How did 2012 pass by so quickly?!? My apologies for 11 months of silence, but I promise I was working on projects!

Enough babbling, on to the good stuff. What did I do in 2012? I will start off with the mother of all projects. If you remember, I had the chance to design my first wedding in 2011. In 2012, I was HIRED for the first time as a wedding designer. Annie and Patrice (whom I know from college) reached out to me early June asking if I would be interested in designing their wedding. I would basically be given free reign on everything, and I could choose which parts I wanted/did not want to work on. Here's the catch: they only had the venue... and nothing else... and the wedding was during the end of August. I would also be planning the wedding from New York and fly to California a week before the wedding. Challenge accepted.

How did it turn out? I'll let you be the judge.

All photos courtesy of Tikko Weddings (except where noted)

These origami flower balls, also known as kusudama, became the central theme of the wedding which was held at University Club of Palo Alto.

The ceremony took place outside under some shady trees.

The altar where the couple shared their first communion as husband and wife was kept clean and simple.

The aisle was decorated with little bouquets of baby's breath and billy balls wrapped in burlap.

Here is a better angle of the aisle decor (photo courtesy of my iPhone 3GS).

This will require some imagination since I could not find a picture. The ring bearer (who was adorable!) walked down the aisle with a sign hanging around his neck that said the following:

After the ceremony, guests enjoyed a cool beverage from an iced tea and lemonade table. I decorated the paper straws with message flags ("The most gorgeous man alive", "Ms. Ravishing", "Call me, no maybes", "You're Welcome").

The party moved indoors to the reception area.

A clearer look at what I printed out on the name cards. Cows for steak. Fish for, well, fish. Eggplant for vegetarian.

I panicked when Annie and Patrice asked if I could do the centerpieces. I don't have any experience with flowers! Even though the centerpieces ended up being pretty simple, I am still relieved they turned out well. Who knew baby's breath could look so classy?

Patrice is an avid photographer, so we wanted to make sure a photo collage of some sort was included in the wedding. I ended up using it as a backdrop for the candy table. Let's pretend the photos aren't crooked... it took a few tries and lots of tape before I was able to get it right.

To continue with the photography theme and keep the wedding interactive and fun, we decided to have a polaroid picture station. I also could not find a photo of the entire table, but here are some key elements. The only thing missing is a picture of the wall where I hung twine. Guests would sign their polaroid photos and clip them to the twine with mini clothespins. By the end of the evening, the wall was covered with photos (Tip: To encourage participation, appoint bossy, yet charismatic friends to roam the reception hall with the camera.)

For display only!

The cutting cakes were decorated with flowers by the venue coordinator/florist Jessica Fields.

This is how the reception hall ceiling turned out. These flower balls, which were larger than the ones used for the ceremony, ranged from eight-ish inches to over a foot long in diameter.

I want to leave you with some behind-the-scene shots I took throughout the preparation process. Here are a few stacks of paper (AKA paper Mayan pyramids) waiting to be folded. I folded over 5000 sheets of paper (84 flower balls)!

These are the large flower balls...

... and these are the little ones.

I made three but may make a few more!

The sticky-back makes the finished corkboards easy to mount onto the wall - peel and stick!

Pardon the lighting. I'm still familiarizing myself with the lighting in my new room.

Dress #1 - I picked up this bright (practically day-glo in these pictures) striped number from J. Crew Factory for around $30. It felt like such a steal. However, it was a little too big around the chest and upper arms.

Before:

After:

It's hard to see the difference in the pictures, but trust me - the dress fit a lot better after I took it in. As you can see when the dress is inside-out, I modified most of the arm, through the armpit, and down to the waist, and the edge is finished with a serger. Yes, I should've used gray thread, but I didn't want to buy four spools of thread just for this dress.

Dress #2 - This dress was free! I received a birthday gift card from Banana Republic, and it was more than enough to cover the cost of this dress. The dress fit great around my lower body, but it was unnecessarily baggy on top. That may explain why this dress was on final sale... plus an additional discount.

Before:

After:

Nothing easier than sewing a straight line! The great thing about using a serger is it trims off excess fabric as it sews, so you end up with clean, professional-looking edges.

Dress #3 - I am a lover of all things Marc Jacobs. Sadly, I'm too petite, so the smallest sizes have always been too big on me... until I laid eyes on this pretty yellow silk Marc by Marc Jacobs dress. The drawstring definitely helped make the dress fit better, but the length was still too long. I also didn't realize this until I got home, but there were dirt streaks on the bottom of the dress.

Before:

After:

The silk layer along with the polyester lining underneath were very slippery, but I found that if I just left less space between pins, I didn't encounter any problems while I was sewing. This made for a positive first experience sewing silk. I am no longer intimidated!

Now I can't wait for the weather to warm up, so I can wear my three 'new' dresses. Happy Friday!

I took advantage of the situation and practiced some photo styling. I definitely still have a lot to learn about photography. Regardless, I thought the pictures weren't too bad.

Here is my new room:

As you can see, this is pretty much a blank canvas ready for me to organize and decorate. I'm looking forward to it!

• boning in the neckline to allow the mom to easily see the baby
• flannel pockets on the backside that can also be used to wipe the baby's mouth
• d-ring straps for ease putting on and taking off

I pretty much stuck to the standard features and only took liberties with the pattern and color selection. Most examples I saw online were made with the same patterned fabric throughout the body and straps and white flannel pockets on the back. I felt that made the resulting cover a little boring. Instead, I accented the main pattern with a secondary color for the straps and the top and bottom edges and used a coordinating patterened flannel for the pockets.

Here is Jen's cover.

Here is her friend's cover.

I'm moving to New York!!! After much thought and consideration, I finally made the decision at the end of 2011 to take the leap of faith and move. I was scared that it would be a difficult process, but the entire experience has been the exact opposite. With the help of friends and friends of friends, everything fell into place very quickly. By the end of January, I had already lined up an apartment with two awesome roommates, moved two suitcases full of stuff, and purchased a bed and desk.

I've spent the month of February tying up loose ends, preparing for the move, and saying my goodbyes. I'm going to miss the Bay Area. California will always be my home, but for the foreseeable future, New York will be my great adventure.

Big Apple - here I come!

I couldn't resist and happily hopped on the bright colored jeans bandwagon. I picked up a fun pair of blue legging jeans from Gap. Instead of trying to keep the original hem, I decided to go the easy route and made a new hem. Ten minutes later... ta da! Grace-sized jeans!

Before:

After:

I wanted to keep a little of the scrunching, so I left an extra few inches at the bottom.

Which one's the original hem and which one's the new hem?

These are his current straps. How have they not ripped apart yet??

Here are his new straps. They were incredibly easy to make.

I wonder how long it will take before this new set starts to look like the old set...

Given I didn't have any how-to instructions, I must say I'm quite proud my measurements and gut instincts were enough to get me through this project.

If I were to make the case again, I'd stitch some cute markings indicating where the buttons are and, of course, cut holes for the headphone jack and mute/rotation-lock toggle.

Also, I know this design isn't well suited for the 2nd-generation model given it has front and back cameras, so holes would also need to be cut for those. I won't think about it too much though until it's time to upgrade my iPad. ;)