where you invest your love, you invest your life

Welp here's my brother all grown up

apparently he ignored or did not read my last blog post instructing him to stop getting older

Thought I'd put this up too because he looks so old - and his girlfriend is adorable.



Since I've been so freakin busy this weekend and will be for the rest of the week I probably won't be posting as much as usual.

I'm sure you'll all miss me dearly...ha.

Honestly, right now, I just want this week to be over.

I want it to be Friday night when I party it up for my birthday.

or Saturday when all my friends from out of town start arriving

or I want it to be Sunday at 6pm.

after the ceremony, but before the party :)

For now I'm going to leave you with a few pictures {okay, maybe lots} from last summer.

 {the soil and the sun}

cornerstone!



weddings :)

{the soil and the sun}

shows at The Branch

popcorn fest 

turn that frown upside down,

Jess

P.S. 5 days :)

no man knows he is young while he is young

Today my baby brother graduates from high school.

Yeah this kid

Who used to be this dork

He's brilliant so he attends a fancy high school several hours away.

Most of my day will be spent at work then road tripping down for the festivities.

Nothing has made me feel so old as my brother's 18th birthday and his graduation this weekend.

Silly siblings, did I forget to tell you that you're not allowed to grow up?

Since I'll be busy feeling old all day, I only have a couple things to share.

Here's a sneak peak at the new crafts I've been working on

{while neglecting my wedding projects...heh}

{super cute fridge magnets! also, don't judge me - I'm not a photographer}

And..... :)

Chyeah. I get to practice that all I want.

In fact, I have to practice that. I'm surprisingly {and amusingly} bad at signing that name.

Have a fantastic weekend!

turn that frown upside down,

Jess

there's more to living than being alive

Despite the fact that I'm getting married in under two weeks,

I can't focus.

I'm distracted by all the plans Austin and I have for the summer.

One of which is the Cornerstone Music Festival at the end of June.

We get to spend a week camping with our best friends, going to tons of outdoor shows, and

this year we get to help host the free ramen tent.

Which is...well...a tent that has free ramen all week. Ha.

Its going to be the most exhaustingly awesome vacation this summer.

It doesn't help that I just found out that Listener will be there.

Along with My Epic

Listener and My Epic have really, really good lyrics.

And, as usual, Timbre - who is a funny lady :)

My parents bought my ticket for my birthday :)

I'm so excited.

Also, I found this lovely crafter named Laurie Cinotto.

She makes lots of beautiful wedding things. I wish I had found her earlier...

Aren't they lovely?

I hope you have a wonderful day :)

turn that frown upside down,
Jess

if the lakes took the place of the sea

We had the greatest vacation. Possibly ever.

My aunt and uncle are awesome.

We had tons of fun together - acutally spent more time hanging out with them than sight seeing...oops :)
And the weather was just gorgeous.

I didn't take too many photos this weekend. I tend to forget.

But here are a few photos from one of the places we stopped.

that's actually Canada across the water

look at the tan he has already! not. fair.

here are a few shots of Austin playing with my uncle's airbrushes in the studio

It was a perfectly relaxing weekend :)

My aunt and uncle take real good care of their guests.

We plan to head up there more this summer.

Lastly, here's a sneak peak of our engagment photo shoot with our lovely friend Karin.

It was tons of fun.

(click photo to view gallery)

disclaimer:

Austin usually wears hat everywhere so I didn't realize just how badly he needed a haircut until this shoot...oops.

He has since paid a visit to our stylist and looks very handsome ;)

That's all for now :)

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

turn that frown upside down,

Jess

P.S. Thirteen days left - tired of the countdown yet? ;)

be nice to me

Guess what this is.

Yeah, an outfit post.

I've been so very camera shy. But I've finally mustered up the courage.

So please be nice to me :)

This isn't really my favorite outfit.

Just something I threw on this morning. 

But I like it - kinda.

After going through these photos I'm rethinking whether those shorts are a good idea or not...

Anyway here ya go.

This is me messing up the first bazillion pictures:

hair in my face

missin the timer

and the pictures coming out all blurry - actually like this one a bit though.

And finally a couple good ones as well as a few with some funny faces

This is my "for goodness sake all these pictures are ridiculous" face

Wasn't too sure about the fishnets...my boss teases me about them every time.

Welp, there you go.

I welcome any comments or suggestions you may have about outfit posts!

I can use all the help I can get.

Today I take a big, horrible test in West Lafayette.

Its the first of several actuarial exams - 3 hours of grueling probability and statistics problems.

Boo.

Wish me luck!

turn that frown upside down,

Jess

P.S. 17 days!

oh my etsy

Just a quick update.

I've added a new item to my etsy shop.

A pair of handmade skeleton key earrings.

I've also cut a bunch of my prices so I can move all my pieces out :)

That's all.

turn that frown upside down,

Jess

road full of promise

I've been crafting my little heart out over the last several days. 

But, I won't be sharing any more of my wedding projects with you because I want to keep it all a surprise for my family and friends :)

Here is one of my latest non-wedding projects.

My friend Shane recently moved into a studio apartment and asked my friend Nancy to make him a giant curtain to break up the room.

Shane had the great idea to make the curtain out of burlap bags and Nancy recruited me to help out.

Here a few shots of the project. 

(Ignore the messy room and poor picture quality...ha)

As you can see the curtain took up almost the entire living room.

Austin and his friends had to walk around in circles to get in and out of the house for several hours.

Thanks for being so patient guys :)

Also in case anyone is wondering, crawling around on the floor for hours is in fact not good for one's back, knees, ankles, feet, and well any body part...oof.

I'll have more pictures when I'm finished.

In other news, Austin and I will be road tripping up to my aunt and uncle's house in Michigan this weekend.

They live in a beautiful renovated church near Lake Huron. You can get a quick video tour here.

They do tons of underwater filming for documentaries, National Geographic, and other research projects.

Here's a small sample of their work.

My uncle is an artist and makes sculptures from things he finds while diving.

He also works with glass, paint, and clay.

And my aunt said we might get to play around with some of their air brushing tools :)

We plan to spend Saturday touring the sights along the lake - and since my aunt is an amazing cook we'll be eating some seriously delicious food.

It will be a much needed relaxing weekend before all the craziness of the upcoming months begins.

So excited - I hope it warms up a bit so we can run around on the beach.

And hopefully I remember to take plenty of pictures to share with you :)

I'll leave you with this lovely tune

"Decide what to be and go be it"

Have a wonderful day :)

turn that frown upside down,

Jess



P.S. For those of you who read yesterday's post,

I thought I'd share this by It Girl, Rag Doll.

Ranculus are lovely.