I'm a bad, bad blogger

It's been THREE months since my last post! But I have a decent excuse...my little adventure in starting my paper business has kept me so busy that I haven't had time to blog! I'm currently booked solid for 2010! Now considering I am my one and only employee (with occasional help from my lovely mother and adoring husband) and the fact that I do everything by hand, it's not like I have a wedding every weekend for the rest of the year. But when you throw in place cards, programs, menu cards and welcome folders on top of invitations, that's a lot of time spent designing/printing/cutting/gluing/folding/assembling! All in all, I will have done work for 6 brides by December. I think that's pretty good if I do say so myself!

Thank you to all who have referred me to other people - keep them coming, I've still got openings for 2011! And if you haven't checked it our or become a fan, visit my Facebook page!

Introducing...

Last year I acquired a new hobby. I had always been a scrapbooker but last year with Kristie's wedding and our wedding, I realized that I really like working with paper in general. So I decided to turn my hobby into somewhat of a side business.

So I introduce you to:

Why Peppermint Papers you ask? Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a sucker for anything mint flavored. And Peppermint Papers had a nice ring to it. Plus the color red is fun and the peppermint icon is super cute!

So if you know anyone that might be looking for save the dates, wedding invitations, shower invitations, birth announcements, personalized stationary or anything else you can make with paper, send them my way! I'm currently looking for my next project!

Become a fan on Facebook too! :)

The Ones That Didn't Make the Cut

If you remember back to my dress posts (1, 2, & 3) I didn't want to put any pictures of me in a white dress on here. Gary is notoriously nosey and I knew he wouldn't be able to keep his eyes away. So I thought since the wedding is done, I'll post some pics of the dresses that didn't make the cut.

This is the fantastic sale rack find that I almost bought. My mom and I found it the night before the big dress shopping event and it was only around $300. In the end, it was between this dress and the one I actually bought.

The next day I tried on a bunch of different dresses. The first one I tried on was the one I ended up buying, but there were a few others that looked good enough on the hanger for me to try on, but not good enough on me to buy.


This one had some detail on the bust that reminded me of something Madonna wore in the 80's...it was a definite no (although I'm smiling!)

This one I actually liked, it was very simple. When I went in looking, I thought I would end up with something very classic and simple. This dress fit that bill but in the end I decided it didn't fit the rustic vintage theme of the wedding. This one was axed.

This was one of my other favorites (contrary to the look on my face!), I think in the end it was the material that I didn't like.

This was another favorite, it was very slimming and was elegant yet still had a bit of character to it. If I would have chose this dress, I would have taken the broach off. The thing that made this dress a 'no' was the bust line. To me it looked like one curve of the bust was larger than the other and that would have driven me CRAZY in pictures!

Almost every dress I tried on was strapless so I thought I would throw a halter into the mix just to make sure strapless was what I actually wanted. I thought the halter made me look ultra busty and it wasn't very flattering. Put this one on the no list.

Next we went to Elizabeth's in Northville. I only tried on a few here because honestly they didn't have much in my price range. I did like this one but again the material was throwing me off and I didn't like it more than the ones I had in mind from earlier.

I LOVED this one! It fit the vintage theme we were going for I really liked the beige color of it. Unfortunately, it was a little bit more than I wanted to spend. I should have known better than to even try it on!

Looking back on everything I tried on, I definitely made the right choice. After the wedding, I showed Gary all the dresses I tried on. He agreed that I made the right choice...although I'm not sure he would have told me otherwise!

I know most of you saw the dress already, but here is a picture of me in it at the dress shop...I think you can tell by the look on my face that I had found the ONE!

A Tisket, A Tasket, Our Bathroom Baskets

I put together two bathroom baskets, one for the women and one for the men, full of items that you just might need during the night. I mean, how many times wouldn't you have paid good money for a hair tie when you needed one?

Here is what we had in each:

Men's Basket:

• gum
• Shout wipes
• Axe body spray
• Scope
• Wisp disposable tooth brushes
• dental floss
• shoe polish
• cough drops
• Tylenol
• Tums
• deodorant
• bandaids
• contact solution
• hair gel
• hair spray
• hand lotion
• combs
• lint roller
  

Women's Basket:

• panty liners
• Shout wipes
• Q tips
• Tums
• Tylenol
• deoderant
• bandaids
• tampons
• Wisp disposable tooth brushes
• dental floss
• Scope
• gum
• cough drops
• contact solution
• hair spray
• hand lotion
• nail file
• hair ties
• bobby pins

Not only are the baskets useful, but I also got to add a cute little poem:

It reads:

Whether your skin feels dry
or your hair out of place.

You're not feeling so fresh
or whatever the case.

We've put together a basket
to help you along,

Now hurry back out
before you miss the next song!

Looking at the contents of the baskets the day after the wedding, most of the items in the women's basket was still in the basket. The men's, however, was almost empty! Either the items got a lot of use or we had a lot of men with sticky fingers!

The Wedding Tornado

I took this the week before the wedding...it certainly looks like a tornado went through our house. A wedding tornado of wrapping paper, ribbon, groomsmen gifts, wedding presents, out of town bag contents...

And the funniest thing to me in this picture is if you look way to the left, you can see Gary's Bronco-socked feet propped up on the couch...and if you look way to the right, you can see that he is clearly watching some sort of sporting event. I think football was the only thing keeping him sane! He couldn't wait to get our house back to normal!

Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

Most brides continue the something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue tradition when they get married. I took part in the tradition as well, however I don't think my "somethings" were that creative or thoughtful...but I thought I'd share anyway.

Something Old

My grandma Pat (my mom's mom) let me borrow her strand of fresh water pearls. I loved them because they weren't the traditional single strand of pearls. They were very tiny rice pearls in three strands intertwined.

Something New

I had lots of things that were new! My dress, my veil, my earrings, my shoes...not having the pro pics yet, here's the best picture I could find that you can see everything!

Something Borrowed

Those ladies out there that have shopped for a bustier or long line bra to go under their dress knows that one of those bad boys can cost a small fortune. Luckily Emmy had one that she let me borrow! I don't have any photos of me in it (nor would I want to share one if I did...) but it looked something like this:


Something Blue

Following Kristie's lead, I wore blue undies! Again, I won't be sharing an actual photo but they were something like these:

So although not too much thought went into the tradition, I still took part!

Dancin' Shoes

Having been a bridesmaid in a few weddings now, I know how tired my girls' feet would be by the end of the night. And I knew that they would be itching to get out of their heels....so I made these for them:

I bought $5 flip flops from Old Navy and I was lucky enough to find hydrangeas at Michael's in all the colors! I hand sewed the flowers on using some gold glass beads and gold cross stitch thread.

This is me modeling my sister's pair

(My pedi from Mexico still looks pretty good, huh!)

And here are all the colors together. I did make Emily a pair but I must not have had them finished when this picture was taken.

I also made an ivory pair for myself...and boy was I glad to slip them on after a looooonnngg day of wearing heals!

We're alive...really, I swear.

So it's been a while since my last post, and honestly I've been having difficulty getting motivated to start back up again. But at the request of a few people (Kristie to keep her entertained at work, Ange I assume for the same reason!) I will attempt to start writing again.

Before we get into the actual wedding events, I want to go back and post about a few projects that I did that I wanted to keep secret until the wedding. So let's talk about out of town bags.

Out of town bags (or OOT bags) are usually left in the hotel rooms of guests that travel from out of town to attend the wedding. We decided early on that we wanted to do a Detroit theme for our OOT bags. And luckily Detroit has a number of things that were perfect for the bags:

1. Faygo Soda - 2 bottles
2. Better Made Potato Chips - BBQ and Regular
3. Germack Peanuts - Lions, Tigers and Red Wings packages!
4. Sanders chocolates - 2 per bag

I was so excited when we found the Germack peanuts in the Detroit sport teams. They were even more perfect that way!

All the bags lined up and ready to go!

We also included a note thanking everyone for making the trip and a short paragraph on each item inside the bag:

Welcome to Detroit!

We want to thank all of you for joining us on our special day! We are very blessed to have each of you in our lives and we are so happy that you are here to help celebrate with us! It is an honor to have you here in Detroit…the city we fell in love….and the city we begin our journey as husband and wife! Please enjoy a taste of Detroit!

With Love - Gary and Kate

Faygo Soda
Fiegenson Brothers Bottleworks, or Faygo, was founded in Detroit in 1907 by Russian bakers Ben and Perry Fiegenson. The original flavors of grape, strawberry and fruit punch were based on their own recipes for cake frosting.

Better Made Potato Chips
When the Cross and Peter’s Company was founded in 1930 by Cross Moceri and Peter Cipriano, their main goal was to make a better potato chip, hence the brand name Better Made.

Sander’s Chocolates
Sanders was founded in 1875 by Fred Sanders and began as a single retail shop in downtown Detroit. Sanders candies, dessert toppings and other items can now be found in stores nationwide.

Germack Nuts
The Germack Pistachio Company got its start when Frank Germack Sr. moved to Detroit and established the company in 1924. Today, it is still located in Detroit’s Historic Eastern Market and is still owned by the Germack family.

And there you have it! Of course it looked a lot prettier in fancy fonts and on our colored paper but you get the idea. I was pleased with the way everything came together and I think all of our out of town guests enjoyed them as well!

And We're Married!

It was over in a flash and it still doesn't really seem real. Thank you to all of our friends and family who traveled from near and far to celebrate with us. It was definitely the best day of my life. The pics from friends and family are starting to come in but for now I will leave you with one I took of our rings on my bouquet. Full recaps to come after the HONEYMOON!

The Letter R

In just three days, I will change my last name. I will no longer be KK, K Squared, Double K...instead, my new last initial will be R. The nice thing about the letter R is that it is so close to K that when I screw up signing my new last name, I can easily change that K - that I will inevitably write for the first three months- into an R.




Mom mom gave this to us when we got engaged. I just love it. (I also took this picture with my fancy new DSLR camera! I love that too!!)

If the Shoe DOESN'T Fit...

If you read my sister's blog, you saw her post about shoes yesterday. I decided that I would post about MY shoes. If you remember, I already posted about my shoes early on in the wedding planning process. However, things have changed since then.

I loved my Nina shoes that I bought, but when I took my dress home, the color just wasn't right. So sadly, I returned them. I did however find another pair that I liked even better (at DSW no less!) and they were the perfect color to match my dress. I am usually in between sizes when it comes to shoes so I went with the smaller size after having visions of me slipping out of them and falling flat on my face half way down the aisle. They weren't uncomfortably small, but they definitely weren't going anywhere either.

Fast forward a few months to my second dress fitting. This was the first time I had worn the shoes for any length of time. I realized they weren't quite as comfortable as I thought they were. I bought some gel inserts to hopefully make them a bit better. The only problem is, with the inserts, my already snug fitting shoes were now a little TOO snug. The solution to my problem? Break them in a bit...so here is how I've been wearing my shoes around the house for the last few weeks:

It's working, they fit much better. But I think I'll leave the socks at home on the actual wedding day.

One Step Closer...

Although all of the preparations for the wedding aren't finished yet, we are one step closer! We are now legally allowed to marry in the state of Michigan! Gary and I picked up our marriage license yesterday morning. Northville has a satellite office so we didn't have to go downtown and mess with the county building. It was really quite simple, we applied on Tuesday and picked it up on Thursday! Of course I had to get a photo...Gary wasn't too happy about it...

Weather Watch

And it begins. Today marks 10 days out from the wedding...which means our wedding date is now within the 10 day weather forecast! I know being 10 days out, it's not entirely accurate but you better believe that I'll be checking it every day! We're not looking too bad so far...I would love it to be a little warmer with with no rain currently in the forecast, I'm a happy girl!

The Problem with Cake

The problem with cake is that every flavor is good. Our baker, Gwen, has so many delicious flavors on her "menu" that Gary and I ended up having her bake us about six little cakes before we decided on our flavors. We're getting down to the wire now so we went last night for our last tasting and to finalize the design. So what did we end up with?

White Amaretto cake with Raspberry Cream filling

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Cream filling

Apple Spice cake with Cream Cheese filling

And as for design, I only pulled one inspiration photo the entire 6 months that I've been scouring wedding magazines and blogs. And so here it is:

I liked it because it was simple and classic. Our ribbon will be red instead of orange and the flowers on top will be whatever our florist comes up with!

New Wedding 'Do

Despite the fact that Gary likes my hair better light, I wanted to get it dyed darker before the wedding. I prefer my hair dark and it fits in well with the fall theme. So just as all of the things you read about getting your hair done before your wedding, I went about two weeks out just in case anything crazy happened (like the purple hair from my latest wedding nightmare).

I definitely got dark...and I LOVE it! I don't think this picture does is justice...I think it looks darker in person. It felt good to have a trim too! I've been growing it out since we got engaged and my ends were getting pretty scraggily. So what do you think?

Important Information

You can never be too prepared on your wedding day. And you never know when someone is going to need the phone number for the DJ or the address to the reception hall. So I made up these little important information cards for our wedding party and the other folks involved directly with the wedding. .

I started with a blank piece of 8 1/2 by 11 paper and created individual boxes to hold the information. I used three different categories: Important Phone Numbers, Important Addresses and Vendor Phone Numbers

I then cut them out and accordion folded them like so:

Once they were folded, I just had to tie a cute little bow with twine! When finished, they are the approximate size of a business card so the guys can slip them in their wallets and the girls can stash them easily in a small purse.

Hopefully this will make life easier for everyone if they should need to find a phone number or an address. Otherwise, they were just another fun (and quick!) project for me!

Run Like the Wind

This will be my first non-wedding related post in a while but I had to give a shout out to my future husband because I am SO proud of him! This summer, he decided that he was going to run the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon. Originally, I was going to run with him but do to the horrible feet I inherited from my mother (that and I've heard horror stories of brides having to wear closed toe shoes because they crack their toe nails off while running) I decided it was best for me not to run. But Gary stuck with it and he DID IT! We were downtown bright and early today - the race started at 7:15 AM! They ran through downtown, over the bridge to Canada, through Windsor, through the tunnel back to Detroit and back to the finish line...a whopping 13.1 miles!

Here he is before the race all bundled up...I think it was 37 degrees at race time!


And here is one while he is running...I didn't bring my new camera so it was hard to get an action shot! He is kind of in an open space on the road dressed in all grey.

I also got to see him just before the finish line and give him a high five! I am so proud that he stuck with it AND that he finished 10 minutes BEFORE his goal time!! Congrats G!!!

The Dresses are In!

They've actually been in for a while, and I'm just getting around to posting about it. I was having second thoughts about my choice for doing different colors for each girl. (And I was having nightmares that the shop ordered the wrong colors!) But when the dresses came in and I saw them all together again, my worries were gone. They look great! Here is Kristie modeling hers:

It definitely took a while to get her all laced up so we'll have to make sure to bake some extra time into our getting ready schedule on the day of!

Gifting the Hostesses

This post is a little late, but I kept forgetting to bring my camera to work with me. I wanted to share this cute and super easy project that my mom thought up to use for hostess gifts for one of my showers. All you need is a mum plant, a terracotta pot, some ribbon and a handy dad who can drill holes for you.


I think they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. Now you may be asking yourself why you don't see me helping...I was too busy taking pictures of course...and I had just gotten my nails done :)

Last Fling Before the Ring!

Boy did we have FUN!! The theme was "Sexy Girls in the City" and I'd say we lived up to that! The night started out at my sister's house for drinks, dinner and some games! Of course they had to have her entire house decorated with embarrassing photos of me! The girls also set up an underwear scavenger hunt for me...it was SO fun and I got lots of cute undies!!

Clue: Courtney now knows better than to take THIS to the bar with her!

Bronco Girls!

All the ladies ready for a night on the town!

After the pre-party, my mom was a dear and drove us to Grand Rapids where we had a hotel room for the night. We did a little more pre-drinking in the hotel room and then hit the town!

A few more cocktails at the hotel!

Why yes, we did take a red limo from 1992...

Me and my maids on the town

I have many more photos but you can check out Facebook to view them all!

To wrap up this post, I thought I'd write something along the lines of Courtney's post of the top 10 moments of the night, I thought I would post the top 10 things I learned from my bachelorette party:

1. I have had WAY too many embarrassing pictures taken of me throughout the last 5 years
2. It's even more embarrassing explaining said photos to my mother
3. Even with a ring on my finger, I haven't lost my touch for getting free drinks
4. Don't tell me that some other bachelorette stole your boa because I WILL fight her
   
5. It is not impossible to fit 7 girls on a rickshaw at the same time
6. My sister and I definitely do not hang out enough
7. I have the BEST helium voice out of the entire group
8. I can eat two hot dogs and pizza at 2 AM and feel just fine afterward
   
9. Video cameras should be illegal at bachelorette parties
10. I have the most amazing friends ever!!!