.99 strawberry margaritas + side of fries = 2 content newlyweds

It's the simple things we wait the whole week long for.

The Bouquet

Yes, the butterfly is real.

Jeannie Gold - 1: Pine Cone + Roses Wedding Flowergirl Dress

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Front

I have never seen this combonation of emerald and raspberry pink! I am so in love; I wish this was a real wedding that I was invited to! This is seriously THE perfect dress for my Pine Cone + Roses wedding. I also found a fun necklace the kiddo's could make themselves!

Jeannie Gold - 1: Pine Cone and Roses Bridesmaid Roundup

No, this was NOT made at BHLDN. It was made with Paint. lol.
Anyway, credits (clockwise starting at upper left): BHLDN, BHLDN, etsy, Miss Selfridge, etsy, stock, Miu Miu, Nina Ricci, etsy, stock.

Swooning for Watermelon

I read a ton of blogs. Duh.
But there are a few I sit at my reader and click "refresh" for every hour on the hour or more. Some of these include (blush if you have to, but trust me: you rock!) Party Frosting, All.Women.Stalk., Style Me Pretty, Green Wedding Shoes, Sweet Designs-Amy Atlas, and a few more. When new content is posted anywhere here on these things, I jump out of my skin to click and read it. And of course being the comment-fiend I am, I leave my lovin' in the form of comments.

Nothing has given me more blog-land thrills than making friends with some of these folks (KIM! DIANA!) and also just getting a "Hey, thanks. You're awesome, too" from some of them like Eddye of SMP and now Lisa from Amy Atlas' blog.
So I encourage you all to go read some >Watermelon-themed cuteness at Amy's blog created by her and her team of awesome people like Lisa.

Oh, and do you know what Lisa's email signature is?

Sweetly,
Lisa

HOW CUTE IS THAT?!
Anyway, go see some watermelon themed goodies!

Jeannie Gold Series - 1: A Pine Cone + Roses Wedding

Married Adventure 2: Shawn Flies

This morning we woke up early and went towards downtown Omaha to Flight! Nebraska Group for a 30 min flying lesson to start off Shawnie's pilot license training. He did a great job! He started up the plane, taxied out to the runway, took off(!), flew mostly the entire time, turned a loop around Omaha and came back to LAND the plane!!!

I hate commerical flights and this was only a 4-seater. I was gripping the seat in front of me the whole time! I was the least scared I have been ever on an airplane. The landing was the best I've ever felt, too. I barely moved because Shawn set it down so gently. He made me so proud!

We even got to see and fly right past Omaha's "skyscrapers" including the bigger Woodmen building there. What a fun and atypical Sunday!

Introducing the Jeannie Gold Series

Jeannie Gold is a top wedding planner whose work has even been seen on the TV show "American Dad." Her skills are complete and diverse, ranging from coordination, planning and emergency medical treatments including sutures.
I admire Jeannie's work and have decided to feature a semi-weekly Inspiration Board post series inspired by her work. I am currently collecting inspiration for post 1: A Pinecone and Roses Wedding.
I will be posting it soon!

HiLLjO Design: Ombre Blush Ostrich Feather Wedding Gown©

I had a dream some time ago. I was in a store of some kind and I saw a magnificent gown. It's not all my style but it is just lavish and beautiful: deep scooping front and back with a horizontal "H" ratchet fastener in back. High-slit skirt that fluffs out to A-line on bottom from the gradually heavier ostrich feather coverage. All done in an ombre natural-to-blush gradient. I also think it would be fabulous beaded in hanging-style beads right on the feathers.

Plus my feverishly completed sketch:

This design ©  by meeeeee, HiLLjO™.

Other Design Sketches: Ruched Faille Rosette Gown

Happy Birthday, Husbunnay

Happy Birthday, my Husbunnay!

Shawnie is 24 Today

We got a house! YAY BUN WE DID IT!!!
And when we get home from leaving work early today, I'm making ice cream cake.

Mr. + Mrs. Finley

Courtesy of my Cousin Samantha

The Kiss

Images courtesy of my cousin, Samantha

"Wedding Day Happy" = "Everyday Happy" when married to Shawn...

I loved the day we got married. I loved our wedding; it was a very special day. The week after it may have been the bridal blues, but I was left with a feeling of "That's it?!"

We spent so much time planning and booking and saving and paying and crafting that after only one day of mild hubub it sucked out the feeling of expectation and replaced it with "what it is."

What I expected: a realistic version of a Disney movie's flora and fauna comprised of moss, branches, fluttering butterflies and hopping bunny rabbits surrounding us all day.



What getting married REALLY looks like: crowded.
D. Pohlen

What we got: A unique, light hearted delight of a perfectly executed handmade wedding, on just another Friday.

What makes the wedding special I realized, is the rememberance of it over time.
Looking down at my hand-crocheted-by-me ring pillows while stashing them away, I came to the idea that what makes your wedding keepsakes special is the trouble of going through saving the mere objects in the first place. After time passes in months and then in years, the brief memories of what went wrong fade away and are replaced by the happy memories your keepsakes bring back to mind.

Getting older helps me to emotionally place revered events like new life and all death into equal perspective with other everyday life events. I believe that a lot of life changes that are both feared and looked forward to should be as equal a part of everyday life as, well, everyday life. The wedding is only the first day of the MARRIAGE. The marriage should be just as special every day as it was on the wedding day. 

More of what I remember: Shawn.
D.Pohlen

Working on my SMP & All.Women.Stalk Submissions

Almost Friday again!

Dawn Pohlen

I have been sifting through the wedding photos picking the ones I will edit first. I have 76 from our photographer, some from Shawn's mom's camera and we're also waiting for the video to be done because some stills were taken from that for pictures, too!
As you brides know it takes a lot of weddings to make the blogs we love go 'round with features. Fortunately for wedding blogs, there are over 2,077,000 weddings in the U.S. each year! The U.S. is not the exclusive source for wedding features, though. You have to take into consideration brides from around the world with web access as well! This is approxiamately 41,975,000 weddings around the world every year, over 20 times the amount of weddings happening in the U.S.!
This helps me mentally prepare for refusal of our wedding for sure. The success of our wedding lies within us, NOT within the 1 in 42 million chance that we get featured somewhere. Besides, who cares about the people who say "No, thank you," to seeing and sharing pics of your rad wedding? No, THANK YOU! Now we can move onto people who lurve us and would like nothing more than to squee over our photos all day.

Dawn Pohlen

In any case, it would be a major thrill to have many people identify with and receive your wedding with interest. To better increase our 1 in 42Million chance, I have found several articles about standing out in the oceans of wedding being submitted these days. It comes from Style Me Pretty, which is basically the same thing as hearing it from the horse's mouth. Read here.

Are any of you ladies or guys out there submitting your wedding to be featured anywhere?

Best Wedding Shoes Pic EVA!

Dawn Pohlen



As you may or may not know, I chose to go barefoot at our wedding! I was going through the shots and a few just jumped out at me right away. This one captured by our main photographer and it is one of my favorites. You see the lace, the lack of shoes and the tattoo. Even the yellow husband-made crinoline is showing!
I felt kind of rock and roll at our wedding with my veil, tattoos and big sunflowers. Rock and Roll bride... I like it!

Monday Monkey Madness

Ah, Monday again. A chance to make this week not suck like last week!

We are finishing the wedding thank you's tonight and sending them out this week. I can't believe we were married for a month already yesterday!

I signed up for Google's AdWords to help me sell more monkeys! If you were to search for sock monkeys on Google you might see my add pop up on the top where the sponsored results show!!! SO exciting. It links to my etsy shop where I just put a few new listings so the shop doesn't look so naked. I have a bar on the blog as well at the very bottom of the right side. It shows all the newer listings like the monkeys!

I went through our wedding photos last night for the first time in detail; boy do I have some stuff to show you guys!!! I'm going to do a multi-day feature of our wedding right here exclusively first! Do you guys have any ideas of blogs I should submit the wedding to for featuring? I love GWS but Jen never comments back! I've even had Eddye from Style Me Pretty comment back to me before thanking me for reading. I want to submit it somewhere it will be well-received all around. I don't know where that would be...

What are you all up to this week?!



Sock Monkey Giveaway!!! WINNER!

Finally! It's Friday!

I am SOOOO happy to announce the winner of the HiLLjO custom sock monkey!

You can pick any of the monkeys I have in my inventory ( I will send you a photo of current stock) or we can create one to your liking and start from scratch (with a pair of socks)!

You can also pick from several customization options if we start with socks:

• Embroidered OR button eyes (felt backing color choice available)
• Name/Personalization Embroidery
• Clothing/Accessories 

There are no holds barred here, and if you're anxiously scrolling looking for the name of the winner, here it is:

The Favour Shoppe

Congratulations!!! I'm so happy for you; now you'll have a Favour Shoppe Monkey!

However, that's not all there is to say!

Since I'm still busting at the seams from having this great opportunity to share love through handmade things, I have also chosen a runner-up to receive an Owl Hat like the ones in my etsy shop!

The winner of an Owl Hat is...

Amanda of Abbottx4!!!

Congratulations, both of you!

Everyone have a fantastic weekend!

Enjoy free domestic shipping on any custom order in my etsy shop!

Use coupon code FSCUST0M0RDER at checkout!

Is anyone ready for Friday yet?



HOJASU Imaginations Image

It has been kind of a rough week for me.
I voluntarily have a good week until (through energy transfer from person to person) I have reasons to deem the week "rough." Things that help me to remember who I am (sense of self grounds me like NOTHING else):
1. My Sock Monkeys
2. My animals
3. Walking in the woods with Shawn
4. Shawn.
I am the first person to tell you I am highly emotional. On that note, in the last few years I have also learned how to be master and controller of my emotions. Every once in a while I reach a melt-down point where I cannot self-controll and Shawn helps me rationalize myself in a way that I don't feel stupid. Sometimes I just think I have boundaries or rules up that are immovable. He'll ask me questions that make me realize I am not against the wall and I slowly regain independent control. Hugs help too! :o)

Most of my daily emotional struggle is made of things that don't matter to most people. For example, roadkill makes me cry. If I see a cat or a dog in the road I immediately lose emotional control and sob. Even dead squirrels and deer give me a larger-than-average pang in my heart.
So when I go to work and put everything I have in me into my work only to have 5 people surround my desk telling me I messed up, I take it kind of badly. Don't get me wrong, I can take negative feedback and constructive critiscism (that is all I dish out--upon request)but this is not either of those things. It's straight out of "Office Space" by Mike Judge: you do one thing wrong and 10 people contact you in some way to tell you that you messed up the TPS reports. I. KNOWWWWWW. GRR!!! By the time Friday rolls around, I'm pretty fed up with the place and I can't find my stapler.

It is so amazing to go home and have someone there at night to hold you and listen to your rants and be on your team rain or shine. I draw so much strength from Shawn. No matter what I am going through and how bad I see it as being, Shawn reminds me that my greatest want is fulfilled.

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”

                                                                                                   ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

He believes in the HiLLjO; and that is the greatest gift he has given me.

PS: Last 7 hours to enter the giveaway starts... now.

Blog Lovin

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Blow Me Away with Your Love

Oh, Shawn... This photo makes me glad for everything. Everything that happened at the wedding for good and bad; everything we have to do at home like scooping cat boxes and mowing; everything we do together like grocery shopping and snuggling. I am so glad we are in love. I promised that day and I'll promise everyday that I will do anything to make us happy forever.
I love you Bunn.

Preview of Wedding Photos!

I wanted to hold off posting photos of the wedding until I have the professional shots all back and cropped and balanced... but I can't help it!!! There's so many photos on facebook (cringe) that it won't hurt one thing to share about 10 photos that our family took!

Dress hung with lilafrances "mrs. finley" hanger

Only Child - Walking with Both Parents

Unity Plant - Funny story for later...

Butterfly Release - One Refused its Freedom to be with Walter

Mr. + Mrs.!!!

Spectacular Homemade Wedding Cake

Handmade Mason Jar Centerpieces

Carousel Ride!!!

Skee-Bouquet!!!

Hell yeah Carnival photos!!! Y'all have to wait for more!!!

While you wait:

Enter the giveaway!!! Only 2 days left! Simply leave a comment and you're in; No following, tweeting, facespacing or anything else necessary.

BHLDN Moodboards

I wasn't "naughty" but I feel like it for letting myself go stray for almost an hour putting 3 new boards together at BHLDN... I can't help it; I admit addiction!!! If you don't understand you haven't made one! Go see!