Thankfulness

I don't know why - but lately I have been thinking a lot about thankfulness. Maybe because there seems to have been so much upheaval everywhere lately: crazy economy, REALLY emotional campaign season, the holidays fast approaching, and most of all there has been a lot of personal upheaval in people close to me, which is always stressful because you want your loved ones to always be happy!

I have just been SO EMOTIONAL lately. I cry at the drop of a hat, even commercials make me tear up, which makes me laugh at myself, even as I am fighting back the tears. I think I just feel this enormous sense of a big change coming, and I don't know what to expect! I was really confused why I was so unsettled, but I think I finally figured it out...

• I am never going to go on any more first dates.
• There won't be any more first kisses.
• I really can't go out with my good guy friends all by myself anymore because it might "look bad."
• When he makes a mistake, I need to forgive.
• When I make a mistake, I need to own up to it.
  
• Etc. etc.

I am making the transition from singlehood to "old, married lady." Even though FI and I have been dating for almost four years now, and we have been planning to get married for the last year... I am only recently realizing that there is this shift that starts when wedding planning actually HAPPENS! I have to say I was a bit surprised at my reaction. I thought I'd be happy, happy, happy, all the time, but for a little while I've been crankilicious, and now I know why.

For me, I always think that growth is accompanied by a bit of pain or discomfort - that means you are evolving! And I definitely feel like I am transitioning into the next phase of my life. I know this bit of tearful crying every other second is going to pass because...

• I am so thankful to be in love with someone who loves me just as much as I love him.
• I am thankful that when we mess up, no matter how big that mistake is, we forgive each other.
• I am thankful to have families around us who love and support us, and who are willing to drive in a caravan up to Chicago for our wedding allllll the way from the Lone Star State. (must have BBQ ready for them upon arrival...)
• I am thankful to have friends that are AWESOME and will always tell us the truth in love.

I just have so much to be thankful for, and even though I am crying a lot, it's because I am leaving my old ways behind. I never really understood what it felt like to be engaged, and now I am really heavily feeling the shift into my life's new chapter. I want to feel every moment, so that when I am at the beginning of the aisle, I am ready to drop my old life, and step into the precious new life I will be starting with Mr. Snapdragon, as our own new family. It reminds me of when I was little and used to swim in the deep end of the swimming pool - I'd always hang on to the edge because I was too scared to swim out. This time, I gotta let go of the wall!

Has anybody else experienced "pre-wedding depression?" Bueller? Bueller? :)

Adventures in Embossing

Now that you've already seen the design, there's no reason not to use full disclosure...

I finished my Save the Dates today - all 99 of them! (There should have been 100, but we had a goof.) :) Actually, once I figured out the embossing part, it was fairly painless. Now all I have to do is address and mail them. For those of you who don't live here, the Chicago post office system is no bueno for mass mailings. I will be venturing out to the suburbs to mail them, since I actually care about whether they get to their destination!

Here we go... This was my spot for most of the weekend:

After creating the design in Word using text boxes and the array of free fonts available on dafont.com, I decided to emboss the main "Save the Date" on the front of the card. I DID decide to go with the blue. :) I lined them up on my makeshift table and worked in batches.

Here is the first thing to know about embossing: Use Pigment Inkpads. Maybe because I am a stamping novice, I didn't realize that inkpads come in a few different types, mostly as pigment pads or dye pads. Dye pads dry more quickly, using less excess ink. Pigment pads are thicker, dry more slowly, and are excellent for embossing. If you use a dye pad, you'll get this:

So once I figured out that dye pads were my problem, I remedied the situation with a pigment pad. For my stamp, I used an alphabet clear stamp set. Clear stamps are polymer stamps that affix to a clear acrylic block in whatever arrangement you choose. Though their stamped images can turn out less defined than wooden stamps, they work well when you need exact placement or custom stamping arrangements.

After I lined up a batch of cards to stamp, I individually stamped and then immediately dumped a TON of embossing powder over the ink. Embossing powder is not so cheap, (that 4 oz. container you see in the background of the picture cost $10) but it went surprisingly far. After I was done with the entire project, only a little bit was actually used.

After the "hills of powder," I tapped off the excess powder onto a sheet of paper that I then fed back into the original container. You are then left with this:

The fun part is using the embossing gun, which sounds scarier than it is. Once the gun is plugged in and turned on, it sends out a steady stream of hot, hot air, which melts the embossing powder...

...and creates a raised surface that is the color of the ink you stamped below.

Then, if you want to, you can use a corner rounder. I picked a model with a comfortable thumb grip, as I have many rounded corners in my future!!!

Here's something to know... An advantage to postcards are that they are definitely cheaper to mail than enveloped Save-the-Dates, however, you need to pay attention to the size of your card, as anything over 6"x4.25" costs $0.42, whereas under that only costs $0.27. Very important! This week will be spent addressing, then mailing from the 'burbs this weekend (if the stars align!) I'll let you know how my post office visit goes!

Somebody needs powder on her FACE! I hope this helps you on your own embossing adventures!

Help a Girl Out

All right, I didn't want to post my Save the Dates until after I mailed them, but.... I am having trouble deciding which design to use! Totally conflicted....

The designs are the same except that one version uses gold heat embossing, and the other uses blue heat embossing. What do you think? Is one better than the other? Let me know what you think in Comments!

PS - An "adventures in heat embossing" post will appear later this week... and it WAS an adventure!!!! Hopefully this post will help you avoid the excitement of learning how to emboss on the fly!

-Miss Snapdragon

Bridal Relaxation

Something that is super important (in my mind anyway) is that brides should be relaxed on their wedding day. On the day you leave singledom behind.... I don't think that's too much to ask! For this reason, I am planning out a few things to help me keep my sanity on what might be a cray-zee, busy day...

DOC - The single biggest thing I see just about everywhere is that DOCs - also known as Day-Of Coordinators - are essential to reducing bridal stress. I am currently looking into that, but that's for another post. DOCs essentially act as surrogate brides... They take over vendor communication and doublecheck that everything is being setup correctly, without bugging the bride. I think of them as a Bridal Moat - nobody bugs the bride unless she says it's ok!

Big Breakfast - If I am not too nervous, I want to have a big eggs and biscuits breakfast. Yes biscuits. With gravy. I think I might need the nutrition!

Running - Our venue is on a GORGEOUS piece of property, with running and hiking trails. I am definitely going to want to go on a short run first thing. I might even go by myself, just to have a moment to take in the day all alone.

Massages - Our venue also has a spa, and I will FOR SURE be hitting that up.

Cokes in Glass Bottles - My family drink is Coke in glass bottles. It's the only way to drink it! I plan to have a iced down cooler of said beverages on hand. Although Coke will have to go away once the dresses come out... Well... Maybe we can just get big bibs. :)

The rest of the day will be spent in makeup and hairdo heaven - with *crosses fingers* a minimum of wedding disasters! At my sister's wedding, one of our other sisters accidentally dropped a coke on the floor AFTER we were all dressed for the ceremony (in her defense, it was way too crowded in our dressing room!) There were screams and dives for the wedding dress. Everything was ok, but I still have nightmares.

How do you plan to insulate yourself from wedding day craziness?

Mums and Mimosas

One of the advantages of having several married buddies is mooching off of their wedding mishaps and wisdom!!! I have probably had about ten good friends get married so far, and I have definitely paid attention...

My friend and bridesmaid T was actually married only about a month ago and one of the things she did for her wedding was so wonderful that I am following her astute example!

It's called Mums and Mimosas, people.

T got married in Buffalo, New York, where her family home and parents live. Because T has lived in several states throughout her life, she had family and buds flying in from all over to attend. The whole weekend was wonderful - there is something distinctly different between going to an acquaintance's wedding (say a co-worker you don't know too well) and the wedding of one of your very good friends. We all stayed in the same hotel, and it was basically a slumber party with a wedding included - SO AMAZING AND FUN.

One of the best parts, though, was that on the wedding day, T had all of her girlyfriends over to her parents' house to create the flower arrangements and consume multiple mimosas, along with homemade breakfast yumminess. T has about 20 close girlfriends (she is a popular one!) so thank goodness her parents have a really big porch!

Now of course, what this really meant was that about four of the girls were actually arranging flowers... the rest of us had talk and giggle time while oohing and ahhing over the botanical creations. :)

Anyway, the flowers turned out SO BEAUTIFULLY. We included gorgeous flowers from T's mother's garden and each bouquet was different. It took much longer than we thought it would, but that was probably because we did a lot of hanging out, at the expense of time. It was also so wonderful to hang out with girlfriends from New York, who I knew only through T's stories. Everyone was in one place!

So I plan on doing the same thing. I will be getting married on a Friday, so who knows who might be able to come, but I definitely want to do my own flowers now that I know it's possible. I know the bridesmaids will be available!!!! ;) Weddings are so much more meaningful when thought is put into the details, and this would be really special.

How do you plan to include all of the important people in your life in your wedding?

STDs are Hotttt.....

...especially when they are pretty colors! ;)

Today I *think* I finished designing my Save-the-Dates. I am not going to show the whole thing because, well, I want to actually mail them before I show them off!

Originally, we weren't going to send out paper Save-the-Dates. Isaiah and I had prioritized our budget, and Save-the-Dates were an unnecessary expense. However, we promptly realized the error of our ways when we remembered the following things:

1) A significant number of people on our guest list are less than computer literate. In fact, some might have a bit of trouble even getting a computer to turn on, so an email Save-the-Date would be no good to those particular guests at all!
2) Sometimes the internet fails to actually deliver the missive to all of the intended recipients, especially when a mass mailing is involved.
3) Paper Save-the-Dates are actually extremely cheap.
CONCLUSION: We are going to do both a paper and an email STD, that way the computer illiterate will get the info AND the email-friendly but snail mail challenged addresses will be reached, as well.

Since I've never met a crafting project I didn't like, today I tackled getting those suckers designed... I whittled my ideas down to two: a dry embossed version and a solely printed version...

I had my heart set on a postcard with a dot-embossed border, however, it turned out jankity and jankity will not do. I do not own a Cuttlebug, so I created my own dot embossing stencil, and it showed. :)

The solely printed version looks pretty good (to me, anyway!) I think it needs a tiny bit of pizazz though, so I think I may heat emboss certain lines.

I'm getting there! Anyone else hitting a few hitches along the DIY road?

Will You Be My Counselor?

I've been thinking, thinking, thinking about this a lot lately.... Like EVERYONE, my fiance and I have a lot going on. We both work a lot, and planning a wedding has proven to take up much more time than I imagined! It's tough, tough, tough for us to make time to see each other. Quite often, I don't see him until late on worknights and he works most every Saturday, so even the weekends are chockfull. SO that's challenging.

When we DO get to see each other, often we need to lay out some long overdue wedding or money conversation. We've found that we even need to schedule our quality time so that every waking moment isn't taken up with the day-to-day details of life. You've gotta go to dinner and a movie once in a while, ya know? Spontaneity when it comes to fun dates just does not happen. Maybe someday. I am sure just about all of you deal with the same thing.

Anyway, we have yet another thing we need to make time for: pre-marital counseling. I don't want to put it off until spring, as I know we'll be cray-cray with wedding details - so hopefully we can get the ball rolling on the counseling thing within the next few months. December is actually downtime for us, so that might be perfect.

There are quite a few options when it comes to premarital counseling. Of what I've seen, we can choose a church-based option or we could also choose a psychologist-based option. I am open to both, but I also kinda want to DO both. Pastors obviously counsel hundreds of couples, but I appreciate the PhD in Psychology that a secular counselor might have. I also appreciate the spiritual aspect, too, though.

Hmm, what to do, what to do. My friend A suggested several options that she and her hubby found helpful - what do you all suggest? Anything work especially well for you?