Bachelorette Party

A month before the wedding, my sisters threw me a fantastic bachelorette party.  Although a little unconventional for June, we decided to go ice skating.  We ate Mexican food (my favorite) beforehand and then headed to the rink for a few hours of skating.  Turns out if you go ice skating in June, you pretty much get the whole ice rink to yourself!  And of course, we went to Ted and Wally's afterward for some ice cream.


Sarah and Stacey made the cutest party favors for everyone that came!

They got me this cute "wifey" tank to wear on my big day.

The flying V!

Sisters :)

Here's to one of most fun nights with some of the best people ever!

Engagement Pictures

Hello there.
It's been quite a while.
Let me tell you, weddings are quite a busy time! I promised myself that I wouldn't blog until after Thank-you's were done, so here I am.  Almost 4 months later and we finally finished them :)

I figured I better record some of the wedding festivities so when my computer crashes or something, I can rely on Google to have saved them for me.  So here are our engagement pictures.

Taking engagement pictures when you live you live >1000 miles away from each other is no easy feat.  Finally, when Patrick moved back to Nebraska our good friend, Sara Welniak, was kind enough to take some engagment pictures for us.  Here were some of our favorites!

Thanks for tuning in! More to come :)

My Bridal Shower

On April 19th, my mom and sisters threw me the cutest bridal shower ever! I thought I would share some pictures. 

The most adorable cookie cake in my colors.  

Chalkboard done by Sarah. 

Classy.

Always by the food table. 

Everyone that came to the shower wrote me a note of marriage advice.

My favorite thing from the shower were the recipe cards that my family secretly gathered from relatives, friends, and co-workers. They all fit into this perfect little box.  (And yes, Sarah did the box.)

I've got some really good recipes stored in here.

Sarah did all of the calligraphy on the front of the cards and the "Murray" watercolor on the back.  Girl has got skillz!

Shout out to my sisters and mom for putting on the most wonderful shower ever :)

Thanks for reading!

Dress to Peplum Refashion

So this piece of clothing has an interesting story.  Here's how it started out:

Cute dress, huh?  Now take a closer look.

Last Easter, Kara, Jill, and I were panicking 30 minutes before the Easter Vigil mass because we were trying to find Jill something to wear to mass (the hardships of being tall).  We found this dress and figured it would work for Jill.  As we were rushing to get it ironed, the iron must have been set too hot and burned these lovely holes in the dress.  (As you have probably guessed, it tends to get a little chaotic at home when we are trying to get ready for something.)  So after finding Jill something else to wear for Easter Vigil, this landed in my refashion bin.

I decided that could make it into a peplum top and use the extra fabric to cover the holes.

I used another peplum top I had to figure out the length I wanted.

Then I  measured and marked the dress 9 inches below the waistline.  

 Cut along this mark.

Once it was cut, I ironed over the raw edge and hemmed it.

Now to cover those holes.
I used the fabric I cut off the bottom of the dress to cover up the holes.

I decided to sew a strip over the whole front of the dress instead of just the holes to make a more uniform look.

I cut a strip big enough to cover the holes, ironed the raw edges over, pinned it down, and then stitched it on.  

And tada! Now this is wearable again!

Thanks for reading :)

Neon Chevron Refashion

Recently, I have been pulling clothes out of my "don't wear this anymore, but can't bear to send it to Goodwill yet" box and trying to figure out how to make them wearable again.

I had this plain navy blue shirt stashed in here.  It was always one of my favorite shirts.  It's so comfy, but I had to stop wearing it because I wore holes in the bottom when I was going through my t-shirt "front tuck" phase.

Yes, I did think that I might be able to fix it with clear nail polish.  Clearly a fail.  Pun intended. 

I was at a loss at how to cover this up until I ran across this picture. 

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/shoparound/how-sydney-wears-it/how-sydney-wears-it-4-on-trend-tops-to-punch-up-your-spring-wardrobe.php

Luckily I had this shirt shoved in my refashion bin too.

I took the navy shirt and found the midline.  I used my ruler to sketch out some different sized widths of chevron.  The lowest chevron was strategically placed over the holes.

I cut the neon shirt apart and then cut the appropriate size strips for the chevron.  

I cut them each a 1/2" wider so I could iron the raw edges under.  I cut two strips to to piece together for each chevron instead of one pre-cut chevron piece.

I then pieced the strips together on my chalked outlines and pinned it down.

Here is a closeup of how I folded the edges over.

I used neon thread to stitch the edges down.  Repeated for the rest of the shirt. 

And TADA!! I can finally wear one of my favorite shirts again.  I think I may even like it more now! 

Thanks for reading!