Wedding Projects

Well, I promised I'd share pics of some of the projects I worked on for my brother's wedding, so here they are! :)

It was such a beautiful wedding! My Sis-in-law chose a deep eggplant purple, and silver for her colors with black accents. She wanted things to have a little bit of a vintage glam feel. 

These are the boutenniers that the groomsmen and groom wore. We used all artificial flowers. Otherwise, we would have been very limited to find real flowers in this purple shade, plus, I love that you can keep your bouquet as a keepsake. And, you can make them way ahead of time. Wins all around. 

This is their unity candle. We found this gorgeous black ribbon at Hobby Lobby that was sheer with black rhinestone accents. We used this on several projects to tie everything together. I love this candle. So simple. So glam.

This bucket is holding the 3 bridesmaids bouquets plus the tosser bouquet (which was caught by my 7-year old niece, btw :). We used a variety of purple blooms accented with "vintage" broaches. 

The handles of the bouquets were wrapped in silver satin with a band of our lovely black sparkly ribbon. 

This...is the bride's bouquet! I <3 it. I thought about asking if I could keep it, but I thought she might want to hang on to it :).  This was a larger version of the bridesmaids bouquets. We used peonies, hydrangeas, and roses accented with diamond brooches and ivory pearls. 

The handle of the bride's bouquet was wrapped in this beautiful pearl trim. 

bubbles to send off the happy couple!

This was the cake topper we made. We got this wooden letter, painted it black and covered it with black rhinestones. 

Just the right amount of glam for this simple and elegant cake. We designed this cake, adding our lovely black ribbon again!

My SIL found this garter idea on a blog, but they were very expensive. I think we made this for somewhere around $1! She actually added a diamond "E" pin to it, but I didn't get a picture with that on it! It was the perfect finishing touch. 

This was the garter we used for the garter toss. nice and simple.

We made their guest sign in book on Shutterfly using one of their templates and pictures from the Engagement Session I did for them. 

The stunning bride wore a gorgeous veil for the ceremony. For the reception, she ditched the veil and we put in this little beauty. Feathers, French netting, diamonds and pearls. Super Vintage Glam. 

This was the best picture I got of my daughter during the whole wedding. I was a little busy to take pics. She was supposed to serve as a flower girl along side my 7 year old niece. She did great in rehearsal, but didn't quite make it for the ceremony. Oh well, at least she looked cute. I made the girls matching skirts and headbands. The skirts were bubble skirts with purple organza and black satin underneath, with a purple satin sash. 

Here is a pic of the gorgeous bride with her bridesmaids. We called them the Barbies all weekend. Such a pretty and sweet group of girls. I had so much fun working on these projects and I felt so honored to get to be a part of her planning process! We are so happy that my brother found you Megan! We love you so much!

Wonderful Wednesday

Well, the wedding went down this weekend with out a hitch! It was a beautiful event and we couldn't be happier about the new addition to our family! I will share some pics of some of our wedding projects later this week. It has taken me the last few days to recover from all the activity. At the last minute last week, we discovered that the decorations we were counting on using for the ceremony were no longer available and we had to come up with a new plan pretty much the day before the wedding. It ended up being just as beautiful if not more so. If it weren't for that little snafu, I wouldn't have been nearly as stressed. I just wanted to make everything as beautiful and easy as possible on the sweet bride. It was such a fun weekend to celebrate my brother and his WIFE!

We have had an absolutely wonderful day today. It started off with a cup of coffee from my new Keurig coffee maker!! I have wanted one for a while and my husband chipped in and helped make my dream come true! I <3 it.  The kids and I played outside for 3 or 4 hours (i may or may not have watched an episode of Parenthood on Netflix on the back porch while they played). We had a picnic lunch before they went down for naps. While they napped, I was able to do some sewing. I finished 2 birthday presents, and worked on a few orders. We enjoyed a quick visit from my momma and to top it all off, today was our monthly visit from my cleaning lady! So we have a clean house, rested children, hot homemade cookies in the oven, and a yummy dinner ready to be cooked. I better knock on some wood, because today i'm feeling pretty good about things! :)

Mica Duncan Photography

Well, I'm kinda digging this whole photography thing. Even if no one else hires me for another photo shoot, I am very excited about learning more and striving to take awesome pictures!  So much so, that I decided to devote an entire blog to it!  If you have an interest in photography, or just like looking at fun pictures, check out www.micaduncanphotography.blogspot.com. This blog will serve as a place for my clients (and my momma) to get a sneak peek at their photoshoot. It will also be a place for me to share tips that I learn about photography and post-processing. Join me in my journey! Together we can take beautiful pictures :)

Happy 2012!!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!  and by everyone, of course, I mean both of you that sometimes read this. :)

I hope that you all celebrated fully and safely. I actually stayed up past midnight this year, but it was kind of a fluke. My hubby and I were watching a movie and we looked at the clock and said, "huh, it's midnight. whaddya know? Happy New Year babe." And that was the extent of our wild NYE partying.

Have you made any Resolutions this year?

I'm not sure if I have ever really made any New Years Resolutions. This year, however, there are things in my life that need some changing. Here are my resolutions:

*I will complete a load of laundry every day that I am home--from Wash, to hang up/put away. If I start the washer in the morning when I get up, it should be doable, right. Maybe this will help keep me from having week-long laundry marathons where I feel like I can never get caught up. This will make my life happier.

*I will not go to bed with a sink full of dishes. If I get all the dishes done after I put the kids in bed, I start the morning with a clean slate. This also will make my life happier.

*I will plan more activities with my kiddos. The past year was a bummer for many reasons. But looking back, I almost feel like, because of our circumstances and my physical/emotional limitations, we missed out on a good six months of our lives! I want to give my kids lots of fun new experiences this year.

*I also saw a really great idea on Pinterest that I have implemented. You turn all of your hangers backward on the rod. Then whenever you hang something back up after wearing it, you turn the hanger around the correct way. That way you can easily see what you have not worn. The idea is that in 6 months, you get rid of everything you have not worn. I probably wear 10% of the clothes in my closet. I tend to wear the same things over and over, so why hang onto all the extra junk when I can give it away?!  We'll see how it goes.

*And last, but certainly not least, I need to lose 20 pounds. yikes. I don't mean to be one of those people that you roll your eyes at, but I have never really had to try to lose weight before. Growing up, I guess I was blessed with good metabolism or something, but my weight was just never something I thought much about. After my first 2 pregnancies, I was able to drop the weight pretty quickly, but I attribute that mostly to breast feeding. This time around, without a starving newborn to suck the weight off, the pounds have decided that they are happy right where they are. My first course of action is pretty low key. I'm just going to try to eat better, cut the sweets, drink more water, not eat another full meal right before I go to bed. That sort of thing. I'm pretty much still eating for two. That needs to stop. And I want to start doing some yoga classes. Even just once a week. That is my initial plan. I'm gonna give it 2 months. If it's not working, we'll have to resort to more drastic measures. I'll keep you posted.

There are other more personal goal I have set for myself as well, but these are some of the biggies.

If you haven't thought about it, take some time to reflect on 2011. What did you learn last year? What are some things God showed you about yourself, how to love your spouse, how to parent your children? What are some things that will help make your 2012 better? It's a new year baby! Let's make it a great one.

Summer Wonderland

It is December 31. It is 72 degrees outside. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all, but that is just CRAZY. Awesomely crazy!

So, on this New Years Eve, we played outside in t-shirts and I did an outdoor photoshoot in which my subject wore a tank top. just crazy. Ok, enough about the weather. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Ours was lovely. We went to my in-laws for a couple of days. We opened a lot of presents and ate a LOT of sugar. My kids were absolute angels for the 3 days we were there. Traveling with 2 small children is always interesting, but they made it easy and enjoyable. My three year-old waited patiently for 3 hours while we went in a circle taking turns opening presents. I was amazed by this. He snuggled on my lap and watched as everyone else opened, then excitedly opened his gift and returned to my lap. It was heavenly and I was a proud momma. We did have a few days once we got home where they made up for all that behaving, but at least they were good for Grandma. :)

I had fun making many of the gifts we gave this year. I'm pretty sure I remembered to take pictures of them before I wrapped them up. If I can figure out which camera they are on, I will share some of those with you later on.

I did finally complete my garage makeover a couple of weeks ago! I had been wanting to turn it into a playspace that we could utilize during the "winter". Of course, it has been plenty warm enough lately to play in the backyard, but i'm sure we'll get lots of use out of it. I started by cleaning out the garage and "kid-proofing" it so I didn't have to worry as much. I made sure all the pruning shears, insecticide, etc. were up out of reach. I also was able to get rid of a bunch of junk in the process. It was AWESOME.

This is our b-ball court

Sister thinks she is big. Someone should tell her that she is tiny. I would, but she scares me. She and I had a mexican stand-off today for nearly and hour. I told her to pick up her cup after she threw it on the floor. She screamed at me. For an hour. All she had to do was pick up her cup. She did twice, but then threw it on the ground again and screamed at me some more. Finally, she decided that she was ready to pick it up and put it on the table. It only took an hour. I might have my hands full with this one. But isn't she cute. :)

This is our "electric car/LSV" aka golf cart.  Thanks to Obama's tax rebate incentives, whatever, this little darling gets to take up space in our garage. Actually, when the weather is nice in the evenings, we do take family cruises around the hood quite a bit. So ya know! It's alright I guess. 

I saw this magnet board idea on pinterest. I took an oil drip pan from walmart ($10 in the automotive section) and hung it on the wall. My friend Charissa, had the brilliant idea to get these wooden animals and stuff from Hobby Lobby (around 50 cents each) and put magnets on the back for the kids to play with! I love it! And the kids think it's pretty cool too. 

I hung this ziplock on the pegboard so the magnets don't end up all over the garage floor. Of course, they still do, but a momma can dream, right?

And our lovely ikea easel. Little Miss Priss likes all things artsy. Maybe she will be my little crafting buddy in the future. :)

So that is our new improved garage. I especially love it while I'm getting dinner ready in the evenings. I open the door that goes into the garage and let them run amok. The kitchen is close enough that I can hear them and peek in on them easily. Do any of you have any fun ideas for entertaining kids in the winter time and warding off the stir-crazies? 

I hope you all have a safe and fun New Years Eve! 

-Mica

Home Sweet Home

I don't mean to brag, but my hubby and I just spent 7 days on the beach soaking up the sun, eating guacamole, enjoying adult beverages, and changing no diapers. It was....heavenly.  After all we have been through this year, we knew we would need time to just decompress, regroup, and spend some quality time together. We stayed 4 nights at a spa resort and had resort credit to use toward spa treatments. Both of us were able to get 2 80-min massages, and 80-min facial, an 80-chocolate wrap, a 30-min massage, a manicure and a pedicure. um. yes. it was awesome.

We then transferred to a smaller resort in Cancun that was absolutely gorgeous with amazing food and very friendly staff. For the most part we just vegged out. We layed on the beach, ate, I read 4 books, we got pampered, ate some more, played Jenga and Connect 4 in the Lobby Lounge (both games are seriously underrated!), played Nerts, and ate. We also managed however, to have some quality conversations. We talked about where we go from here. What we learned from the past year. How we are different. How we are the same. What we would like to accomplish this next year. Experiences we would like to share as a family. We came home feeling rested and refreshed and missing our kids terribly.

I did fail to mention one minor detail of our trip. 6 days before we were set to fly out, my husband went and did this:

Which resulted in this:

Beach vacation + cast = bummer

In 4 more weeks, he should be back to his old self. In the meantime, he can't play basketball (the cause of the cast in the first place), work out, shower easily, etc.  He also can't do dishes, cut his own meat, change diapers, buckle carseats, take out the trash, bathe the dog, bathe the kids, write (he is left-handed!).  So...stinks for him. Also stinks for me :)  As always though, it could be so much worse.

This week should hold plenty of fun for us. On the books: a fun photo shoot!, a family movie night, dinner with friends, a painting project with my sister, a trip to the museum, some snow tubing, editing some photos, finishing some wedding projects (I can't wait to show you all the fun stuff we've made. I'll have to wait til after the wedding though) making cookies, and finishing Christmas gifts.

I hope that you all enjoy this week. Avoid the malls if possible! :) (that is my goal from Nov-Feb). Have a blessed day!

So much to be thankful for

The last couple of weeks have been full of friends, food, family, food, fun and food. We hosted several holiday events at the house. One included 9 overnight guests. One involved a craft night with my girlfriends. It was a busy couple of weeks, but one full of rich blessings and quality time with people we love. And did I mention that there was some yummy food involved? Thanksgiving is, by far, my favorite holiday.

I've been knocking some crafts off of my TO DO list. My favorite creation is THIS:

My new planning center. I love having my grocery list, calendar, TO DO list, and menu all in one pretty little place. I covered the backboard of the frame with a fabric scrap I had laying around and printed the calendars and things off the internet. eventually, I'd like to replace them with a little bit cuter ones, but I was anxious to get this finished. <3

My old planning center looked like this. argh! mess=stress. :) now, it's all nice and tidy.

I also created this nice little graphic to hang somewhere, yet to be determined. It has all of our family's important dates. now there is no excuse to forget :)

My upcoming projects include refinishing a table that has bothered me for 4 years, and reorganizing my garage. I want to make it kid-safe so that we can play out there in the winter. i see many painting sessions, bike-riding, and other fun winter activities taking place out there! My brother's wedding date is quickly approaching as well, which means I need to get busy! I have bouquets to make, flower girl dresses to sew, a brunch to plan, and lots more fun projects! 

Although the holidays are here, as well as the busyness that comes with them, I cant help but take a step back and be thankful for all the many blessings in our life. Although 2011 has been a very challenging year, it is one for which I will be forever grateful. I hope each of you found much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving as well.