Post-wedding panic = need to shop

Oh. My. Goodness. I've just received two DVDs filled with images from my wedding. The photos are lovely. I will post the cream of the crop when my panic attack is over. How on Earth will I make a scrapbook of normal size from literally 900 images from my wonderful wedding day? Not to mention photos from showers and all that. YIKES!

This type of problem will only be solved with serious shopping. Shelly! Mom! When exactly are we going to that scrapbook store in Bakersfield?

I'm married!

There are about a billion things to do when planning THE social event of the season. I'm choosing to blog the creative few that I managed to take pictures of during the crazy season before my wedding. First, the cookies. NolaMom, the cookie-baking fanatic mixed up batch after batch of cookie dough, chilled it all, rolled it out and baked close to 200 wedding cake-shaped cookies. For a while there, cookies covered the whole house. Cindy and I got together and frosted and frosted and frosted and then we decorated the cake cookies to look just like the beautiful cake Melinda from Dede's Decor created for me. (I'll post those pictures as soon as I get them back from the photog.) The result:

After two whole days of packaging the cookies, I started work on the guest book. (I feel I should mention here, in the interest of full disclosure, that I started the book the day before the wedding) I do realize that you can hop on over to Michaels and buy a guest book for 12 bucks, and have little to no stress about the whole thing, but really, is that me? I think not.

I made a 6 by 6 album using just a few papers and embellishments, added photos from our engagement shoot and left space for my guests to sign. The result is so fun. I just can't stop looking at it. And, it is great that people wrote more than just their name. Instead of getting just a record of attendance, Gary and I have a book filled with wishes from our closest friends.

So... after guests signed the book, this is a little video of what they got to see, thanks to the oh so bouncy camera work of my co-worker, Shawn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSum_ZN-S8U

I can't wait to show you the scrapbook I'll create for the wedding and the honeymoon. Want to know about the honeymoon? It was truly wild...

Sea lions in San Simeon, just across the street from the zebras. Yes. Zebras, right off the highway.

It is Wedding Day!

And the pillow was done six hours before the rehearsal. No sweat.

Congratulations Carey and Gary!

Clear the Cobwebs!

I'm back!

It is all Carey's fault. Really. She had to go and conjure up a wedding full of opportunities to create things. We have all taken the bait. Tracy masterminded the shower, Cheri is helping with the flowers, Mom has made the flower girl basket, and baked, oh, a billion cookies for wedding favors in between keeping Carey on task (Not an easy task) and supplying Dad with a never ending Honey-do list. We girls got together last weekend to decorate those cookies, and Carey swears she will blog the photos of that.

Carey herself is, of course, doing lots too. She designed and printed the invitations and programs, and along with Mom, is putting together the whole sha-bang. I'm sure I have forgotten to mention about 80% of what they have done.

Anyway, having waited until the last minute (did anyone expect anything less?) to do the ring bearer pillow, I figured I should get busy. I intended to do a silk ribbon embroidery in the corner design, but it has been a very long time since I did any silk ribbon embroidery and my supplies were a little dated looking and not all the right colors for this fall wedding. I looked all over town in the usual places and was very disappointed to find most every place had stopped selling silk ribbon. Crafting fads! By chance I found a beautiful supply at the new quilting store in town, Cottage Quilts. She printed me a pattern of a heart that I immediately knew was perfect for the pillow.

Here is what it looks like so far -

Still have to finish the beads.

I'm really liking it. I had a few fits of indecision on what to do with the pillow edges. A ruffle would be too busy I think, so I am making some tassles. I will also try to put a little ribbon or strap type thing for little Patrick to hold on to.

Will post finshed photos sometime before the wedding. Ha! Like I'm not going to finish seconds before the rehearsal.

We had October Good Things last night. We decorated little monogram letters. I chose H for Halloween. We had a lot of fun, almost everyone was there, and the projects were cute. Tracy made raisin pound cake, yummy!

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I got my stuff back from the fair. My socks had in fact gotten a first place - I thought they hadn't received anything, but apparently it wasn't labeled or something.

And, the biggest shocker was I had an extra jumbo ribbon in the bag. I won the People's Choice award for the Home Arts Building! Way to stuff a ballot box friends and family! You make me proud.

Oooey gooey romance

Want to see my engagement pictures? View a slide show at http://www.cooperimages.net/. The photographer is Perry Cooper, my very good friend Shelly's husband and a freelancer I work with at work. He's a great guy and made Gary and I look quite good... considering it was like 200 degrees when we took the pictures at the park yesterday. OK, not really 200. But it was 100 and muggy. Yuck. As the slide show progresses, my face gets more and more red. Isn't summer fun?

Piece of cake, I say...

Wanna know where I'm getting my cake? Imagine this. Melinda, the owner of Dede's Decor and the oh so talented creator of cakes makes a personal visit to my home. She pops open her laptop and shows me hundreds of pictures of cakes she has created (a small sampling is located here, on her Web site: http://dedesdecor.com/Gallerynew/celegallery.htm ) and asks me to point out just what I like about the cakes that are my favorites. I tell her I like a little bit of this and a little bit of that. She gets out a blank piece of paper and a pencil and starts to sketch. Out of her pencil comes this magical drawing of my dream cake. Then she gets out her colored pencils and starts coloring it all in to match the colors I've selected for the big day. How ultra cool is that? And the best part... the cakes she brought over to sample were just to die for. Great looking and even better tasting. Yum. It almost doesn't matter that the cake is costing more than my dress. That's just a little detail. But really, it is so worth it. I'm happy to admit I'm a cake snob. And this cake is living up to all a wedding cake should. What fun.

The other sister

OK... My silly sister said I must post or else she would take my name off of the blog. So, fine. Here's my post.

1. Wedding planning: How can I fit people into the church for a wedding and then in the exact same space for a reception? I just simply don't know the answer to this question and it is stressing me out just a tad. I'm meeting with the wedding planner tomorrow. Hopefully she will have some ideas because I'm a big blank. Other than that, all is going well. All the girls have dresses or have dresses on order. Grace was a hoot. If it were up to her she would still be trying on fancy dresses in every store in town.

Here's Grace at David's... we ordered one at Luftenburgs. You can see it at this link: http://www.morilee.com/DressDetail.aspx?C=6&D=991&P=1 Her dress will be in ivory with a green sash to match the bridesmaids.

2. The end of an era: I've been a Stampin Up demonstrator for a decade. Yes, 10 years have passed since I did my first workshop. I've loved SU and this month I'm officially saying goodbye. I'm still "active" until the end of the month, and that's it. I still love stamping but I'm so horrible at the marketing aspect of the whole thing that it just isn't working out. I love planning projects and all that, but I just can't be my own best customer anymore. It feels strange knowing it is all coming to an end -- sort of like I'm cutting off my arm.

3. Squish: I'm totally excited that I'm going to be a Mrs. soon. I get to move into Gary's apartment and give it my touches -- turn his bachelor pad into our home together. That's so exciting I can't even describe it. I'm having bittersweet feelings, though. I'm so sad to be moving out of my pretty girly stamping haven. Moss and butter yellow walls, organized shelves, lovely curtains sewn by Nola Mom. I just love my stamp room. I don't want to leave it behind.

Rock, paper, scissors

OK... First, the rock. I'm engaged! To a wonderful man. Hooray! (And you guys thought it would never happen...)

Second, do you realize what this means? This opens up a whole new world of scrapbooking possibilities! Party favors! Invitations! I don't yet know how I will use all the nifty wedding things that are out there, but heavens, I've got the ring. That's practically an invitation to go shopping, don't you think? Golly... there's so much to do.

We Interrupt this Knitting....

for a lot of family activity. We had a major family wedding this weekend. Maurice's sister Lori got married to a very nice man Emilio. Starting Thursday we wined and dined with out of town family who came in for the wedding. We were still wining and dining last night, and for the next 4 days our family gains a kid while Lori is on her honeymoon.

Add being a mother of 4 with getting new carpet bright and early Monday morning, and you come up with a lot of stress. Not much time for knitting, and several times during the weekend I felt myself longing for the needles and unable to satisfy the craving.

This morning while the carpet was being installed I slipped in a few rows on the pink sock. I really like this pattern - it is the first Nancy Bush pattern I have done (it is the Anniversary Sock from Favorite Socks). I don't know how many more pattern repeats I should do before I start the heal - the Sophie's Toes yarn I am using doesn't have a overabundance of yardage, so I'm not sure how much yarn I have to spare. Any opinions? I have three so far.

I'm feeling guilty about my lack of blogging lately. No knitting means nothing to show or talk about. While I was cleaning out the back room (formerly the family/craft room, currently Alex's bedroom with some of Mom's junk stashed in there) I found a experimental little quilt I made a few years ago.

This was a painting Emily did when she was in 6th grade (I think) that I scanned and printed on fabric. Then I added some bright border strips and did a wild amount of free motion quilting around the whole thing.

I have always wanted to play more with the printing photos on fabric thing. I think it has a lot of potential to be a lot of fun.

Add it to the list.

And now for the wedding photo shoot --