Welcome to Earf: Alice’s baby shower photos!

Posted on 12. Apr, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.

On Saturday, my friends Kristal and Sarah hosted a party for me and Dave and invited all of our friends to come together for a Welcome Alice party!

I love all the planning that went on behind the scenes–a gray and yellow theme, the girls coordinating with Dave and my mom to have my favorite snacks, a sweet playlist and a casual atmosphere. If I were to imagine the best baby shower I ever went to, all of my friends would be invited regardless of gender and nobody would have to put their butt in a chair and play a game. It’s the perfect approach to party planning and Sarah and Kristal were awesome hostesses!

“Welcome to Earf” is a Will Smith quote. Can anyone name that movie?

Kristal made vegan cupcakes so Dave could have them too.

My good friend Eric Downs came and even designed this little Alice graphic and printed it on his wrapping paper! He is moving into CAMP with me next month and I think he is as excited as Dave and I are about this kid. Anyway I framed the graphic and it’s hanging in her room until we get some other pictures!

My friends Jen and Jenny got us these onesies and Jenny actually took the time to embroider one…

Isn’t that mindblowing? She even replicated the typeface I use for my branding. I can’t believe the thoughtfulness, I have the coolest friends.

My mom and dad came and gave us lots of vintage toys which I love. One package held a big stack of Little Golden Books…remember those? This one is called “We Help Daddy.” Surprisingly (?) it’s not sexist at all and the message is very cute.

This book is titled “I Can Fly” and the girl in it is a little naughty…

We got a lot of yellow rompers and dresses. I’m stoked on this one because I have a dress just like it. And yes I will be the mom that dresses her kids to match her.

My little friend Tatiana (her sweet mama was one of my models) helped Jenny keep a list of the gifts and drew me some pictures too.

LOVE this chair. It’s the one I sat in for the Omaha Magazine photoshoot!

Dave and I were sitting on our porch today, eating leftover pizza, talking about how lucky we are to have such kind and generous friends. We were so surprised when Kristal and Sarah offered to have this party for us, and it was a much-needed chance for us to reconnect with all of our pals for a last time all together before our life takes this huge turn around the bend. As one of the first couples in our friends group to have kids, it feels nice to know that they aren’t bailing out on us, know what I mean? They are all just so thoughtful. It was the best day.

Photos taken by Jon Tvrdik and my mom. More here!

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Cool news for Joi Mahon and Dress Forms Design, and info about the runway preview show.

Posted on 26. Mar, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.

My friend Joi is hands-down the absolute best clothing designer, patternmaker, and seamstress I have ever seen in my life. Anything you can dream up, any style of garment or technical detail, can be realized by this woman with a few yards of fabric and a dress form. She is one of those designers who truly understands the fundamentals of her craft, which is something many up-and-coming designers cannot say.

Joi is my partner in the Princess Lasertron by Dress Forms dress line launching this September, and she was recently honored by sewing machine manufacturer Baby Lock as their newest national spokeswoman (or “spokessewer,” as Joi puts it). After Joi won the Passion for Fashion competition at the last American Sewing Expo, Baby Lock identified her as an up-and-coming “design star.” She will also be adding a new program called “Love of Fashion” to the already popular “Love of Sewing” series taught by celebrity Nancy Zieman.

This picture is from a photoshoot she recently did for an industry magazine cover–I don’t know if I have the green light yet to talk about that but seeing Joi’s progress makes me so proud of her and grateful for her guidance and help on the dress line! I first met her almost three years ago when she created my wedding dress and she is just a huge influence on me.

So yeah not to beat this horse to a dead, glue-y pulp, but I need to fill you guys in about the runway preview event next week. I’ll do this in list form because this entry has been pretty paragraph-y so far:

• It’s Wednesday, March 31 at 6pm. Show starts at 7:30.
• I will be showing five new pieces.
• One of my looks will be auctioned off and the winner gets to take their pick.
• Tickets are $50 through Saturday with discount code “designer” at checkout. After that, they are $75 with the code. Click here to be taken to the event page where you can purchase a ticket.
• That includes snacks and an open bar! So worth it.
• I would sort of kill for an open bar right now.
• Proceeds go to the Omaha Women’s Fund.

If you can make it to the show, I’d love to see you. I also think it’d be super cool to have a big crowd of my friends to support me, the work Joi is doing, and all of my amazing models. And if you can’t go, no big deal.

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22 weeks: pictures from new year’s eve

Posted on 04. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.

On New Year’s Eve we went to Goo, a dance party hosted by The Slowdown (where we got married in 2007).

I was going to wear my favorite Karta dress and I was elated that it still fit me, but after I got my hair and makeup done and Dave came to help me zip it up, the zipper split.

While Dave worked hard googling “split zipper” and trying to fix it, I moped for half an hour or so because I couldn’t find anything else that fit and was remotely formal. But I think I did a good job of prettying up this big tent-y dress from Ryu. And luckily it was comfortable.

Dress: Ryu
Belt: Kimchi Blue
Tights: Forever 21
Shoes: Etienne Aigner

The theme was “masquerade” so we went as kitties.

What did you do to ring in the new year? Quiet and relaxed or crazy and wild?

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my projects from silver bella

Posted on 17. Nov, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.

This is how I started my weekend. This is the first thing I was greeted by.
Max the Cat made by Jennifer Murphy sat on my table during her snowman clip ornament class. I am so in love! Look at his sweet face. I wanted to take him home, but someone else beat me to it!

This is me with Jennifer after her class. This is also me awake at 9am. For maybe the 3rd time in my adult life.

Pam Garrison’s Holly Days Countdown wreath class was fun–she spread out ALL these vintage materials and supplies on a front table for us to run our hands over and pick through. It felt like kindergarten.

Pam also passed around two of her inspiration journals and each page was so awe-inspiring. This was my favorite so I snapped a little photo…I felt like a little thief there shyly snapping one photo of this page and then dropping my camera in my bag. I wish I could draw like that.

In my last class of the event on Saturday afternoon, I was with Jennifer again making a little pom pom bird in a shadowbox. Here are all of the projects from our work table…

I sat next to Meg Duerksen

Things I don’t have photos of because I figured I’d just nab some off Flickr later:
…Jo Packham’s keynote speech that brought me to tears. I wish it could have been about 30 minutes longer and I wish we could have had time to ask questions.
…Kaari Meng’s expert jewelrymaking class
…All of the bella swaps, where the ladies created handmade items ranging from charms to books to aprons to share with their friends
…The opening class hosted by Fiskars
…The generous swag bags made of vintage fabric and stuffed with amazing goodies!

Finally, here are some final pictures of the projects I made:

xo

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a celebration with friends

Posted on 08. Nov, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.

A few weeks ago, my mom said that I ought to have a party with my friends to celebrate everything that has happened this month–the baby, the house, the website, and the magazine–and I answered that it would be fun, but I had no time to plan an event with my customers this month and Silver Bella fast approaching (this week! ahhhh!).

And my mom said, “Well, I can take care of that.”

And she put together the most fun, casual, on-the-fly party ever. It was so cute!

My cousin Sally owns The 1020, an awesome restaurant in my neighborhood. Sally and her waitstaff were wonderful and they made my favorite snacks–homemade potato chips, tiny sandwiches, and pizza!

My mom decorated with little scalloped tablecloths, gigantic balloons, and some blown-up pages from the Where Women Create magazine layout. All in Princess Lasertron blue.

The perfect mix of friends, family, and well-behaved little angels.

Most of these pictures were taken by my friend Nick and his sweet wide-angle lens.

Thanks to all of my friends and family who came –some from very far away!–to have a drink and a snack and a chat.

I owe all the thanks to this guy, Eric Downs. Thanks for the cool website, thank you for buying me pancakes at 3:30am like seven times, and thank you for be my fwend.

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an indian summer day

Posted on 07. Nov, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.

We are finally getting back into a little bit of a routine. Even though this routine now includes yard work! I started out helping but it was too much for my fall allergies.

So Turbo and I sat in the screened-in porch and worked. There are lots of new pets to meet in this neighborhood–other dogs and cats that we haven’t been introduced to yet. Turbo paces along the windows, alert for any unfamiliar barks or wayward cats. I think he’s pretty overwhelmed.

I don’t drink beer, but this is my favorite beer because it has the prettiest label. It’s called Lucky Bucket Lager and it’s made here in Omaha. A local company, Archrival, designed the branding for them too. I love how much marketing and branding is changing now–every new product has such interesting and beautiful packaging. I’m glad this is finally a priority for so many companies.

This is one of the swaps I finished for Silver Bella. I’ve never done a swap before at all, and this year I signed up for two–I think it was a little more than I could handle, but I got them done. This one is for a swap where 26 participants each made 26 cards decorated with a letter of the alphabet. Then we all trade and have a full alphabet deck.

I picked Z.

I chose this swap because I thought that I could attach the cards to a huge canvas and it would be a beautiful art piece for my baby’s room. I’ll show you how to make the little pinwheels…I used vintage crepe paper which makes it easy because crepe is less stiff and easily workable.

Finally, happy birthday to my friend Justin. Last night we had about 10 people over to celebrate and hang out and he brought his new girlfriend. I loved it because I saw them smiling and flirting and being nervous and I remembered when Dave and I were like that. When he invited me over to meet all of his friends, who are now my closest friends.

For so long I just wanted to be Dave’s friend. I just wanted him to smile at me. Then I just wanted to hang out with him and his friends and be part of his life. I just wanted him to laugh at my jokes. And as we passed each milestone and our friendship developed into romance, it all went by so fast and now I am here carrying our baby and we are going to be united by this child as a family forever. It is exciting to see how live moves and how far we come.

xo

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Sneak peek photos of the Lorsung-Tvrdik wedding from Minornite

Posted on 26. Oct, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.

Last weekend, two of our oldest friends, Jon and Sarah, got married at the beautiful Western Heritage Museum downtown. After the fantastic job that Minornite did with their engagement photos, I knew that the pro wedding shots would be to die for.

This is one of the first weddings in my real-life “friends group,” so it was really exciting for everybody. It was so great for us all to get together and celebrate our friends who we love so much.

Jon is a designer for a leading digital software creation company and independent filmmaker, and Sarah is a photo stylist.

Here are the boys…either Dave or I has lived with most of them at some point.

Sarah was so beautiful in a couture gown designed by Joi Mahon of Dress Forms Design. (Also peep that ring! It’s the most gorgeous thing ever! They need a better picture of it…)

Here they are with their puppy, Howard, who we all love.

The table settings were so cool, and everyone loved the masks! The wedding party had fancier, gorgeous handmade masquerade masks of their own.

A shot from the ceremony that shows the beautiful old train station that served as a wonderful art deco backdrop for the event.

Little Lux the flower girl, her mother holding her tutu, was a little hesitant to walk down the aisle.

Throwing in one of me and Dave.

I love my friends Jon and Sarah! Their wedding was so beautiful and unforgettable. We danced so late into the night and didn’t make it to the afterparty at the Hilton, but Cloris Leachman was there…so random.

Some cool news for you is that Minornite, the company that did all of this awesome photography, is giving away a wedding package this year. All you have to do is follow them on Twitter! So get on board with that.

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an evening with hilary

Posted on 05. Oct, 2009 by admin.

Hilary McHone is a Ford Fiesta agent who was chosen to take part in this innovative and creative social media experiment, traveling the country, taking photos, and documenting her adventures along the way through her blog and flickr site.

Every month, all of the Ford Fiesta agents receive a “mission,” and Hilary has been achieving them in the most amazing ways. In July, she fulfilled the “design” mission by planning her wedding using only independent artists and vendors found online through social media, which is how she found me, which is how she got her bouquet for her July wedding!

Another one of Hilary’s goals is to travel to every state and stay overnight at someone’s house who she met through social media. This weekend she is staying at my parents‘ house (my mom actively follows her twitter and blog) and I drove over this evening to finally meet her!

We made homemade pizzas, and Hilary made a cool stop motion video:

And she set up her fauxtobooth backdrop and took some pictures of us!

Tomorrow she is going to visit the #1 Ford dealer in the country, located in my little hometown!

Meeting Hilary was making a connection to someone amazingly creative and talented, and laughing and joking and eating and watching movies with her tonight was such a privilege because I admire her success and accomplishments so much.

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