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!