the to-do list for the wedding! Including, but not limited to, picking out a cake for the wedding!

In looking for cake options, Allen and I have pretty much agreed that we want a small cake - 2 layers at most, with sheet cakes in the back for the caterer to cut up. Allen's mom has graciously volunteered to make our cake (as she's done for the other Mitchell kids and other relatives), so we're really excited to find something cute, yet easy to transport across the state of Michigan (eek).

Even though we're looking at smaller cakes, there were a few crazy-tiered cakes that were pretty fun to look through. These images are all courtesy of Half Baked - The Cake Blog.

Checking off the To-Do's

My my my, it has been a while.

But can I just tell you - we have been so, SO productive!! Through the holidays, the time off of school (which I'm now back into), and everything in between. Productive, productive, productive.

A few highlights of items checked off the to-do lists:

• Bridesmaid Dresses - check! Since we have such big bridal parties, I'm letting my lovely ladies pick their own style of dress. They'll all be from the same manufacturer, the same length, and the same color, but the style is all completely their own. I want my ladies not only to be comfortable in their dresses, but if they feel comfortable they will look even more fabulous than they already are. Plus, I love how everyone is going to look unique. Woo!
• Groomsmen Tuxes - check! We were able to get our account set up with Men's Wearhouse, and all of the men will be looking dapper in their tuxes. The guys have it so easy - they just get measured and it's done.
• MY Dress - check! Yep, you heard right. I have a dress. But that's all you're going to hear about it ;)
• Wedding website - check! I was finally able to take some time and update our wedding website with all of the event, travel, and accommodation information for our guests. Hopefully it's helpful for people, but I definitely enjoyed putting it together. Check it out at: www.allenandkaitlyn.com.
• Registry - check! Well, at least one part of it. We did a partial registry at Bed Bath & Beyond, but will also be hitting up Crate & Barrel in February and possibly Macy's if necessary. At first I wasn't sure how much Allen was going to enjoy registering, but once he got that scanner gun in his hand I think he felt a new sense of power. I think we both got a little scanner-happy at some points (everyone needs a wine refrigerator, right?) so we may be doing some editing once we get our other registries taken care of.
• Wedding bands - check! A super easy night out resulted in us walking out of the mall in under 45 minutes with our wedding bands. I think we both just went in with clear ideas of what we wanted, and it was just quick as can be. We have them at the house, and it's fun for me to just take a quick peak at them whenever :) So fun.
• Honeymoon flights - check! We were able to secure our vacation time for the year, and are now booked for our TWO WEEK honeymoon! We'll be flying into Barcelona, spending a few days there, then fly into Rome, spend a few days there, and then spend the second week touring around Italy. I don't remember ever taking a full two week vacation (at least not since I was much younger), so I am really excited for our adventure!
• Save the Dates - almost check! I've been working on our save the dates for a while now, and after many, many, many drafts, revisions, theme and color changes, format changes, etc. I think we finally got our favorite nailed down. I really, really love them. I'll be sure to post more up once they finally go out, but I'll be releasing the art to the printer this weekend and putting them together in the coming weeks. But MAN! If I was this indecisive and nit-picky over our save the dates, I can't even imagine how I'm going to be on our invites.

It's been really great and a huge relief getting a lot of these items taken care of. I'm so excited to keep getting things checked off!

A Very Happy Birthday

Wishing a happy, happy birthday to the love of my life today!

We celebrated this weekend by going up to Traverse City, and then playing hookie from work today and relaxing around the house. While we did manage to get quite a bit of wedding planning done up in Traverse City (secured our DJ, taste testing for caterer, meeting with the priest, putting in a bunch of deposits), we definitely managed to balance work with play. We hit up one of our new favorite restaurants up there - Red Ginger. And when I say that it was the best sushi I think I've ever had, that is quite an understatement. We were ready to lick our plates! I can't wait to go back again :)

It was a very productive and fun weekend for both of us. It definitely solidified why we're having our wedding up there - the entire Traverse City area is so fantastic, clean, filled with happy and kind people, and a ton of amazing food and wine! I am so excited for even more trips up there, but more importantly, I can't wait to marry this guy :) Happy birthday baby!

It's almost hereeeeeeeee!

 

It is time.

Ah the rivalry. Which, let's be honest, wasn't much of a rivalry until U of M went 0-2 against MSU the past two years. Now all of a sudden we have the blue team all in a frenzy over who's going to win, and I have not seen such trash talk between alumni of the two schools since...well I can't even remember.

Regardless of where your allegiance lies, it's going to be a great game. Both undefeated (but let's be honest, MSU's victories are a little more substantial than UM's), both have a score to settle or maintain, and both have a lot of pride on the line. I'm all decked out at work, managed to decorate a few UM fans cubes and offices in Sparty gear (hilarious), and am maintaining my end of the trast talk. I am crazy excited :) And also slightly nervous since I have some lunch bets on the line...

LOL!

GO GREEN!

GO WHITE!

Good Earth Gardens and Zucchini Soup

Last year, a bunch of my coworkers were offered the opportunity to take part in a kind of mini farmer's market through a company called Good Earth Gardens. The company is run by a Master Gardener (Leslie), and every week, she brought in deliveries of all kinds of vegetables for a monthly fee. You could sign up for different packages (for a single person, couple, or family) and she would bring in all kinds of variety for everyone to enjoy. Well, immediately after this started I got veggie envy, but I never participated since I would have never been able to go through all of the veggies and was afraid it would be a waste of money.

Well this year, when the opportunity came up again, I immediately jumped on it! One of my teammates and I split a "single" delivery every week, and it is still way more than enough veggies to the point where Allen and I can't finish them all! (My Mom and Dad have lucked out with the extras though) It has seriously been such a cool thing to have this summer at work, and we always look forward to our Wednesday veggie deliveries.

The other nice thing is that it has forced us to eat a ton of different kinds of veggies that we would have never bought for ourselves normally. It has also been pretty educational since there are a lot of veggies I've never even heard of that we end up receiving (i.e. kohlrabi - what the heck?!)

Kohlrabi (kind of tastes like cabbage - not my fav, but interesting!)

So this has been a whole new fun thing for us, and we are completely spoiled now by all of the fresh onion, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli (ohhh the broccoli), sugar peas, green beans, fresh herbs, a few different kinds of squash, carrots, swiss chard, spinach, cucumbers, eggplant...the list goes on and on. Plus, it's really nice to support the local produce, a local company, and Leslie is as nice as can be. So now we've gotten in the habit of incorporating all of these veggies into more and more meals, and it has also allowed us the opportunity to get a little bit more creative with our dinners. Which brings me to my next creation: Zucchini soup. Don't be discouraged if you don't like zucchini, (it has been taste tested and approved by Allen and a few of my coworkers) and this is one that I made up on my own (yay!) so please enjoy:

(I didn't take a photo of our soup so I borrowed one from Simply Recipes - it should look similar when you're done!)

Zucchini Soup

Ingredients:

Olive oil - about 2 tbsp

2 small yellow onion, chopped

3 gloves garlic (of course), minced

3-4 lbs zucchini (this is an estimate - the zucchini we got from Leslie was HUGE and would be at least 4 lbs, which was plenty), skin taken off and chopped into bite size pieces (if the skin is hard to take off, you can bake it for 10-15 minutes and it will loosen it up - little trick from my friend Jill :))

4 cups chicken stock (can also use vegetable)

Red pepper

Lemon pepper

1/2 cup heavy cream (optional - I added it, but it could be creamy enough without it)

Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Heat the olive oil in a large pot on medium-high heat. Once heated, add the chopped onion and minced garlic for about 3-4 minutes until translucent and fragrant. Add a dash of the red pepper (more if you like the spice) and a tablespoon of lemon pepper, stir until fragrant - about a minute. Reduce to medium heat and add all of the zucchini. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes or so. Add the stock, bring everything to a boil, and then bring the heat down to medium and let everything cook for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat and use a hand immersion blender (or food processor) to blend everything until the soup is smooth. Return the soup back to the heat and add the cream if necessary (it helps to smooth it out, but the squash makes the soup pretty creamy anyway). Add salt and pepper to taste, as well as any additional red or lemon pepper if you want to kick it up a notch ;) We topped the soup with some crispy fried onion salad toppers and some yummy crusty bread. Enjoy!!

3-Day Recap

The walk was two weeks ago, but it is still really hard for me to put the entire experience into words. There are a few words that come to mind: Inspiring, motivating, humbling, exciting, emotional, amazing, exhausting...but those don't even seem to do it justice. The people who had done the walk before had told Allen and I that this would be a life-changing experience.

They were right - without any doubt in my mind.

First and foremost, we walked with over 1900 of the most amazing people I think I have met in my life. We were crewed and tended to by over 500 volunteers who came out just to make sure that we, the walkers, were kept comfortable and healthy. I've never seen anything like it! Crew members up at the crack of dawn making us breakfast; medical staff tending to every blister, headache, ache and pain; and a security team made up of big guys on Harley's with pink mohawks and beards.

The one unfortunate piece of all of it was the extent of the blisters that I ended up getting due to the 90 degree heat for three days in a row. My feet are still in recovery! The heat made a lot of things unbearable for a lot of people - the blisters, heat stroke, dehydration, etc. We saw at least 7 ambulances take people away from camp because of how extensive the heat was. Those blisters also prevented me from doing the entire walk - I was only able to do about 45 miles in total. I know, I know, only 45 miles. But when you have a 78 year old man who is doing the walk with you, and beating you into camp every day, you realize exactly how humbling of an experience this is! However, crew members definitely made it a point to remind us that we already did what we came to do - raise the money, and bring awareness to the cause. The walking was just icing on the cake.

Downtown Plymouth - our new favorite city

The best and coolest part of the entire walk was the amount of people in the community that came out to support us. It was as simple as walking by a house on the route that had a sign up saying "Please Run Through Our Sprinklers" (something that was very much appreciated at high noon!).  There were families that sat out in their front yards handing us cups of fruit and bottles of water. It seemed like the entire city of Plymouth came out to celebrate our walking through the downtown area - they had to put barricades up so we actually had room to walk! There was a woman (we called her the dancing lady) that comes out to the walk every year with a giant speaker and an iPod, and she just stands out there every day all day blasting her music for us along the route, dancing and singing. She's a 28-year survivor. And just the amount of people that came out to support us, telling us we're making a difference, holding signs that say "You Hold Our Hopes" - it's hard to hold it together even thinking about it now.

The Dancing Lady! Still there on Day 3

Looking back on the walk, it's hard to pick a moment that is really my favorite. It could be walking through downtown Plymouth, or the rainbow that came up over camp on Saturday night, or maybe all of the walkers raising our shoes to the breast cancer survivors that walked with us. But if I had to pick one, it would be walking into closing ceremony with Allen. Just him and I, walking through the field in front of Ford Headquarters, overhearing on the loudspeaker that we had finished. I wouldn't have made it the entire last day without Allen and his support. We laugh trying to think about it now, but it's hard to look back on the walk and remember every mile - mostly because I think we blocked most of it out! But we do remember snippets, snapshots, and flashing moments that I know will stay with us forever.

Team Juggernauts

Rainbow over camp on Day 2

Raising our shoes to the survivors

Everyone keeps asking us if we're going to walk again next year. I can say with all honesty that we wouldn't be able to walk next year because of the wedding, but we will be out there supporting. This year's Michigan event alone raised over 5.4 million dollars toward breast cancer treatments, research and community outreach programs - but it still isn't enough until there's a cure. So yes, we will be financially supporting, but we will also physically go out and support those that choose to walk again. The people that came out and supported us on the walk are incredibly selfless and amazing, and we would like to give back what was given to us throughout the walk - inspiration.

The love of my life :)

Thanks again to everyone who followed and supported us on this amazing event - you guys are all incredible :)

Flowers by Gabrielle

As many of you may or may not know, my Aunt Carolyn co-owns a flower shop in Grosse Pointe called Flowers by Gabrielle (Gabby is the other co-owner) and I used to work with them quite a bit back in my college days. They do all kinds of events all over the area, including weddings, Stanley Cup parties (no joke), parties gallore - including kid's birthday parties, and all kinds of other stuff too. I am lucky enough to say that they will also be doing the flowers for Allen's and my wedding on top of all that!

Well, this past weekend, they had a monster of a wedding that they did the flowers for. They just posted the pictures up, and ohmygosh did my jaw hit the floor when I saw the photos. Stunning. Seriously. Here are a few of my favorites (all photos courtesy of Flowers by Gabrielle's Facebook page)

Bridesmaid bouquets - sooo gorgeous! (and huge!)

Tent Entrance

The Head Table - the entire table had mirrors on it so the flowers and candles reflected up (so cool)

Banquet Tables

Closer look at the banquet tables

There are so, so many things that I love about what they did! Of course, when you have the money to do all of this, that makes things easier ;) but I know my aunt and Gabby can make anything look gorgeous because they are so creative and so good at what they do! I know that I am in good hands for sure, and I can't wait to work with them. Love it!

Things going on

Why hello, strangers.

I have definitely been MIA lately (my apologies, for those who actually read this thing), but life has been busy busy busy! A few of the highlights:

School: I'll be done with my third semester of school by next Tuesday. YESSSSSSSS! I'm in serious need of a break, and luckily because I busted my butt for the past two months, I'll be rewarded with July and August off of school. I'm really excited, but I know this means I'll be dragging myself back to school in September. Temper tantrums will be involved.

Fun Stuff We've Been Doing: This past weekend was especially fun for me because we got to have our first Top Chef cooking night with Elaine and Paul. We've decided, since we're all fans of the show, that we're each going to take turns cooking fabulous meals, and then we will eat the meal while watching that week's episodes. I kicked off last week by cooking fillets with blue cheese butter on top, tomato and goat cheese tarts, and asparagus. It was straight yummy, don't be too jealous.

Another fun activity this weekend was our pig smoke-out with a bunch of the crew. Here's Jeff with his slab of pig:

Again, yummy. Luckily, there's more pig for us to cook up, so we'll probably have another event soon. Oh, and here are the flip cup champs after their victory on Saturday:

so gangsta

Fun Summer Plans: Allen and I have many fun plans coming up in the next few months, which I am super excited about (as soon as I can get out of school). A few tidbits:

• Over the 4th we're going to head to St. Joseph's with a few of our friends that we rented a cottage with 
• Trips planned for Traverse City, Chicago, and Vegas
• We have our 3-Day walk coming up in August (yikes!), with plenty of training and a fundraising event splashed in there as well
• Finally, my old next door neighbor and sudo little brother is getting married (yaaaay!) and so my family and I - sister included, yay! - will be up in Grand Rapids celebrating that craziness in August

Busy busy busy!

Wedding: So one little step of progress that we have made in our wedding planning is that we already completed our marriage class! Finally, one thing checked off the list. It was done through a local church, and it was actually really well put together, I have to admit. I really didn't know what to expect going in, but the one thing that I appreciated was that the speakers had an understanding of where the couples were today and not 50 years ago. Overall, it wasn't a bad experience, but it was 5 1/2 hours long so we're definitely glad we have that out of the way :)

Ok I promise, soon, eventually, I will have an official "this is what's happening with our wedding" update for everyone. I just don't want to put anything out there until it is signed, sealed, and deposited. We're close. We'rethisclose. Just have to get the paperwork in close. After that, I'll be happy and willing to dish :)

Hey Buddy!

Hi everyone, I would like to introduce you to the newest member of my family.

My brand-spankin'-new, 15" MacBook Pro:

Hello, lover.

How did I come across this prized possession? Well, Allen and I went out for an early birthday dinner on Friday out at Partridge Creek. If any of you were in Michigan on Friday, you would remember that there were tornado and storm warnings going on all night, and it basically looked like a monsoon through the restaurant windows. After we finished up at Brio (ps - soooooooo yummy), Allen decided that he wanted to take a walk around the mall to "walk off dinner." I gently (ha) reminded him that it was a disaster outside, so he said we would stop and get an umbrella somewhere. So we walk out, it's only slightly drizzling...and then suddenly pouring all at once. So I gently (ha) again tell him we need to get inside now and we duck into the Apple store that was nearby. I then told him that I didn't think that the Apple store sold umbrellas, and then he suggested that we get my birthday present instead.

So, basically, I felt like a jerk for my ranting about the weather. But I don't think I've complained about anything since! :)

In true form, I moved on to the next important step: Naming the laptop. For those of you who don't know, my friends and I have a tendency to name many of the inanimate objects that we hold near and dear to our hearts. From cars, to computers, to laptops, to even purses or sunglasses, naming provides another level to the said object. With this in mind, I shall call him...Buddy!

Now I realize that this is a really crazy, extravagant gift from basically the best guy in the world (yeah, I said it). I'm a lucky girl, without a doubt, but don't think I didn't call Allen straight crazy for doing this, and that I didn't practically fight him on our walk over to the laptops. Of course, once I realized that he wasn't changing his mind, I easily gave in. He did say that his reasoning for getting me the laptop was three-fold: 1) My grad school classes are becoming increasingly Mac-driven, and it would be really helpful for my coursework and projects to have a computer that is compatible. 2) I'll be designing a lot of stuff in the near future, and Macs are obviously very design-friendly, so this will just make life a little easier. 3) He knew I really wanted it :)

Now I'm excited to dive into all of the capabilities of the laptop, utilize all of the tools, tutorials, videos, and tips that my fellow Mac-crazy comrades will share with me, and start some new projects!! More to come on that end!

Love these! They make me think of my momma (she loves hydrangeas!).

Arc of Inspiration - Phase 1

I was reading through one of my favorite blogs on the Momental Designs site, and one of their entries really interested me. She talked about an idea called her Arc of Inspiration and how surrounding yourself with images that inspire you can help naturally breed creativity. A lot of this falls in line with what I know a lot of people have been doing lately (mostly for wedding planning, but for other things too) in creating their own Inspiration Boards to drive the elements for their wedding, event, or just for breeding their creativity.

One of the things that Kristy brought up in her blog about her Arc of Inspiration was that it was a way for her to continually update and fester her creative spirit. Both at home and at work. Since I spend the majority of my time at work (and in a cube), I realized that my work area didn't really inspire a whole lot of creative energy. I've started working on this for a couple of reasons: 1) It would be nice to look at something prettier than cube walls, 2) my work space needs a little face lift and 3) I need some other pieces of inspiration at work.

I've already started Phase 1 of this process by re-arranging a little bit - I moved where my monitor is (from the middle of the desk to the corner) moved my computer tower to the floor for more desk space, added new bulletin space for me to pin up fun and inspiring things I find, and rearranged some of the stuff that was already on my cube walls. You can see (at the right) my first piece of inspiration: a Dove chocolate wrapper my dad gave me forever ago when I first started working here that says "Find your passion." It's been up in my cube forever, so that's for sure staying. You can also see my colorful tea tins, there's a pic of Allen (always inspiring :) ), and the rest is kind of a blank canvas! Kind of exciting! I'll post more as it evolves.

Things I'm loving right now - Television edition

Welcome to another edition of "things I'm currently loving on" here in my little world, TV-wise. Enjoy!

#1. HBO's miniseries "The Pacific"
I beg any of you who have HBO to seriously start watching this series. Allen and I are living and breathing by it right now - we just can't get enough of it! The series is produced by the same "Band of Brothers" crew (Spielberg, Tom Hanks, etc), so if you are even remotely a fan of that series, you will love this. I haven't even seen "Band of Brothers" (I know, I know, Allen already yelled at me) but I'm absolutely going to watch it now that I'm crazy hooked to "The Pacific". The series is based in the WWII era, and tracks the real-life stories of three Marines who fought in the Pacific post-Pearl Harbor, and it gives a totally new perspective than what we usually see on WWII (mostly the European, Nazi regime stories - and I'm not devaluing them, I'm just saying, it's a totally different perspective). I love, love, love everything about this series. If you have HBO, they play re-runs of it all the time. Even if you don't have HBO, come over to my house and watch with me, or just wait for the DVDs to come out. It will not disappoint.

#2. The Discovery Channel's "Life"
So clearly, I must be on a documentary kick lately, but this is another one that is totally worth catching. In the same way that "Planet Earth" rocked the Discovery Channel a few years ago, "Life" takes on all kinds of different animal behaviors and how they adapt to their surroundings. It is full of all of the same jaw-drop amazing videos that had me saying "How on earth did they ever capture that image" at least 50 times. Last night we watched the episode on fish. (And let's be clear, anyone who knows me knows that that freaked the crap out of me to no end). Despite the fact that fish freak me out, it was so incredible watching some of the habits and imagery that they were able to capture. I recommend seeing it on a big screen if you can, and most definitely in HD if possible. No matter what though, you will love this. I honestly think Allen was a little unsure about the series to start, but by the end of the first episode he watched he was definitely glad he caught onto it with me.

#3. HBO's "The Ricky Gervais Show"
Ok so off of the documentary track for a few, "The Ricky Gervais Show" is slowly becoming one of my new favorite shows. I loved their podcasts through iTunes, but the added animated affect is awesome. Basically, the premise of the show is for Ricky (the Fred Flinstone looking cartoon) and Stephen to basically rip on Karl (the one on the right) the entire show. But, to be fair, Karl earns the ribbing. It continuously cracks me up every week!

Other than that, things have been pretty tame around here lately. I'm ramping up for the end of the semester (yay!), ramping up for our busy season at work, and ramping up for some finalized wedding plans here soonish. We also have Easter weekend, with my sister joining coming up for the weekend so I'm super excited about that. I'll be doing my first pass at dress shopping with her and Mom on Saturday so wish me luck! (eeeeeek!) We also have our traditional kielbasa making over at my uncle's on Saturday so that will make for some yummy food. Oh, and did I mention that MICHIGAN STATE IS IN THE FINAL FOUR?! HOLLA! GO GREEN!

PS: one more thing - Happy Birthday to my old roomie Erin! Love you girly! 

Momental Designs

Happy Friday! (oh, and GO STATE!) :)

So in my search for inspiration lately, I came across a website that I absolutely, 100%, head-over-heals fell in love with: Momental Designs. The invitiations that these ladies come up with are so unique, fresh, completely girly, and just absolutely stunning! I am constantly going through their catalog online and patiently waiting every day for another blog post to come through to see what else they've been working on. Their unique style of hand-painted invitations combined with different printing processes (including letterpess!) are just incredible! I love, love, love them. Ok enough of that, here are a couple of my favs:

I think this last one has to be one of my favs. As much as I love the letterpress save the date (the middle one), I really love the hand painted flowers in this one. How gorgeous, right?! Love. Please, please check out their blog, Rice Ink, to check out more.

Adventures in Embossing

I've decided to start being a little crafty in sprucing up the paper products for our wedding. I've been looking into a few different options, and one that actually seems do-able on my end would be to do my own embossing. I know a lot of people who have done this and it has gone very well! So I have started on my own little embossing adventure and the results were great!

By the way - there are two types of embossing I'm looking at. One is blind embossing, where the image is raised on the sheet of paper but no ink is used (like a notary stamp). The other is heated stamp embossing where you stamp an image in ink, and use embossing powder and a heat gun to get a raised image on the paper - that's the one shown below.

Step 1: The Materials
I went and bought a Martha Stewart starter embossing kit (it was roughly $20 at Michael's without coupons, but since I'm all about the coupons, that definitely helped out!). It included embossing powders, an ink pad, stamps, and a stamping block. I then bought the heat gun and had some leftover cardstock at home that I used to stamp on.

Step 2: Stamping and Powdering
After I had all my materials ready to go, I took one of the stamps, affixed it to the stamping block (for this kit, the stamp just clings to the stamping block, but I've read up on other kits where you have to tape or glue them on - the cling stamp is much cleaner to work with in my opinion). I stamped it in the ink pad, stamped that on my paper, and then covered the clear stamp image with a ton of embossing powder (shown here).

Step 3: Tapping and Heating
I then picked up my piece of cardstock and tapped off all of the excess powder, revealing the image that I stamped down (shown here). I took the excess powder that I stamped off and put it back in it's original container, since it can be used again. After this, I took my heat gun and positioned it over the stamped image until you could visibly see the image gloss over. Note: I had originally tried this once with a blowdryer instead of one of the heat guns you could buy at the store (since I'm cheap and thought I could do the shortcut). It doesn't work, I promise. I held the blowdryer over the image for a good five minutes and nothing happened (and maybe that was just my crappy blowdryer). As soon as I sucked it up and bought the heat gun, the image embossed almost instantly - it's totally worth the investment if you're going to do this.

The Final Product

(sorry for the crappy camera work)

What you can't see from the photo is that the flower is glossy and the gold part actually raises up from the paper. It's a really cool finish, so I think this is the route I might go! I think Allen was pretty impressed with my craftiness, but is also slightly concerned about what this will do to our house - and possibly our kitchen table. I promise I will find a better work space for when this rolls out for the real deal. :)

I highly recommend this because it's so freaking easy, and will help anyone out that needs it for their own wedding! The catch is you have to find a stamp (or stamps in my case) that you love and want to incorporate on all of your materials. Another option is to make your own stamp, but we're going to see how the stamp hunt goes first.

Pretty Things Part 2

In continuing with posting up a bunch of pretty things I am loving on right now, we move to the invites (WOO!) which are a big part of what I've been researching lately. As many of you may know, I love all things letterpress, so I have been researching a bunch of vendors to possibly do this for the invites at least. The problem with letterpress (the only problem in my mind) is that it is very expensive to do, and I definitely don't want to risk trying to print them that way myself. One task I have been looking into is doing my own embossing, which could save me a little bit of money, and also does not take too long to do. I recently bought a test kit for this, and I'll post up my findings as soon as I go through my first test :)

Ok enough of that, onto the pretty stuff!

Today's Post: Pretty Invites I Love :)

Golf theme? Classic ;) *especially for a Mulligan*

I am all about the color (oh, the color) on this one, as well as the use of letterpress with the reverse printing.

Love how the design lines up on the insert cards, as well as the reverse reverse print on the invite (plus, that color is gorgeous!)

HOW CUTE IS THIS?! I love the vintage feel with these invites.

The Save the Date (the tag) is so cute - plus the pocket carrier for the invite and inserts.

 I really enjoy the detail in this one - I (unfortunately) didn't take down the whole suite that went with this one, but I do remember the design carrying through on all of the printed pieces, and it was really well done.

 Love the simple, but unique, layout on this one.

All fun things for a Monday morning! Enjoy! :)

Remember, if you get a chance, please help donate to Allen and I for the Susan G. Komen 3-day walk! Links to our pages are in the upper-right of the blog. Thanks so much!

Pretty Things Part 1

Ok so while I have tons and tons to update everyone on, I don't really want to talk about all of it until it's completely, 100% set in stone. So, in the meantime I will be dedicating the next couple of weeks to all of the pretty things I've been finding on the wedding blogs lately.

Today's post: Pretty Flowers I Love

Boutonniere - source: SMP

Bridal Bouquet - source: SMP

 

Bridal Bouquet - source: Karen Tran Florals

Centerpieces - source: SMP

 Centerpieces - source: SMP

I think you can tell the themes I'm currently already loving on ;) 

Remember, if you get a chance, please help donate to Allen and I for the Susan G. Komen 3-day walk! Links to our pages are in the upper-right of the blog. Thanks so much!