wedding monograms

I had Pink Designs Events create these beautiful monograms for the wedding and I love how they turned out. She even matched my main wedding color to the J.Crew bridesmaid dresses! She did a fabulous job and be on the lookout for these on the wedding day. You'll never know where they might show up!

i'm so smart

I passed the Praxis on the first try. Thank you very much!

Now, back to work...

etsy spotlight

My friend and co-worker, Rachel, has opened up an Etsy shop called Silver Living Decor. She does 100% hand-sewn applique art. My favorite is The Pink Owl (at the top). She is a very talented designer and seamstress and she finds these fabulous fabrics to applique. She has also started dabbling in jewelry. Go to her shop and check her out!

i need your help

I just love a candy bar! We are going to have one at the wedding and I am researching every pink, green, white and chocolate candy I can find. The only problem is I'm not exactly sure how to bag the candies for guests to take home. I have thought of glassine bags with wedding labels, small kraft bags with handles and labels and ........ I have no idea. Any suggestions? I am looking for something SUPER creative and my brain is not functioning today. HELP me pleeeeeease!

happy 6 months emma!

How adorable is she? One of my best friends in the whole world (and college roommate) has posted the cutest pictures of her daughter Emma. She is 6 months old today! Crazy! Sara and John Payne I love you guys!

weekend recap

This was a great weekend! We painted the kitchen (Duron - Light Topaz) and I will post before and after pictures once it all gets put back together. I learned that painting is not really Justin's thing, and that's okay. I'm such an OCD painter that it's better if I just do it myself. He was happy to go outside and cut down trees and you know, man things.

On Saturday night we went out to celebrate my good friend (and bridesmaid) Kelly's 26th birthday and also the fact that she is going to be a mommy in December!! So excited for her and can't wait to meet the little one. We had a lot of fun!

Today we went to church and to lunch afterwards to raise money for the youth group's mission trip to Mexico. I went to Pet Smart with my grandma and there was a sweet cat that needed adopting and I wanted to take him home! His name is Stanley (hehe) and he is 10 years old and solid white (like my little Mia) and he has NO ears. It was so sad. We went to dinner with Justin's parents and then had our last pre-marital counseling session. It was really cool to hear what our vows and ring exchange would sound like. Do they make "no tears" eye drops that stop crying on contact? I gotta get me some of that.

Happy Birthday Kelly!!!

me and kelly


girlfriends

PS - The invitations are here!!! Can't tell what they look like quite yet but they can be found on the web at Hello Lucky.

blog design sale

FYI...The fabulous lady at Designer Blogs who re-designed my blog is having a 15% off sale through April 30th. She's amazing and you won't be disappointed!

***UPDATE****
New font as of today by Designer Blogs! Yes!

happy friday!

It's Friday and I'm off work early and it's beautiful outside! Have you noticed all of the beautiful tulips in bloom? They are gorgeous.

We are going to paint the kitchen this weekend and make the yard look lovely. Fun! Do you have any plans this weekend?

the isaacs!!!

I got tickets to see The Isaacs on May 8th today! Whoo! I am not kidding when I say I look more forward to seeing The Isaacs in concert than my own bridal shower. This is saying a lot people! If you have 6 spare minutes, watch this video. "It Is Well" is one of my favorite hymns and they do an incredible acapella version of it. When they do it live I cry my eyes out. I found this version of it tonight and love how Sonya tells the story of the man who wrote the lyrics.

I thought I was having a bad day today and this put things into perspective. Wow! Sonya's voice is amazing and I can only hope to be 1/10 as good as her one day. My fellow praise band members at church are probably tired of me talking about her, but I love her!

sprinkles

Yummy! Have you ever been to Sprinkles Cupcakes? I haven't either, but if someone paid me I'd open one up! A secret wish of mine would be to open up a little cupcake/cookie bakery. I hope the owner of Sprinkles will follow my blog one day and read this. A girl can dream, right? At Williams-Sonoma they carry DIY mix with, you guessed it, Sprinkles! Such a great gift!

AND Williams-Sonoma has these amazing new scents in their hand soap/dish soap/candle section. I could buy every one of them! My favorite is the Yuzu Jasmine.

I've gotta give some love to Cupcake in Charleston, South Carolina. I go there every summer and get a nice, big, red velvet cupcake piled high with the yummiest cream cheese frosting!

When I said piled high, I wasn't kidding.

a few wedding details

Here are a few things going on with the wedding. I haven't talked much about it lately, mainly because I want everything to be a big surprise. Here are a few secrets I can leak...

This is the gazebo we are likely to be married in front of. The gardens are so beautiful! We are going to have string trio set up next to the gazebo. I have picked out all of the music yet but I'm working on it. My sister is going to sing while my brother plays the guitar to Steven Curtis Chapman's "I Will Be Here." My dad has a cousin who is in a band and he wrote a song (the title escapes me for the moment). My dad sang the song to my mother when they got married and it will be sung to us on our wedding day. My favorite line of the song is "happiness is knowing you're around."

I have always dreamed of having a sea of paper lanterns at my wedding. I want people to look at up and see the floating bubbles everywhere. My dreams were stomped when I found out how much they cost. You have to rent each one and then those cost $25 each to light! If we have a sea of lanterns all the guests may have to sit on the ground! That won't be happening.

This is our bad for the ceremony, E3. You may remember a song they had on the radio a while back, "Who's Got the Hooch." Hilarious! They should be a lot of fun. When we were scoping out bands we were allowed to crash a private party that they were playing. We didn't know a soul there and everyone was staring at us. By the end of the night we were in the house socializing with other party guests. It really was so funny.

We took our engagement pictures six months ago, but it took me forever to pick out the picture I wanted on a 16" x 20" modern canvas. Our awesome photographer, Vera Pakizer Photography, did the session and I can't wait until we can do the bridal portaits and the wedding day.

pine cone hill

I would love to go to sleep in this bed tonight! I love that upholstered sleigh bed, yummy! The linens are gorgeous too. Now that I am going to move in with a ahem, MAN, I think I need to calm it down a little bit. Bye bye Tiki Toile sheets from Pine Cone Hill (below in green). I will miss you so much. I might pull you out of the closet and have a moment and then put you back. Gone but never forgotten! That goes for you too white cotton Ikea duvet cover.

Oh please Lord, one day, give me a daughter!

2 month countdown

Today is exactly 2 months until we are married! I can't believe that it is almost here. It seems like yesteday we got engaged, but that was almost an entire year ago! In 2 months I will have a new address, a new last name, and a whole new life. I can't wait! I need to start packing, there's a lot left to do in 2 months!

easter pics

This picture was taken by our friend Jason after church this morning. This was a cross they had covered in fresh cut flowers. It was really nice. Thanks for taking the picture Jason! It was really windy so my hair blew all over creation. I sing in the praise band in our contemporary service and it was a great service today! We sang the song that was on my Good Friday post. It turned out to be really cool! Justin brings me an Easter orchid to wear every year and he even brought one to my mom and grandma too. Isn't he sweet?

Here we are at Red Lobster. Nothing says Happy Easter like crab legs and cheesey biscuits! I don't ever post pictures of us so now you can actually see who this blog is about!

Here is the whole family at Red Lobster (minus my sister). From the left is my mom, Grandma, me, Justin, my brother Matt and my dad. Please excuse my dad's expression, I think he was taken offguard by the camera! A nice man in a booth next to us took the pictures for us.

I worked for 4 hours today on my last project of the semester for school. It is a classroom mangagement plan for a classroom. It was basically; if I were a teacher tomorrow, what materials would I bring (letters to parents, worksheets, etc.) to have a perfectly run class? I will be so happy when the semester is over in two short weeks!

P.S. - I bought this travel guide yesterday and haven't been able to put it down. They go into such detail about where to go and what to do. I recommend it highly! We leave in two months and I simply can't wait!

happy easter

I’m forgiven because You were forsaken,
I’m accepted, You were condemned.
I am alive and well, Your spirit is within me,
Because You died and rose again.


Amazing love, How can it be,
That You, my King, would die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true.
It’s my joy to honor You,
In all I do, I honor You.

-Chris Tomlin

a better cookie

Look no further if you want to make the perfect sugar cookie. Cookie baking is an art form and if you follow all of the rules in the book your cookies will look marvelous dahling! I actually change the recipe up a bit to make it my own, but any sugar cookie recipe will do. Just make sure that you don't use too much flour or the cookies will become too dry and crack. This book, Cookie Craft, will give you all of the help that you need. Justin gave it to me two years ago for Christmas and cookie baking has never been the same! The following recipe is from Karen's Cookies and seems to work very well.

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar, processed in a food processor or blender for 30 secs

(this really works!)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 large egg

1 egg yolk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

(or lemon, almond, peppermint, etc.)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes with mixer set at medium speed. Add yolk, beat well. Add whole egg, vanilla and optional almond extract and beat until well-incorporated. Add flour; beat at low speed just until flour is mixed in; do not overmix. Divide dough in halves or thirds and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, at least one hour and up to 2 days.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Dust work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll dough to 1/4" thick, sprinkling with additional flour as needed to prevent sticking. Cut into desired shapes and place on parchment or silicone-lined pans. Bake in preheated oven until cookies appear dry on the surface and are light golden brown on the edges, about 10 minutes (very large cookies may take up to 12 or 13 minutes). Remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks and cool completely before decorating.

My advice: when the dough is ready to go, take it and pull it into two different pieces. Take each piece and wrap loosely in seran wrap, then gently roll with a rolling pin and flatten it out just a bit. It should look like two little packets. Put in freezer so each piece can get really firm. Remember, you do NOT want to put soft dough in the oven or it will rise out of shape. Next, take the dough out of the seran wrap and roll out as best as you can on a parchment lined pan, then put back in the freezer. I'm serious when I say it needs to be cold! When it is really, really firm use metal cookie cutters and cut out the shapes. This makes the edges very smooth. Any leftover dough from cutting out the shapes needs to, you guessed it, go back in the freezer. It doesn't need to be frozen solid, just very firm. I know this is really anal, but if you want the perfect cookies you gotta work for them!

I won't even start on royal icing right now. Maybe for another post. Royal icing is no joke! It takes a lot of practice, but it's worth it. Just read about it in Cookie Craft or this article on Martha Stewarts website. Below are some of the cookies I've done. I am by no means a professional, but with lots of practice they start to become much better looking!