Halloween & Ghost Cookies

I hope everyone had a wonderfully spooky Halloween! Joey and I went to see my Grandpa in his nursing home with all my little cousins all dressed up in their costumes. It was delightfully adorable to see them all pretending to be dead prom queens, witches and ninjas. My oldest (little) cousin was Bob Marley, and man, was he too cool for school. Brady, my nephew, was Spiderman and so were my twin cousins that are also the same age.... so the three of them thought that was pretty neat!

After visiting my Grandpa, we went and bought some bags of candy (nothing like the last minute) and handed it all out to trick or treaters in the neighborhood. There were TONS of little baby Cardinals players, so that was cute. We didn't get many teenagers, but we also ran out of candy at like 8pm. Ha!!

We spent the Sunday evening prior to Halloween with my brother and his family doing a fun spooky appetizer themed dinner! My sister-in-law LOVES Halloween and really went all out with the food and decorations. We had mummy hot dogs, pumpkin dip, cheese ball mice... just to name a few. Her bean dip even had a face! My sister made witches fingers out of pretzel rods and green candy melts, but I didn't get a picture of those.

I contributed these adorable cookies to the dinner, and also to work on Halloween day itself. They were super easy to make and everyone was really excited about them. I got so many compliments at work!

 
TO MAKE: All you need are 3 ingredients that can be found at probably any store. I got them at Walmart! Just grab a package of Keebler Elf fudge cookies (I've seen Nutter Butters used too), white melting chocolate and mini chocolate chips.

Melt the chocolate as directed on the package and dip the cookies in halfway, shaking off the excess. Place on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. Before the chocolate cools, place 2 mini chocolate chips at the top for the eyes.

I put the cookie sheet in the fridge overnight and put them on a festive little pumpkin plate and the chocolate stayed hard the entire night!

Like I said, any oval-ish cookie can be used... I just love the elf cookies because it looks like they are wearing a ghost costume! *Note the poor elf in the middle of the picture on the left who put his sheet on upside down. Whoops!



You also can't go wrong with temporary tattoos! I was the office Tattoo Artist on Wednesday.... love!

Now bring on Thanksgiving!

We are wedding-ed out!

October has been a very hectic month so far. I know that it's been forever since I posted, so I apologize for my temporary leave of absence.

Joey and I had 2 weddings right off the bat this month, one of which we were actually involved in. For pretty much the entire end of September and beginning of October, my entire free time was devoted to helping my lovely cousin Lisa get the finishing touches done for her wedding.

I designed, printed and assembled her program, timeline and reception place cards.... with her and Kirstie's help of course!! I could not have have gotten them all finished in time without these amazing ladies.

It was so much fun browsing Pinterest and taking ideas from here and there, along with visions I already had in my head and turning them into finished products! The program took the longest to make. The hardest parts were definitely getting everything aligned, picking the right shade of lavender and getting everyone's names spelled correctly! I think they turned out pretty awesome though.

I also found a wedding timeline on Pinterest and decided to make my own version. It's pretty similar to the one I found, I have to admit, but it still gave me the satisfaction of doing it myself. It was a big hit with everyone and it really seemed to limit the annoying questions of "Where do we go next?" and "How long of a wait til the reception?", which some people really think are appropriate questions to bother the Bride and Groom with. I am a firm believer that every wedding should implement these cards.

The reception place cards were due to the fact that the reception was a sit-down dinner and not a buffet. The colored backing helped the staff identify who ordered salmon (lavender) and who ordered chicken (black). It really helped and was a clever idea since it wasn't overly obvious!

The following pictures are a couple snapshots from the night before the wedding and during. I didn't get many pictures because I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off all day. Seriously......... I didn't sit down once all day, except for the actual wedding itself and dinner. But I loved every second of it!

 

Kirstie wearing all of our wedding rings... luckily she is a great friend and didn't run off with thousands of dollars on her hand.

Brandon playing the crap out of that cello.

My wedding day GPOY when I had a second to myself in the hotel bathroom. Sigh.

My lovely husband and I at the reception. We were both sweaty and tired by this point.

The next weekend was Casey and Amanda's wedding! We spent the entire day in downtown St. Louis with our friends Dustin and Brandon. It was such an awesome day.... I just totally forgot to take pictures. Ummmm, whoops!

We spent the time between the wedding and the reception at this pretty sweet bar/restaurant/hipster hangout called Plush. We ate weird food, I had a cider beer, and about 3 coffees. Guys, the napkins were tye-dye and cloth. TOTAL HIPSTER HANGOUT.

The upstairs of Plush was a huge open loft area with ping pong tables, a pool table and tons of mismatched seating areas and a bean bag pit. It had huge open windows and exposed brick walls.

I just love this guy.

The centerpieces! I love me a good mason jar craft. These battery operated lights were an awesome touch, as there was only dim lighting at the reception. Made a very romantic atmosphere!

Us and the groom. YAY WEDDINGS!!!

So yes, it's safe to say that Joey and I are officially wedding-ed out for 2012. We are going to rest and prepare for the Wedding season 2013... we're looking at you Roadie/Carrie and Brian/Kirstie!!!! We can't wait...... but are SUPER relieved you aren't getting married this year. ;)

DIY Doily Wedding Dresses

About 2 weeks ago, I promised you a tutorial on how to make the doily wedding dresses that I made for my cousin's shower invitations. Well, hey! Better late than never! ;)

Let's get one thing straight first. These were not a brain child of mine, no sir. I wish I had come up with them. Pinterest introduced me to these fancy frocks by way of a blog called Paper, Paws, etc.

Here is my step-by-step tutorial to make your own paper princess ball gowns!

Supplied needed:

- 4" paper doilies, I found them in the cake section of my craft store (you need approx 2 doilies for each dress, so plan ahead)

- Gluesticks

- Scissors

- White cardstock

- Ribbon, in your choice of color

- Heart punch (any craft store should sell one big enough)

- Brads, or any decorative embellishment that can be adhered without falling off easily

   

First off, you need to determine which is the the pretty side of the doily and which is the rough. I think it's pretty easy to tell when it's in front of you, but I included a picture above for reference just in case.

Since you want the pretty side to be more dominant, turn it face down. Rough side up, if you will.

Then, fold the doily just to the white circle at the bottom. Don't fold the doily in half completely, because you're wanting to create 2 layers of the dress. You'll see just about an inch of rough lace when you look at your folded doily.

Crease so that you have a firm edge.

Then, take the top right corner of the doily and bring it down towards the left, lining it up where the white circle and the lace meet. A 90 degree angle, as long as you don't check my measurements for correctness. Or my grammar. ;)

Glue that corner so that it doesn't come apart. You don't need a lot of glue, and make sure it dries clear since you're going to be gluing on the lace part.

When you're done, you should have a triangle point at the top, and 3 layers of the dress. The rough part at the bottom of the dress, then a folded part in the middle, and the piece you just folded over and glued down.

Now to make the top of the dress! 

Take a doily and fold it in half. Put it on top of a piece of white cardstock and position it in the heart stamp so that you like what you see. I felt that you needed to see some white so that the sweetheart neckline was lace only. It's totally up to you.

This will actually make 2 doily hearts, so you'll need to make more white cardstock hearts to keep up. I tried folding the cardstock in half as well, and it was too thick for my punch to go through the stack. Experiment!

Glue the doily to the white cardstock. Aww, so pretty!

Snip off the sides of the heart at an angle... I actually cut too much off of this one (in my personal opinion... also too straight), so the finished product I'm showing you is much cuter than this one would have been. Oops!

Also take the tip of the skirt and fold it backwards, and glue down.


Glue the top of the dress to the bottom piece, and wrap your ribbon around the two pieces. Glue the ribbon to the back to attach it, but DO NOT glue the ribbon on the front of the dress.

Keep it loose, goose!

See? You needed to keep it unglued in front because the next step is to put another piece of ribbon through the sash. I liked how it looked when it was at uneven lengths, but do what ever makes you happy.

Then push the brad through the whole dang mess to secure the ribbon, or glue any embellishment you want to put there. If you don't want anything to embellish the sash, you could just glue the ribbon down, to make sure it doesn't fall out.

I hope you have fun with these.... you should definitely send me a picture of your finished pieces if you decide to make them! I'd love to see them

Or, I am totally for hire. Call me, maybe! ;)

Playing Catch

It has been so hot here lately. I was beginning to think I would never see below the 80 degree mark on the temperature gauge in my car. I've seen some of my friends on Facebook talking about the fall-ish weather where they live, and some of my favorite blogs are already posting about their new favorite Fall clothes.

Today, though.... today it was 64 degrees at 8 am. That is so huge for me! I think it's been colder than that in the morning in recent days, but I don't step outside until 8 am or later on any given day, so 64 degrees was awesome.

This afternoon I went outside with some coworkers and just reveled in the beautiful weather. I lost ALL motivation to work for the rest of the day, naturally, but it was just such a nice break in the day to be able to go outside without sweating to death. I made my coworker come with me so that she would make sure that I came back inside. There was a joke about a retractable leash made. Probably a good idea, though a little weird. ;)

Tonight Joey and I played catch outside for about 30 minutes. We started getting attacked by mosquitoes and it got dark fast, so next time we will plan better and start playing earlier in the night. And wear bug spray. It was fun though... I've always had a special place in my heart for playing catch. I played softball from age 5 to age 11 and ended my 'career' as a catcher. I may not be good at softball, or even just playing catch, and I am definitely terrified of the ball coming straight for my face... but I was never the athlete so I don't feel too bad about it!

I have a lot of fond memories playing catch with my dad when I was very young, going to practice every week, playing huge games of wiffle ball with the neighbor kids and playing t-ball with my younger sister. Softball definitely means a lot to me.

I mean, honestly. I was adorable!

Lately...

6 am last Friday. Way too early, but the sky was super pretty. I love wispy clouds!

My super friend Mary bought me a coffee on said Friday. Did I mention she was a super friend?

Coconut Milk mint chocolate chip ice cream. Sounds crazy, tastes delicious. I was lactose intolerant for 8 years.... thinking about going back.

Shower invites I made for my cousin's Bridal Shower.

Keep on the lookout for a DIY soon! ;)

Comfy awesome slippers, even in the heat of August.

I made a new wreath and I'm in love! Check out the DIY here if you want to make your own.

I have a couple more DIY's up my sleeve, including the doily wedding dress above. Keep an eye out! :)

Wedding Season 2012 - Angie & Nick

Last Saturday was my lovely cousin Angie's wedding, to a wonderful guy. Her and Nick will be happy forever and the wedding was absolute proof of that.

Joey was super honored to be an usher, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly all day long.

It was indeed a long day, but one filled with family, love and lots and lots of dancing!

 

 

2 weddings down..... 3 more to go!

Wedding Season 2012 is in full blast. :)