Getting Through the List

S came home on Friday and immediately got to work on the list. We now have 200 cupcake box-top recipe stickers:
Half of the 200 stickers are chocolate and half are vanilla. I'll be sending them to mom soon to be stuck on the tops of the boxes that were delivered to Lexi a few weeks ago.

I uploaded our 18"x24" photo booth poster to Kinkos to be printed and mounted:
I'm hoping bridesmaid C can pop into the store just outside her office this week to view a print proof for me before I give the final ok.

And this afternoon I designed a 4"x4" double-sided post card at uprint.com with instructions for our guests to upload their photos to our smugmug account. We'll have them scattered around the tables at the reception and will include them in our thank you notes envelopes. One side of the glossy card is our monogram on a white background and the other side is the upload instructions, which includes our log in information so I'm not posting a photo here.

Unfortunately I also had to whip together a few more invitations last night after discovering that at least three invites never reached their intended destination. I know it wasn't an oversight on my part because one of the missing invitees is my grandmother, and because I had a triple-check system going on when I assembled and sent the invites out. We were accidentally left off a guest list this winter after receiving a save-the-date so I was hyper-cautious. I didn't realize I should expect a 3%+ margin of error with the USPS. How does the saying go? Good enough for government work?

It's almost 100 degrees outside and hazy. Now S is konked out on the couch "beating the heat" and watching soccer. I bet he'll be psyched to wake up to throwie materials on the table in front of him. Only 70 more to go! I can't decide whether I want to go to go out to get the goods to make a diaper cake for bridesmaids A's sister's shower or if I want to go to the beach to float in the ocean. I'm going to miss our beach when we move. I also think I'm going to freeze at our wedding after realizing this morning that 92 now feels like a nice comfortable temperature. Thank goodness for the cashmere shawl, although I think I may be scrounging for a fur coat that night.

Etsy Earrings: Part One

I found these earrings today from etsy seller terminy. I convo'd her to ask if they are available in white. They are strong contenders right now.

In other news, bridesmaid W is in labor. Go W!

Bought a Veil!

I bought a custom made veil from etsy seller Rohm today! She's going to take this veil
and add some gathering at the comb so it looks more like this woman's veil (photo plucked from a classifieds listing).
I was disappointed this weekend when I went to purchase a veil from another etsy seller, only to find that she had increased her price by $120. It was a blessing in disguise since Rohm's price is $55 less than the original veil's initial price. I love it when things work out like that.

Read the Map & Follow the Signs

Last night I tried to find an image of an arrow that I could use on our directional signs. After several hours of searching I came up empty. This afternoon Nathan of Brush Fire Media whipped up a simple arrow for me in no time flat and I was able to create the directional signs to place along the road on the way to the ceremony & reception.
I just have to go to Michael's to get a few more pieces of navy cardstock backing and I'll be able to check another item off the to-do list.

Baby Gift Weekend

I worked on menu layout this weekend for a few hours.

Any suggestions for something fun for the back? The rest of the time I worked on baby gifts for bridesmaid W. Here's a picture of the applique onesies and matching burp cloths I made for her:
And I spent a few hours at the beach Friday and Sunday afternoons, knitting.

Eggs & Omelettes

I've wanted chickens for years now so I can fuel my obsession with eggs and omelettes. Check out this all-in-one, space saving contraption from Omelet.us
I wonder if this could be a wedding expense. Fresh eggs for Sunday brunch?

Survey

I added a survey to our wedding website at theknot.com. One of the information links now reads "Cupcake VOTE!" and our guests can click a link to vote for their favorite cupcake/frosting combination.

We have only had about 20 hits on the website this week so it may be less than effective. But, it would be nice to know if one combo is going to be in high demand so I will know to make more of one variety than another.

I think the vanilla/mocha combo is fabulous and the vanilla/peanut butter less so. But what if all out guests love the new Reeses white chocolate peanut butter cups? That's kind of like a vanilla cupcake with peanut butter frosting :)

First RSVP's Arrive

The first RSVP's arrived yesterday. Exciting!

Paper Lanterns Arrive in Freeport

The paper lanterns that I purchased last week arrived at my parents' house yesterday. All wedding stuff is addressed to my pup, Misha Alexis Girl, who is lolling about in the photo of the lanterns that my mom took this morning. Mish likes getting packages because they usually come with cookies on top.
She is enjoying retirement on the farm while I sweat it out in Florida. She would not like it here at all. Plus, in Maine she has my entire bed to herself and she has the pool for afternoon swims. She lives at the resort.

Aren't the lanterns going to look so cool with hot pink ribbons streaming from them?

We're Invited to Our Wedding

Houston We Have a Melt-Down

Exactly one hour in the scorching sun and we have a melt-down. The mint chocolate chip slid off its cupcake.

The chocolate and mocha remained on top of their respective cupcakes albeit very soft. So I jiggled the chocolate, just to see how soft it really was. Ooops.
So the frostings can last in Florida sun for over thirty minutes, but less than an hour. Somewhat irrelevant, but good to know. It is worth noting, however, that the melted chocolate chips in the mint chocolate chip are to die for right now, and the melted chocolate frosting tastes like the most amazing hot fudge sauce ever.

Fingers licked clean, I'm back to work.

30 Minutes - Getting Shiny

30 minutes in direct sun and the frostings are starting to get a little shiny, but their crust-like coatings remain intact.

(mocha)

The Ultimate Heat Test

98.7 degrees, 119 degree heat index, bright sun. The ultimate frosting test...

even though Maine's record highs in July & August don't reach temps like this....

Crazy Lady & Crazy Kid Back Drop Test

My mom just sent me this photo from her test photo shoot using the Marimekko backdrop fabric she bought last week. My crazy lady dress form comes in so handy, and I love the crazy kid form that Buzzy gave me!

The eight yards that our photographer suggested seems like an outrageous amount of fabric. There is plenty of room for our guests to stand on the fabric and a ton to spare. It would be great if we only needed four or five so I could come close to affording the coveted pink fabric at $42 a yard.

Eight Hours Later I Went to the Beach

On Sunday I spent six hours in front of the computer designing stickers, stickers, and more stickers. I created square stickers for the tops of the cupcake boxes, one with the vanilla cupcake recipe and one with the chocolate cupcake recipe. I made 3" round monogram stickers to secure the 2 3/4" wide navy ribbon to the vases. And I made a bunch of round number stickers to tie to the guest flip flops.

After printing over 70 sheets of labels, I set up my cutting & punching station in front of the TV. I made the size stickers and tested one out on a pair of flops:
I punched out 50 vase stickers and tested out my new circle cutting tool, which we'll use for the menu cards:
and then I started to cut the menu cards. But after eight hours sitting around in the air conditioning, I got anxious/guilty/frustrated about being inside. So at three in the afternoon I slathered on some SPF, grabbed my towel, and headed to the beach!

Apron for Nana

Last week Nan suggested that she could use a new apron. She prefers the half-apron style rather than the full, oil cloth, make-a-total-mess-and-wipe-off, version my mom and I both use. My aprons are from Harrods and I love them, but there's something about a sweet little half apron that just gives me the urge to sew.

Yesterday after work I headed over to our local pharmacy/appliance/porn/party/fabric shop to buy some cute foodie fabric. I didn't see any sketchy dudes walking out with paper bags this time, but I did get some discrete photos with my phone just to prove to bridesmaid C that I wasn't nuts and that the best fabric store in this crazy city also has a porn shop in the back. It's only a matter of time before my license plates are ripped off in the parking lot.

After browsing for a while and chatting with the shop ladies about mu-mu patterns (they're so not in style I don't even know how to spell mu-mu) I walked out with three fabrics, each with a fruit print: lemon, bananas and cherries. I was also assured by the shop ladies that my 87 year old grandmother has earned the right to wear my great-grandmother's thread bare mu-mu if she wants to. Whatever, she didn't like her mother-in-law and the thing is nasty. But I digress, this trip was about the apron, we'll address the mu-mu on another day.

Last night in bed I sketched out my apron pattern and calculated my cuts. This morning I woke up, had a frustrating experience at JoAnn and then got to work on these cuties:

Reversible half aprons with big bow ties. One for me and one for Nan.

I also spent the entire day with one eye on the front yard where the baby birds from the palm at the edge of our yard were jumping from the nest and learning to fly. Having made the mistake of putting a baby bird back in its nest years ago, I now know that when baby birds leave the nest their first step before flying is to find cover in shrubbery for several hours to a few days. Fortunately, it was very hot so the neighborhood cats were fairly lethargic and I only had to hiss away two. I'm a little nervous that as it cools off tonight the cats will be out on the prowl. Huge fan of the birds, not so much of the cats.

Humidity Testing the Frosting Contenders

It's hot here. Too hot to run during the day. Too hot to spend much time outside. And too hot for frosting. At least it was last weekend when I transported cupcakes with very soft vanilla frosting to bridesmaid W's baby shower. S is away for a few weeks so there's really no better time to do a little frosting experimentation to put my mind at ease. Not to worry, S, experimentation includes freezing, so there will be plenty for you when you return.

This is a crummy photo, but it gives you an idea of what's happening in our kitchen today. It's 96 outside, 80 inside and warmer on top of the fridge, I imagine. From the left are Mindy's gravy buttercream, Betsy's vanilla buttercream, a mocha I don't like, and a too chocolate chocolate that is holding up in the humidity amazingly well. I have three more trials in the freezer right now and two more recipes to try. Mindy's gravy buttercream (my name for it) tastes the best, so I'm hoping it holds up well too.

Now I just have to wait another 30 minutes or so for the sun to dip low enough for a shaded run to work off my "tastes."

Poot, Poot

I reserved the toilets and hand-washing station today. I opted to splurge and reserved a wheel chair accessible toilet for the ladies so our female guests could adjust skirts and dresses comfortably. And really, after a few drinks women go to the rest room together, so I needed to make sure that bridesmaids S and W could fit in the porta potti at the same time without risk of falling in. I also opted to purchase the insurance on the units since the last thing I want to do is spend wedding gift money on a new portable toilet.

Check out the patriotic option available at Blow Bros.
too bad they don't come in blue & pink!

Birthday Gift

My birthday was last week and S and I had a small dinner and cupcake celebration with bridesmaid W. W's husband couldn't join us because he was studying for the LSATs. Poor sucker. I don't think we sent W home with a cupcake either. Wow, we're mean!

After cupcakes I opened a few gifts from S and from my mom. My mom gave us another two sets of our flatware, which we need if we plan to entertain more than 4 people at a time this summer. However, I'm hesitant to open them up before the move because I've discovered that we have rusty looking water and it's leaving spots on the flatware (and turning my white towels rusty). Off topic, if you know how to get rust out of the towels let me know please. I use chlorine free bleach in the wash, but it makes only a marginal difference.

S gave me several nice gifts, but the highlight was a key chain from Coach in the shape of a bee.
Given S's name, naturally our house is the bee hive. I've even designed the logo for our first baby bee. Hey, it's my birthday, I'm not getting any younger, and every kid needs a logo. My birthday key chain will be perfect to hold the keys to the next hive, that is if I can bear to actually use it and get it dirty!

Invites are in Darling!

I just got a confirmation email from the USPS that our box of invitations arrived in Darling, Mississippi this morning!

Back Drop #1

My mom bought a back drop for the photo booth last night. We'll keep looking for another one or two as the photographer suggests, but this marimekko fabric looks great and was a great deal!
S and I were taking photos with very pregnant bridesmaid W when my mom called so I wasn't able to see the photo she took very well. If I had been home I would have asked her to take a photo of the entire wall of fabric just in case there was something that I liked and she overlooked. Oh well, maybe there will be another shipment when I'm home in August!

Let There be MORE Light!

S and I (mostly S, really) made more throwies this weekend and I'll make 70 more as soon as the next shipment of batteries arrives.
This morning I ordered 186 paper lanterns from asianideas.com after the woman who I was going to share lanterns with found out that her fiance is surprising her with a honeymoon that requires that they leave directly from their reception. She couldn't vouch for the disassembly team and I didn't want to risk not having lanterns on time. I'm planning to sell them all after our wedding.
The lanterns will hang in the tent and in the apple orchard. To add some color we'll hang four feet of pink ribbon from each lantern, doubled up so each will have two two foot tails hanging down. I bought pink hanging ribbon from PaperMart.com, where I also bought the ribbon for my dress and for the bouquets.
And I bought a roll of three inch wide ribbon to tie around the table cloths of the high-top cocktail hour tables.
Also from Paper Mart, I bought 500 white paper lunch-bag sized bags (500 was the smallest quantity and less expensive than 100 elsewhere). To go in the paper bags and on the reception tables I bought two gross white votive candles,
and two gross frosted glass votive holders on ebay.
I really hope that I'm able to resell most of this stuff after the wedding so we can recoup some of the costs and minimize the amount of crap we have laying around for the next 50 years.

This weekend I may take a wedding break and make my Nana a new apron.

And They're Off!

Stuffed and ready to be sealed:

Sealed and ready to be sent to Darling, Mississippi:
Off to Billy:

Toppers, Check

Another biggie checked off the t0-do list this AM! S and I assembled 415 cupcake toppers over the past few nights. Here are S's hands sticking the back round stickers to the 4" skewers. I then went along and dabbed glue in the center of each stick and then stuck the fronts on (that I made last weekend). In the upper right corner all of the assembled toppers are lying face-down. We stacked several very heavy Lucky Bags (books) on top of them to squish the glue down well.

Here's the finished product

Bridesmaid W's Baby Shower

We threw bridesmaid W a very fun baby shower this weekend. The shower was at W's friend Kate's house so I didn't have the opportunity to go over-the-top. But I did manage to bake some delicious cupcakes and made these cute toppers.

Congratulations, W, I can't wait to meet baby JLo!

Thank You

I created our thank you notes tonight and learned an important lesson in the process: when the printer won't do what you want it to do, try for an hour, and then move on.

I initially wanted to create note cards with the f|s placed at the top horizontal edge with our married names across the bottom, however, when several dozen attempts to print failed, and the running hour was looming near, I decided that the vertical orientation looked just as nice. I also decided to leave our names off the cards so we can use them before the wedding too. So here they are, 100 monogrammed thank you cards:
Fresh off the printer just in time for an eight mile evening run.

Thanks for sneaking that in.

One of our hotels quoted me an August 4th cut-off date for reservations when I first spoke with the manager. I printed August 4th on our invitations. Before I package the invites to send to Billy I thought I'd just double check with our hotel contacts to make sure everything is still ok. Lo and behold August 4th was changed to July 23 in a random email that I clearly didn't read carefully enough. Thanks for sneaking that in.

Stickers & Toppers

I made 750 monogram stickers and then took 410 of those stickers and stuck them to the navy blue card stock circles I punched. Next up, gluing/sticking skewers to the card stock/sticker combos to make the cupcake flags.
To make it easier to line up the 1" punch with the monogram circles, I took the monogram image into photoshop and filled the background with blue. Then I created square images that I repeated across the page in Word. I printed on 8.5x11 labels and then cut into strips for easier punching. Viola, no need for punching perfection 'cause even if my punching skills are a little off, the outer line is still blue.

Colorscope

From Paper-Source's colorscope (think horoscope, just 100 times cooler) our wedding colors reveal that:

Night (navy)
You are traditional and reserved on the surface, yet you are a renegade at heart. Your demeanor is steadfast and mysterious. Popularity is not important to you–which makes you all the more enticing to others.
&
Fuchsia
Courageous and passionate, you have a playful side that balances your serious and spiritual nature. You are confident and not afraid to take action. Remember that the journey is often more important than the outcome of your endeavors.

Mini Clothes Pins

While I was shopping for supplies for bridesmaid W's baby shower, I found these mini clothes pins, which I had been on the look-out for since my mom suggested that we hang the escort cards from a string (or ribbon) using them. I snatched them up, took this photo, and squirreled them away in the "wedding stuff" dresser.

In other news, S finished assembling the invitations last night. We were three grommets short of using all of our backers. We have 138 invitations left, after sending 10 to Maine for my dad to take overseas next week. I also spoke with Billy Little, postmaster in Darling, Mississippi, this afternoon. Pay careful attention to your invitation and you'll see why I was chatting with Billy today! Now I'm just waiting on S's last three addresses, two from my list and our stamps. I told Billy he should expect to receive our invitations next week. Billy is a key player in this process.

Off to make cupcakes for my birthday!

Invitation Suite Preview

I packaged several invitations for my dad to take to colleagues overseas this week and in the process I took a few photos of the invitation suite to share. My favorite part is the texture of the eco-stock that we chose, ha, right, I chose. Here they are with personal info blurred out.

Page two with an "f" word

and page three with an "s" word

As soon as our custom postage arrives and S gets addresses from the final four people remaining on his list, we'll get these in the mail!