Preparing

my room is so chock full of wedding stuff. I can't decide whether i like that or not. I will hopefully put up the details later on, but for now, why spoil it?

Christmas morning lacks sleep, so I paint trees instead.

Here is the start of a huge painting...the stretched canvas is actually a little warped...so this one won't be going anywhere.....My gesso was a little chunky, so i think it might have been a little dried out in places. None the less it did the job, but there was more sanding to do than I would have liked. I drew on the trees with charcoal and then just went at it. I didn't have a picture in mind, but I want something to sit on the fireplace at the wedding and our colors are green and black. The "bokeh" looking blobs will eventually be the light coming in throught the branches.

Goodbye, pretty girly room....

I'll miss you

Candles

Candles are great for so many things....staring at for ideas and for clearing the gas in the bathroom. Charley and I scrubbed the grout in the kitchen with a cleaner that smelled like old socks. Candles to the rescue.

finale'

So the invitations eventually got sent out, with few days to spare. Their major flaw was that on opening the recipient usually didn't notice the response card. Only 60 people have RSVP'd so far...we are counting this a blessing, unless more people decide to show up after all. We'll cross our fingers and find out when we get there.

Progress of invitations

I didn't think this would be so hard.....boy was I wrong. For starters, I really wanted something unique and untraditional. I started pulling images together and finding what i liked. This vintage Ad was one of the pictures. I then realized that I loved the look of old lables and things.

I tried using a vitage decorative border at the top, but that was too frou frou for my tastes. Then i made a french wine lable an invite just for kicks. I made a tree monogram, hated that...moved on. As much as i liked the old lables and vitage tags, it was time to steer around that idea.

Next i found this bird invite. The bird theme however felt a bit overused. Scratched that idea

Then I found these folk's invite, and was like sweet! Its cute, non traditional, and handrawn. Charley and I looked over our "theme" of sorts and liked the idea of it "advertising" what the wedding would be like. So we tried incoporating trees, nighttime, our pet hedgehog, with a retro border.

 Then we tried a handrawn version of the woodsy theme. It was too hard to read and scan in.

Nex idea came from this couple who did a letter styled invite with a typwriter. Charley used to do his homework on the typewriter in the libary  and i loved the old look of antique typwriters so we decided to try that. I took the typwriter below and made a black and white of it and it was going to sit at the bottom of the page while our invite scrolled out of the top of it. This idea was cancled when my mother saw me working on it and protested....thus started the battle between our two tastes. My mother wanted uber traditional with uber traditional wording. I wanted the opposite.

SO we went back to the bordered idea........... but play around with some new ideas first, including a couple of monogram doodles before I realized that wasn't us at all.

One of the ideas was entering into a contest to see if i could win these invitations. I got a nice email back saying they had picked another winner..which is a shame, because these were my favorite invitations that i had seen available for sale on the internet. I wasnt a fan of getting the packs at michaels either.

At this point we were getting very desperate to get something, anything, out so people would actually know when and where the daggone thing was. We contemplated writing on napkins and mailing those.

Next I tried these, but after much argumentation on whose name got to be on the invite, one of our groomsmen pointed out that it looked like a book title. I'm glad he said something, because I didn't see it at first and then I realized he was absolutely right.

The last idea involved printing out the words on copy paper and painting on a tree with our initials on it. This idea came from an invite that I initally wrote off as corney. Okay, so it's corney, but it's us. We are using birch branches and pinecones for the decor at the wedding so it works....except to point out that I think I painted an oak tree and then paired it with a pine cone? Works for desperate people.

First i drew it on with pencil and made a copy. Next i painted on top of the copy.

I had drawn this in my sketchbook as a thumbnail during brainstorming. We are going to have christmas lights all around. Next i painted the teeeeny tiney little pinecone for the RSVP with a little Teeeny tiney brush.

So this idea was a GO from the parental's, meaning it fit  the requirements of being simple, and yet a little different. Its truthfully not my favorite, but I needed to be decisive! and we were in a hurry, and I am entirely too picky about that sort of thing. IT'S A PIECE OF PAPER! Whew, there had be some tears of joy at the opening of these things in the mail. Next I took the origional to Kinkos (or Fedex). They scanned the sucker and gave me the proof shown here:

I bought a chair

...with a plan to recover the pinkness! I have never done this before and I think it will be fun to take it apart to put it back right. I am hoping to find a light gray tweed to cover it in. It was found at the Olde Towne Antiques for $35.00.  It is very sturdy and well made, the cushions haven't deteriorated and are still comfy. The only problem is the fuzzy flamingo pink velvet :). Even un-recovered, it has alot of character (not to mention dirt in the cracks). Cross your fingers, this could take a while.

Creative Baby announcements

Okay, so i don't plan on doing this anytime soon ( not at alll soon)...but one can plan! These are two creative cards that people sent as baby announcements.

Black and White Goodness

Remember when....

College, at one point was not disturbing. Classes were on easy subjects, and free time was ample. First years of college are full of outings, meeting people and pranks. Last years of college are full of real world. Work, Homework, Class, Work, homework, paper, progect, sleep. Sigh...just venting.

Cloth Baskets

After staring at my knitting materials, i was inspired to make some of the cloth baskets I've seen on Etsy. They are suprizingly expensive to buy, but so easy to make. I have made them before for baby presents- a small one with a loop for the side of a crib. They hold toys and thing, but can be washed. I have had a hankering to do something with burlap for a while now. I purchased some a while back for 2.50 at Hobby Lobby. My goal was a coffee table basket that looked like this:

so I grabbed the scissors and got to work. 1.Step one was to create a template of coffee-bag-skew lettering on the computer. Cut the letters out and traced them on with sharpie. Since sharpie has a glossy effect, these will later be painted over.

2. I cut out four pieces of each part. Four of the burlap shape, four of the lining, and four of the interfacing ( a very stiff blend). I decided to go with 11 inches as the base. The shape of each piece is the width of the sides plus a triangle added to the bottom of the square (house shaped) that adds an extra 5.5 inches. I must say, Burlap SHEDS, it is not a comfortable fabric to run through the machine.

3.Sew the four burlap sides together. Sew the lining sides together after sewing in the interfacing (or ironing depending on the type). Inside out the burlap, so that the inside edges are in the inside part of the basket. Inside out the lining/stiff part and place inside. Fold both layers of the top inward to create a seam, pin, and sew. Pictures to come.