erika & matt - orange zig zag quilt

erika got married. of course with all the posts you couldn't forget the awesome-ness, but here's your last reminder... for now.  i've totally slacked, but now it's time to get around to posting the final piece to the crafting expedition.  no really, this thing was a BEAST.  i can trace back to starting this thing back in august 2011, but it might have even been sooner than that.  anyways, once i found out her colors were orange & pink tangerine & fuchsia, i was on my way to starting this intense project.  never in my life had i heard of an olympic queen size bed, but once i found out the dimensions, my little sewing machine had it's work cut out for it.  i decided to go with the orange colors, because i didn't want to totally torture matt with a pink quilt on their bed.  though, it would have been terribly amusing!
the idea for the quilt came from the addiction known as pinterest.  i got hooked on the zig zag patterns, and was so excited to put it in to use.  though, apparently my math skills aren't quite up to what they should be, because i ran out of fabric about three times...  oops.
the hardest part was probably getting the same fabric slices to line up to make that proper connected zig zag, but in the long run, and from a distance, it won't be that big of a deal.  plus, if it was perfect, it wouldn't be as awesome... (and if it was perfect, i would question whether i actually made it myself or not.)
more zig zagging. and finally using one of my super little "made by" tags. just to make things more legit.  my grandma did the quilting for me (and noted this to be the biggest quilt she's done as well) best part?  the quilt actually fits on their bed.  yeah, i think when erika told me that, i was finally able to rest easy about this beast of a thing.  and now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
top to bottom, hung from a rain gutter on my front porch. the beast.  and i still mean beast in the most loving way possible.  now i just have to resist the urge to make zig zag quilts for the remainders of my "to be wed" friends... because i love how it turned out THAT much.  maybe i'll just save this design for smaller repeats when babies start coming around in the coming years :)

july flicks

alright. alright. yes, i did go see magic mike.  and i'll throw out the fact that jenny & erika saw it with me so we are all equally guilty of seeing that "enticing" movie.  problem was, when we saw the movie, there was WAY too much trying to happen all at the same time during the 110 minutes of the movie.  unfortunately, i'm sure that movie COULD have been a whole lot worse than it was... but it also could have been a whole lot better.  so, if you are still desiring to see "magic mike"... wait for dvd.
good movies this month?  because i said so, new year's eve, and the always enjoyable she's the man.  makes me wish amanda bynes was still making movies.
the ugly truth (2009)
love, wedding, marriage (2011)
my girl (1991)
magic mike (2012)
new year's eve (2011)
miss pettigrew lives for a day (2008)
because i said so (2007)
two weeks notice (2002)
the amazing spider-man (2012)
romy and michele's high school reunion (1997)
definitely, maybe (2008)
she's the man (2006)
the wedding date (2005)
mirror mirror (2012)
shall we dance? (2004)

july reads

so this apparently posted yesterday, and i didn't update it as of recently.  so now here is the "official" read list for july.  much better than it originally looked.  i have to say, the books did get progressively better.  the first book was a real drag to read.  i guess after all of the lovey dovey romance of june's nicholas sparks theme, "i don't know how she does it" was just not up to par.  luckily, things picked up with leaps and bounds, and i ended off the month with a simple, short, but really interesting read of "the perks of being a wallflower".  i'm really interested to see how they took that book and adapted it in to a movie.
i don't know how she does it: the life of kate reddy, working mother - allison pearson
sing you home - jodi picoult
a bend in the road - nicholas sparks
the perks of being a wallflower - stephen chbosky

erika's wedding - garters & ring bearer pillows

so in the midst of all the wedding planning for erika, she asked me about making two things for her big day.  her garter set & ring bearer pillow.  yet again, another adventure over to pinterest to start looking for different ideas & styles for everything.  after scrounging the fabric stores together for the right color fabric & ribbon, we were set for everything to get going.


the ribbon we found for her garters was a little bit pinker than the actual shades of fushia of the bridesmaid dresses, but we figured since it would be under her dress, it was good to go. 

as far as the pillow goes, we managed to find a fabric for the fushia that was almost idential to the swatch erika had in her purse.  after three different attempts with the top pieces trying to get them to lay flat, the final product went together super smoothly.  we found these super adorable star fish buttons on etsy that were exactly what we needed to tie in the beach theme in a classy but not overdone way in to her ceremony.  

2012 truckee river float

last summer jenny and i experienced our first time tubing down the river.  this year, with kasey in town we decided to head off to reno again for a float on sunday.  this could also be documented as the trip with the vicious sunburn.  yes, we did put on sunscreen.  it either wore off/washed off from the length of the float, or the factor of the sunscreen being expired (found out later on) could have played a part in the leg burns.  we survived, so that's what matters, right?  here are the highlights from the lovely waterproof camera. kicking us off, jenny's excited face :)
during one of the stops, kasey found a crawfish, and began hunting it down with amy. eventually, it was captured and posed with. jenny had a camera too. she didn't almost lose hers downstream like i did. we survived the float, and it wasn't until getting back to amy's and rinsing off that i noticed my burns. next year, we'll all remember we should use the SPF 80 for all over. i'm just glad my face didn't burn. as bad as my legs burned, face burns are the worst!

over the week

alright, so i finally came up with enough to share about and post... so now you'll get a blog post.  and another reminder of how i still need to show off and flaunt the things i made off for erika & matt's wedding.  why must i show them off?  the real question is, why not?  anyways... here goes!
07.08

after far too long, and after enduring a movie together with jenny that we thought would be better than it really was, erika & i got some excellent hang out time.  well, more like target shopping, chipotle eating, playing dress up hang out time.  three fantastic things, right?  i got these two rockin' newlyweds to play dress up for me for my photography business so i could have some fresh faces for my portfolio.  well, we had to be sneaky so we didn't crash an actual event going on at the location we chose... and were pretty good about not being seen. and that's all i can really say about that, because i would run out of things to blog about when i post their other photos on my other blog :)

07.13

as with tradition, each year dad & i do our recital portraits for our dance studio.  also with that comes having to do our portraits.  benny, the jets, and i all got off work friday and headed over to knock our portraits out of the way.  we met up with the other relations (jacob, aileen & entourage) and got things going.  well, as you can tell, not everything was your traditional ballet portrait.  but hey, we kept things entertaining!

afterwards, kelcey ben & i headed out to chipotle (3rd time i went this week.  not ashamed one bit) to get a late night dinner.  ben got the off menu quesoritto for the first time, and it was massive.  it did recieve a thumbs up in his book though, so that's a plus.
07.14-07.15
saturday, after five hours of portrait sessions, and finishing packing, jenny, kasey & i headed off to nevada to visit amy & luke.  luke's cousin was visiting from illinois, and had apparently never been in a place like this before (as in, has never seen a real mountain before) so there was some things to do.  we had a homemade taco dinner, followed by a trip out to reno's finest casinos for some gambling & circus acts.  and a giant swarm of super hero dressed people.  hey, i totally managed to dress in theme with my sweatshirt.  now if we only knew why...

sunday we had breakfast and then headed off to the river to do some tubing.  the trip down the river was really smooth, and we all had a blast.  until we noticed how sun burnt we are.  either the sunscreen wasn't strong enough, or it wore off and we didn't bring it to reapply.  either way... it was painful!  like, i'm writing up this blog post coated in aloe vera & have blue ice on my legs painful.  we went to dinner at a chinese/sushi place and then once it got to be around 7:15 (and i won go fish by a landslide) we headed homeward.  it was a nice little two day-ish day-cation.  someday it would be nice to head out there and see a live show as well!

june snapshots

i slacked again.  here's a run down of what happened in june after erika's wedding till the end of the month :) dance recital
june birthdays at grandmassushi dinner for cseb's belated birthdaymonthly "benny & the jets" dinner. plus andrea's birthday this time :) of course, this also had to happen since it was andrea's birthday: