Our First Christmas

Our First Christmas as husband & wife ♡

Our personalized First Christmas ornament arrived from Oceanside Designs &, well, it's simply perfect.  I chose our favorite wedding photo, then Mel took it away & designed this amazing ornament that we will treasure forever.  I planned to save it as a Christmas gift for RZ but once I had the pretty package in my hand, I knew there was no waiting.  That baby went right on the tree to be enjoyed & admired!

I am so, so excited to make the beautiful First Christmas memories that we will always associate with this ornament. 

On that note, I'm bowing out from blogging until 2012.  Let's make a date to meet back here on January 2 & continue to have our wedding jollies in the new year ☺   

May your holidays be merry & bright!

Photo by Koru Kate

Koru Kate Finds: Word Art

Koru Kate Finds fabulous word art for the wonderful couples in your life!  Or for you & your honey.

I adore the bold, modern look of word art & I was happy to stumble upon these great options last night while I was supposed to be finding Christmas gifts for our Titas (Filipino term for Aunt).  I couldn't resist sharing these gems with you!  Now if Tita Meg ends up gift-less on Christmas, I can blame you :-)

For the newlyweds still basking in the beauty of their wedding day, the Celebration wall art:

For the couple with a shiny, new home sweet home & plenty of blank walls, the Home wall art:

For the happy couple who have been together through thick & thin, the Happy wall art:

I would not mind one bit if one of the above found its way under our Christmas tree!! 

Images & Products via Red Envelope

Crafty {Belated} Birthday

Belated Birthday Gifts & Wishes 

for Jen of Craftiness NOW

At Koru, the inspiration & celebration of new beginnings involves weddings 99% of the time.  But beginnings come in many forms like births & birthdays.  & I like to celebrate them all!!!

My friend Jen of Craftiness NOW is no exception.  When she announced her birthday bash in August, I eagerly started a birthday project for her that involved her love of pink & crafts.  Then I was unable to attend her party (boo-hoo) & I stalled on my crafting.  We finally made plans last week & this was the fire I needed under my crafting butt to get this project done.

Let's call this project Inspiration Canvas Set.  I found inspiration on Pinterest but (stupidly) I didn't actually pin the source but the basic canvas, letters, paint idea is similar to this pin.  I wanted something simple & sweet to decorate Jen's cute apartment & inspire her with some well-chosen words.

First things first was a trip to AC Moore.  I loaded up on 4 baby canvases, wooden letters & paint.  Because a throng of sorority sisters had depleted the supply of wooden letters to make their paddles, I was forced to rethink my words.  I ended up with my original words of Love & Hope, plus the new additions of Joy & Wish: 

I painted two of the canvases with a few coats of Ballet Pink because Jen loves pink & the other canvases with Vanilla for a nice contrast:

The "toughest" part of the project was painting those tiny letters.  For most of the letters, I painted them before I glued them on the canvas.  It wasn't easy keeping them in place to paint them.  I didn't paint Wish until it was glued on the canvas for that exact reason.  Then I ended up with pools of extra paint on the canvas.  I can't decide which method was best:

Before too long, my birthday present idea turned into an actual birthday present that I'm pretty proud of:

I wrapped these cuties in a cupcake gift bag & paired them with pink wine & presented them to Jen at our little dinner & dessert party.  I'm pretty sure she liked them.  Hopefully, all of Jen's birthday wishes come true because she deserves each & every one!

FYI, with the right words, these could be a great engagement, wedding or baby decoration or gift.  Think Marry Me with the couple's name, wedding words like Forever/Always/Love/Heart or the baby's name, birth date & stats.  Be creative & have FUN!

Koru Kate Finds: 7th Edition

Making Memories

Image via Treasury of Memories 

Newlywed Nesting.  Is there such a thing?  Well, the hubs & I got major nesting fever back in June when we started several major projects in our home sweet home.  Now we're finishing up with a few little projects, including choosing, printing & hanging wedding & honeymoon photos on our walls.

That's where my latest Koru Kate Finds comes in.  I found this Established Canvas Kit gem during one of my many Pinterest binges & I thought it was absolutely perfect for displaying a few of your wedding photos.  It's beyond fabulous!!!  The kit comes with the four canvases, the ribbon & the established sign.  All you need to do is choose & adhere three of your favorite photos.  Then presto: you have a sweet wedding memento to adorn your home! 

Now, of course, I opt to take the more difficult route & make my own Established display.  I will pick up the four canvases at my craft store, plus some pretty ribbon to match our decor & wooden letters to make our name & wedding date.  Then I have the difficult task of choosing three favorite wedding photos.  I'm excited about these personal touches that will make the display the perfect match for our home.  I'll post the results soon :-) 

I hope my find inspires you.  Get those creative wheels turning . . . Make your own to celebrate your Wedding.  Fun gift for a First Wedding Anniversary.  Lovely gift for a baby's First Birthday.  Or great gift to mark any special occasion! 

Koru Kate Finds: 1st Edition

Happy Monday, Koru Family & Friends!

Welcome to our newest feature on Koru Wedding Style: Koru Kate Finds! Every Monday, I will feature wedding finds to inspire you. From jewelry to bouquets to invitations & more, you will enjoy the fun & creative here to brighten the start of each week. Every once in awhile, I may share a non-wedding find with you but I'll keep those few & far between. Let's get this wedding party started!


My first finds come from one of my absolute favorite collections, Kate Spade New York. I'm obsessed with the entire collection but I have two stars in my eyes at the moment. The "I Do" and "Mrs" necklaces are so simple & sweet they make my heart patter. I would have loved, LOVED to have gotten one of these adorable necklaces for my bridal shower. The "I Do" necklace could have graced my neck for my wedding festivities, then a switch to the "Mrs" necklace for my honeymoon.

"I Do" & "Mrs" Necklaces
Available at & Images from Kate Spade

Koru Loves, it's too late for me & these necklaces but you still have a chance!

DIY Project: Welcome Bags

Our Wedding Welcome Bag

My Mom is a gift basket-maker by trade. She makes creative, beautiful gift baskets for charity raffles, first-time home owners, wedding gift bags & more. Give her a theme & she churns out a perfectly-themed gift basket. By the time we tackled our wedding welcome bags, we had less than one week to the wedding & a never-ending to-do list. We never considered skipping the welcome bags because we still wanted gift bags to greet our guests at the hotel & provide them with information & treats. We had to make welcome bags & keep our sanity intact. My Mom was probably a tad disappointed when I told her the theme for our welcome bags was "simple."

But she went with the flow as she realized I may have a meltdown otherwise & we kept it simple. The basic idea was a plain bag decorated with our leftover "Greetings from Hoboken" save-the-date postcards tied with an easy bow & filled with a welcome letter, wedding itinerary & plentiful snacks. We snagged glossy, white bags & white grosgrain ribbon for an awesome price at AC Moore. We went to Sam's Club & grabbed anything & everything that looked good- water, apples, granola bars, cookies, pretzels, chips, etc- also for a reasonable price. We bought white paper decorated with silver swirls at Staples. I had already collected Love mints & wedding tissues.

Thank goodness this project was not so much DIY as DIT- do it together. While I worked on the letter & itinerary with our painfully-slow printer, my Mom & cousin/bridesmaid worked the bag assembly line. I can't thank them enough for their valuable support & help! Each had to be tagged with the postcard, hole-punched for the ribbon, stuffed with the treats & information &, finally, tied with a bow. Between the shopping, the assembly & the delivery, this DIY project ate a lot of time. Quite a project even on a simple scale!

The hardworking welcome bag team

Yes, I wrote "Welcome" on every treat

The tagged welcome bags waiting to be finished

The welcome bags may not have been as fancy as my Mom would have liked but I thought they were just perfect. With the "Greetings From Hoboken" postcard, they managed to perfectly welcome the guests to our beloved home & carry through our hometown theme. Plus they looked cute & simple, they were filled with yummy snacks & they had pertinent information. What more could you ask for from a welcome bag?! RZ & I delivered them to the hotel on Friday afternoon to be placed in each of our out-of-town guests' hotel rooms as a hearty welcome to our wedding weekend. The fun was just beginning!

The finished product- I loved them!

It's A Wrap! 2nd Edition

Unexpected Something Blue!
Image from Style Me Pretty via Sparkle & Hay

The week is winding down (TGIF!) & here is the second installment of some goodies:

A Perfect Something Blue or any color of your choice!

OMG, I would have loved to receive this adorable print as a wedding gift!

We're not the only ones who think TGP is awesome!
Three cheers for our talented wedding photographers!

When do you say enough is enough of wedding eye candy?
(Seriously, are you reading this blog? I highly recommend it!)

I have been crushing hard on this green tote bag

When can I move in?

Happy Weekend!

We Are Family

Festive & Fun Foyer Decor

Our Family!

What is family? They are the crazy, lovable bunch I call my Mom, sister, Grandma, Aunts, Uncles, cousins, etc. Now my family is extended to include RZ's fun, sweet bunch of relatives. And, of course & perhaps most importantly, RZ is my family.

RZ & I started our family unofficially years ago. It was us, plus our sweet Gucci & spunky Kaydee. Now it's us, plus our goofy Bailey. Who knows what the future may bring our family. No matter what, our family is always & forever us. We're thrilled to make our family official on our wedding day!

Because our family is my number one priority, I was absolutely over the moon to receive our "Corpuz Family" holiday wreath hanger as a bridal shower gift from my bridesmaids. They included a cheerful, red berry wreath. The festive wreath & personalized hanger were amoung one of the first bridal shower gifts to be placed in our home. I look forward to hanging it year after year during the holidays as our family grows & changes.

Bridal Shower Christmas Tree

RZ & I love decorating our home for Christmas & this year, it's extra-special because we have the bridal shower ornaments. Each guest brought a Christmas ornament to hang on our tree. I came home with two, large baskets of beautiful ornaments. We had the most fun sorting through the ornaments to see who brought us what ornament. We couldn't have picked better ornaments ourselves!

We won't decorate our Christmas tree until Sunday so, in the meantime, I placed our modern Christmas "tree" in its usual spot on the dining room table. I picked the first eleven ornaments from one basket & decorated our modern "tree." Not only does it look beautiful, we look at the ornaments & think of our family & friends. Love, love.

From left to right . . . First is the snowflake ornament from my sister Mary who knows how much I love decorating with snowflakes. Second is the angel ornament from dear family friends Laurie & Julie who know a thing or two about angels in our lives. Third is the Starbucks ornament from my Mom who drinks Starbucks lattes like water. Fourth is a classic Christmas tree ornament from my fun friends Teresa & Marisa. Fifth is the snowman & penguin ornament from our darling flower girl CJ. Sixth is the checker cab ornament- just like our wedding day transportation!- from our beagle Bailey. Seventh is a beagle ornament in honor of Bailey from three sweet kids in our family. Then we have another beagle ornament in Bailey's honor from my Aunt Tami's wild menagerie of cats & dogs. Ninth is a bling engagement ring ornament from my cousin Chloe to commemorate our engagement. Tenth is a framed engagement photo from my Aunt Tami. Last but not least is a cupcake ornament from my Aunt Dee who knows I love a good cupcake.

The rest of the ornaments from the bridal shower are saved for our Christmas tree. We are lucky & blessed to have Christmas decorations hand-picked by our family & friends to treasure forever!

Sweet Shower Details

On Monday, I wrote about the fun celebration of Marisa's bridal shower. The entire affair was planned & executed with love from the pretty decorations to the yummy food to the entertaining games to the thoughtful touches. Today, I wanted to share some of the sweet details.

First, the lovely tables decorated with bright pink linens, gorgeous flowers & heart wine stopper favors:


The Maid of Honor & Bridesmaids received awesome goodie bags: a monogrammed beach bag filled with a beach towel, monogrammed notes & Bridal Party t-shirt from Koru Weddding Shoppe:


Last but not least, the delicious cake. Don't you love the "From Miss to Mrs." saying?

Crafty Thanks

Creation One

Creation Two

Creation Three

Creation Four
My favorite- the last one!

How I wish I had enough time & creativity to make all the Thank You cards for our engagement party! Maybe, just maybe, I'll go that route for my bridal shower (time will tell!). Most of our engagement party thank you notes were written on my personal stationery. I could never let a prime opportunity to craft pass me by so I did handcraft a few, special thank you notes.

For the most part, I had the craft supplies on hand & I simply emptied my craft armoire of its contents. I had the paper stock from my bridesmaid cards, the ribbon from my Valentine cards, the swirl paper punches from Koru Wedding Shoppe (Koru's logo is a swirl) & the silver pen from various projects. I felt like I needed a bit more so I bought glitter paper & flower/heart decorations from the scrapbook aisle of Target. Once all of fun supplies were scattered on the dining room table, I settled in to make my four creations.

I had only two ideas in mind: I wanted to use the swirls on every card & I wanted every card to be unique. I punched three large swirls & one small swirl from the glitter paper for each card. One creation at a time, I arranged the large swirls in fun ways & I added different embellishments. Every card had a small swirl tucked into the bottom right corner of the inside- just a cute, extra touch! I was happiest with my last creation & I ended up wishing I'd used that design for all of the cards.

Who are the lucky recipients' of my handmade thank you notes? The fabulous hosts of our engagement party, my Mom & my sister who put a lot of time & effort into making the party a HUGE success. My brother-in-law was included on my sister's thank you note because he put a lot of hard work into the party as well. RZ's parents were also instrumental in making the party so wonderful because they made delicious food for all of our guests to enjoy. And finally, my Grandma who flew from California to join us in the celebration of our engagement party.

Thank you, thank you- we love you!

{puppy love} Bastard Bailey

Bailey models his new t-shirt

FUNNY!

Clearly, Bailey's idea of modeling is lounging on the couch.
No amount of treats & persuasion could convince him otherwise.

Bastard
(but not for long)

Among all the generous presents we received for our engagement party, Bailey's bastard t-shirt stands out as the most original & fun gift. RZ's cousin Randy & his girlfriend Annemarie got this adorable t-shirt for Bailey. His t-shirt says "Bastard (but not for long)" with our names & wedding date. It's impossibly cute, just like Bailey. We LOVE it!

You may notice that Bailey's t-shirt is a bit small for this big boy. About one month passed from the time we found Bailey on Petfinder to the day he arrived on P.E.T.S. (aka Last Chance Highway) to stay with us forever. In that month's time, RZ & I happily told everyone & anyone that we were adopting a beagle, including Randy & Annemarie. While this t-shirt would easily fit a standard beagle, Bailey is no average beagle. He came to us bigger & better than we could have imagined!

Bailey may not be sporting his t-shirt to the dog park anytime soon but we love his new t-shirt all the same. Thank you Randy & Annemarie!!!

Gracias

Lots & lots of lovely gifts

We're all smiles as we open our engagement gifts

My personal stationery from Dreamland Designs

Blank notes waiting to be filled!

Written, addressed, stamped & ready to go!

What comes in the aftermath of an engagement party? Heartwarming memories. Cool gifts. Thank you notes. Seriously, we had some work cut out for us with the thank you notes we needed to write to our engagement party guests.

With our upcoming wedding & my impending name change on the horizon, I have my adorable "Kate Sullivan" stationery that I need to use before it no longer applies to me. I bought my personal stationery years ago from the talented Gina of Dreamland Designs & I love it. Gina hand-lettered my name & hand-colored a shamrock for the sweetest look. I don't want it to go to waste. I added "& RZ" to each card & viola- the stationery is perfect for our engagement party!

Here comes the fun part: I had to write every thank you. Why didn't RZ write some? Well, he conveniently has awful handwriting. Often, I have to ask him to translate the cards he writes to me. Our guests were kind enough to come to our engagement party & bestow us with gifts & they deserved legible thank you notes. I spent many, many nights writing thank you notes until my hand cramped. Of course, it was well worth it. A little thank you note doesn't seem like enough to properly thank our generous family & friends!!

I dismissed the traditional "Love" stamps & I bought the "Adopt A Shelter Pet" stamp for our thank you notes. This is something that is near & dear to our hearts, especially since our adoption of a rescue dog, Bailey. The stamps are meant to bring public awareness about shelter pets & encourage adopting from a shelter. If we can say thanks & help an animal, then job well done :-)

Our First Registry Gift

Our very first gift from our wedding registry arrives

And I'm not allowed to open it!

Finally!

I often say delivery days at Koru Wedding Shoppe are like birthdays. I adore receiving packages of invitation orders or retail items. So you can imagine my total delight when a package arrived at Koru addressed to me personally a few months ago. For me!!! I could hardly wait to rip away the packaging & enjoy the gift.


Then reality set in. The Crate & Barrel box clearly meant this was a gift from our wedding registry. Our first! It wasn't a gift for me; it was a gift for us. Therefore, I had to wait & open it with RZ. My bubble was temporarily burst. I lugged it home & eagerly waited for RZ to arrive so we could open this baby. As soon as our condo door opened, I grabbed him by the hand & dragged him over to the gift so we could open it immediately. RZ took one look at the packaging & declared that it was an engagement gift & we needed to wait until our engagement party to enjoy it. What??!! Now my bubble was really burst.

Seriously, RZ refused to let me open the gift. I removed the outer packaging so we could let the gift-giver know the gift was received. The gift was from a dear family friend, Rosellen, wishing us a happy engagement. Day after day, the gift sat in our dining room & taunted the fact that I couldn't open it.

Finally, finally, the day of our engagement party came & I was able to open our very first engagement present from our wedding registry. I eagerly tore into the package & I was thrilled to find the Cambridge Baker with Rack, the sure way to cook & serve in style. It was worth the endless wait. Thank you, thank you!

Wedding Planner & Soon-to-Be Mrs.

My well-loved Wedding Planner hoodie

I chose Sage Green thread in French Script for my hoodie

A Maid of Honor's gift to the Bride, her sister. This hoodie inspired me!

The Maid of Honor chose Turquoise thread in Brush Script. Love it!

The last time I saw my mother-in-law-to-be, she asked if I had ordered my Soon-to-Be Mrs. hoodie yet. I was stunned for a moment. I've enjoyed my Wedding Planner hoodie for so long that it was a bit of a shock to realize it's time to trade it in for a Soon-to-Be Mrs. hoodie! My Wedding Planner hoodie spends most of its time as a sample in the shoppe. Every once in awhile, I wear it on a cold day & for set-up & breakdown at events. Is it really time to retire it?

What color should I order? My Wedding Planner hoodie is my favorite color scheme of sage green & mocha. Surely I should have something different for my Soon-to-be Mrs. hoodie. I need to spread the good news in style! Hmmm.

Along came a generous Maid of Honor who ordered the Soon-to-Be Mrs. hoodie for her sister. This fun hoodie is a popular gift at Koru Wedding Shoppe for the engagement, bridal shower, bachelorette party or just because. At first, she wanted the classic bridal look of white & light blue. Ultimately, she decided upon white & turquoise for a slight twist on the traditional. The Soon-to-Be Mrs. hoodie arrived today & it's just right for a Bride. I was inspired!

Sadly, white is not my color. When I wear white, I invite disasters like spilled red wine & splattered paint. How cute will a mocha hoodie with turquoise thread be? I know my cousin who wore a gorgeous turquoise & mocha gown on her wedding day is wondering why it took me so long to see the obvious :-) I'm placing my order pronto & I will post photos when my very own Soon-to-Be Mrs. hoodie arrives!

And I refuse to retire my Wedding Planner hoodie. After all, I am a Wedding Planner & Soon-to-Be Mrs.!