Comic Themed Wedding

Okay, so after spending months on Pinterest and other craft sites gathering ideas, I figured I should give back a little. Here is a rundown of my husband and I's comic themed wedding:

First of all, it was a small affair (well, small for our huge families). There were less than 175 people and nearly 1/3 of them were children under 12.  We also really just wanted our day to be fun. May a recommend, you start way earlier than I did at three months prior to the wedding. :) Also, my husband has two daughters and is a full time student. Needless to say, spending the equivalent of a down payment on a house seemed extremely frivolous. I didn't care to pay thousands of dollars for flowers that were just going to die, nor did I desire to spend hours on photos documenting every little thing that occurred. I really wanted to just be in the moment of marrying the man of my dreams. With that being said...


Here is a quick look at the highlights of our attire.

•  The shoes in the top left are mine. I found the idea on pinterest. I did spend hours cutting and using mod podge to apply old (unwanted) comics to them. I loved them, but they did fall apart at the end of the evening. I think I applied it to thick. 
• My hubby wore his new favorite shoes, his Spidey Vans. In fact, his whole attire was Spidey. We ordered him a tie from eBay, the buckle was found online too, and I made the boutonnieres and the tie clips. 
• The boutonnieres were simply figured that I wrapped one leg with ribbon like a floral boutonniere and added baby's breath to the back. You can see my dad had Wolverine. He got the Avengers tie simply because we didn't find any Wolverine ties that we liked.
• The tie clips were from a kit on Etsy. It was a simple print, punch circle, glue to glass bead, glue together project. Again, I should have taken a photo of all of them. One groomsman decided he wanted Aquaman and the other wanted Thor.

The Decorations/Small Touches

• Batman and Bride cake toppers. I had an old Barbie wedding ornament that I clipped the hanger off of the top. The Batman is an old toy from my hubby. Next time, I would have primed first, but they held together very nicely. I bought a crome spray paint from Hobby Lobby and simply sprayed them. The veil was already on the doll, so I just pulled it off prior to painting and glued it back on when it was dry.
• I made my own fake flower bouquet. I really loved them. It was my sister's genius idea to get comic book fabric for the wraps. Then, to not make them so eye catching, I wrapped tulle over the top and crisscrossed with ribbon. Mine was with white, the bridesmaids bouquets were overlayed with black tulle and ribbon.
• Spiderman was an awesome find at our local comic book store. I gave him a bowtie, top hat and bouquet. His base was made from the top of hubby's old Marvel game box. The front of it stated "Please Sign Our Guestbook" (printed from my computer. Voila! Guest book attendant that isn't bored.
• I made the second option cake toppers as Captain America and a bride matching my hair and dress. I painted these myself, borrowing a little bit of the design from a few etsy shops that wanted $50 for a pair. Yeah... I probably bought these wood dolls for about a quarter a piece. I loved them, but they looked too small on the cake topper.
• The middle photo is the top of my wedding invitations. I bought a box of 100 invites for less than $25 from Michaels (using a coupon). Using more unwanted comics, I punched out circles using a 1" circle punch. Then, I printed out a 'monogram' H (my new last name starts with H) and punched it out with a 3/4" circle punch. Printed invitations, glued circles together, glued to invite, punched holes for ribbon, laced them and DONE! I loved that they were simple, yet went with our theme.
• My garter: Bought a $3 garter at a craft store. The bling batman was from a Hot Topic necklace. A little stitching through the hole at the top, add a bow and I had a fantastic garter.
• I also scattered the tables with chocolate kisses that had hero symbols on the bottom. By printing circular symbols and punching with the 3/4 circle punch, I was able to simply adhere them with glue dots. A really simple process!

• The piece de resistance. My centerpieces. I'm sad I didn't really get a good photo of them on the tables. I spend hours making comic book origami flowers, then dusting them with glitter. Then, hours were spend making tissues paper flowers. All of these were glue to floral wire, bundled into bouquets and wrapped with felt (to hide the ugly wire bunch). Each vase had glass beads, a floral light in the beads, a comic book character in the base, and comic themed glitter masquerade masks (most were comic themed, some were just bright masks). I used kitchen skewers for the mask posts. I LOVED how these turned out. Here are a few more pics:

 

 To top it all off, we had a kids table filled with comic book coloring books, hero stickers, foam "pow" shaped bubbles they could decorate with more foam stickers. (Target used to sell a box of hero foam stickers.

Even our DJ got into it. He wore a light up arc reactor under his dress shirt. All in all, it was amazing! By the end of the night, my hubby's adult male cousins had stripped out the characters from the centerpieces, a few kids had the symbols from the kisses glue dotted to them, Everyone was loving playing with the masks, and several people took home the paper flower bouquets. But then again, what was I going to do with 20 of them?

If anyone stumbles on this and would like to copy a few of my ideas, I might be able to send you a few mask patterns and links to the flowers and such.

Rings

Knowing how public my Facebook is, and knowing how private my fiance likes to be, I am posted my cheese here for the few that still read it. Look forward to much more to come as the wedding approaches quickly!!

Justin proposed when we took our out of town vacation to Harrah's casino. It's not amazing romantic, but with a small kid, getaways can be difficult. We signed up for a rewards program this spring while attending a convention, and they just keep sending coupons and free night stays... so we figured "why not?"

We decided to return to the Jack Binion's Steakhouse. It's some of the best (and fanciest) food we've ever eaten. Justin was a little nervous, but we both knew it was coming since I got to help pick out my ring. As we were getting ready, he kept saying things like "This is your last time getting ready for dinner with your boyfriend." and "This is the last time you drive in a car with your boyfriend." Meanwhile, I giggled like a schoolgirl...

He didn't have a big prepared speech, he casually asked and put the ring on the table before the food was served so I could put it on. And here comes the great part: He pulled out a second ring box.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's my ring."

pause by me "What for?"

"Well, don't I get to wear my ring?"

"You WANT to wear your wedding ring."

"Well, YEAH. You get a ring, don't I get one?"

I then nicely explained that most of the time men don't get their rings until the ceremony. Justin got a little flustered and said "Well that doesn't seem fair, you get to wear a ring so people know we are engaged, don't I get one?" He really wanted to wear his ring, so we decided YUP, to heck with tradition, he should get his ring too. :) He LOVES his ring. He wears it all the time, except work.

Last night when I got home from my barback shift, I put my ring on top of his on the dresser. He was all ready for bed, so it was off and I couldn't wear mine while doing all those dishes, so mine was also off. After a quick debate, we decided to head out for some drive thru since we were both hungry and too tired to cook. He got up, put on his ring, and handed me mine. Like we couldn't possibly hop out for tacos at midnight WITHOUT our rings.

It just warms my heart that he is so open with his displays of affection, including our lovely rings.

Quick update: My friend that was diagnosed with breast cancer goes for reconstructive surgery next week. After her surgery and path results came in, she learned that the halo of cells they take around the tumor showed ZERO spread of the cancer outside the lump as did the 8 lymph nodes they took. No radiation or chemo required. NEVER HAD BETTER NEWS.

Red Pen

Haven't been by in a long time. However, through random events, I found myself at Jacque's blog two days ago. I was just thinking.....   and then I needed to see it....  I'm not sure why. It was still there, with the same farewell posts. A few people have posted as comments since then, but in the last year it has been hit by many spammers. I was going to post something about the rudeness of it all, but decided it just wasn't worth the effort.

Today at work, random events occurred. At lunch, there was a group downtown giving away Valentine's merchandise at the spin of a wheel. I won a two foot tall stuffed heart, complete with legs, eyes, and hands that say "I love you" and "This Much". It pretty much made my day. I came back and was super productive. I was just booking it through projects, delivered Justin's payment to the lawyer, deposited some money at the bank, and was all in all rocking the afternoon. At about 3pm, a friend came over and wordlessly sat in my cube. Wide-eyed, she stared at me and said "I have something to tell you" in a top secret voice. After a beat or two, she picked up a yellow sticky note pad and a red felt tip pen and began to write a few words. I was so excited. We don't usually gossip in a cruel way, but we talk about work things, and non-work things. Many are little nuggets about people past issues with other people. Some are juicy, some are just ridiculous. The latest bit of news was that they let two people go in another area, so I expected something similar and amazing. When she handed it over, I read

"I have breast cancer"


She's only had a biopsy and no pathology results yet, so we are both hopeful. But I couldn't help and think of the irony that I thought of Jacque just two days ago, and then this.  For the next hour after she left my cube, I kept staring at that red felt tip pen. It just seemed so . . . dirty, I guess. Offensive might be a better word, but definitely unlucky. I had the overwhelming urge to just throw it away. Instead, I put the sticky notes back in the tray, and put the red felt tip pen back in the utensil caddy. I even stirred them up a little so I wouldn't know which of the two red pens was the evil one. After all, it is just a pen.


Mom went to bed early, E always goes to bed early (and is on East Coast time), Justin is at work, and I couldn't confide my sorrow to my work friend. Only one other person outside of her small team knows. So I'm throwing it out into the universe, and turn around to refocus on the hope. Jacque was good at that, perhaps that's why I found my way back to her...

well then.

So, it's been over 17 months since my last post. Ummm... wow. Guess I decided to be social and use less social media. Or, when considering my facebook addiction, I decided to simply withdraw from this blog, a more accountable documentation. I have no excuses, so moving on.

What a difference a year makes. Almost one year ago I went out for coffee with a guy from work. I had many reservations, mainly that we work together. (That's a rule for me.) However, his great spirit, desire to really enjoy life and (he'll hate that I put this in writing) sweetness won me over. I broke all the rules and have never been happier. I always knew that compromise was needed in relationships, but I used to compromise my expectations, I compromised my time, and even compromised a few friendships for my past guys. For the first time, I feel truly loved for who I am and have found a partner that does do all those little things that I've always wanted. (One would think that having a guy who will sit on the same side of the table so he can hold your hand would not matter, but just imagine your life without those little nuggets of affection.) I even broke a rule and we now live together. Neither one of us thought it was a great relationship move, but both being in a broke lifestyle (and for one of us a scary situation) we made a purely adult decision and combined out households.

Oh, and he brought another little ball of energy into my life, his daughter, Miss E. She's three and a half now and keeps me on my toes. As I got older, I knew it was a possibility for me to date a guy with kids, but as biological parents say, nothing can compare you to the real thing. I have been called mean, fun, hilarious, and the adopted affectionate term of "goober". She is my goober and brings much joy.

Joy however, is not so present in my job. As my mother said, "the internet is forever", so I will save this story for when it is more appropriate. It appears that positive changes are on their way, so I'll update you as I find them.

So why am I back all of a sudden? Well, I'm making a big change. It all started with Body by Vi. Haven't heard of it? Well, then you must not check statuses on Facebook too often. Everyone and their dog is participating in this beach-body-advocare-pyramide-scheme-shake-drinking-weight-loss program. I keep getting messages inviting me to parties and asking me to join. Every time I get one my first thought is, "How fat do I look in recent photos?" and the second is, "What happened to portion control and exercise?" With that enters my new goal: Get back in shape. (That pole fitness studio dream is still there, too.)

Enter the 4 Hour Body. Ever read it? It's pretty awesome. It introduces you to the slow-carb diet, cheat days, thermodynamics, and glycemic response to foods. I'll get more into it as we progress, I'm sure. Today I took my before photos. Oh, man. It's worse than I thought. So bad, that I refuse to post them until I've stuck with the program for at least one week. I will give my weight, though. It's a 148.5 lbs. Not too bad, unless you consider two years ago I only weighed four lbs less and could suspend myself mid air on a pole with one leg. :(

Anyway. I hope to be back and if anyone still checks this, I hope you are glad to see me.

Back in the Saddle

Okay, so this weekend I have one job: to make an online profile.

Dating. Ugh. Most people think of flowers, new outfits and butterflies in theie stomach. I think of awkward coffees, hands-y strangers and (newly learned) paying for my own dinner. However, I am refusing to avoid the dating game any longer. Mainly, this is due to the fact that friends are setting me up. I do not want to be that girl.
So, I will begin with plentyoffish.com. Hey, it's free. And when I looked up the number of prospects for a very limited population, there were plenty. We'll see. For now, I will continue to focus on future goals for business and finding a place to live. (I'm not moving out until march, but I'm shopping early!)
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Just workin on my fitness

Okay, so over the last month I have had many highs and lows.

1) I thought I was going to get studio space to start doing 'friends and family' lessons for the pole fitness gym. The space didn't work, so back to waiting.
2) After telling so many friends about the potential space, they are all nagging me to find ANYwhere to teach pole fitness.
3) I was working 75 hour workweeks up until two weeks ago and was uber frustrated by my lack of sleep and me time.
4) With all the nagging of friends, the drop off of money from fewer hours is not appreciated.
5) VS is trying a new employment structure. Fewer associates that will all get a minimum of 15 hours a week. However, there are nearly 30 girls up for the 12 positions. (Three of them are fulltime for 32-40 hours a week, so I'm only elligible for 9 of these positions.)

All in all, I have gone from great to good, barely surviving to frustrated, and exhausted to unmotivated and lazy. I'm trying to pull myself out of the slump, but it's hard. Here is what I'm working on:

1) I have attended two of a three pole class groupon in omaha. Hello motivation! These girls need to learn how to teach a REAL pole fitness class. I HATE it when they ignore the girls that aren't naturals. Clumsy girls need your attention too!!
2) I am currently shopping plane ticket prices for Germany in September. Happy Birthday to me!
3) I am looking for studio space still and a place to live. I'm actually now checking out houses to rent. House with wooden floors = studio space + apartment for much less $$$.
4) I discovered a book called 'The 4-hour Body". It talks about increasing your body's ability to burn fat and build muscle. By doing things like maintaining blood glucose levels with diet, lowering body core temp to increase specific 'fat dissolving' chemicals and performing exercises that work the whole body with minimal time I can start losing body fat by being relatively lazy. (At least that's my hope.)

Anyway. Here's to a better February than January. I'm hoping in the next few weeks I will have better news about starting my gym and my overall fitness level. Here's to 2011 Ladies!!!
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Do or Do Not, There is No Try

So,

I've been busy. No, really. I've been busy. I am still trying to work my way into the carrot promotion the State dangled in front of me, but have had little success. Unfortunately, I am the contract manager of a ridiculous contractor. Ugh. Daily complaints and mishaps.

Also, at VS I am the 'cash wrap lead'. That means I can approve returns over 50 dollars and clock people in and out. A glorified keyholder position. Lots of drama there. Our store is doing so poorly that the district manager visits from Omaha once a week. But, at least she likes me. She's a former sorority sis and she appreciates people that do their job right. AND THEY DON'T WEAR TIGHTS AS PANTS. Okay, I've mentioned that enough on facebook. The last visit (yesterday) she told the manager basically that she has to man-up and start writing up people that don't do their jobs. *sigh* Really?! You had to be told to do that? I've been begging for some repercussions of the bad behaviors for weeks...

I digress. On a happier note, I am taking a half day for a Dr. Appt on Monday (allergy checkup, no biggie) and am taking the time to talk to an accountant about starting my own business, LLC deductions and the like. Yeah pole fitness!!