Bedazzling The Belt

I’m back!  I hope all of my blog readership (which consists of my best friend and my mom and dad) didn’t think I’d given up on this project.  The last month has been absolute insanity.  So here’s a quick recap before we get into today’s post:

First of all, our social was a fantastic success!  After all the stress, planning, gathering of prizes, selling of tickets, and working to ensure the night went off without a hitch, I am happy to report that everything went relatively smoothly.  Or at least I think it did.  The night went by so fast that I’m not sure what happened.  One minute I’m writing numbers on the prize bags, the next minute I’m pulling out large trays of meat, and the third minute I’m throwing out half empty drink cups and telling Guy We Haven’t Seen In Eight Years to stop hitting on my bridesmaid and to go the hell home so we can clean up.  I learned quickly that it certainly goes by a lot faster when it’s your social compared to someone else’s. 

Another thing we learned:  never underestimate the ferocity of hungry drunk chicks.  My mother worked to create the most amazing cupcake display known to man, with 18 different specialty flavors in gorgeous wrappers.  However, the problem with that, is you cannot set up a table filled with sweets in the middle of a hoard of woo girls and expect them to stand back nicely while you place your handmade, exquisitely delicate signage in front of each type of cupcake and then stand back to admire and take a picture of your excellent craftsmanship.  As soon as the first cupcake hit the table it was like...

 

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

And my MOH was having to throw elbows to try and keep my mother from being stampeded.  Thankfully, she made it out alive, and I received a million compliments on her delicious confections. 

We owe a huge thank you to our families and wedding party, who really stepped up and helped us immensely with this event, as well as to all the wonderful people in our lives to attended our social to support us.  We love you all! 

 

 

The one picture of us from before the night started...

Immediately after the social, I had 4 days to get ready to leave for Grey Cup with my cheer team.  Between tying up loose ends at work, laundry and packing, ensuring our routine was ready to go and not leaving the hair team behind (which almost happened) there was no time for blogging.  Grey Cup weekend was also a great success!  My feelings would best be described in a song:

 

 

 

And a photo:

 

No caption necessary.

Immediately after getting home from Grey Cup, I had 4 days to get ready for a two week trip to Germany for the World Tap Championships.  By this time, my life is in complete disarray.  I’ve been living out of a bag and in airports since September, and I haven’t even had time to think about my wedding much less blog about it.  But I returned home in one piece last weekend after many a delayed flight and missed connection and had a couple days at home with my love to relax, decompress and recover from jet lag.  And what’s the best way to do that?  Why, with wine and strassing!

I received my Swarovskis in the mail a while ago, as I mentioned last blog post, and they have just been sitting there, taunting me, ever since.  So when I sat down to work on Aislin’s belt, I thought it was a project that was going to be completed over a number of weeks, but I finished it in two days.  Turns out, strassing for small people?  Much faster.  Strassing on a flat surface?  Much easier.  Strassing with Clear Diamond Swarovskis?  Much SPARKLIER!  Is sparklier a word?  I don’t care.  It is now.

As I posted before, Aislin’s dress looks like this:

 

 

Look at that punnum.  Isn’t she adorable?  Squee.

But the front of it is much too plain for my taste.  So I started with a piece of plain white silk ribbon, and used an embroidery hoop to keep it taut and in place while I strassed.  I was also concerned the glue would seep through the ribbon and onto the table, so I wanted to keep it up off my work surface.  Turns out it held up well!  When I put the first row of crystals on, I felt that same overwhelming feeling when I started Meadow’s tap shoes, because it seems like such a big project with such little stones.  But I worked about one square inch at a time, and it went pretty fast!

 

 

You start with some ribbon....

 

 

 

 

...you pull it tight...

 

 

 

 

...and you get down to biz.

I measured Aislin a couple weeks back at dance class (dance!  Awe, she’s doing so good...) and she’s 10 inches from hip to hip, so I added a bit more for growth and worked on one half at a time, meeting in the middle.  I think I finished the whole thing in about 6-7 hours.  I’m getting pretty fast at strassing now, which is good because I have a giant pair of size 9 pumps to finish before the wedding. 

 

 

Progress...

 
 

 

Usually worked in square inches...

 

 

 

 

Almost halfway....

 

 

 

 

Just about done!

And voila, the finished product!  I feel sad that these photos don’t do the belt justice, because it is so sparkly and cute.  I tried it on her at dance last night and it looked so bloody adorable.  She’s going to be such a little doll.  :)  So now I’m excited to strass more things for her outfit!  Shoes!  Hairpiece!  Flower basket!  She will probably blind everyone walking down the aisle, hahaha...

 

 

Finished!

 

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season and a Happy New Year!  I will be back after the holidays with lots of wedding planning fun!

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

~M

 

 

WARNING: Cuteness Overload

Hello all!

So as much as I loved trying on bridal gowns, and swishing and swaying in all the gorgeous organza and lace before finally settling on the perfect one, let me assure you that it is nothing compared to going through the same process with the cutest and tiniest of humans! 

 

"Their small features and oversized eyes trigger a hormonal response in humans.  It's autonomic.  It's what keeps us from eating them."

We took Aislin flower girl dress shopping on the weekend, and it was so fun!  I loved seeing her in all the adorable little dresses.  There is nothing cuter than a little girl in a fancy dress.

The first was a floaty white dress with an organza overlay and white flowered belt:

 

Oh she's cute....and she knows it.

 

 

Floof!

I liked this dress, but I really wanted Aislin to be a mini-me and there weren't really any flowers incorporated into my dress, so we passed on this one.


The next was a pink strap dress with rosette detailing on it (that did come in white) and pretty trim:

 

OMG.  She's just wee.

I liked this one too, and I loved the poufyness factor, but again wasn't a fan of the big rose on the belly.  So although she looked really cute and princessy in pink, we passed on this one too.


The next was a layered and striped dress, and in Aislin's words, "this one's a bit big":

 

Gasp.  I have no words.  What a little doll.

This dress is cute, but for someone older.  I don't believe that spaghetti straps belong on three year olds, so even though I loved the coutureyness of it and the fact that it looked different, it wasn't the right one.

It was around this time that I learned that trying to photograph a child is just like trying to photograph wild animals.  You have to be incredibly patient, you need to stalk them as they go about their business in their natural habitat, and if they get even the slightest sniff of an inkling that you are trying to take a picture of them, they will run away in the other direction.

One of many blurry action shots that ended up on my camera phone...lol

 



It was also at this point that she couldn't understand why we were parading her around in dresses like a circus monkey oohing and ahhing at her when all she wanted to do was run around naked and play.  So we shoved another dress on her, but she was pretty much not having it.  And I can't blame her either, I also have zero shopping stamina.  Five outfits is like my max, and then I just wanna get the hell outta dodge and have a cocktail.

But luckily for us, and her, we found the perfect adorable little dress for her to wear on our big day, this floaty organza dress with a crinoline underlay and ribbon detailing on the back:

 

CUTENESS.

 

 

Love the interesting back...

 

 

 

 

Another photo of her on the run...

 

  

Now I can't let my cutie little mini-me go out in front of all those people without being appropriately blinged.  So in addition to strassing her a little pair of ballet flats, I'm going to make her a strassed ribbon belt, to go with the dress since the front of it is pretty but plain.  And we changed the organza ribbon on the back to white as well.  And of course, when the sales associate asked me if I wanted an extra layer of crinoline underneath for extra pouf?  UM, YEAH.

 

 

 

I know.  Shopping tires me out too.  Let's blow this pop stand

and get some Kinder Surprise.



I would tell you about bridesmaids dress shopping as well, but there's not really much to tell.  I have the most efficient set of bridesmaids a girl could possibly assemble.  We were in and out of David's in about 15 minutes, and zero photos were taken.  It pretty much went like this:

Me:  "Okay, you guys pick some dresses you like, and I'm gonna go sit over here."

Jess:  "How about this one?"

Melissa:  "I like that one."

Tara:  "Me too"

(they all try it on)

Me:  "Okay so we're all good with this one?"

Bridesmaids Superforce:  "Yep."

Me:  "Want to try anything else on?"

Bridesmaids Superforce:  "Nope."

Me:  "Awesome, let's go to Joey's for bellinis."


Done and done.  They ended up choosing this famous Vera Wang in black:

 

Unique, chic and super fashion forward.  It looked awesome on all of them, and I love it!  I also love that it was on Gossip Girl.  Except we will do without the weirdo fascinators.

So that's two more things crossed off the list!  Yay!  I feel like a wedding planning beast these days.


Just a reminder that our wedding social is coming up on November 16th!  I will be doing another post soon about our awesome prizes!  Based on the crowd that has already bought entry to this shindig, you will not want to miss out.  It's gonna be an awesome party!  Message me for tickets!
 
 
Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!



~M

Basically the Cutest Flower Girl in the Whole Wide World.

This Wedding Wednesday I decided to blog about my flower girl, my oh-so-cute and incredibly gorgeous niece Aislin.  She will have just turned three by the time that Eric and I get married, so she will be a good age to teeter down the aisle throwing rose petals for Auntie Mickaela!

 

Hi everybody!  (This picture dissolves me into puddles of goo.  Cuteness overload.)

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never been much of a kid person (save for my students at the studio), and really not much of a baby person.  They are fussy and hard to keep happy, and drop exploding bombs of poo ten times a day.  But as soon as Aislin was born, I was unconsciously switched to full-on Aunt Mode.  Aunt Mode is different than Mom Mode in which I still cannot change diapers and reserve the right to hand her back over if she is tired and/or some other inexplicably hard to decipher emotion which makes her start screeching with sadness and cracks my heart just a little too much.  But Aunt Mode comes with the requisite bragging rights, sending emails with pictures of her to all my coworkers and friends, and speaking in high-pitched tones saying crazy things like, “OMGGGGGG, did you seeeee how she just blinked her eyes?????  SOOO CUUUUUTE.”

 

 

Are you kidding me?  OMG.

She may as well have been born holding a sign that says, “FUTURE FLOWER GIRL AND COMPETITIVE DANCER”.  I’ve already got her first tap solo costume designed, a duo partner picked out for her that was born 4 months after her (Hi Brielle!) and I am actually considering a foray back into the world of teaching pre-dance classes once she hits that age so I can spend even more time with her.  Squee!

 

 

She’s also going to be a pretty bucc hip hop dancer.  You can already tell.

 

So naturally, I have spent a lot of time scouring the internet for the cutest flower girl dresses I can find, and it was a no-brainer that I want Aislin to look like a mini-ballerina.  Poofs!  Tulle!  Tutu!  Ballerina flats!  Sock bun!  (Okay, she probably won’t have enough hair for a sock bun.)

 

 

So pretty.

 

 

This is a really cute inspiration photo...

 

 

Aislin already knows she looks good in tutu dresses – this was her first birthday outfit!  (With the cake Grandma made for her that’s taller than she is.)

 

Another really cute inspiration photo...

 

...and because this is my blog and now I’m in full on Aunt Mode and really cannot help myself, here are some more gratuitous pictures of my niece!  :)

 

Me, Aislin and Fuzzy Bunny hanging out on Fan Appreciation Day at the stadium

 

 

Splashing around in her pool!

So many little chompers poking through now...

 

Why hello.  Yes, I’m perfect.  :)

 

 

 

 

Me.  Whenever I'm around her.  All the time.

 

 

OKAY!  I’m done.

I also have a special plan for Aislin’s shoes, because any niece/flower girl of mine has to be sporting footwear as fantastic as mine for the big day!  I think I’m most excited to start blogging about the shoes.  Oh....the shoes.

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

~M