I promise...

... that my blog will not become all about my ring, but since I've only had it for a few days I'm still a little obsessed. So you will just have to bear with me until I have time to add some crafty stuff. LOL

I love how this pic captured a little bit of the rainbow sparkles from the sunlight. :-)

Another Ring Pic

We had a little sun so I tried to get a better shot of my ring and this is what I came up with. I still need to work on my photography skills, but that will have to be for another day. It does seem my glass rooster is a perfect ring holder though. :-)

Ring Pics!

At last....I have my ring! I'm having a hard time getting good photos that show how truly sparkly it is, but I'll share a few that I took anyway.

Even without good photos, I am so happy with how it turned out--I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful ring. From every angle I can see so many tiny little rainbows. (I just cant seem to capture that on film right now.) Maybe when we have some sunlight I can try some outside to see how they turn out.

Thanks for stopping by and thank you so much for your well wishes. It really means a lot to me. I hope you have a great day!

*It's hard to see in the photos, but it is a round diamond in a square setting. I had originally wanted a square (princess cut) stone, but there's just nothing that seems to compare with the sparkle you get from a round cut. (IMO). I figured that this way I get the best of both worlds and a more unique ring too. I really have to get some better pics to post. :-)

Today is the day--Finally!!!

This has been the longest week ever, and today in particular is going to be agony. After about 3 months of waiting I am finally getting my engagement ring tonight! I am so excited!

I'm going to keep this short and sweet so I can try to think about other things to help make it through today. I promise to have some photos up within the next few days. :-)

Wedding Flowers

I had my first meeting with the florist on Saturday to get a feel for what I want and how much it's all going to cost me. I was happily surprised that I can get everything I want + delivery (with some room for upgrades) for under $1,000.

The only problem I had was that my wedding is in the Fall and right now they have mostly Spring flowers available, so there were a few that I had to imagine in different colors. One thing I know for sure is that I am having Circus roses as my main flower (for bouquets and boutonnieres) no matter what. You couldn't ask for a more perfect Fall colored rose. I love them and my honey said they were pretty cool too. If you've never seen them before it is the 2-tone rose in my photo below--yellow with reddish edges that seem to blend into a nice orange-ish color once they open up a little.

They sent me home with a bouquet of a few of the flowers and I couldn't be happier with them. I did have a slight change color-wise from what I had originally wanted, but I think that my flowers are going to be beautiful. I took a picture right after I got the flowers home:

And then a second photo the next day, after they had started to open up a little more:

I still plan on adding a few orange spray roses and some dark purple stock flowers to these, but I love all of the colors and I think they will look great with my dark purple bridesmaid dresses. I am going to order some ribbon in the color of the dresses to tie around the bouquets as a finishing touch and to tie everything together (literally and figuratively).

I can wait until closer to the wedding to see some of the other Fall colored flowers and place my order. I am so happy to have one more thing taken care of--one less thing to stress about.

The main thing that I cannot wait for is my ring! I am finally getting it Friday evening--I am so excited!

And we have a winner!

I had 14 entries for the contest. After entering that info into the random number generator at random.org, I have a winner of the 2nd annual Papertrey Ink limited edition anniversary set.

And the winner is #9

Ronna said...
I too just discovered PTI this year, not in time to earn the Anniversary set. I am anxiously awaiting my first order from them placed last week and will definitely be on the list for the set next year. My favorite is the Simply Stationery set, but it is so difficult to pick a favorite, there are so many great ones. I discovered you blog recently and have added it to my favorites to check daily-nice design work. Thanks for the opportunity to win this set.
March 22, 2009 9:48 AM

Congratulations Ronna! Please send me your contact information so I can get your new stamps out to you. (You can click the "email me" link in my profile to send directly to me.)

If you didn't win, be sure to check out the forum on PTI where several ladies have extra anniversary sets that they are willing to sell or trade. Here is the address: http://forum.papertreyink.com/forum/

Thank you for coming by and visiting my blog. I hope you have a great day!

Attention PTI Fans!!!!

As I'm sure most of you know, the limited edition 2nd Anniversary PTI stamp sets have started going out to all loyal customers who have purchased at least 12 PTI sets in the last year. (Yet another reason PTI rocks!)

Some of you may have found PTI too late in the year, or maybe your budget just didn't allow for you to purchase 12 stamp sets, and now you are sad that you have missed out. I understand that feeling all to well as I was in the exact same situation last year at this time. That is until I was lucky enough to win the 1st Anniversary stamp set from Anya (a generous PTI blogger who offered up her second set as blog candy.)

After feeling so blessed with good fortune I decided that if I earned an extra set this year I would offer it up for blog candy as well. So here I am, extra Anniversary set in hand, ready to offer up the goods.

If you would like to win, leave me a comment on this post telling me what your favorite PTI stamp set or product is. (Be sure to leave me an email address so I can contact you.) The contest will close at 8:00 a.m. Monday (Central Time) and at that time I will pick a winner at random to be announced later in the day. International entries are welcome.

Good luck to you all.

A Few New Cards

Somehow yesterday I was able to stay late at work, stop by the jeweler's, get home, make delicious pork tenderloin w/rosemary red potatoes for dinner, and still have time to make two new cards. Not sure how that happened, but I doubt it will be repeated anytime in the near future. :-)

Anyway, on to crafty stuff....

The first card was inspired by my wedding colors. My girls are wearing Eggplant from Alfred Angelo (a very deep purple) and the flowers are going to be purple and orange.

The second card was in anticipation of my PTI order with the new Guide Lines 2 set. I got out the original Guide Lines set and last year's anniversary set and got to stamping. Then I colored with my white gel pen to add some highlights.

Not exactly masterpieces, but not half bad for stealing away a little time to try to play in my craft room in the middle of so much rushing around.

When I mentioned the jeweler above it's because I am finally getting my ring next weekend! I am so excited I can't stand it. I saw it yesterday and decided that the center diamond was set way too high so I'm going to see what they can do about that and then that baby is finally mine! I'll be sure to post pics as soon as I can.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you have a good one.

CAS PTI Challenge & More Wedding Stuff

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but things have been crazy lately. Between work, home, wedding planning, etc., I haven't had much time in my craft room. I do have a few cards that I made about 2 weeks ago and never got around to posting. They were for PTI's weekly challenge and the focus was on a CAS (Clean and Simple) card--one layer, very few embellishments. I was on a roll and made two:

I used all PTI supplies for both cards with the exception of the tiny bling--and that's only because PTI doesn't make it's own bling (yet). If you have any questions about colors/stamps used leave me a comment and I'll get back to you with details.

OK, now on to wedding stuff. I have my dress picked out, but I'm not sure I want to post a pic here because I'm afraid my honey might see it. (I'm not sure if he comes here or not, but with my luck he would.) My only dilemma now is white vs. ivory. I am not sure which way I want to go right now. I was almost 99% sure I wanted ivory and now I'm second guessing and thinking about white. I can't seem to make a decision on anything anymore since I've had so many things coming at me at once.

I did make one decision--I bought myself some of the prettiest earrings to wear with my dress. They are at Macy's for about $900, but I went to the location that is closing and paid around $200 for them instead. They are white gold with tiny diamonds and finished off with pearls--they will go so perfectly with my ring too.


I tried to get a good picture this morning, but I was already running late and had to get out the door. I promise they sparkle in person and they are so "me". I can't wait to wear them! :-)

I know I haven't posted my ring yet, but I don't have it yet. We don't want to finance it so we're keeping it at the jewelers until we get it paid off. So as much as it kills me not to have it yet, I know we'll be better off without that debt over our heads once we get married. I hope to have it next month and I promise to post a pic ASAP!

Unfortunately I started biting my fingernails again with all of the stress of the last few weeks, so I'm hoping that getting my ring soon will be enough to help me stop again. I don't want to show off my ring with chewed up hands. I KNOW I can do this.

I'm sorry I don't have more crafty stuff to share, but right now wedding stuff is taking over my life. I plan on decorating my own unity candles so I'll be sure to post a pic of that too once I complete that.
Thanks for stopping by today.