Wedding Card Album

Now for a change of pace, more crafts! This time it's a wedding related one. I've been wanting to make an album of all the lovely cards we received from the wedding. Here's my inspiration: Card Album Tutorial at Something Turquoise. I'm not going to do my own step by step on this one so definitly click the link if you want to make one. Instead, I'll show you how it turned out and give you some tips.

First things first, the album ring. I searched Joann's and Micheal's stores and websites for that silly thing. Every employee and crafter swore they carried them, but alas no longer seemed to. They only had album kits containing an album ring, card board, scrapbooking paper, plastic sheets and embellishments. It seems some of the companies that make these have gone out of business. At any rate I obtained a pack of 3 from Amazon in the end. I wanted a couple so I can do Christmas card albums later.

Other than finding the ring most of the project was pretty straight forward. I think my ring was 1.5" and I wish I gotten a slightly bigger one. I used less ribbon than she did because it was my last piece of ribbon from the wedding. I would have put grommets in the covers, in hindsight. Don't you love my little vine on the inside cover? The whole thing took me three nap times so in the neighborhood of 6hrs.

I'm completely thrilled at the end result! It's totally worth the time it takes.

Our Paper Anniversary

We've come to the end of our newly wed status (not that we ever really were). One year married. We made all kinds of plans for what we would do on our first anniversary, but life happened. We were going to eat at the lovely restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner, but with Leeloo only one day post-op and all the stress lately I just wanted a low key dinner near by and a couple of drinks.

It took three tries to find a restaurant close to home without a ridiculousness wait. Forty-five minutes to an hour, really? On a THURSDAY? I know not all of those people were married on Wednesday a year ago. Third time was the charm and we waltzed in and were seated immediately. It was even happy hour. We had a lovely dinner. We toasted...um...something...I think maybe we just said Sláinte! It means "to your health" in Irish. We were just so relieved to take a moment for ourselves. Once we'd had our fill we decided to take a walk.

After our walk we were both ready to get home. I'd given Mike his present as soon as it came in. I ordered him an LED shower head. We've nicknamed it the "rainbow shower." It's a big hit with Mike and the kids. My gift was an upgrade to my engagement ring setting, but my current side stones didn't fit so that's on the back burner for now. When we got home the kids were still awake watching Wreck it Ralph 3D in their jammies. So, I told Mike to cut everyone a piece of of cake from our top tier.

I was very nervous. Year old cake...um...yum? I had even threatened to throw it out once or twice because it took up valuable freezer space. I was completely reassured by how beautiful it still looked. Can you believe that was in the freezer for a year? I mean look at it! It tasted as good as I remembered. Mint chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Everyone was pleased. I fully intend to contact our baker and tell her so. Once the kids had their cake and brushed their teeth it was off to bed. Mike and I had a quiet evening of old Sci-fi TV. It was lovely. Bring on year two!