Bridesmaids Dresses

So, I've apparently forgotten how to schedule posts...

Last Wednesday, we went to get my bridal gown and bridesmaids dresses. I have pictures of me in my dress, but AJ's asked me not to post them here, in case something happens and he accidentally sees them! He is really serious about not seeing any part of my bridal look before the wedding!

But, I can show you the bridesmaids dresses!

I really wanted my maid of honor to be in a different dress than the rest of the girls, because I wanted her to stand out a bit. At her wedding, the dresses had sashes, so I wore a silver sash and everyone else wore purple, and I really liked that. But, my dresses didn't have sashes, so she got a different dress.

Originally, I planned on short dresses, but Liz and my mom suggested we just try a few long dresses - and I loved them. So now we are going with gowns!

We chose this gown for the bridesmaids. Only the strap won't be there, it is detachable, and I don't love the flowers for a fall wedding!

http://www.jordanfashions.com/463

 And this gown for Liz:

http://www.jordanfashions.com/367

 And this is what they look like next to each other!

(Please ignore my crazy hair, I'd been trying on all different veils for about 45 minutes before this!)

Now, those aren't the colors for the dresses. The colors were kind of an issue.

Originally, I had picked loden for the girls' dresses. It was a dark green. But then all I could think was that the loden dresses with my rust orange flowers would look like a St. Patrick's Day wedding!

I was so upset that I was still thinking about this on Saturday. So, my mom and I went back to Macy's and looked at the dresses again. Stephanie, my consultant, was so helpful. She took a bunch of burnt orange and rust ribbons and held them up next to my dress. Then she held up a loden green bridesmaid gown next to my dress. And my mom saw St. Patrick's Day.

So, I decided that we needed to pick a different color!

After about an hour of debating, and a mini bridal crying breakdown (because this was the first decision for the wedding I had trouble with!) I decided to go with the color spice!

I like it so so much better than the green, and now I'm very very happy with the bridesmaids dresses!

Mini Album {Part 4}

Normally on Friday, I would share a Project Life page. But my Project Life stuff is in Chicago, and I'm in New York, so I'll share the end of my mini album instead!

If you missed the beginning, you can check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3!

All dressed up for a family party.

Graduating from graduate school. It rained so so much that day!

Heading to my cousin's engagement party. This is one of my favorite dresses. I'm thinking I need to wear it again soon! I'm not sure where I'm going to wear it, but I'll figure something out :)

This last picture in the album - me heading to the airport to move to Chicago!

How cute is this stamp? I got it from Pick Your Plum forever ago, but this is the first time I've used it!

This has been such a crazy week! Last night, my maid of honor, my family and I went to officially buy my wedding dress. We thought we'd just look as some bridesmaids dresses to see what we liked. And we ended up finding one! But I can't show it here just yet, since not all of my bridesmaids have seen it!

Today my mom and I are planning on heading out east to hang out a little, before I fly home on Sunday! I can't believe how quickly this week, and this summer, are flying by! Before I know it, I will be back at school! 

Fortunately, AJ and I are planning on a little trip to New York in September, so I have one more vacation to look forward to! Do you have any more trips planned this summer?

Mini Album {Part 3}

Its time for Part 3 of the mini album. If you missed it, you can check out Part 1 and Part 2 also!

My 8th grade dance. I loved the dress. It had a corset back, which I thought was so cool!

Turns out, I really like green dresses! I wore the same color for my senior prom, four years later!

My brother and I at my high school graduation! This is one of the first times I straightened my hair. I don't do it often, even now, but I did it for graduation so the hat wouldn't squish my curls down!

My brother at his high school graduation. He and my dad went to the same school, so I put both of their graduation years on there!

Celebrating my graduation from college. Does that dress look familiar? I wore it for my engagement photo shoot also!

I can't believe it is Thursday already! This week is flying by! Tomorrow, my mom and I are going to go out east together and hang out by the pool! I can't wait :) Do you have any plans for the weekend?

Mini Album {Part 2}

Yesterday, I shared Part 1 of the mini album I made for my parents. So today I thought I'd share Part 2 (logical, right?)

My brother dressed as the black Power Ranger for Halloween. My mom made his costume, so you can see where my crafty genes come from!

Heading off to the first day of school!

Halloween later that same year. I was dressed as a gypsy for Halloween that year, but now that I've seen My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, I think I needed more bling, and less material. Of course, I wouldn't let 9 year old me wear that! I wouldn't even let 25 year old me dress like that! Tommy, now a huge Jets fan, was a Giant. We were confused. But we looked good!

A huge blizzard in New York. Our doggie, Holly, is in this picture. She was such a fun, awesome dog. Of course, Benny is awesome too.

My confirmation. I'm not sure what is happening with my hair there, but my mom loves her outfit in this picture!

I'll be sharing Part 3 tomorrow, I like those pictures because they are when you start to see Tommy and I change into the people we are now!

Over the past few days, I have been overwhelmed by the considerateness of my friends.

On Monday, I went to go look at flowers for my wedding with my maid of honor, Liz. I decided to book with the florist I was visiting. While I was able to give her a deposit in cash, Liz thought it was more appropriate to write a check so there was a paper trail, in case, God forbid, something were to go wrong. But, I didn't have any checks on me (due to my poor packing skills) and would have to need to go back with a check later in the week. Instead of returning to the store later with a check, Liz lent me one of her checks. And on top of all of this, she drove me everywhere Monday because my car is 800 miles away!

Then, on Tuesday, Heather, of Our Life in a Click, went to Michaels. She knew I had been searching for a particular mason jar stamp to use for the wedding, but that I have had no luck finding it either by me in Chicago or by my parents in New York. But Heather found the stamp at her Michael's, and she graciously offered to purchase it and send it to me in Chicago so my search could be over. I am so grateful that she thought of me while she was shopping.

I am so thankful to have such wonderful, thoughtful women in my life. Please stop by Heather's blog and return some of the love. Liz doesn't have a blog, but you could always send some nice thoughts out into the universe :)

Mini Album {Part 1}

My family always takes pictures in front of our house. Recently, my dad mentioned that it would be nice to have all of those pictures together.

Last time I was home, I took a bunch of the pictures with me, and made this mini book!

I've never made a mini book before, but I really like how it came out.

I use my new Hero Arts stamp from Michael's and popped it up. But I needed to block out the letters because its my street address!

 The first page, this is what the front of our house looks like now. For all of the other pictures, I tried to go chronologically!

My communion. Please let's keep in mind that this is before I got my hair done...looking back, I'm not entirely sure why I have my dress on before I got my hair done, but I did get it done nicely with my little communion veil!

Building a snowman!

That is my Nonni. I think this is the one year that I did jazz instead of ballet in dance.

I'll be back tomorrow with more pages from the album. But right now, I'm going to eat a real New York bagel! Yum!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {7 22 2012}

I am getting a very late start today! I keep forgetting that everything is an hour ahead in New York!

I spend the weekend at my parents' weekend house on the east end of Long Island. I love it out there, everything is so relaxing, and there are vineyards and farms (and great farm stands with yummy produce!) everywhere! I really hope when AJ and I are finally done with his rotations and are able to buy a house we find an atmosphere like this one!

I waited all week to take my Scavenger Hunt pictures because I really wanted to take them out there. I am hoping to go back out east later this week to walk around and visit the vineyards a bit, so there might be more east end pictures next week too!

Wrapped 
The people who owned the home before us had horses, so they have a few hoses, in kind of random places, because they needed to give the horses showers! This one is wrapped up on the side of the barn.

Time Together

Saturday night we lit a fire and ate ice cream (which was long gone when I took this picture!) Everyone thought I was just taking pictures of the fire :)

Tell Me a Story

A page from the mini album I will be sharing tomorrow!

Love or Couple

Even though the point of this house is to relax, there is a lot of yard work to do. Especially by the pool! But, my parents work on it together and it doesn't take very long. I am obviously a very helpful daughter, taking pictures while they work.

Duplicated

I took this picture of our dog, Ben, in the house out east. Then I followed the tutorial Mama Monkey wrote for Tutorial Tuesday to make this pop art!

Do you ever find that you sit down to do something that should take just a few minutes, and all of the sudden, its 4 hours later and you are still in your pjs?! That's what happened to me just now, I blame the pop art!


Still, I can't believe its already 1pm. I should probably shower and get ready to go see the florist for the wedding!

I'll be back tomorrow with a mini album though!

Project Life 25 {Week 9 and a Blog Award}

Hi everyone! So, before I share my project life layout for today, I have some fun news! Jules at A Beautiful Day nominated me for a blog award! I thought that was so sweet of her to nominate me, thank you Jules!

So, as we all know, bloggy awards have rules! Here are the rules for this award:

Thank the blogger who nominated me for the award. (Thank you again Jules!)
Include a link to their blog in your post, as well as the award image (here's another link to A Beautiful Day)
Give 7 random facts about yourself
Nominate 15 other deserving bloggers for the award
Include links to the nominate bloggers' sites
Let the other bloggers know that they have been nominated for the award

So, for my 7 random facts:

1. I own a pair of blue and orange Converse high tops for Mets games.

2. I prefer salty to sweet. I will always choose a kettle cooked potato chip over chocolate! And now I'm craving kettle cooked chips!

3. We are moving for AJ's job in January, but we don't know where we are going yet.

4. I wish I had a Magic School Bus just like Ms. Frizzle.

5. I don't eat any ground meat, I just don't like the texture.

6. There are currently almost three dozen pictures of AJ and I displayed in our apartment. He feels that this is too many. I disagree.

7. I have a really hard time thinking of random facts about myself. Writing this list took took almost 45 minutes!

And here are my 15 bloggers:

Heather Our Life in a Click
Becky Fourth House on the Right
Tracy Tracy's Treasures
Mary Pat Siehled with a Kiss
Mary Jo Scrapbook Treehouse
Mary Gene I Wanna Be in Pictures
Barbara World of Whimcees
Sandee In the Hills of North Carolina
Schell Schell's Craft Corner
Linda My Happy Place
Brooke My Boysterous Life
Christina See Christina Scrapbook
Tamar Random-osity
Jillee One Good Thing
Kristina Ladybug Storytime

Wow! That is a lot of fabulous ladies!

It is also a Friday today, which means its Project Life day!

Top row: My mom and dad outside the Art Institute, my dad and I swimming in the lake
Second row: The painting from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (and I totally took a set of pictures slowly zooming in, just like in the movie!), a picture of the menu from Morton's, I love the font they use!
Third row: My mom and I at Macy's Bridal Salon, putting on my special "I'm the bride!" pin

Top Row: the bike stamp is from Lawn Fawn, I just love that stamp!
Middle Row: a view from the Lake Front Trail
Bottom Row: reading by the lake (and getting a tan!), our bikes (taking up the whole apartment!)

While this is posting, I'll be on my way to the airport to fly home for the week! I can't wait to see my family, although I always feel a little sad when I have to leave AJ for so long. I'll be in New York for 9 days! Fortunately, two of his good friends will be here to keep him company this weekend.

Do you have any fun plans for this weekend? I'm really looking forward to lying by the pool and maybe drinking some wine from one of the local vineyards!


More Project Life:
Week 5 
Week 6 
Week 7
Week 8

Boogie Board Layout

Yesterday, when I shared my "Go Jump in the Lake" layout, I wanted to link to this layout I made last year, but I couldn't find it! I really thought I'd shared it, but apparently not!

This layout is about my dad boogie boarding on the beach. He loves to boogie board, especially on our family vacation to Long Beach Island, so I thought I would capture it in a layout. And I'm so glad I did, because for the first time in 16 years, we didn't go to LBI this year!

I used the same Echo Park Splash paper as yesterday, and a very similar technique with the pictures! I really love doing the cut outs for the pictures with this paper! 

Well, I was up at 5:30am again today! But this time it was because I had to log in to Southwest at 6am! I am definitely going back to bed, unlike yesterday!

We are getting some crazy thunderstorms here in Chicago. Last night, the lightning was crazy as we were going to sleep, and when I woke up in the middle of the night, there was non stop lightning happening! I really thought that someone had just pointed a really big light at my window because there were no breaks between the flashes, just constant lightning!

My family in New York said there were crazy storms there yesterday too! Are you getting storms like this? Do you like lightning storms? I love watching the lightning over the lake!

Go Jump in the Lake Layout

When my parents were here, we decided to go to the lake on Wednesday afternoon before we went out for dinner. We didn't bring our bathing suits, but the lake was so so warm, we decided to go in anyway!

I love this Echo Park paper, its called Splash. I used it last year for another ocean layout I made last year, but when I just went to link to it - I realized I had never posted it here! So I will be doing that tomorrow :)

So, I know this saying doesn't really mean something nice in real life, but I thought it was cute for this layout!

I really like this fish from the "Pack Your Bags" Cricut cartridge. I used a bunch of O's and their middles from an alphabet set to make the bubbles coming from his mouth. I just love the sparkles!

I have to clean today. Yesterday, I was planning on cleaning and doing laundry, but when I was doing laundry, I didn't realize there was a pen in AJ's pocket. It exploded all over two pairs of his jeans, a white towel and the dryer! So instead of cleaning, I spent forever trying to get the pen stains out!

Now I have to clean today! It isn't much, but we are having company again this weekend (well, AJ is, I'll be home in New York!) This has been such a busy month!

Do you find that things get crazy for you in the summer, or are the more relaxed?

Heart Layout

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry if you were not able to access my blog yesterday.

I was attempting to comment via my cell phone (my computer was too hot and needed some time off) and I guess google thought the activity was strange, because my account was shut down my account as a safety precaution. I was asked me to verify my account via a text message to my phone, but there were problems with the verification - I think because I was using my cell phone browser and it just wasn't able to handle it. I was able to get my account verified this morning, and discovered (because you lovely ladies emailed me to let me know!) that my blog was listed as private while my account was down!

But I'm back, and I hope everything is working correctly today!

Thank you for letting me know that things were being strange and for being concerned about me!

Okay, now that the house keeping stuff is out of the way, I thought I'd share a layout that I started last May, and just finished today.

My original plan for this layout was to do an "I {heart} NY" thing, I had the heart all done (which was supposed to be the hard part!). But then, I attempted to stitch on the layout. It was my first time stitching and it didn't go well. I was a little frustrated, so I put it away for another day. But then we moved to Chicago so everything got packed up and I didn't look at it again for another year!

One of my goals for the summer was to finish up loose ends, and I found this awesome paper in my stash from Bo Bunny. I thought it would be perfect for this heart. I love how simple it was to put together and get this layout in my book.

Well, I'm going to try to get my emails working on my blackberry again - hopefully it won't affect my blog access!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {7 15 2012}

Its time for another Scavenger Hunt Sunday!








Water

My dad has been to Chicago many times, but always on business. This was his first time in Lake Michigan!

Petal

Okay, so this is a pedal, not a petal, but after AJ bought new pedals for this new-to-us bike, its all I could think of. We went on a long bike ride Saturday afternoon. Now both of our bikes are in the apartment until we can put them away in our building's garage (mine needs to be cleaned first - there was a problem in the garage and mine was covered in soot, AJ's needs a permit which can take a few days!)

Fresh

We took an architecture tour along the Chicago River. It was a fresh perspective on the city.

Eight

A sneak peek at the mini album I am working on (I'll be sharing the whole thing next week!) I'm about 8 years old in this picture!

Calm

Relaxing and reading a book by the lake early Friday morning. It was so calm that early in the morning.

Well, I'm going to go get ready for yoga. I'm trying to carry over the relaxed weekend vibe into this week! Did you have a good weekend? Any fun plans this week?