Leibster Award!

Shawna from Doe Loves Buck nominated me for a Leibter Award! If you don't know what that is, here is the run down: Its a "chain letter" award!  If you receive this award, there are a few rules that you must follow..

1. Each blogger nominated must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Then answer the 11 questions the tagger has asked.
3. Blogger must then create 11 questions of their own to ask the bloggers they decide to nominate.
4. Then they must choose a few bloggers with less than 200 followers to nominate and link them on their blog post!
5. Oh, and there are no tag backs.

11 Things about Me: 

• I love long hair.
• I've only been sewing for three years.
• I only use organic products on my hair. No heat, ever.
• My mom is my best friend.
• I love being married!
• I'm a big kid at heart.
• If I could have full reign decorating something, I'd decorate it using all the colors in the rainbow.
• I could not live without books (well...okay, I could. but I'd be sad)
• I have an unhealthy obsession with chunky sweaters!
• I love silly hats. I own a few....my kitty hat is my favorite!
• I love God. But I don't deserve His love. I fail Him so much.....I am so grateful to God...

Now I'll answer Shawna's questions!
1. What is your favorite season? Fall!
2. What three adjectives best describe you? Encouraging, Energetic, and Friendly
3. What is your favorite movie line?

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men, who, above all else, desire power. But they were, all of them, deceived, for another Ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret a master Ring, to control all others. And into this Ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One Ring to rule them all.

4. Is it Pop, Soda or Coke? No idea. I don't drink any of these.
5. What is your favorite dessert? Cheesecake!
6. What nickname do you have? Neko-Chan :)
7. If you were on an island, who would you want to be with? Why? My husband. Because I love him and he is resourceful!
8. What color is most of your clothing? Blue and Green!
9. What is one of your favorite quotes? Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
10. Which celebrity would play you in a movie about yourself? Birdy. Yes, she is a celebrity singer. But I love her. And we slightly look alike.

 

Here is who I am tagging: (If you are a random reader, feel free to participate also! I don't mind!) 

• Larkin
• Beth
• Chantel
• Walking in My Shoes
• Quartered Heart
• The Country Blossom
• Katiedid 

Please visit these wonderful blogs. I love (and am inspired) by each and every one of them :)

If I've tagged you, here are your questions!

1. Share one way how God has touched your life today
2. What is your favorite song?
3. If you could only take a picture with one thing for the rest of your life, what would that one thing be? (As in, a prop!)
4. When doing a self-photo, do you swear by a Tripod or Remote?
5. Vogue magazine calls. They want to do a photo-shoot with you as a model. What do you say?
6.  If people could post a status in a bubble that floats above their head, would you do it? 
7. Chocolate or Vanilla?
8. What is one thing you love that you had to give up for health/moral reasons?
9. Something that made you laugh this week.
10. What do you think of clowns?
11. If you had to play a trumpet or a sousaphone for one week, what would it be? 

Have fun answering these questions! If you want to play along and I didn't tag you, go ahead and link up and answer the questions just for fun! I don't mind :)

The $2,000 Wedding

I did my entire wedding for 2,000$. Yes, that's right (and this includes all "parental" donations also!)

What? You may ask, Isn't a cheep wedding, like, 10,000?

Well, that may be a cheep wedding for you, but we simply didn't have the funds. We wanted to make our day special, and not a stress to our pocketbooks! 

I'll tell you how I did it.

(Note: the pictures used in this article were taken by my bridesmaid Larkin and my friend Cari! I get my professional ones later on this month and will definitely be sharing!)

1) We decided to have a small, intimate wedding (less then 50 guests) and we shopped around for venues. Everything we kept finding was super expensive, but then we found two places that seemed really cheep. The Aviary rents for about 200$ every four hours. And the Craddock Terry Hotel (did YOU know hotels do weddings? And beautiful ones to boot?) The hotel was 500$ for four hours, but included set up and break down in the price, which The Aviary did not include. We chose the hotel.

2) We did our "reception" at a lovely Italian restaurant called Monte Carlo. It was 375$, this included a 25$ rental fee for a large party and the food for our guests (about 15 people came to the reception. 25 out of the 50 people we invited came to our wedding).

3) I bought a used dress. I LOVE my dress. Seriously, I died when I tried it on! It is used, and fits me P-ER-FEC-TLY. I was stunned to find a dress that needed no adjustments! I purchased it from the Shopaholics Outlet, a high end vintage/thrift boutique and bridal warehouse. I also got my necklace, earrings, and circlet there. All together it was 350$. They gave me the necklace as a gift, as they are dear friends of mine :)

*I got my shoes from a Facebook Yard sale page. Lol, anyone? They were 10$, and are from Jcrew. I love them! I also did my own hair. I basically did two braids around the back of my head and added flowers everywhere

4) I (blush) spend 100$ at Victoria's Secret. No scrimping was allowed in this area!

5) My dad paid for half of the photographer's bill. It was my friend Beth! Who else? She's amazing. I paid her 250$ and my dad paid the other 250$. Beth was invaluable this night. We stayed at the hotel along with my maid of honor Larkin and another one of my friends.

6) I made a few signs, and I used a basket I already had for cards. I wrote and printed our ceremony programs for 5$ at one of those copy stores.

7) I used an automated web-sight to make our invitations. Our wedding invitations were 50$ from shutterfly. I designed them myself with my engagement photos, which we also took ourselves. (Tripod and camera remote FTW!)

8) We paid our pastor 50$ (The standard for VA wedding, following the law) and my husband tipped him. I don't know how much, in all the excitement I never asked :)

9) Our cakes were made by a friend of my maid of honor. They were 30$ each. :) I chose a white cake with a lovely rose design all over it.

Thats about it; thats our wedding in a nut shell. It was beautiful, lovely, and amazing. I am so happy to be married and I think I'm the luckiest girl in the world! :)

My $2000 wedding did not include the premarital we took, or our honeymoon (both of these my husband took care of and I don't know how much he spent). I also took some of my friends and my bridesmaids out to get their nails done. :)

You can have a lovely and memorable wedding and not spend an arm and a leg! There is no sense starting your life off together in a big pile of debt.

Do you guys have any wedding stories to tell? How much did you spend?

My honeymoon

I just got back from my honeymoon. Needless to say I have a lot of things to share with you guys! And I am also completely sick. Yes, I acquired food poisoning in Cozumel. :(

I still had a ton of fun! But please pray for me because both Brian and I are still suffering from food poisoning. And no! We did not drink the water!

(Day three was when we got food posioning---we stayed in bed all day!)

Today we drove 14 hours back to Lynchburg :) We did have a good honeymoon despite our sickness!

Cara Box Reveal!

This month (besides getting married) I participated in the lovely Cara Box Exchange! My partner was Natalie of Ohemgreeblog!

Here are the lovely five things I sent her. I noticed on her blog that she has quite a funky personality so I tried to include silly, fun things and also just downright "magical" things (like the "why I am dysfunctional today" journal!

Natalie, I really enjoyed shopping for you! Hope you like your presents!

Honeymoon!

I'm on my honeymoon! In mexico! :)

I can't wait to share all about my wedding and my trip when I return!

I'm married!

Right now I am sitting in amazing honeymoon suite with a Jacuzzi! Tomorrow I board a cruise to Mexico! Hope you guys are well! Here are a few pictures that my bridesmaid Larkin took! I'll post a few of the professional ones when I get them from dear Beth.

Bathroom Redo

I am getting married tomorrow! Can you believe it? WOW! I'm so excited!!

Since I am moving into my husbands house after our wedding, I decided to redo his upstairs bathroom. When I move in, this will be my bathroom. This one desperately needed help!

Here are the before pictures:

 

The walls also need painting, but we are doing all that this summer. For today, I just wanted to update the decor. I love color, so I went with bright hues! 

It's nice how just a few changes can spice up a whole room! My fiance was pleased with my choices! We have two bathrooms, and I'll be decorating the other one also, after we wed. That is the one my fiance primary will be using so I probably won't be able to use such wonderful colors in there...but who knows? :)

My Former Life As a 2AM Cheeseburger Cook.

Yes, that's right. I used to make cheeseburgers at 2 am for a living.

Here is why I hated it:

(Yes this is a guy) 

1. This was on a college campus (Virginia Tech). Everyone was always drunk (well, those I saw. I'm sure all the non-drunk people were, like, sleeping.) and while entertaining for the first few weeks, I got really tired of seeing my boss call the cops every friday and saterday due to College-student-so-and-so passing out or loosing her blouse or having premarital relations outside our establishment (or inside, on occasion) No, I'm not joking. 
2. It was 2am. I am a morning person! This was not working as I was always tired!
3. Cheeseburgers do not make you smell good when you have been around them for eight hours.
4. I hate cheeseburgers.
5. Making cheeseburgers is not my life goal. Nor anything related to what I wish to be doing with life. 

(and no, I was not supposed to be using my phone at work. maybe I was on break? I don't remember. probably not.)

I'm not trying to say that VT is a terrible place of employment. It was only the hours and the customers I loathed. And my cheeseburger perfume. I had a great boss with a hilarious sense of humor and moderately good pay, but getting off work at 3 am and staggering home and finally falling asleep around 5 am was not making for good life habits.

I loved the VT campus and made a few really good friends...but I just could not continue working there!

So I quit. Two years ago! 

What am I trying to say about all of this? Do what you dream. Only that (and God, of course) will make you happy. Actually, only God will make you content, but not making cheeseburgers really makes me happy. No longer working in fast-food greatly improves my vocational feelings of well being! 

Does anyone else have any fast-food stories to tell?

How to: Tri-Fold Brochure

For my upcoming nuptials I made my own Tri-Fold Brochure using Indesign. If you want to know how, here is a step by step tutorial.

1) Fold a blank piece of letter-size paper in three. Use this mockup to map out which panel of the brochure each piece of information needs to be placed on. When you unfold the paper, you'll see that the front panel of the brochure must be on the far right panel of the first page in order to be in the correct place when folded. The back panel of the brochure is the middle panel of the first page. The left-hand panel of the first page is the second panel seen when the front flap is opened. The other side of the paper represents what the brochure looks like when fully opened; the panels are already in the proper order on this side.

2) Open InDesign. Create a blank 8 1/2-by-11-inch horizontal document by going to the File menu, then selecting "New" and "Document," or by pressing "Ctrl-N" on your keyboard. Change the number of pages to two, the page size to Letter, the orientation to Landscape and the margins to 1/4 inch each. Set the number of columns to 3 and the gutter to 1/2 inch. Click "OK."

3) Click on the text icon to create text. You drag a box and then you can type in it. You can just drag and drop a picture into the file to place it, and then resize.

I just used text and pictures and I printed in black and white to save more money. I hope this is helpful if you are planning any sort of event you need need a brochure for! 

Beth's Giveaway!

My friend Beth is hosting a self-portrait contest! You should go check it out and enter! The winner will get 5 ducks sent to a World Vision family--a great cause and definitely in the spirit of thanksgiving!

Here is my self-portrait for the contest. I took this picture with a self timer when Brian and I were taking our engagement photos.  I really love it and it was super fun jumping and running back and forth on the rocks.

Wedding Thoughts

Its FIVE days before my wedding! WOW! I am super, super, super excited!

Our rings came in!

We also had an engagement party last week with a few of our in-town friends. I didn't get many pictures but here is one of me from my iPhone. :)

I can't believe I will be married in just five days. I also can't wait to show you guys  the pictures from my event!!

Knitted Wristlet Tutorial

I made these wonderful fingerless arm warmers for my dear friend Larkin.

I love them! I am currently making myself a pair in blue, and also thinking of adding some to the shop soon.

If you know how to knit, here is the pattern and tutorial for these gloves.

I am using size 6 mm needles and corresponding (aran) weight yarn.

Cast on 28 stitches.

Follow this 2-row pattern until the ribbing measures 2 inches.

Row One (and all right rows) : K2 P2 (repeat till end)
Row Two (and all wrong rows) : K2 P2 (repeat till end)

Next, do the decrease row. The lace pattern needs only 25 stitches. We will decrease 3 sts evenly across the needles.

Decrease Row: k2tog, P2, K2, P2, k2tog, p2, k2, p2, k2tog, p2, k2, p2, k2, p2

Make sure you are on the RIGHT side of your piece to start the lace pattern.

Make sure you have only 25 stitches on your needle now.

Row 1: (on right side) K1 *YO, slip 1, K1, PSSO, KI, K2 Tog, YO, K1 (repeat from * until end of row)

Row 2: (AND ALL WRONG/EVEN ROWS) Purl all

Row 3: K2 (YO, K3) across to last 2 sts, YO, K2

Row 5: K2tog, YO, Slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1, K2tog * YO, Slip 1, K2tog, PSSO, YO, Slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1, K2tog  (repeat from * across to last 2 stitches) YO, Slip 1, K1, PSSO.

Row 7: K1 *K2tog, YO, K1, YO, Slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1 (repeat from *)

Row 9: K2 (YO, K3) across to last 2 sts, YO K2

Row 11: K1 * K2tog, YO, Slip 1, K2 tog, PSSO, YO, Slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1 (repeat from *)

Row 12: Purl across

Repeat Rows 1-12 for lace pattern. I repeated this 2.5 times. You can make this as long as you want for as long as you want your arm warmers.

To finish your warmers, we are going to repeat the K2 P2 pattern from above for 1 inch. For the first stitch knit in to the front and back of the stitch to make your stitches even again for 26 stitches.

Increase row: K1fb, knit 8, k1fb, k8, k1fb, knit to end
R2: purl all

Row 1 (all front) : K2 P2 (repeat till end)
Row 2 (all back) : K2 P2 (repeat till end)

Now bind off.

Fold your piece "hot dog" style with the right side on the inside. Sew up the edge leaving a gap for your thumb.

I finish off the thumb part by putting it on my hand and making sure it fits tightly.

So thats the tutorial! What do you think? These gloves are perfect for fall and super easy to make!

Understandably...

 Went to work today. Saw this note in the bathroom...

Sometimes I think I work in the ghetto.

Ideas

This month I joined up on the Wifessionals Cara Box! I can't wait to send out my first gift. If you don't know what the Cara Box program is, check it out here:

I also saw over on Elizabeth's blog about the NaBloPoMo blogging commitment! I want to give it a try also. (I hope you don't think I am copying you, Beth) It looks super fun and I love all the questions they ask! I hope Beth and I can keep each other motivated, because I know we are all busy this month (I'm getting married and Beth is my photographer!) Also, Beth has a life outside of being my photographer. She blogs about fashion and non-profits on her site, go check it out at Elizabeth Ewing!

The first question from the NaBloPoMo is:

Share your professional “aha moment.” What was the defining moment that most dramatically changed the course of your career?

For me, it was boredom. And lack of motivation. I had just graduated from college and I was working in food service and my life had no meaning or direction. I thought to myself: where are the jobs? I have a degree in English! And I'm making sandwiches? At 2am?

So I started thinking: what do I want to do with my life? What is my dream? I had always wanted to sew and start my own business from the moment I stumbled upon Etsy. So I found an old sewing machine in my mom's basement (her mother bought it for her when she got married as a young women) and I started sewing. Yes, at first my creations were terrible. I didn't know anything!

But I got better. I learned. I taught myself with the help of other blogs, and you-tube videos. Fast-forward three years and I have turned an idea and a craving into a hobby and a (tiny) business. I taught myself how to knit, and added that to my shop. I really am happy over who and what I've become in the last four years. God has a big part to play in all of this!

I love my brand. I know I have a lot more to learn and many more things to accomplish--but one day I really do want to turn Silver Moon Creations into a full time thriving business.

So, what about you? What is your professional "ahh" moment? Don't give up! You can and will accomplish something, if you work hard and put your mind to it.  When I first saw all those beautiful handmade things on Etsy, I thought there was no way I could never do anything like that. But every month my wonderful customers prove me wrong :)