I, for one, love my husband.

I resisted Pinterest ALL day. I made my bloggy reading-and-commenting rounds and continued working today instead of logging on... until 5 minutes ago!

What a mistake that was.

All I get from Pinterest is pissed off anymore. There is a slew of people making light of talking bad about their partners, and specifically husbands, on there in the form of repins of stupid quotes.





I can't take more than citing just 2 Pins I disagree with here. It's not that I don't have a sense of humor because trust me, I DO. But to me, it is the equivalent of men reducing women to their appearance to reduce a man to his faults.
I, for one, love my husband. So. Damn. Much.
To make light of his emotions and to not take into account how much he does for us would be a crying shame. Partners need to raise up each other with love and kindness and appreciation.
My husband is a man of character and that is why I wanted to marry him. I didn't want to get married before I knew him, but after I met him I only wanted to be married to him.
If we disagree, we argue with respect for each other and work through our differences. That doesn't mean one bends to the ideas of the other; it means we respect each other enough to let the other own their own thoughts.
My husband cannot be nagged. No one likes it, so why would he? If he was going to do something around the house and he has not done it yet, I simply (READ:)Let. It. Go. 10 times out of 10 the next time I think about it, he has already done it.
My husband is my best friend and he teaches me so many things by sharing what he learns about the world. He reads everyday. He researches for the sake of knowing something for himself. He is truly intelligent for seeking information for no other purpose than his own curiosity. He has taught me so much, and I hope what I'm sharing with him teaches him, too.
My husband is cool. He has style; he never wears jeans, just Dickies pants. I really love how he dresses as an individual. He likes good music that we both enjoy and has introduced me to bands I love who I'd never heard of before. He is open minded and open hearted and this just allows all kinds of cool things to rush in.
My husband encourages me by always believing in me. He sees how determined I get about so many things, and he never undermines it with reality. He's just there for me when I fall short to remind me of how far I got when I started with nothing.
My husband loves me. He shows and tells me everyday. Do you know what he told me this morning? That he keeps thinking about how I look when I smile and how precious I am to him. Yes, he is real.

So join me in my challenge to you, dear readers: RISE UP AND LOVE YOUR PARTNER. Be a true partner to your spouse, fiance/e, boyfriend, girlfriend, and show the world that "They are More."

Colored Wedding Dress Crinoline Part 2: Mere Mortals Dye Poly Tulle

So I tried to dye my ivory crinoline yellow about 2 weeks ago with regular Tulip Dye... FAIL. The deeper shade of ivory it turned rinsed right out!
Upon investigation into the material contents of the crinoline, (Read: I did online research, called the shop I bought my dress from, and then FINALLY called my dress designer's world headquarters) I found that it is Poly-tulle. It is made of Polyester.
Now folks, no mere mortal can dye polyester fabric. However, I do not take kindly to the idea of a white crinoline I could have just left attached to the damn dress!
So I did some more research into what WOULD dye polyester. Apparently there is a poylester dye that comes in its very own packet and everything. It is called iDye Poly and although it comes in limited colors, it comes in yellow and it works! Shawnie did most of the work and I stood by with my nervously bitten lip.

We put a stainless steel bucket on the stove with warm-to-hot water in it. We put it up to level 4 on the burner to get it simmering. We added the skirt and Shawn stirred it constantly to keep the color even and to keep the crinoline from cooking!

It got gradually darker over the course of 30 minutes.

Before

5 Minutes

10 Minutes! Soaked up a lot of color!!!

Woohoo! Results!!!

I'd like to thank Shawn (for dying and emotional support), Grandpa (for using his bathtub and carwashing bucket without fear of stains) and my mom (for listening to me bitch when it wouldn't work and I couldn't figure out how to make it work!). I will have a colored crinoline for under my dress.

There is a downside to this DIY: it took SO. FREAKING. LONG. that I handed it off to my alterations lady for Part 3 : the elastic waist. All I will have is after-after pics! Hang in there!

Memorial Day Weekend

Happy Memorial Day Monday to everyone, including those who are serving or whose familes are!!!
Over the weekend we did something for sheer delight that will shock all my readers: We went to WWE Monday Night Raw in Omaha!!!
The picture above was us outside of Omaha's Qwest Center before we went in. The stripe of flourescent orange and yellow are our signs we made. Mine said "HI GRANDPA & JAZZY!" on one side and "Shawn + Hillary Get Married in 11 DAYS!!!" We weren't on TV, but we still represented. We are huge WWE fans! This is a new development that Shawn's Grandpa is almost entirely responsible for. Shawn and his dad were into it when Shawn was younger, but now we don't miss it! Since we started renting Grandpa's basement to save up wedding money we have had dinner and watched wrestling every night that it is on. At first I was opposed, but now I'm the first one on the couch Mondays and Fridays!
We had a really nice, fun time and escaped from the wedding even though we're thisclose!

Groom in Shorts - Inspiration

My future husband is the smartest, coolest, most unique and stylish man I've ever met. He is what we can deem to be an "offbeat groom." Having said this, you may already know I am an Offbeat Bride member. Offbeat Bride is basically a hardcore community-blog created by a pink haired lady on the NING platform. It pulls together people who are disquieted by the normal wedding magazine weddings. The offbeat brides and grooms submit photos of their weddings to the community Flickr pool and you can search around for offbeat ideas. ANYWHO... I had seen a picture of the groom and his guys ALL IN KNICKERS. I wish I had the photo! I just remember thinking how unique that was; I had never seen a groom in shorts. So I googled. There is nothing, save for beachy grooms in shorts. I never mentioned this to Shawn.
Around September after we were engaged for about a month we were having a laying-in-bed-at-night chat. He was mentioning the kind of suit he wanted for the wedding. He wanted to wear something with different blue pinstripes that had tails and shorts.
My mouth dropped to the floor and I just thought "This is the perfect man for me." I jumped on his bandwagon immediately! I encouraged him to do this because it is rockin', he always wears black flat-front Dickies shorts in the summer and because he decided he wanted to wear sandals.
Shawn and I have said it before and we'll say it again together:
Sandals + Pants = Cheese
So the sandals fit his outfit perfectly and his outfit suits him perfectly. I listened to each idea he had for his outfit and kept my eyes peeled online and in the stores until I had a good idea of what he was going for.

One day at Kohls I found a suit that was perfect but I didn't buy it. This was Shawn's decision and I picked my dress, so he gets to pick his suit. I told him about the suit immediately. It was a navy blue Ralph Lauren suit with a blue multicolor decostripe through it. It froze me in my tracks when I saw it; I knew it was for Shawn! When he saw the suit, he was immediately taken with it.

He has his final fitting in his custom creation coming up soon. I won't take pictures of him in it but I'll take a pic of the before and after for everyone to see the changes! It is awesome.

So Much to Update!!!

This weekend was again a very busy one. We took a cue from last weekend and weren't quite so rough on ourselves. We also took some time out for a bunnytime date on Sunday night to see Bridesmaids! Shawn really is my BFF for taking me to that movie on a date! It was surprisingly funny, though!
Friday I received my lilafrances hanger that says "mrs finley" for my wedding dress. People, I cried. I opened it and just ran my hands over it. It was made just for this future mrs finley and no one else has it! It is for my wedding dress alone. It's one material possession that transcends a material meaning.

We also went out on Saturday seeking to purchase Shawn's wedding band once and for all. We went to the mall, tried on each and every men's ring in the whole mall until we found the one that Shawn liked best. It looks so amazing on him and next to mine as well.

We attempted to dye my crinoline yellow... not so good. It didn't take very much dye!!! My cardigan I dyed along with it to match turned out lovely, though. I'm going to attempt to overdye the crinoline bright yellow again tonight. There are more updates but I'm going to be writing about more throughout the day!

Stay tuned!

Sock Bunny Rabbits

I make sock monkeys and Shawn and I both have one, but for the wedding guestbook table we wanted something that tied into our bunny theme. Sock bunnies seemed a pretty natural choice. They're also a nod to the homemade bunny dolls Shawn's Grandma used to make when she was still here. The faces/profiles were made in the same way and shape.
Shawn's bunny with full details is here.
Here are ours so far together sans eyeballs!

Check out the spectacular button I found that matches my engagement ring. Square with a round stone! More on these soon!

Weddzilla!

All about involving the groom and how fabulous my groom is.

50 Days

I can't believe time is going so fast that it's already the 50-Day mark.

It seems like we just mailed out the invites.

Now we're already starting to get RSVPS's back!

Be sure to check for new Weddzilla later!!!

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!!! ENDS 4/30/11 at 11:59 CST!!!

Bridal Luncheon Favors

Over the weekend a few of the ladies I work with and my mom, Shawn's mom and sister and I all went to a local eatery/bakery to enjoy a little Bridal Luncheon.

They thought they'd have all the suprises (they did have a bunch!) but I had a couple up my sleeve as well.
The ladies and I are event planners for a novelty company so we take our jobs very seriously and plan all of our events to a T. We even include hostess gifts in our planning, so this was no exception. The hostess and I share the same favorite wine so that was easy, but you can't just shove a bottle of wine at someone! It has to be pretty. So thanks to the Bistro at Bellenza, I furoshiki'd the wine for her in one of my favorite scarves from my collection and voila.

Prettiness.

Since it is Easter time I decided to capitalize on what's available: peeps bunnies! Our wedding is bunny themed so I figured this idea from Celebrations at Home via Babble would be highly appropriate. I added a bride bunny to the tuxedo-clad bunnies in the tutorial and I had a bunny-themed bridal shower favor for everyone!

Me, Shawn and his groomsman Chris each bagged a bride and a groom bunny in a cellophane bag together and tied them closed with yarn until they were all paired off.

I had to keep a pair, too!!!



Shawn + Hillary Jo

I just wanted the gals to know I really felt special and I thought about doing something for them as well!

While planning, life still is moving on...

Shawn

+

Hillary

3 1/2 years today. Wow.

Beautiful Wedding Shoes

I wish to share with you why these shoes are the most beautiful wedding shoes (to me) ever. When Shawn & I picked out our shoes, we were going for barefoot. I'm not wearing mine until after the wedding, but the reception will be at a restaurant and you hafta wear shoes there!!! Sandals was the next best thing to barefoot. Especially hippie sandals.
We saw Shawn's sandals at a store called Euphoria in Lincoln, NE when we went to Lincoln on our first ring shopping trip... I'll have to write about that also. Shawn has EcoDragon sandals which are made of sustainably harvested hemp fiber. They last FOREVAR and you can recycle them at the end of their use.
He liked them but it wasn't until the week after when he divulged to me "I want to wear those sandals at our wedding. But they're so expensive." I told him, "Shawn. If you want those sandals for your wedding, you're getting them! I can have a hundreds-of-dollars wedding dress, you can have those damn sandals! ... I'll buy them myself!!!"
So we planned a trip back to Lincoln to try on dresses at the BEST SALON EVAR called Ellyne's and we also went back to Euphoria and bought those sandals! I was more excited about that than my dress experience in Lincoln. Let's not write about that, by the way...

We found my sandals when we went to Kansas City, MO to ask Shawn's friend Sprague (who is tattoo/graffitti artist Manic!) to be in our wedding. We were in West Port near downtown and the Plaza when we went into a little store called Beautiful Day. It looked happy from the outside so we had to  go in. I found my shoes and got that gut feeling of "That's IT!" until I looked in my wallet. I only had like half the money for my shoes. I told Shawn and Sprague heard, too, so we all pitched in. We all 3 bought my wedding shoes. So the way they were acquired is beautiful.
Last Wednesday I took them out to look at them with Shawn's sandals to swoon over how perfect they are together and I examined mine particularly well. On the bag they come in, it says "UTOPIAN Rope Sandals. Handmade by Tom." I wanted to know who Tom was to tell him how wonderful the shoes are and that I love them so much they're going to be my wedding shoes. I looked up UTOPIAN rope sandles on 'teh googles' and found out from Wiki that these shoes are beautiful how they're made, too.
Tom and his community, East Wind, make these sandles along with nut butters and tahini. All the income is pooled for the community to cover medical expenses and each member is given food, clothing, shelter, education and personal money. They believe in equality, social democracy and nonviolence. Each member contributes man hours and lives together, voting on every decision made by the community. So East Wind in Tecumseh, MO is responsible for the creation of my wedding shoes.

Can you say Beautiful?

Marriage Certificate - UPDATE

There's the whole layout with the corner!

This will be made into 4 more copies before the original is done! Stay tuned...

100 Days to Go! WOW!

Bunny Wedding
bluedogrose @storybird.com

Time is really flying now and I realized that if I own the supplies for a project, it must be completed. Now.

So onto the rushing DIY tide, everyone. It's going to be appearing so frequently you won't know what to do.
For today's DIY I want to share with you my plans for it first. At the venue, we are having a guest book table (duh) set up with our matted photo, a centerpiece, our big potted Saguaro and a couple of sock bunnies. That's right not sock monkeys, sock bunnies.

You see, I make sock monkeys and sell them on etsy and Shawn & I have our own; but for our bunny-themed wedding we need some sock bunnies, mmk? I don't share a pattern for my monkeys because of two reasons: 1) I make them different each time and 2) I share a lot, but some things are proprietary to even the HiLLjO.
There are a ton of free patterns out there like this one that work wonderfully.
For Shawn's bunny, I stuffed and sewed bunny feet instead of regular feet and I made long ears. I also pre-sewed the bunny profile before stuffing the main body sock. Here's a teaser of him without his eyes and outfit.

 Next up on the DIY Docket: Jr. Bridesmaids & Flower Girl accessories: Flip flops, hair accessories and flower baskets.

Cute Shot Glasses

We spent some time with some family this weekend and one of the trips we took was to my parents'. We haven't seen them for a couple weeks so she gave us our Valentine gift today.

SO CUTE! We collect shot glasses so this is highly appropriate.

We enjoy these.

It's snowing AGAIN!

Thank goodness.
Why? Because we need a winter photo together with snow!

James L. Amos for Nat'l Geo. 1978, Dearborn MI

We've been meaning to take a winter photo of us together while we're engaged so that we can have a "seasonal-bunnies" collage matted in place of a guestbook at the wedding. Every time it's been snowing here the wind is too high to take a nice picture. Your hair is either all over in the wind or your nose gets red and drippy after 5 minutes outside. Purty.
I almost thought it wouldn't happen after all our snow melted last week so I am very happy for snow.  

Our matte's photo will be laid out in this way, but each photo will be of us from that time of year.
We haven't decided which color the matte should be. I don't think white will work. Maybe a light blue? Or yellow with Shawn's paper-tie-dye technique overdyed? We'll see... He will have to be dying a lot of stuff for the wedding.
The man is a master tie-dyer so naturally I wouldn't have anyone else dye my crinoline yellow for my dress, nor would I have anyone else dye the backdrop sheet for our photobooth. He just has such an eye for dispersal and color combinations. People ask him if he buys his shirts. NOPE! He dyes them himself with his hands.
He also takes rad photos!

You can see some of his stuff here and here. That's my leg by the way... lol.

He also colors with colored pencil so deep and so even that it looks like laser jet printing. So he will also be coloring in our DIY Marriage Certificate. He's a groom who is involved in the wedding because he wants to be, much to my delight!

Wedding Planning / Life Lessons

Our wedding is teaching me a lot. Wedding Magazines won't tell you that you should learn at least one thing about life while you're planning. I say at least one to account for short-engagement brides!
What I've learned so far:
1. Follow your heart. This is your wedding and you won't have a chance to pull a re-do. On ANYTHING.
2. Be receptive to help that is offered and accept it. I'm a DIAY(Do it all yourself) queen and like to be self-sufficient. There is no way you can be self-sufficient planning a wedding; you will need help and the sooner you realize that if you're like me, the better a time you'll have planning.
And the latest...
3. Sometimes the problem is the solution! If you have an idea for something and it's not working out, it may not be meant-to-be. My headpiece has been driving me up the wall for going on 3 weeks now. I have been patient, I have bought more materials and I have tried several versions. I accept that it's not working.

So what's the solution hidden in this problem?
Since I've met Shawn, on my BEST days when I'm really happy and it's Spring or Summer, I wear a sunflower in my hair. I've had everyone from my mother to our friend Chuck, the Juggalo, say it's awesome. So on our Wedding Day, an early summer day that will be the happiest of our lives together so far, why would I wear anything different? It's my HiLLjO-flavored personal celebration of the best day of my life until Shawn and I make children.

Lastnight I did a makeup trial and came to this realization after trying my makeup on with my flower. What do you think? More eyes, less eyes, more color...?

Did you know? Hawaiian tradition states that a single woman wears flowers in her hair on her right side, while a woman who is taken wears them on the left! Who knew?!

Reason I'm Marrying Shawn - #5,404,286,001

One of my many Valentines' Gifts:

3 lbs. of Haribo Golden goodness. This is love.

Valentine Weekend

This weekend was a BLAST!

• It started an hour early. Shawn surprised me by getting home from work at 5!
• We took a mini-break from wedding planning after Saturday was over
• Sunday Brunch was nuts, courtesy moi.
• Downtown Omaha was the only date plan we outlined for our amazing Sunday!
• Surprise Presents are yet to be exchanged.

Saturday we went to my mom's house and officially asked all our girls from Nebraska if they would like to be in our wedding. We also planned a shopping trip for the dresses next month, wrote down flip flop sizes and took stock of headpiece style preference (I'm going to make all the little girls a hair clippie or headband to wear at the wedding).
I tried to finish my headpiece, everyone...
Not so good. I think the headband part has got to go buh-bye. It dents my bangs and the right side of my hair and looks perpetually unfinished. I also tried putting the flower cluster on a french barrette but it's much too heavy. So I set it down again, along with all things wedding after 2 PM.

The headpiece design must be something that's just going to take a little longer. I've also considered if nothing works, just wearing my hair down with a flower behind my ear. Whatever!!!

Sunday. Brunch. Was. So. Good.

I made heart-shaped cinnamarolls for everyone, omlettes requested by the guys, and I had this baby:

Frying cheese cubes, walnuts and sugar-sprinkled red raspberries.
I've heard of people getting the urge to finish a package of oreos before and I don't share that urge, but this dish gave me the same kind of urge to eatitallNOW! I think it was the cheese...

Sunday we went downtown Omaha and didn't really know what we were going to do, we just knew food would be a part of the plans. We were thinking sushi and then I saw Spaghetti Works.
And I also thought "wine."
Neither of us wanted to ruin the night for the other so we proceeded to volley "I'll go wherever you want, bunny," back and forth as sickiningly sweet as a game of "No, you hang up first!"

Spaghetti Works won because we got sushi last Valentine's Day. Dinner and wine was great. When we went back outside it had gotten a bit colder so we looked for anything open to get a shield from the wind.

We went to the Tobacconist to get a couple stogies and ended up talking with a drifter for an hour and then headed home.

Our cats greeted us upon arrival home as expected. We all proceeded to snuggle and watched adult swim until we fell asleep and so did the TV.