Mar 30 2010
Even though it was pouring outside, Russell and I really enjoyed our wedding shower a couple of weekends ago. I mention Russell because it was a co-ed shower, with women and men. We knew we couldn’t leave anyone out and I am glad we didn’t. First off, I want to thank my Aunts, Bridesmaids, Mom and Dad so much for a lovely party and helping out with everything.
After most of our friends and family arrived we started the afternoon with lunch. There was Red Hot & Blue BBQ, hot dogs, purple potato salad and other homemade dishes. The bridesmaids got the featured cakes (a strawberry shortcake and a red velvet cake) from Desserts By Gerard and friends and family brought other yummy desserts. The bridesmaids announced to the guests to try to take the “Russell and Kristina Trivia Quiz” while eating lunch. I had some guests try to ask me questions off of the quiz and I almost unsuspectingly answered them. I caught myself however and avoided giving them the answers (how sly of them).
After lunch we moved on to another shower game called “The Soon-to-be Newlywed” Game, which involved Russell and I sitting back to back in the center of room with our own dry erase board and marker. My Maid of Honor, Jeanette, asked us questions to see how well we knew each other and then she turned the questions over to our guests. I just kept thinking, “No matter the outcome or the score, we are still getting married!” I think we fared pretty well. We have so much history (9 years to be exact) that it was hard to recall the details of our first date!
The next game the bridesmaids planned was the toilet paper bride game … with a twist! Since it was a co-ed wedding shower, the men were included in the game as well. The guests were divided into groups with each group getting black crepe paper and white toilet paper. Their job was to pick two people in the group, a “bride” and a “groom”, who were to be outfitted with a gown and a tuxedo made entirely from the materials. It was hilarious seeing everyone trying to create their best paper outfits. The results were fantastic given the constraints but I don’t think we will be contracting anyone to be our outfit designers for the wedding day! Here is the winning couple …
After all of that fun, we continued the night with some awesome line dancing! I had the best time and some of our guests got a sneak peek into the line dances that will be played at our wedding. Before the guests left there was a “Well Wishes” bird-cage, where they would leave words of wisdom or happy thoughts for us. Also, there was a candy bar for guests to fill small Chinese-takeout boxes to take home as their favor. The candy bar consisted of purple Mike & Ikes, purple yam (Ube) gummies, green watermelon jelly beans, green M&M’s, green apple gummy rings, and white candy covered chocolates. The candy bar was displayed in elegant apothecary jars and the Chinese boxes stacked next to it with little “R & K” logo stickers on them.
The whole day was so much fun and time just flew by. It’s scary to think that our wedding day will seem to go by even quicker. It was wonderful to see all of our family and friends come out and make our wedding shower truly memorable.
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Nov 04 2008
On Halloween this year we had a couple of couples over to our apartment for a fun Halloween party! You can’t have a Halloween party without costumes and I couldn’t wait to see what everyone was going to dress up as. Unfortunately, Russell and I were stumped on what to be. We ran through a couple dozen ideas but nothing really stuck or seemed fun enough. Finally I said why not an old time King and Queen. Since Russell’s identity in most places is “KingKool68“, I figured it would be a good fit. Then while looking online for inspiration I stumbled across the King and Queen of Hearts!
I looked at about 3 or 4 looks to pull from and combine. I couldn’t decide on which single look to stick with and I really liked certain parts from each picture and I knew they could combine well to make a great costume. I knew that we were going to match and I wanted the look to be a little cartoonish or Disney like.  Below are my pictures of inspiration when I went to the store.
Since our costumes seemed pretty elaborate and were not easy to come by, making it was the only option. With me having a lot of time on my hands it was a great opportunity to have a project to do the week of Halloween. I tried to come up with a game plan without reinventing the wheel. I have not made many clothes, but boy can I make a mean blanket (you know only straight sides, so my sewing abilities are limited).  I figured I could go to the thrift store and find the base pieces to the costume (the dress for me and the robe for Russell) and then embellish and layer the fabric on. This way I was not spending a lot of money on new materials and not spending time following a pattern when i have never made these clothes before.  Well with luck I was able to find a prom dress for me to layer and an old blue graduation gown for Russell’s outfit. Also every Monday at the thrift store was 25% off everything in the store.  I also found a fuzzy robe for the fur details and a sparkly red dress I could cut up and use that for details on the dress. This way I didn’t have to buy this fabric at the store. After the thrift store I headed to Jo-ann Fabrics Etc. in Columbia. I love this store. They have everything you will ever need in materials and fabric.
So once I got home, I made some sketches, planned how my materials will be used and attached to the base. As for picking the colors, I knew we needed a royal, vibrant, silky and rich looking red (duh hearts = red!!). The blue fabric had to match the blue graduation robe but the new fabric had more of a sheen to it. I wanted to add gold fabric as an accent color but not too yellow or I would really resemble Snow White from the Disney Movie. For the dress I attached these fabric panels to make a new layer on top of the existing dress. Another issue that came about was the dress wasn’t poofy enough so I bought tulle to make it poof out more like a real princess dress. Some of the last minute details that I incorporated on the dress were the high fur trimmed collar, the custom heart on the chest, the fur trim of the skirt and lastly the custom gold belt for the skirt of the dress. There is just so much detail on the dress that it would be too hard to explain everything in this post.
Russell’s costume was a snap, I sewed on the stripes to the robe, made a poncho-like cover and embellished both with fur and more fabric details. Russell’s costume was so much easier to make because his was not fitted to his body. For my costume every step of the process has to work sequentially together and fit well, if it doesn’t then I couldn’t move on to the next step of the process, which made for a more difficult costume. Well I really love how they turned out and I told Russell we could wear them again for Valentine’s Day. You can really tell from each inspiration photo what I drew from to incorporate in the final looks.  Well what do you think?
Check out Russell’s post and the costumes from the other people at the party!
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