Friday, July 30, 2010

craftastic!

yeah, i know... it's been forever since i updated, but hey... we've had a LOT going on. and when there's been spare time, i've been doing CRAFTY stuff.
first of all cookies. oh COOKIES! so you know we're having a cookie bar, right. all homemade by yours truly. I've started mixing up the cookies and wrapping the dough and freezing it (so i can un-thaw and bake like the day or 2 before). -side note... my sister is doing all this for the party in texas, THANK GOD!   so this is what my kitchen has been looking like lately:
Oh and in case i haven't mentioned it... i have a bit of carpel tunnel. and spending forever trying to perfectly cream butter and sugar together and then mix everything well... and then doing it over again, and over again... well THAT has been KILLING my hand and wrist. like for serious... OUCH! a couple of weekends ago, after i whipped up a couple of batches of oatmeal cookies, i decided that this just wasn't going to cut it. if i have to whip up batch after batch of these... i needed HELP! I had a talk with the man and proposed going and purchasing the stand mixer from our registry. after all, we'd gotten a nice amount of money as a gift, so we could use it to purchase the mixer and it would be like someone bought it for us.
guess what i did a few days later:
this thing is freaking fantastic. it weighs like, as much as i do and we have absolutely NO space for it (have i ever mentioned we have a tiny kitchen with no counter space and limited storage?) but i love it. it's so fast, it's so easy and it has made cookie mixing a breeze. seriously, i can have a batch in well under 5 minutes. additionally, there are like 3049850394853 different attachments you can buy for it, and i can't wait to get the pasta roller attachment! we added it to the registry and totally plan on buying it if no one else does (as we do with most of the stuff on the registry... but whatever)

since we'll have a few hundred cookies, i realize they may all not get eaten. so, i picked up some which paper bags to set up with the cookies so people can take them to-go. i wanted to somehow jazz up the bags somehow and decided to use the cute wooden stamp i had made. i'm sure you all admired it when you got your invitations, riiiight?
i thought it gave it a cute enough personal touch without actually ordering and spending way too much on personalized bags. i don't know if i've mentioned this before but i got inspiration for our stamp from a bracelet the man bought me from james avery for christmas last year.
since i received it just a couple weeks after we got engaged, my wheels were already turned and i decided i'd love to incorporate the infinity symbol somehow. especially since it sort of went along with how he proposed... he placed the ring on a christmas ornament

see... today, tomorrow, always... infinity... all the same thing, right?
so anyway, i was inspired by that, and have tried to tie it into things from the invitations to my jewelry.

the latest project we completed last weekend was our card box. i didn't want to same thing everyone else has and i didn't want to spend a hundred bucks on a box. so i got all crafty, found an unfinished box, cut a whole, bought some stain, some letters, some paint and some glue...

i think that's about it. we've run into some technical difficulties and won't be having a cupcake tower here in Illinois. not sure how we're going to do it in texas, though. i guess i still have to figure that one out.
our shower is on sunday, so i'll try and update about the shower and my awesome craftastic gifts for our shower hosts.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

dare i say it... things are coming along swimmingly!

we're 45 days out and things are coming along... SO FAR (don't want to jinx myself!)
lets see, what have we (read: *I*) accomplished lately:

- wedding shoes purchased: they arrived today. super cute and comfie. i can't wait for the wedding to be over so i can wear them on a regular basis!
- tested a sugar cookie recipe... froze dough, and tested the baking post freezing over the weekend. cookies got a hearty thumbs up.
- mixed up and froze a batch of chocolate chip cookies
-ordered necklace for wedding
-purchased box for our card box: craft project
-purchased foam board for cupcake stand: bigger craft project


i think that's about it. i've got some shopping planned for the weekend in hopes of making progress with the above mentioned craft projects. i'll take photos and post about that later (i know... you can't wait!)

we're steadily getting RSVPs in. the YES responses for the party in texas have already exceeded what i expected and the responses for illinois and still going strong. oohhh... and we recieved our first wedding gift from our registry! it was pretty exciting, i'll admit. the really amusing part is that it is from a couple that i really don't even know. they are my step dad's cousins. he swears i met them like... 15 years ago. i told him he was crazy for inviting them, because why would they care that i'm getting married. apparently, they care! they've already sent a gift and an RSVP, don't i feel dumb now. ha!  i'm kinda excited to "meet them" and thank them in person!

lastly... some of the man's friends (well, i guess they're MY friends too lol) are throwing us a co-ed shower in a few weeks. i honestly didn't anticipate having one, since i won't be back to texas before the wedding so the shower that would have been thrown by my family and MOH won't be happening. since we sped everything up, i honestly wasn't even going to register. of course, just about everyone under the sun set me straight on that! it's kind of exciting... a party thrown for us! however, i find it sooooo awkward opening gifts in front of people. i even feel slightly weird at christmas. i don't know why... but i guess i'll get over it.

45 days and counting!