showered with butterflies and other beautiful things

ce'leigh, this post is for you, i know you have been waiting ever so patiently! =)

last month i posted about the invitations and inspiration for my bridal shower, which my sis-in-law and 2 bridesmaids were hosting.  the photo i gave the girls was straight from martha stewart, of course, but boy i had no idea how beautifully they would adapt the concept for my shower.  here are the fruits of their labor of love:

above: they set a long table, and at each setting they placed a butterfly notecard which all the guests self addressed, so i could use them to send them shower thank you notes. (sorry folks, i'm lagging in that department at the moment) handing above the table with white paper lanterns with colorful butterflies attached to them.

down the center of the table were potted hydrangea which had long sticks with butterflies on them coming out of the flowers.

here's everyone seated for brunch below

side note: my bro & sis were awesome to open up their home for this shin-dig, even though the backyard is still in the process of completion, it made a great backdrop for the event!

two of the hostesses

the other hostess, SIL Lisa, scoping out the food levels no doubt! 

(she's the one in the white dress) =)

my bro & sis looking on from the door to make sure things are sailing smoothly.

here's a montage of all the food goodies (since we all know i love food!)

starting top left going clockwise:

1 - serving table with more butterfly lanterns, finger sandwiches, 

quiche, fresh fruit salad, and mimosas.

2 & 3 - the awesome cake and mini cakes 

4 - the desert & coffee table (such pretty colors)

5 - my absolute favorite photo of the lanterns - i love how bright and airy they look!

6 - the game we didn't get to play (the ladies were supposed to guess my age in each photo)

just before the gift opening begins...

the Schron ladies discussing my bedding which SIL is making since among other things she's a interior designer and fabulous seamstress - what can't that woman do?

ok and the random expressions montage....

1 - i like the photo album, i promise, i think it was more a face of not wanting to take pics with each gift?

2 - hand cross-stiched gift from grams, no idea why i was laughing so?

3 - this is either me saying "yessss!" about the pillows or showing my army press form?

mommy and me photo op, crazy, i really do think we look a lot alike

here's one of my many super cute gifts - a door mat that say's "welcome to our love nest" - way to go Mich with this off-the-registry pick!

everyone horsing around for group photos 

some of my mamsita's friends from work, i'm so glad they could all make it!

from left - right: my MOH, Wendy and her mom who flew in from Chicago!

BM, Erin and her mom

and of course mom and i

a note about the butterflies: Jess apparently cut, by hand, over 400 BUTTERFLIES!!!! which 

A) i wouldn't have the patience for and 

B) think i would've gone cross-eyed after staring at so many of them! 

So thanks Jess... and Ce'leigh, and Lisa for all the hard work, it came together beautifully and i know everyone, especially me enjoyed the day!

showered with love, laughter and lace

(l - r: michelle, bm - erin, bm - meagan, me, moh - wendy, bm - shayna)

this past sunday, my high school friends/bridesmaids hosted my lingerie shower.  it was a really fun couple of hours.  and since i'm a counry girl at heart it had a western theme to it, from the decor, to the invites, and even the food! 

what's a lingerie shower you might ask? well, everyone showers the bride to be with pjs, lingerie, and other things for the honeymoon and married life.  thankfully my friends know me well (and i asked them to spread the word) and they kept it very tame!  after my maid of honor's lingerie shower, i realized i might be mortified if some of the items that surfaced at her's, showed up at mine.  thankfully everything was classy and 

 modest just the way i had hoped it'd be! =)

above is my SIL's picture perfect ribbon bouquet creation!

a glance of the gifted goodies... they were all so pretty and colorful 

(and i'm talking about the wrapping)!

the FOOD!

i love food and i love deserts, unfortunately, i didn't make much of a dent in the ones at the shower. so sad... we had a salad bar with all the fixin's for a southwestern salad and sweet pepper corn bread (which i need the recipe for), and homemade brownies, and my BM Shayna's famous sugar cookies to match the theme in cacti and cowboy hats!

also - you'll see those buckets above again, i will be using them for potted hydrangea  throughout the wedding decor - they sell for $.97 at Wal Mart! this is just another way i can recycle them after the wedding.... hmm

below: me trying to enjoy the great lunch right as i was told it was time to go inside so they could "grill" me with questions...... 

loving my forehead wrinkles...eeshh

k so i went from stuffing my face with food - to bazooka bubblegum!

let me explain: wendy, my MOH, called my FI earlier in the week and asked him 20+ questions about a variety of things - which she explained she was going to grill me with in front of everyone at the shower!  for each i answered incorrectly i had to chew a piece of gum.... 

the pressure was on!

there were a few "trick" questions, which i called my FI out on after the shower, but wendy still made me take the gum, even though my FI told her wrong answers (i'm just a little competitive, can you tell?)  for example: what day did you and Blair meet?  i said the second week in May, 2002 - well he told her May 5, 2002... we most certainly didn't meet on cinco de mayo, and i know that for a fact! what i do know is we met during the second week USC's spring finals.... o'well...

so glad to get rid of the gum!  so much for my clean feeling teeth... oh and i ended up with 6 pieces of gum to chew... and a very unsuccessful bubble blowing attempt

 (for which i will spare you the photos)

here's BM shayna, the semi - pro photog, and if it wasn't for her i wouldn't have any of these pics - thanks shay!!!

this apron is absolutely ADORABLE! it has little sea-horses (matches our soon to be nautical themed home), has ruffles, and little bows on the pockets too!  and you must be wondering why an apron at a lingerie shower?... well... it's what my friend's mom told me is "lingerie for the kitchen", i kid you not!   

kristin - a febuary bride, next up after me, and the winner of our clothes-pin wedding taboo game!

clearly i'm a big fan of this one, so cute with all the little ruffles.... although my face isn't totally convincing, it was one of my favs after trying it on - thanks cels!

ok so here's the kicker:  my FMIL couldn't make it to the shower, she lives in salt lake city, but she did send a fabulous lingerie item which i opened at the very end.... what was it????

oh Hanes Her Way High Waisted Briefs...... 

**crickets chirping**

just as i was about to die to show them to anyone.... i discovered a note in the card from her saying "just kidding about the first gift" and a Victoria's Secret gift card.... oh heart attack over!

this is also the reason for the laughter in the photo above and the next 3!

phew...

above: the look on rochelle's face (bottom right) 

says it all when we discovered it was a gag gift! =)

the most special part of having a shower of this nature is to celebrate what my FI and i have( well actually have not) done in our relationship.... we're saving ourselves for marriage.  i'm not trying to toot my own horn, but the fact that we've done this at the age of 25 is really somthing to celebrate with a lingerie shower!

so thanks to everyone who made the shower so much fun, and for celebrating this milestone with me!

all the girls after the party

the high school friends again, hamin' it up

** new trend for the ribbon bouquet: my fair lady hat... naahhh that'll never fly**

second set of shower invites

when my 2 bridesmaids who are friends from college offered to throw my 

traditional shower, i was thrilled not only with their desire to host something but also because they are both very creative & crafty gals.  they will be hosting with my sis in law, who is also an extremely crafty lady, i can't wait to see what they have planned, what i do know it will be a fabulous shower!  Being that my college friends are recent grads, budgets are tight, with that in mind i offered my gocco services to them to help keep the costs down on the shower invites.  they have been so cute in wanting to make sure that i will love everything they have planned, even though i've told them i trust their judgement 100%!  

above is the inspiration for the shower's theme, stolen of course from good old Martha!

you can find the butterfly template here

two weekends ago 3 of us met at one of their houses in LA to crank out the invites.. here's how they turned out:

above is a batch of invites, the girls came up with the idea to use a hole punch in the butterflies to run ribbon through. in this picture you can also actually see the shine that the gocco inks produce when printed, so pretty!

the above invite gives you an idea of how detailed the gocco can print, however i blurred  areas with top secret info for privacy reasons!

a little note to fellow gocco'ers

also, we did have a snafu with the gocco printing the text... i hate to admit my little gocco was not a friend at the beginning of this project! it was my foe until i realized i wasn't considering the margins of the screen when i burned my master! if you've gocco'd you know it's great when you can use 1 screen to do a print job... well i wasn't keeping the invite within the 3.5 x 5 inch margin, it was too wide.  so i wasted a few screens trying to trouble shoot this, and each time the RSVP and the rsvp email address we not printing the ink and i got really frustrated!

just when i was about to throw in the towel, i found a post in my yahoo gocco group that the screen can only handle 3.5 inches wide... after that it was smooth sailing!

hope this helps some of you future gocco'ers, because i know it's no fun to waste supplies

tangent over, back to my invites

we turned to martha again for her handy dandy wrap around address labels. 

found here

below is what the return address looks like, and yes USPS is fine with the return address being on the back of the envelope!

to create the labels i actually took Martha's idea and created my own in the Mac program "Pages".  i did this myself only because we were working with a smaller scale envelope.

step by step here's how i made the labels myself:

- opened the Pages program on my computer

- insert the rectangle shape 

- open the "inspector" and click the "graphic" section and change the stroke option to whichever dotted line you like best

- next i opened a text box and picked the font "Snell Roundhand" 

in all lowercase type the return address portion

- then i typed the addressee's name in "Snell Roundhand bold" 

closer to the right end of the label

- for the address i used "imperator caps" and make sure the zip code is on it's own line with a space between each number.  

like this:  9 2 8 4 0 as opposed to 92840... 

see how it gives the zip a different look, besides Martha advises it! =)

- once you've made all your labels, print those out on the preferred color paper

- cut those out and then send them through your Xyron machine

- while still attached to the wax backing use a bone folder or straight edge to make the crease where it will wrap around the envelope

- lastly pull the label off the backing and stick it on each envelope!

and you're ready to send them to their new homes