Somebody's Getting Married!!!

Yes, it's been a while since I have posted anything, but I have a good excuse.... I am working on, as I see it, the biggest art project of my life!!! On Thursday, December 22nd, on our 3rd year anniversary, my boyfriend asked me to marry him! We are extremely excited and have been busy planning ever since! We have a lot of the big stuff done already! The location (Magnolia Mound Plantation), the caterer (LA Bayou Bistro), the cake (Ambrosia Bakery), the photographer (my friend Jane, Janey Pie Photography), the Florist (my wonderful Aunt Tammy), my DJ (an iPod and my brother) and my dress (Alfred Angelo)!

The wedding is October 27, 2012, and though I have some big stuff out the way, I have so much left to do! But most of it is stuff I want to create! So this year my blog will be filled with many of my wedding projects! I may not have many to post at first, but as the date draws closer, I should have many projects to share!

Here are some of the things I will be working on:

1. Save the dates - Most of Will's family is live in other states so we think it would be a good idea to send out save the dates. I was thinking of maybe just an email, but I got a good deal at Vistaprint.com so I think I may be designing some magnets! Still debating that though!
   
2. Invitations - Oh, invitations... Now... I love making invitations. But designing MY invitation for MY wedding... THIS will be one of my biggest challenges yet! I know I am going to be SO picky and want to make it perfect. So I have a feeling this is going to be tough one! I started playing with it, and it's already making me mad! hehe :)
   
3. Wedding website - I decided that I will make my own wedding website. I know you can make quick ones for free on theknot.com, etc., but I really want to customize it to the look I want!
   
4. Centerpieces and decor - have a lot of cool ideas for decorations. I will share some of those ideas in a bit!
   
5. Favors - I have a few ideas of things I could do for favors!
   
6. Cake topper - This is a maybe... I saw some ideas I like, and I think it would be really neat to make myself!
   

The Color Palette

Why, oh, why did I have to envision a color palette that is going to be so hard to work with?! This is how it happened. I always wanted my wedding color to be a dark blue. I had always envisioned getting married in the spring time, so I saw the dark blue bridesmaids dresses with bright, springtime flowers. But after we got engaged, we decided on a fall date. So what to do? I didn't want a typical fall color scheme. So after browsing the internet I came across this color palette using a dark teal blue. I fell in love....

It's fall.. but not "too" fall! LOVE! What I am NOT going to love is trying to match the teal. Everyone's definition of teal is different... it can be lighter... it can be darker... it can be greener... it can be bluer... the color I want is just like the dresses below. This is the color I want my bridesmaids to wear. It's called "Tealness" from Alfred Angelo.

So a darker, bluer teal... I also want to use browns, tans, flower colors of orange, red, yellow and salmony pink. I would like to have the tablecloths at the reception to be this teal color too. I got some fabric samples in from suppliers, but they aren't the "right" teal. So I am going to have to get creative and make it work somehow because I love this color!

Decor Ideas

Our ceremony and reception will be held at Magnolia Mound, a pretty plantation near LSU's campus. The ceremony will be on the steps on the back of the plantation home, and the reception will be held under a big, nice pavilion.

Magnolia Mound's Pavillion

So, as you already know, for tablecloths I would like the dark blue teal... but I am not sure if that will happen yet. For the centerpieces, I am thinking I want mason jars! All different sizes! Some with flowers and some with candles!

I want the mason jars to sit on round tree slices in the middle of the tables!

I also want my wedding cake to sit on a tree slice!

I think this is an awesome "guest book" idea!

I am thinking of getting a wood burning tool kit to burn the heart and initials on the guest book tree slice and the centerpiece tree slices! My mother's work should be able to make these slices for me!

I also love the look of burlap!

Since Will is known for his cookies, we are thinking about this for the favors!

Well, this is all I have to share so far! All of these ideas could change before the end of it! All I know is that this will be a chance to do a lot of fun projects so I am excited! It feels kinda weird though because these projects are focused on me when I am usually doing it for other people!

If anyone has any ideas or tips they would like to share, please let me know!! :)

So keep an eye out this year for all my wedding projects... and others as well! I still have a Christmas project I have been meaning to post. Maybe I will get around to that next week!

♥ Emily

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Project of the Week: Baby's 1st birthday invite and cupcake stand

Merry Christmas!

Sorry I have been so quiet lately! I have been sick for a long time now (a month and a half) with a sinus infection. I think it's FINALLY starting to go away. Just in time for Christmas! Pray that it stays away!

Being sick has really been bad for my Christmas spirit! There has been so many things I wanted to work on but couldn't! I did manage to do a few things. I did a party invitation and cupcakes for my niece Natalie's first birthday!

I made the cupcakes from scratch and found the cute little cupcake holders at Party Time. I made the palm tree cupcake stand. It was SUPER easy!! I will definitely be making more stands in the future! This is how I made it...

First I got 3 different sized cake boards. (You can find these at Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Party Time.)  I used a 10", 12" and 14" boards.

To cut out lots of palm leaves from some scrapbook paper and glued them down to the cake boards.

For support between the cake boards, I used salt boxes (still filled with salt) covered in brown scrapbook paper.

I hot glued everything together except the top cake board. I attached it to the salt box with velcro so I could easily remove the cake for Natalie to eat!

Happy 1st birthday, Natalie!

Yummy!

I hope to make one more post before the end of the year of a Christmas project that I had been working on that I thankfully finished even though I was sick! So keep an eye out for that!

♥ Emily

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Project of the Week: Crawfish Painting

Oil on Canvas

Finally... After a year and a half, I am DONE with my crawfish painting. Okay, so it didn't take me a year and a half to paint. There were just several holdups and much procrastination going on. :)

It started out last June 2010 as a project I wanted to do for my Louisiana themed kitchen. I bought the canvas and started the background of my painting. Later that night my back starting hurting so bad that I could barely move. That stopped the progress of my painting for about an year. Why so long? I don't know. I always have SO much going on that's hard to find motivation sometimes. Here's a picture of how far I got.

This past June I was motivated to start on my painting again after I went to a garage sale and found the PERFECT frame for the painting at a garage sale for only $4! Though there was a problem. The frame was a little bigger than the painting I had started a year before. So since I had not gotten to far into the painting, I decided to just start over with a fresh canvas. I also decided to try a new composition for the painting. That also may be why I never finished the previous painting. Maybe I wasn't happy with the way everything was laid out? So for this new painting, I decided the best way to come up with a new composition was to buy some crawfish, arrange them how I wanted them, take a picture and paint from it. I got the crawfish from Albertson's (which were the nastiest smelling and grossest looking crawfish I have ever seen. Definitely didn't eat them!). Here is the picture I decided to use for my painting:

I started this new painting in July of this year and it was almost done until I paused to work on some other projects. It wasn't until the end of September that I actually finished the painting. After letting it dry a bit, I was finally able to hang it in my kitchen.

Finally done! Now I am working on another painting project that I hope to post soon!

This was my 50th blog post! Yay! :)

♥ Emily

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Project of the Week: LSU Tutu

I am so happy to announce that two of my best friends, Monica and Josh, just gave birth to a BEAUTIFUL baby girl! I have already done a few projects in honor of this little girl (Check them out HERE). I also wanted to make her something special for when she was born. I decided that she needed a LSU tutu!

It was SUPER easy to do, and didn't cost much at all! And it turned out SO CUTE. I followed the instructions HERE to make the tutu.

I used yellow ribbon.

Trying out the tutu on my bear. :)

While I was visiting the new baby this weekend, we attempted to stick her in the tutu and take some pictures, but she wasn't having any of that! Anytime we tried she would scream! So we are going to try again when she is a little bit older! :)

I did get this sweet picture though... 

If you have a little girl in your life, you have to try this project! So easy and so cute!!!

❤ Emily

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Recipe: Cheesy Crawfish Potato Casserole

As a fundraiser for United Way at work, we decided to make a cookbook where employees submit their favorite recipes. Since I am the graphic designer, I am in charge of creating the cookbook. It has been SUCH a fun project so far, and we already have several recipes submitted that I want to try!

I wanted to submit my Cheesy Crawfish Potato Casserole to the book, but I needed to prepare it so I could write it out. I got the perfect opportunity the other day when I wanted to make a dish to bring to my friends, Monica and Josh, after they had their baby. So I made it, wrote it down, and brought it to Monica and Josh's place. Monica has had this dish several times throughout our years of friendship, and she said this batch was the best yet... which means the recipe I wrote down is a winner! :)

This recipe was an original recipe made up by my mom about 10 or so years ago. It started out when she decided to jazz up our baked potatoes for dinner with a yummy, cheesy, spicy crawfish sauce. Oh man, how I LOVED it! I would request it as my birthday meal! Later she converted it into a large casserole to serve at Christmas time.

Since Monica requested I send her the recipe, I decided to post it here for her and for all of you! It is really simple to make, and is SOOOO GOOD. Try it. You'll LOVE it!

Cheesy Crawfish Potato Casserole

Ingredients
4-5 pounds of red potatoes
2-3 tablespoons of Butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
Cajun Seasoning/Salt and Pepper, to taste
1-2 pounds of crawfish tails
1 (10oz) can of Rotel
1 (32oz) block of Velveeta cheese, cut into cubes
1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions
Wash and peel potatoes (you can keep some skin on if you like). Boil until tender. While boiling potatoes, saute onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic in butter until tender. Add crawfish tails and rotel. Continue sautéing for about 5 minutes or so. Set burner to low and add Velveeta, continuously stirring until cheese is fully melted. Add Cajun seasoning/salt and pepper to taste.

In large pot or bowl, mash potatoes, leaving small lumps. Pour cheese mixture over the potatoes and add the parsley and green onion. Mix together well, then transfer to a large baking pan. Spread shredded cheese on top. Bake at 350 for 20-30, until golden and bubbly.

Enjoy! Let me know how you like it!!

Check out the cover I made for the cookbook. Cute, huh? ;)

❤ Emily

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Project of the Week: Washer Board/Bachelor Weekend Cake

This past weekend my boyfriend Will and his friends went to Grand Isle for a bachelor party fishing  weekend for his friend Matt. I decided last minute that they needed something sweet to bring to the camp they were staying at... so I threw together a cake for Matt! I decided to make it in the shape of a washer board... a game he likes to play!

It was easy to make the holes in the cake. I just cut holes in only one layer of the cake. Made the icing resemble a wood texture,  added some fondant washers and piped grass as a border!

Have several projects to post this month that I am excited to share! Keep an eye out! :)

❤  Emily

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Projects of the Week: Baby Shower Cake, Baby Room Wall Art and Maternity Pictures!

I  have been a very busy girl this past month, and I am just getting around to posting some of the projects I have been working on! All the projects revolved around my friend's Monica's baby shower. I posted her baby shower invitation I created in an earlier blog, and now I will show you all the other projects I worked on for her!

First I will show you the cake I made her. I made the cake from scratch (white cake, butter cream icing and a strawberry butter cream filling), and I was very happy with the taste. It was a HUGE cake that had to ride 4 hours in the car with me in the middle of August in Louisiana! Even though it was hot outside, I managed to get it there just fine!

I wanted to put the paisley pattern that was on the invitation on the cake as well, but there was no way I was going to spend all that time piping icing to do it. I decided to send a jpeg of the pattern to be printed on edible cake stickers at http://www.fillyourheartediblememories.com/.  It was really easy to use and recommend it if you have an image you want on a cake!

Monica wanted me to make some wall art for the baby's room that spelled her name. Using the same paisley theme, I printed out sheets of the pattern and was able to trace and glue the images to letters I purchased from Hobby Lobby. I added some paint to the sides, a layer of mod podge over the top and some ribbon to the back. It was super easy and made an awesome addition to the baby room!

While I was in Bossier, I also took Maternity pictures for Monica of her and her husband, Josh!

It was a lot of fun working on all of these projects for Monica! I can't wait to meet her little baby girl in October!

In other news, I wanted to mention that this blog is officially one year old!

My first blog post was on August 30, 2010. So far, I have posted 46 times and have shared over 30 projects! I have very happy with those numbers! I am looking forward to sharing more projects with you over this next year! I excited about the upcoming fall and Christmas seasons because I always have fun projects to do around then! Also I can't wait for it to COOL OFF! :)

Have a great weekend!

-❤- Emily

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Project of the Week: Baby Shower Invite

I met my friend Monica when we were freshman at LSU. She quickly become one of my best friends. We lived together for two years and had so many fun times together. After she graduated, she moved up to Shreveport and got married. And now, years later, she is having a baby girl! I hate that she lives 4 hours away from me, and that it's hard to visit with our busy lives. But I am so happy for her and was honored to be able to do her baby shower invitations!

Most information has been changed on invitation.

The inspiration for this invitation came from the fabric in the baby's room. After much searching I was able to find two images online with a high enough resolution to get the shapes I wanted for my invitation.

As I work on these projects,  I find that I really love doing two things: Decorating cakes and designing invitations. I think it's because in both cases, I am making something completely custom for that person, so it's extra meaningful to them. I find that very fulfilling. I would love to make them both a career one day. I just hope God grants me the opportunities for that to happen. And that being said...

Attention Readers!!

If you, or anyone you know, has an event coming up (birthday, wedding, bridal shower, baby shower, etc.) and would like a custom invitation, please consider me! I would love to work with you to create something that is truly unique for your occasion! I can do the design and the printing! And since I am just starting out, I am sure I can cut you a great deal!

Also, if you are in need of a cake, I may be willing to take on that as well!

For a look at my graphic work, visit my Elance portfolio at http://lsugdesigner.elance.com
If you are interested in getting a custom invitation (or cake), please email me at emily@createsharerepeat.com

I have three more big projects coming up that I am doing for Monica's baby shower. First, I am making custom wall art for the baby room which will spell the baby's name... which is Landry by the way! Then, of course, is the baby shower cake. This is the first cake I am doing for a really large crowd, and I have to with it drive 4 hours in the car with it... in August... in Louisiana! So wish me luck!  Also, I will be taking Monica's maternity pictures. I will be posting these projects in a few weeks after the baby shower!

Until then, I leave you with a few pictures from the old ol' Monica and Emily college days! I miss you, Monica!

 

 ♥ Emily

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Project of the Week: Cake and Sushi!

This past Friday was my mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!), and just HAD to make her a cake! I wanted to something a bit more classic when it came to decorating it. I also wanted to play with some CHOCOLATE! I have been wanting to do a chocolate cake for a while now, and I knew she would be just the person to try it on!

I used this recipe for the frosting and ganache: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/elizabeths-extreme-chocolate-lovers-cake/detail.aspx

For the cake, I used a devil's food box cake that I doctored a bit with some sour cream.

The cake was SO YUMMY! I will definitely be making it again!!

 

Last Saturday my boyfriend, my brother and I had a sushi making party. It was a lot of fun! And very filling!

The first roll I made and my favorite!
Spicy shrimp, alligator sausage, jalapeno, cucumber, avocado with eel sauce on top. YUM!

MMM, Strawberries!

Shrimp, crab, cream cheese, cucumber and avocado with strawberries and toasted coconut on top!

An assortment!

Will had a great time making sushi!

I thought I took some pictures of my brother making sushi... actually... I KNOW I did... I guess they didn't come out. :( boooo!

Anyways, lots of projects coming up. I will have an invitation for you next week and hopefully a painting to show off sometime soon! 

Until next time....

Kitti in a box!!!

♥ Emily

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