Cheapy Wedding - Get the Dress

Since the economy stinks to high heaven, Brian and I were pretty eager to keep this wedding to a dull roar as far as spending goes. Well, I had to find a dress. I had toyed with the idea of making one but between wedding planning and work, it just wasn't possible, darn it. So, I started to look around for an inexpensive dress. I thought that David's Bridal might have something that was reasonable so I decided to check it out. Yep. They advertise their $99 dresses all the time. Great, huh? Uh-uh. Crap, crap and more crap. And something that was halfway decent was either size minus 2 or 18. Arg....So, the chirpy little sales lady is more than happy to walk me over to the nicer dresses. Right after you give us all your contact information and sign away your first born. Oops....So I'm stupid enough to do that and now I'll get sales calls until the day I die. No matter! I'm so swept up in pretty white wedding gowns that I don't notice that the sales lady is actually Satan making me sign my soul over for this damn dress! Dress after dress after dress, I try on. And, then....I find that one I really like.

Great! How much? Well, it's only $399. Okay. Not too terribly bad. Oh, yeah. $75 to alter it. And $75 for the

crinoline. And $50 for a veil and blah blah blah blah. Now that low low price was up to $600! Yeeaaahhhhh. Bite me Satan....I mean sales lady.

NEXT!! Well, how about borrowing a dress? A lady I work with knew of a pretty dress that might just fit me. She brought it to work and yep. Fit like a glove. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I'll never be able to pull this dress out in 20 years wondering if it still fits. I know. It's silly but I guess a wedding dress is something that is sentimental to me. I had to get my own. I starting having conversations with my Mom about what to do. She casually asked me questions about what kind I might like. Strapless? Full skirt? Simple? Embellished?

My Mom is a little bit of an Ebay junky. She likes to do some window shopping there but does buy lots of things, including clothes. She managed to get my niece lots of nice clothes from Ebay including some crazy cheetah pattern pants that scared me a little. Well, one day I started to get emails from Mom with links to Ebay. Many links. Lots of links. Tons and tons and tons. Good Lord, does this woman sleep?? I looked through lots of dresses that she had found online. They were all very nice. Then she sent one that I went bananas for.

It was a pretty strapless gown with a semi-cathedral train. Just a bit of beading down the seams on the bodice and simple beadwork on the seams down the back and train. Very pretty. And perfect for a beach wedding. "I love it Mom!". Next thing I know, a box shows up with my name on it. My Ebay wedding dress. My wonderful Mee Maw (yes, that's what we call my Mom. Long story, will tell it another time) bought me a wedding dress. She knew I was pretty broke and just couldn't afford much. What a wonderful gift. And the best part? it was a $600 gown from a nice dress shop in Minnesota that wanted to get rid of it because it was last season.

Only 99 bucks on Ebay. And I didn't even have to buy shoes to wear with it. Nice. Thanks Mee Maw. Love you.

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Past the wedding, back to normal

We're finally past the wedding and reception fun and now I can get back to some fun creative projects. Next, I actually want to go through how to do a wedding for as cheaply as possible like Brian and I did! Cakes, photos, wedding setup....Nope, we didn't spend $10,000 to do everything. Details coming.....First take a peek.

Here's Brian and I after the wedding!

More Cool Stuff coming

I have been SO busy lately that I haven't had time to post anything. :( But there will be some fun stuff coming soon. I want to expand my little creations into food. Yep. I'd like to start trying some cakes. I've seen Ace of Cakes one too many times and I'm dying to make something fun. I tried working with fondant and the stuff is great. You can really do some amazing work with it. It's like sculpting with food. One problem though. It tastes absolutely awful. I made a cake and did something that was supposed to look like a popcorn box. It turned out pretty good considering it was my first time baking really. But with the fondant on it, it was like eating a plastic bag. Arg! This was the store bought fondant too. I have heard that homemade is much better but I am still learning and don't know if I could whip up my own batch quite yet. Next try...... regular icing. Updates soon......

Welcome to Jumpy Monkey!

Hi there and welcome to Jumpy Monkey, a place for my creative weirdness. I'll start things off with something I made for the little monkey, Nora. This was a gift for her 2nd birthday!