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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Valentine's Brownies

This year I had my first married Valentines.  :)  Valentine's day was only five days after our wedding so I told Tall Tan Man I would like to skip it this year {sorry honey I am not super woman...yet}.  Of course Tall Tan Man being the stud that he is made be a delicious dinner, and an even more wonderful dessert. 


He used this {Chocolate Coffee Brownie Recipe} and it was amazing.  One plus about this recipe is each serving only has 95 calories!  I wonder how many servings were in my portion?  haha Who cares? I'm married now... Just kidding.  :)   


Now I want to share my first baking experience with Tall Tan Man.  We were out in Tucson, Arizona for extended spring training {2008} and TTM decided he wanted to make me a birthday cake.   He went to the store, and found a recipe he thought I would like in a book.  Instead of buying the book he left himself a voicemail with the ingredients and directions.  There was one interesting ingredient... cocoa butter.  I did not know about this until TTM was gone to the store for a couple hours.  He was searching and searching for cocoa butter in the baking aisle {he went to multiple grocery stores}, and could not find it.  Finally someone suggested he go to the a health store and he found cocoa butter in the lotion section.               
                                                                                           
When TTM got home he told me about this, and he was very confident that the ingredient was cocoa butter.  If you know TTM then you know sometimes you gotta let him do his thang.  He scraped out the cocoa butter into the batter {it did not come out too easy} and then baked the cake.  Let's just say it didn't quiet turn out.  The icing was fabulous, but the cake had a very strange texture...yes, I tried it.  

When TTM went back to the store he double checked the recipe...cocoa POWDER does sound a lot like cocoa butter.  :)  I love him.  Alright.  Sorry if I my ooey-gooey-I-am-so-in-love is making you sick... I CAN'T HELP IT!  Have a great rest of your week! 

{Leslie}

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Bridesmaids Shower


Hands-down I have the best group of friends.  Getting to hang out with friends from all stages of my life during this whole process was wonderful, and makes me wish we could get together more often!  I know if my world were to fall apart {and Tall Tan Man were unreachable} I have so many amazing woman that would drop whatever they are doing to be there.  I had so much fun at this shower and ate some really amazing food.  I loved all the personalized decorations!








Sarah you ROCK, and thank you Ashley for hosting! :) The food...my goodness, the food was great. 


My friend Stefanie made this beautiful and delicous cake!  I want to learn how to decorate cakes...


My favorite baby girl in the whole world also joined us.  Can you tell my Mom wants grandbabies?  haha Deep breaths Tall Tan Man I am not ready either.   


Thank you everyone for all this!  I loved it!  



{Leslie}

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

DIY Wedding Invitations


I have a little addiction to stationary.  I am in no way a graphic designer, and I envy people with Photoshop abilities.  I have now added Photoshop or graphic design classes on my bucket list.  Tall Tan Man and I made our own invitations for many reasons.  I really wanted full control over how they looked, and I also wanted to save money.  I was so surprised by the cost of invitations, and I had no desire to spend that much money on a piece of paper that would end up in the recycle.    Most craft stores carry stationary and the prices a very comparable.  I ended getting ours at Michael's for $14.40 (awesome, I know).  This was for 200 blank invitations with just a simple black edge. 


I created the invitation on picmonkey.com.  I really like all the different font options and how easy it is to use.  All I did was upload a white background image and added text in separate boxes.

There is a white background below this :)


When your done make sure you save the image as a large file (it is called Sean).


The real downside to using picmonkey is you can't edit your image after you have closed it {I probably read ours 47 times}.  You could also use the website that comes with the invitations, Microsoft Word or buy a pdf image from Etsy. I also bought a monogrammed embosser from {Discount Rubber Stamps}, and it is now on sale for $14.95!


We ordered RSVP postcards from Vistaprint, and I was so happy how they turned out.  We were not able to send out save the dates so I really wanted our RSVP cards to have our personality.  We bought a 100 cards for $ 24.99.
 

Of course my inner educator wanted to use a test format.  :)


So in total we spent:

Cards $14.40
Embosser $ 29.99
Post Cards $ 24.99 

Total: $ 69.38 {this doesn't include the shipping costs...I can't seem to remember how much all that was. #brainstillfried}.

I saw this idea on {Jones Design Company} yesterday, and I wish I would of seen it sooner.  I love how the tissue paper adds a little more glam.  I wish I could have parties all the time so I could do some more designing!


I am so glad we did our own invites.  Turns out it cost us more money to mail them than to make them...  Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means I get Starbucks in the morning!  I have only certain days that I allow myself :) 

{Leslie}

Sunday, February 17, 2013

I'm baaaaaaack!

Hello there!  Wow, I have can't believe it has been over a month since my last post.  I had every intention of blogging while I was planning our wedding, but it didn't happen.  I think I was a little over ambitious that I could do a DIY wedding in 3.5 months and blog about it.  :)  

I am filled with so many emotions right now.  Tall Tan Man is currently on a plane back to Denver.  :( I really miss my HUSBAND.  Eeeee saying that is going to take some getting use to.  This past week and half has been amazing.  I couldn't imagine the wedding week going any better {besides just a few oh crap moments}.  Over the next couple months I plan on filling ya'll in on all my favorite engagement and wedding moments.  Can I do it again please?  Same guy of course.  I will also do my normal projects, cooking, and travels.  

Alright, I see about a 1/4 inch of dust on my dresser, because it probably hasn't been dusted since I got engaged... Time to clean and miss my Man.  Have a great week and I will be back soon, promise!  

{Leslie}
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