I am getting back in to the swing of things.

Hello Dear Readers (hello Chelsea!!)

I know it has been a long time since my last blog post, and there were only three to start with. When I started this blog I wanted to blog every week about the yummy food I made. & the crafty crafts I made. & all the projects I (and my amazing friends) worked on for my wedding. & my cats. EVERY WEEK. I wanted to blog every week. I failed at that. This is my pledge to do better: I pledge to do better. :)

I had this grand plan to take some amateur photos of all the projects I have finished around the house and start this post about them, I even charged my camera this morning when I got up. Guess what I noticed when I went to put my fully charged battery back into my camera? My beloved memory card was MISSING. There are so many amazing photos on that card that will never be seen that makes me so sad. (There will probably be a lot of run on sentences in this blog, sorry Alyx!)

The dinner time went off. (another failed post) My husband is hungry, and it is time to open a bottle of wine!

I'll try to do better next time.

Save the Date's

Brad and I are all about saving money and DIYing as much as we can for our wedding. It has been fun and rewarding as well as stressful and time consuming. My longest running project has been our 'Save the Dates.'

Getting the photos taken was the easiest part. Making them, not as easy as I thought that it would be.

My plan was to convert 4x6 photos into post cards & mail them out by July 1st. Well today is July 9th and I just got around to making the second round of Save the Dates. ( I am going to refer to them as SD for now on.) I got wrapped up in picking bridesmaids dresses and shoes and lost track of time.

But I am back at it!

The first thing that I did when I started this project was to order my photos, I ordered 180 of them & was so excited when coupons and free delivery made the price under budget! :)

I then went on the hunt to find a stamp that said "Save This Date" & after traveling to SIX different craft stores in three different towns, I found one. Then I picked out some ink in our wedding colors and THOUGHT that I was all ready. Wrong. I picked out ink that was not suited for photo paper & it refused to dry in my trial runs. Back to the craft store I went. I was smart the second time & got ink that would heat set & picked up a stamp cleaner. (what a blessing in disguise, more about that later)  

 

"Save This Date" & how could I pass on that cat stamp?

The photos came in the mail only six days after I ordered them and I jumped into project mode only to be slowed down before I even started.

  

 Do you see the problem?

I started to lay out my photos to see how many I could work on at a time & surprise surprise, there was random information printed on the back ruining my plan to make a post card. I was super annoyed and I thought that my project was over. Silly me. I randomly tried something, and it worked like a charm!

 

 Do you remember how I said my stamp cleaner would be a blessing in disguise?

I decided to swipe my stamp cleaner over the backs of the photos where the annoying information was printed. At first I was super nervous because all it did was turn the ink darker and more noticeable.

 

I was stressing out at this point.

I grabbed a paper towel to wipe off the cleaner solution before it got worse & it ended up taking off all that annoying ink and Brad couldn't even tell it had ever been there! :) 

 

 Perfectly pain photo backs alllll ready to be turned into post cards!

After the backs were all cleaned up I gather what I could find and started making the lines on the back of the photos to turn them into post cards. I got a special photo pen from a craft store to make a nice think line with no smudging.   

 

  

Cleaned up photos, special pen, & a turned over plastic photo frame. all on top of a Target tray!

  

 I lined up the frame to the photo & just made the line!

 Just enough space for my stamps, and just enough space for the addresses!

 My lined photos all lined up for stamping!

I used cans to weigh down the photos so that they would not blow away when I used my blow dryer to heat set the ink!

 

 I attached magnets depending on the position of the photo. (up & down vs side to side)

& I had wrote the information and the addresses.

After repeating this process for 180 SD we will get stamps and mail them out! I had a lot of fun working on them even if they stressed me out from time to time!

Save the Date Photos!

The wonderfully talented Sherry Temby took our Save the Date photos, and these are some of our favorites!

 60 minutes + skill with a paint brush and glue + glitter + me = glitter numbers! lol

 I bought this dress after thinking that I wouldn't like the bright colors, but I LOVE it!

 I made us go to Target ten minutes before closing to make sure Brad had something that did not clash with my dress. & those are my new favorite shoes!

 This might be my favorite with the 12-16-12

 Most girls want a little black dress, I personally LOVE my little blue dress ;)

 I was wearing this dress (not the jacket though) when Brad proposed <3

 I love this Lauren Conrad dress and jacket!

 DEAN! He is my favorite! :)

 Cubs!

I wish the LOVE wouldn't have blended into the brick so much!

 It took SIX coats of glitter to cover those darn letters completely

.

 The LOVE is currently hanging over our Wrigley canvas. 

 It was hard to keep our eyes all the way open with the sun shining! But we beat the rain by about ten minutes that day!

 This is the only one of us embracing that I ended up not feeling insecure about....

 This one is going to end up on center pieces at the reception.

 

 I love how adorable we are in these outfits!

 Close up!

 FAVORITE!

 Dean would not look at the camera. :(

 Sherry took this one when she came over to discuss my plans for the photos! 

Sherry is an amazing photographer to work with. She is honest, friendly, and easy going. It was a blessing when she walked into my old job and handed me her business card. We are so happy she is going to be a part of our wedding day!

Cats & Batman

Good morning! Bellatrix is pouncing around like crazy, annoying Dean, who in turn, is keeping me up!

What better time to start my blog then when I can't sleep?

Saturday was very hectic & hot. Working from nine in the morning until seven in the evening. After a quick shower we were off Randy's birthday party. We arrived to late to eat the awesome cupcakes I baked, but arrived just in time to bake in the sun during corn-hole!

100% from scratch. :) I even made the toppers!

Looking back I realize I should have taken more photos while I was baking the above cupcakes. & the below cream filled ones.

red & blue cake batter with white cream filling! 100% scratch

I spend a lot of my time baking and working on craft projects. I hope to spend some of my time blogging about my project more, and my cats less. We'll see what happens ;)