Mmmmm babies

I have a confession to make. I haven't been working on the wedding this week. I've been distracted by work as there are a lot of issues going on and also another project has been taking up my free time.



I've been working on a baby shower for a long time friend of mine. I thought another friend of hers was going to throw it, but when I found out she had no plans to, I jumped at the chance. I love my friend, I love babies and I love planning parties!

She is due the first week of March and I'm planning an adorable milk and cookies baby shower with an animal theme for the end of February. I know this isn't wedding related, but I just wanted to show off these incredibly cute invites I put together with craft supplies I already had. The image was from a Google search and I feel terrible that I can't remember who the artist is. (But as soon as I do, I'll share her name.) The fonts are the same ones I used for our engagement party invites. These were really easy to put together and I'm glad I have a ton of craft supplies stockpiled for such a situation. Didn't have much time or extra cash, but I think these turned out wonderful.



I can't wait to meet her little boy in a few weeks! Tomorrow I get to go squish Hallie's new little one some more. Have to admit, with all these babies around, I've got a bit of the fever.

This is overdue

Ok, I promised this months ago, specifically at the end of this post. It's about time for me to pony up.

My best friend is awesome. Seriously. She is creative, intelligent, funny and incredibly beautiful. I'm lucky to have her as my bestie and my maid of honor. She's always there to talk. Always checking up on me. And she is completely selfless. Amanda always puts her family and friends first. If she needs to change anything, it's to take a little more time to herself. She deserves to be spoiled every once in awhile.


(Ama looking damn sexy on Halloween. Photo credit: Ama)

Last fall she made me two amazing gifts. A wedding planner and a file folder. They rock. They have everything I could ever need in them for all my wedding planning. The planner is a 3-ring-binder that has tabbed sections for the ceremony, reception, honeymoon, bridal party, vendors, beauty/fashion... There is a timeline/checklist, a guest list tracker and tons upon tons of worksheets. The file folder is so cute and has tons of pretty folders inside for me to keep track of things I rip out of magazines or flyers I pick up from wedding fairs. There is also a pocket for pens and she tossed in a mini stapler. The binder also came with tons of heavy duty paper clips and 3 colors of post its! Isn't she amazing? She thought of everything.




Now I just need to get my butt in gear and fill it out. Ned said we could take some time this weekend to go over all our worksheets and start working on the checklist. We have so much we need to get done.






But how great is this- I'm right on track with my 8 months list with working on fitness and nutrition!


- Gan

Card reader? Whats a card reader?

"Why dont you just use the card reader?" he asked. Doh! The card reader! Why didnt I think of that? Thats how I get my photos off of my D50, of course it would work with my Coolpix too.

Before we left for Chicago, I was trying to find a way to get my photos of our engagement party invites off of my point-n-shoot. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to do it. For some reason when I plugged the cable from the cam into the laptop, the laptop wouldnt recognize it. The Eye-Fi card software is not loaded on this laptop either. I was getting so frustrated and finally decided to give up. Thats until my lovely Ned came home and suggested the most basic of ideas. I still did not get time to post the pictures before we left, but I would like to share them now.

Since Ned purchased my lovely engagement ring and my birthday necklace (that I wore for our engagement photos) from Tiffany & Co, I wanted to incorporate that beautiful blue color. I also decided on fuchsia and chocolate brown. I started out by going to the Paper Depot in Minneapolis (their website seems to be down) to get inspiration as I really wasnt quite sure what I wanted the invites to look like. I decided on a half sheet of Tiffany blue cardstock overlapped by a sparkly white paper and chocolate brown envelopes. After leaving the Paper Depot, I headed over to two craft stores to get the rest of the supplies, ribbon and a paper punch. (Im a sucker for ribbon when it comes to paper crafting projects. Remember the black ribbon on my bridesmaid cards?)

Ive been wanting to have a "cupcake" theme party now for awhile. I figured our engagement party would be the perfect time. My friend Andrea sent me an adorable font called "Fling" that became the starting point for our "Love Is Sweet" cupcake invitations. I even scored a cute cupcake paper punch at one of the craft stores.

After gathering all the supplies, this is what Ned and I put together:


Supplies and the mock up I made.





Close ups





Completed stack. You can kinda see how sparkly the white paper is here.



And the chocolate colored envelopes.

Now these might not look as professional as something Andrea can create, but then again, she is a professional. :-) Im really impressed with what Ned and I accomplished and Im glad we decided to work on this together.

(Sorry for the crappy photo editing on the pictures, but there are just some things I cant share with the internet and I was kinda in a hurry when working on these.)

We currently have 30+ affirmative RSVPs for our party this Saturday. Im excited, but also a bit stressed as there is so much that needs to be done before then. Im also trying to imagine 30+ people in our house at once! I have today and tomorrow off from work and need to get my butt off this computer and get stuff done.

- Gan

Next Post: How amazing my Maid of Honor is and the wonderful things she created for me!

DIY BM Cards

Im a pretty sentimental girl. Ill admit it. I like doing things for those I care about. I like making things special and having them stand out. I like creating memories.

When it came to asking my girl friends to be my bridesmaids, I knew I wanted to do it in a special way rather than just blurting it out. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was planning to ask all three at our Girls Weekend Getaway, but unfortunately Hallie couldnt make it. So I asked her the previous weekend when we were spending the afternoon together baking cookies and taking the dogs to the dog park. With Amanda and Robyn, I was able to wait until we were up at the cabin.



I didnt really have a specific image in mind when it came to making the cards for my girls. I just happened to be at a craft store looking at paper when I came across this really cute pink swirly pattern and a chartreuse stripey pattern. I knew I somehow wanted to use them, but wasnt quite sure how. I also picked up some ribbon, envelopes, basic white card stock and some sparkly cardboard letters. At another trip to the craft store I also picked up some little mini black frames and a dress stamp. (The swallow stamp I also used was one from my own collection.)

When I sat down to make the first card, it just sort of fell together. I left the pink paper as is, but reinforced it by gluing white card stock to the backside. I wrapped the ribbon around it and affixed the letter "H" for "Hallie". Then I used the dress stamp and cut it out and put the little frame around it. Inside the cards I wrote a very heart felt message to each girl. I lined the envelopes in the stripey green paper and tucked the cards in. I also wrapped a wider ribbon around the outside of the envelope and repeated the process with the swallow stamp and the frame.











And for each girl, I got a gift bag full of LUSH products (bath bombs, bath bars, massage bars) and tucked the card in there with a picture frame, journal and imported vegetable French soap.





-Gan