Avenue Five's 10 Year Anniversary

My lovely clients at Avenue Five Jewelry asked me to design an invitation for their 10 year anniversary coming up next month. They really wanted it to be elegant, but fun and trendy with nice and bright colors. As I've said before, they love to use their logo in fun ways, so they suggested making a cake with it. How fun! Here is the finished product (printed on cardstock with a spot gloss over the cake!)

Vote for me (again)!

I submitted designs to this month's Menu design challenge on Minted.com. I uploaded 4 this time and was happy to see all of them made the cut! So log in and vote for yours truly :) Thanks for your support!!

Simple Garden Flowers

Fresh & Cool

Modern Metropolitan

Damask Garden

Paper fortune cookie favors

I saw this post on Once Wed's blog today and just had to share this awesome project! DIY fortune cookie favors, how cool. These would look so great sitting on top of your napkins at place settings or even in a bowl as part of a centerpiece. Very cool :)





What You'll Need
Decorative or Scrapbook paper (not too thick, similar to a text weight,
not cardstock)
White text weight paper
Double faced tape
A pencil
A round plastic lid to use as a template (approximately four to five
inches in diameter) or a extra large circle craft punch
A pair of scissors
Computer and printer

Directions:

1. Begin by using a plastic lid as a template to trace circles on your
decorative paper. A 12” square piece of paper yields approximately 9
circles. Cut out your circles using your scissors. If you have an
extra large circle craft punch, that works well too. (see figure 1)

2. Fold a circle in half with the pattern side in. Make a crease (at
arrow A) along the folded edge. (see figure 2)

3. Open your circle, and turn it pattern side out.


4. Turn your circle so the crease you made in step 2 is vertical. Fold
the circle in in half horizontally, pattern side out, rounded side down,
Do NOT crease. (see figure 3)

Hold the half circle on the bottom, ( where arrow B points in figure 3)
between your thumb and index finger. Use the index finger from your
other hand to push in the middle of the folded side of the circle at the
crease. (where arrow C points in figure 3).

As you push in, the top corners will start to turn up.

Continue to hold the half circle and use your other hand to pull the
corners in until they nearly meet and form the cookie shape.

If your cookie doesn't want to stay folded, use a tiny piece of double
stick tape to keep the halves together. (at arrow in figure 6)

Compose your fortunes on your computer and print them out on a standard
sheet of printer paper using a nine point font. The fortunes can be a
simple note for the guests such as "We're so fortunate to know you.
Thanks for being here today". Keep the fortunes just a sentence or two
long.

Cut the fortunes into small slips of paper approximately 1/2 inch high by
two to three inches long. (see figure 7)

Tuck the fortune into one of the open ends of the cookie. (see figure 8)

Display in a bowl or on a tray for your guests.

You may struggle with the first one, but after folding a couple of
cookies, you will have it mastered.

What It Costs:
Not much at all ! It works out to be less than 10 cents a cookie.

3 years ago today...

John asked me to be his wife :) It was the most amazing proposal that I still remember as if it were yesterday. After a wonderful dinner at Salty's on the Columbia River, John blindfolded me and took me on a drive. We parked somewhere, and he led me out of the car and into a building. The familiar smell hit me right away and I knew where we were. He took off my blindfold and I found myself standing in the middle of Miss Harrington's classroom at All Saints School, where we had first met as children. I burst into tears at the sight... Candles and rose petals everywhere! It was so beautiful and simply amazing. He sat me down in one of the little kids chairs and played "Wonderful Tonight" on the guitar. After that he pulled me to my feet, declared his love, and got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. It was such an amazing moment that I will never, ever forget!!

In Miss Harrington's classroom after I said yes :)
(Photo taken by our best friend Taki who set up and cleaned everything for us)

Back at our apartment taking lots of pictures of ourselves and my ring!

I also have to mention that this special day in our lives falls on a very sad day in history. Let us all take a moment today to remember those who lost their lives or loved ones seven years ago today. We will never forget 9/11/01.

Super cool wedding planning website

A co-worker of mine emailed me a link to a cool wedding planning website called Muse Weddings. It's a social community of creative people that share wedding experiences, and a place where you can keep all your wedding ideas, tasks, and budgets in order. I played around a little and really like how clean and easy the interface is. Best of all, it's free! It would be cool if it had a guest list feature, but maybe that's something they'll add one day? They have a place to give feedback on the site, so I might throw that in there. What other features do you think a wedding planning tool shoudl include?