Favors

Okay, now here's a pic of my awesome favors!

Photo taken by Ryan Brenizer.


More pics coming soon, but here's what you're looking at: a pint sized mason jar filled with coffee beans from our favorite coffee company called Alpen Sierra Coffee, direct from Lake Tahoe, California. I first discovered the coffee when Joe took me for a trip there. Having lived there for 6 months, he knew the coffee well because he and his buddies used to stop at a place called Syd's every morning for a cup. I couldn't believe how good the coffee tasted, and I'm a total coffee snob (as is Joe, mind you). :-) So, we thought it would be a perfect favor for our guests and truly personal.

Calculating how many pounds of coffee I needed to buy was a bit of a math problem, and math wasn't my best subject! It took myself, my mom, 2 very friendly Starbucks employees and some good ol' internet searching to figure it out. In the end, it took 18 pounds of coffee to fill 60 pint sized jars.

I made the mistake of purchasing quart sized jars from overstock.com. I was seduced by the sale price but when 4 huge boxes showed up at my office, I couldn't believe how big they were! When I inquired about returning them or exchanging them, overstock slapped me with a $60 return fee for shipping! I tried selling them online but that didn't work too well so I eventually threw in the towel and paid the hefty shipping fee. Luckly, the pint sized jars (which ironically were not in stock at overstock.com) were cheaper and so I really only ended up losing about $20 for that stupid return shipping.

I used Ball jars and a few broke from my slippery grip, so I definitely recommending getting more than you actually need just in case of accidents. Joe helped me fill each jar with beans. The apartment smelled so wonderful while we were doing this project!

I purchased 3 different types of fabric with colorful designs using our wedding colors from City Quilters, a great shop down the street from my office. The women there are really helpful, but since I'm such a mathematics moron- I relied on their help too much and bought way too much fabric than I needed. Go figure. I'm sure I'll find some other projects to use it for though...

Anyway, next I had to cut that fabric into circles and let me tell you- that's a lot harder than it sounds! It was easier to first cut squares and then fold the square...and cut from one corner to another in a curve pattern. Unfold that and voila- you've got a perfect circle! We had to test sizes a few times to see what would look best on the jars but we eventually got it down. Joe used a razor blade to cut several layers of fabric at once. I kept handing him my rotary cutter, but he insisted on using the razor blade.

After the circles were done, I placed them over the jar and twisted the rims to secure them in place. I cut green ribbon and tied bows around the jars. I also made tags for the favors...but me thinks that's another post.

More pics to come soon!

My Escort Cards Now Available on Etsy!

so...yeah, i have an etsy store. have i mentioned that before? i forget.

anyway, i'm really excited to announce that i've just added my custom escort cards to the shop! i'm still waiting on more pics from the photographer, so i'll be updating everything soon but here's a pic of how awesome they turned out!



and now you can have them for yourself! check out my etsy store!

:-)

more soon!

More about our awesome cake!

I'm super proud of how incredibly awesome our cake came out.

First, here's a photograph of the cake that I fell in love with online. (Photographer: Unknown) Apparently, this cake is by Jacques Fine European Pastries in New Hampshire.



I brought that pic to our bakery, Le Bonne Boulangerie, and this is what they created:


Photographer: Ryan Brenizer Photography

To save money, we used white chocolate ganache instead of fondant which still has that smooth finish. Pretty close to the original, eh?

Joe (my HUSBAND- yay!) wanted it to be as chocolatey as possible, so we filled it with chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. Needless to say, it was extremely chocolatey.

Here's another pic of the awesome cake topper from Lollipopworkshop! ...and again, this photo was taken by Ryan Brenizer.


Gosh, we love that thing!

More to come!

MARRIED!

yes, i'm a married woman.

i was working on my little projects until the wee hours of the night before the big day, ugh. i don't recommend that, btw. anyhoo, as soon as i get photos of everything, i'll post them. in the meantime, here are a little quick highlights:

our cake topper was a HUGE hit at the wedding. it was customized by jenny from lollipopworkshop on etsy.com. here were the preview pics she sent us:


it's so cute, isn't it?

i ended up with a beautiful purse, also from etsy! it's from yensew. and i loved the fact that it was handmade by a fellow seller like myself! i got tons of compliments on it, and i loved the interior too!


so much more to post about but first i must get my camera back from my mom who accidentally went back to florida with it, ugh. i need to take pics of tons of stuff! as more photos come in, i'll be sure to post them up here!

11 days left!

agh! so much still to do. and why can't i update this blog every day? craziness!

here's the latest:

i've received a bunch of registry gifts! yay! oh how we love presents, lol. we registered at crate and barrel and target, against my wedding planner's advice who told us to just register at bed, bath and beyond because you can return things there for cash.

we got our engagement photos- yay! i ordered prints and i don't have digital images of them yet, so i guess i can't post them on here until later. sorry about that. the photos with our dog came out especially awesome! speaking of our dog...she's injured her leg and is limping/crying around the apartment. she's gone through this before so i'm going to wait to see if it heals on its own...otherwise, another trip to the vet!

we heard back from everyone but 1 couple. so far- the count is at 57 which i think is a great intimate number!

this past saturday, my friend (and lovely dog walker, dena) and i drove out east to port jefferson to do a cake tasting. the bakery that our venue uses is called le bonne boulangerie. i was seriously disappointed that they had NOTHING for us to taste, especially since i thought that was the whole point of the appointment and i had spoken with the owner as well as the girls behind the counter numerous times about the fact that i was driving all the way out from the city. eventually, we were allowed to taste a pastry with chocolate mousse inside (one of our filling choices) and it was divine. we decided to go with a beautiful design covered in white ganache (to save money by avoiding fondant but still get that smooth finish) and filled with chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. joe gave me strict instructions because he couldn't make the appointment. he said chocolate, chocolate and oh, i want more chocolate. :-) yes, he's a total chocoholic, but so am i so i went along with it.

while we were out east, i picked up some local wine to put in the guest baskets/gift bags. can't wait to put those together!

i had my last fitting with a brand new bra! yay! everything looked great and i pick the dress up this friday! i need to drive into the city with my car to pick it up. speaking of the car...joe promises that he'll drive into the city this wednesday to pick up the boxes of mason jars that have been sitting next to my desk at work for the past month. they are for our favors and i can't create the favors until i get those jars home! ugh.

i still have SO much left to do. i'm having trouble focusing at work because i can't stop thinking about all the stuff that needs to get done. this morning, i suddenly remembered that joe needs to get his pants hemmed on his suit and we need to get a marriage license!

more manana!

falling behind schedule

agh! so much left to do! i'm kind of freaking out about everything. plus, work has seriously picked up and i'm going insane there too. agh! i'm actually starting to have panic attacks too! not good!

here's what's been going on:

i went for my 2nd bridal fitting. that went okay, but it was the first time wearing my new shoes and i was standing under hot lights and my feet swelled up! here's the thing- although i won't be under hot lights for the wedding- i'm pretty sure that i'm going to be super anxious and my feet will swell up then too! so i realized pretty fast that i need to have a back up pair of flip flops to wear before and after the ceremony 'cause those nice shoes are only stayin' on my feet for 30 minutes tops. also at the fitting- asked them to make a shawl for me out of the remaining material. my next fitting is on oct 9th, so i'm excited to see how that turns out! i'm also having corset issues, but i'll tell that story another time. haha.

favors! all of the elements i've ordered for it have arrived and i just have to bring those boxes home (they're next to my desk at the office) and start putting everything together. SO excited about those.

a few of my friends/family have told me they never got their invitations. and after all my hard work, that's so annoying! errrrr! not sure why that's happening but i'm fuming about it.

joe and i went to our venue for one last final meeting. we picked out our menu (yay!) and the table linen colors! we decided to go with ivory table cloths with chocolate brown napkins. the pink tablecloths were just way too pink- it seemed like a baby shower color...and they had no apple green...and we didn't want to go with all chocolate brown because it would dark the room quite a bit.

this sunday, we meet with the rabbi. he has to approve the ketubah writing. oh and i have i mentioned that we still don't have our wedding rings yet? and we still haven't received all of our engagement pictures! agh!

okay...more later!

memory board

ok, so i read about how to make a memory board myself and i got to it! i bought a cheap canvas at michaels along with some fabric, batting and ribbon in our wedding colors. i used a staple gun to attach everything to the wood frame on the back, then trimmed all the left over fabric and ribbon. it's important that the ribbon be kept taught because that's how the photos will stay attached.

so...i'll be glueing some buttons where the ribbons cross, but here's a pic of what it looks like so far:
and ok, here's another engagement pic...i was chopping joe's back. :-)


more soon!

Engagement Pics!

we only got a preview of the set... i'll just post 2 for now. :-) Our photographer is Ryan Brenizer!


isn't our dog super cute?


this photo makes me want to gobble her up! :-)

groom attire

There's been a lot of talk in my household lately about what Joe should wear. This, of course, affects the Best Man and Joe's dad. I asked all the women to wear chocolate brown (one of our colors), so naturally, I asked the guys to wear brown too.

Joe thinks he looks bad in brown, ugh. He's crazy...he actually looks quite nice in it.

In addition to color, there was all the talk about whether or not to wear a suit or a tuxedo. Joe's fairly traditional and wanted the tux, but I referenced some photo of Brad Pitt where he looked really cool. I don't even like Brad Pitt, but nobody can deny that he is a good dresser.

Anyhoo, Joe was impressed by the suit on Brad. This pic convinced him to wear a 3-piece brown suit. Thanks, Brad!

Final touches on invites

So, now that we got the calligraphy back and the direction cards from the venue, we had to really glue those invites to the brown card...something we should have done over the weekend but didn't do.

i glued. joe placed it on the brown card because i kept messing that part up.


and yes, he's in his boxers. :-)

he smashed those cards down pretty hard to make sure they wouldn't unglue...


so hard, in fact, that he kept scaring our poor doggie. here's a blurry pic of her running away from the loud sound of joe's banging.


isn't she beautiful, even blurry? :-) yeah...we love her lots.

Calligraphy!

i'm SO excited because i just got word from our amazing calligraphy artist (Sarah Darcy) that our calligraphy is done! here's a pic...isn't it amazing? i smudged out some of the addresses for privacy, but you get the idea. :-)


that's the "chelsea" style and i totally fell in love with it one day when i saw a contest posted about her services. you can check out her web site here: http://www.webng.com/sarahdarcy/. tell her i sent you! :-)

now we have to finish glueing our invites together and then stuff, stuff, stuff. we gotta get these babies out 'cause we're seriously behind schedule now!

Updates!

yesterday, joe and i had our engagement photo shoot. i sure hope we got some good pics! snapshots coming soon...will keep you posted.

still have so much to do! must find comfortable shoes...
make memory board...
work on favors...
oh yeah, and send out the invitations already!

more soon!

birdies!

ok...so it was MUCH harder placing the birds than i thought it would be. some goccos come with registration plates so you can place your cardstock in the exact correct place each and every time to ensure proper placement. not the case with mine. so of course, i messed a lot more cards up, ugh!

anyway...here are the birdies. tomorrow we glue!

now we have text!

so once again, this project was mine and mine alone. joe was pooped so he headed for bed while i conquered our text. i made a few mistakes, but luckily we've been printing enough that it'll be okay.

i decided to do our names in green and the rest of the text in brown. so first, i inked up the master screen (a new one)!


again, i used the ink blocking material that came with my gocco.



here they are drying all over my apt!



here's a close up...you can see some errors, of course. tomorrow i print the birdies! anyway, the pink worked out A LOT better than the green!! :-)

invitations take deux

so i redid the background this morning...i think it's still too dark. the white paint started leaking all over my hands, and i just wanted to be done with it.

i started with the floral stencil printed out on a laser printer and cut it to size.

then i burned a master screen and inked it up generously.



after i stamped the cards (using the back of the old ones so i didn't have to buy new paper), i left them out to dry. i really need to get some drying racks, i think.


later today i have to do the text again, ugh. then the birdies! wish me luck!

RSVPs!

ok, so we're seriously behind schedule. especially since we decided that we want to redo the invitation and make the background light pink. joe and i have had a lot of stuff going on (outside of the wedding) and we decided to go for a drive tonight, just to get out of the city. as a result, we're even more behind schedule, agh!! to make matters worse, joe isn't feeling well again and he has to be up at 5am tomorrow for work...so, guess who had to make the rsvps all by her little self? :-)

i started mixing paint.


then painted the master screen and inserted it into the gocco.


i used the gocco ink blocking material to make sure the paint wouldn't overlap into other areas. it's grey and sticky. i didn't think too hard about which colors i wanted to put where this time. i just wanted to get them done, haha. i figured i should use brown for the text this time though. :-)

here are some drying!

gocco invitations

omg, it's been way too long since i posted. so much has happened!

first of all, we started making our invitations. now, i'm a total gocco newbie. for those of you who don't know what a gocco is, let me update you. a gocco is a japanese screenprinting machine that's no longer being manufacturered, so you have to buy them by auction only. i paid about $250 for mine on ebay and it came with a variety of ink colors too. i did one test with the machine to make sure it worked (made thank you cards) and then i basically spent the next month just learning everything i could about the machine and tips and tricks, etc.

so...first we printed the background of our invite. green was the one color we didn't have, so my fiance got work mixing blue, yellow and a bit of white paint together.



that blue thing on the coffee table is the gocco.


so, basically they looked like this:


i sure wish i had invested in those drying racks!



ok, then we both came down with the flu! so...almost 2 full weeks later, we began the challenge of printing the text.



we fell in love with that apple green color when my fiance mixed it, but the next day i realized that it would make our text super hard to read. whoops!

our names were supposed to be in a really pretty pink!


obviously, that didn't really work. :-( so in the end, we printed all the text in brown.


here they are once again drying. *sigh*



after this, we still have to print the little 2 birdies in pink! agh!!!


here's my fiance working on the stamping process. he looks stressed...and uh...that's because the process was pretty stressful for us...especially in our tiny 100 degree apartment! (not to mention the fact that we're both just pretty stressed in general right now).



tomorrow we print the r.s.v.p. cards!

i'm back!

okay, i've been m.i.a. since february, i know. sorry about that. i've been having major computer problems for a few months and well...i have a habit of starting blogs and stopping. sad but true. :-( but alas- i've returned! reason? i found out today that one of my coworkers got engaged last night! fun to share! what's really wacky is that yesterday, she and i were just talking about the whole topic in the office ladies room! such a weird coicidence! so anyway, that inspired me to get back to the blog. so lemme catch y'all up.

1) i bought a dress! and that's a whole story in itself. i fell IN LOVE with one dress at kleinfelds (know the place? they shoot "say yes to the dress" there. thankfully, there were no cameras there that day. phew)! anyway, they had it in my size and it was gorgeous. but i had to do all kinds of things to the darn thing like raise the neckline, open up the cup size, blah, blah, blah. this is in addition to the regular alterations.

my mom came into town for a couple of hours (literally) and i felt pressured to just find something. we went to rk bridal and i was SO excited to show her the dress! but alas- they didn't have it in my size to dry on so i couldn't show her. :-( plus...they basically told me that the changes i needed made was impossible. apparently, the designer is known for having sexy necklines. which doesn't go well with big busted women...ugh. and although kleinfelds said they could do it- it would have cost me a fortune and i didn't have the budget for that, so i had to walk away from it. :-( i was DEVESTATED. honestly. ever fall in love with a car and then realize that you can't have it? ya...it sucks. royally. so i ended up with another dress that looks really beautiful but has a little more sparkle and bling than i would like. they told me i can ask the seamstress to remove some of the sequins when it arrives, which i'm definitely going to do. everyone kept telling me that i should sparkle because it's my wedding day but i'm like uh...no...i'm not that girly. no sparkle, please. ick. so...it should arrive in july or so. i'll keep you posted.

2) i booked hair! my wedding planner hooked me up with a vendor named diana from valley stream and she was super nice. we tried and up do and a down do. i'm still waiting for those pics...i should probably email her. hmmm.

3) i invested in a gocco! if you don't know what that is, i'll tell ya. it's a nifty little japanese screenprinting machine! they don't make them anymore so you have to buy them on auction like on ebay, etc. i plan on making some cool things with that thing...if only i can get started with it.

i've been really busy with work lately and i'm also prepping to teach a university course...so my mind is all scattered. still left: makeup and florist. meeting one of each in the next 2 weeks! also still have to do our engagement shoot! ack!!!

ok so much more to say but i gotta skadaddle.

caio for now.

ok, so i recently picked up some paint chips from a local paint store so i could sit down with my man and really make some freaking decisions! of course, he kept changing his mind (as was i)...then i called my mom who told me i needed to consider what flowers were in season, ugh! anyway...long story short: we have colors! (yay)!

*drumroll*

chocolate brown
stem green/granny apple green
mauve/rose/pink

horray for these colors!

we also made a trip to crate and barrel today so we could actually see what we wanted to register for and got one of those fun product scanner gun thingies. always wanted to do that! of course, our favorite dinnerware set was discontinued! ugh. we finally settled on another one. but then when i got home, i went online to see if there were any duplicates, etc. and none of our stuff from the store showed up on our registry! that was tres annoying. i'm going to wait a day to see if maybe it takes time to upload...otherwise, i'll just have to reregister for things...good thing i printed out our list of goodies at the store!

in other news, i've been going crazy about this whole invitation thing. my coworker freaked me out this week by coming up to me and saying, "your save the dates were sooooooo nice, but now you have to top them with your invitations. they can't just be regular invitations." eugh? darn it! she's right! here's a cute invite i found on etsy...but is this too winter and not fall-like?

oh! so my latest idea was to actually print my invites on fabric! my mom, of course, thinks this is the stupidest idea in the world...but whatever. i discovered a whole new way you can print on fabric. listen to this!!!! apparently, you can iron fabric to a piece of regular ol' freezer paper, then stick it into your ink jet printer and voila- you've printed on fabric! i know it sounds too good to be true but here's one of many links that demonstrates it:

http://hazelruthes.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-print-on-fabric.html

i can't really wrap my brain around the whole envelope deal though. and i'd have to put a regular ol' rsvp card in there and hotel card, etc. and my mom just keeps saying, "who wants a piece of fabric?" ugh...she just doesn't get it. oh and also- there's a product called bubble jet set that helps prevent fading, etc. so i visited a store right around the corner from my office that i've always wanted to go into but was too afraid to enter called City Quilter. they were SO helpful there! i picked up my muslin fabric and bubble jet set and if i wake up at a decent hour, i'll test that method out. on the other hand, i don't know why i want to freaking make everything. like i have time for this! ugh. i just really like being crafty, gosh darn it! and besides, while i was at the city quilter, i picked up a class calendar and might actually take a sewing class there later this month! :-)

omg, while writing this i suddenly diverted to theknot.com and just wasted 1 hour of my life! must publish!

Save the Date!

finally, my save the date cards are finished. yay!

what a process! take a look:




again, these were totally inspired by the stds i found online by kelley and terrell. i just tried to put a new spin on them. like k&t, we used moo cards for the photos.

now, if only my fiance would give me all of his addresses!

hopes & dreams

tonight we met with another photographer. she was super nice, someone i could probably be friends with even. we are so torn...we just don't know which photographer to go with. ugh, decisions!

anyway, my moo cards arrived today in the mail. the photos didn't come out as nice as i imagined. they are matte and the contrast is pretty low. nevertheless, i think they'll look okay on the save the date cards i designed. now, if only my fiance would get his butt in gear and make phone calls to get the addresses he needs to give me!

on another note, i'm bummed that i shelled out money to get a wedding website because i just saw this website and these are super cute: http://offbeatbride.nearlyweds.com/templates

how cute his this from tinatarnoff on etsy?

and look at these lovely charms from cherrycreek on etsy!

and i really like the top part of this dress, even though it's not white...

we saw candles just like this the other idea at our local coffee shop! they are just led lights put inside this paper! and you can pick any decorative paper you want. check out how pretty they look!


i was going to say something about yummy chocolate covered pretzels as favors, but i have a feeling i can't afford them (*sigh*).

off like a prom dress...
nite.