Tuesday, July 22

Two FO's

From the beginning, I wanted to accessorize the simple bridesmaids dresses that I chose. I bought some green dupioni silk to make sashes, but I just felt like they needed a little something else. Behold! A finshed finishing touch: a Short 'n Sweet shrug for each of my lovely sisters from 'Stitch ' N Bitch: Happy Hooker.'

Here's an idea of what it looks like on a model.


Blocking on the floor...


Finally finished! I feel like Ive been working on these for months.


Close up of the pattern, and the delicious yarn. I used Knitpick's Andean Silk, an alpaca/silk blend, in colorway 'Lettuce'.


I'll be seeing both of my sisters this weekend, so hopefully I can get some action shots!

Thursday, July 17

Napkins - Check...

My mom came over last night to watch the first episode of Project Runway, and I put her to work Gocco-ing cocktail napkins with me.


We printed around 150, and I think they turned out great!




Thanks, Mom! :)

Wednesday, July 16

Muscari Birch Ring Pillow

Extending our 'birch' wedding theme a bit, I fell in love with the Muscari Birch Ring Pillow from EasterYu's etsy shop early on in my planning. I finally got around to buying one yesterday.


This is something I probably could have DIY'ed, but I was having a hell of a time finding one singular birch round. And EasterYu's prices are so reasonable (I paid $15, including shipping), that with the wedding quickly approaching, it didn't make sense to go to the ends of the earth to find materials.

Now, we're not having a ring bearer per se, but I didn't want our rings just rattling around in someone's pocket. This is a simple, elegant solution that one of the groomsmen can just tuck into his pants pocket. Problem solved!


Speaking of our rings, they're off being engraved as we speak! With the plain bands that we chose, we wanted to personalize them a bit with something meaningful on the inside. For Ben's ring, I had them engrave Ever mine, ever thine, ever ours. (Any SATC fans out there get the reference?) For my ring, Ben had them engrave My love will always be with you, which is a play on a (what else) Star Wars quote. I love that they reflect our slightly quirky personalities.

Sunday, July 13

And Now For Something Completely Different...

For a quick wedding break, here's pictures of a baby cake that I made for a lady at work. I love making these! People I know need to start having more babies. For real.

Here's an in progress shot...


I always forget to take pictures before they're wrapped. Oh, well.


This cake includes about 70 diapers, a pink and white minky blanket, eight pairs of baby socks (made into roses - adorable!), five onesies, wipes, lotion, three baby hats, a pair of BabyLegs, a cardigan-and-pants set, some burp cloths, and a few other things I can't remember anymore.

Saturday, July 12

Moss Letters With Tutorial

My latest crafty wedding success... moss letters! They took about two hours, cost around $30, and they are EXACTLY what I pictured in my mind. I took some pictures while making them, so here's a quickie tutorial if you'd like to make some yourself.




First, gather your supplies. I used a large sheet of floral foam that I got at Michael's, letters blown up and printed from Paint, tape, pins (not shown), hot glue (also not shown), and sheets of moss (more on that later).


Here are the letters laid out. Most people go for fancy script, I know, but I'm not most people. I <3 Verdana! Tape the letters together carefully and then cut them out.


Next, pin the cut out letter on to your foam.


A serrated bread knife works perfectly for cutting the type of foam. Straight lines are really easy, and the curves aren't all that bad. Just go slowly, and be sure to check every now and then that you're holding the knife straight up and down.


Behold: cut out letters! Don't worry, they will not be perfect. The moss covers up a ton of imperfections. And if you happen to break off a piece of your letter while cutting (like I did), use hot glue and toothpicks to reattach and reinforce the broken piece.


Now, start wrapping your letters with moss. I started out with the easy part: the tall stem of the 'b'. There's no technique to speak of, aside from covering as many large areas as you can first, then filling in the gaps with little pieces of moss. The more hot glue, the better!


Incidentally, this is the type of moss that I used. It's a 16x18 thin sheet of moss, and it worked perfectly. I got it at JoAnn Fabrics, and was about $9 per package. Two packages was almost enough to cover both letters.


In progress shot.


Almost finished...


I still need a bit more moss to finish the back of the 'a', but you get the idea. Add some chocolate brown ribbon to match our color scheme, and ta-da! They turned out exactly how I pictured them.

They'll be hung on either side of the doors on the front of the house. One more project down, and a zillion to go! :)

Friday, July 11

One Step Closer

We only took one picture, it's terrible, fuzzy and you can't even see the license, but...


We got our marriage license today! Woo-hoo!

[Can't remember if I mentioned this before, but we're getting legally married in the states before trekking up to the Great White North for our nuptials. It just makes everyone's life a little easier!]

Before and After

It's been a slow road on the way to wedding weight loss, but I've finally hit the 25-pounds-lost-mark. I'm not at goal yet, but I am tantalizingly close. It's funny, but when you lose weight this slowly (I've been dieting since February), you don't see it. I feel it for sure: the pants I was wearing in the beginning of the year won't even stay on my hips! But I didn't really realize how much I've changed until I put these two pictures next to each other.


On the left, you have a picture (that I absolutely adore) of the day that Ben and I got engaged, back in October. On the right is a picture from our engagement session last month.

Wow.

Thursday, July 10

Nothing But the Best...

... for our guests!

Long story short, I delegated water transportation for the wedding to my father. I budgeted around $300, and expected him to hire some teenagers from the local yacht club to ferry our guests to the island in something like this:


Nothing fancy, but it'll get them from point A to point B.

Well, I should have known better! When he contacted a local marina about their water taxi services, he found out that they offer an antique wooden boat for said service. My dad is a huge wooden boat nut, so the deal was sealed. Check out the wedding day ride for our guests!


It'll cost more that I budgeted (of course), but my dad has graciously offered to make up the difference because he's so darn excited about it. AND, it also presents a great opportunity for wedding pictures, which I hadn't thought of. So way to go, dad! He's some kind of wedding genius, and I didn't even know it.

Wednesday, July 9

Beware: Extremely Rough Mockup Ahead!

Original dress, chillin' on Anakin the mannequin (thusly named because the first prjoect I used it for was Ben's Jedi costume). I'm not doing anything to this one until the new top is complete, and I'm sure I like the design. That way, if it doesn't work out, I'm not scrambling for a new dress mere weeks before the wedding.


This is the mixture of two hacked apart dresses, one purchased from the Weddingbee classifieds and the other being the original dress that I bought, which is now too big. They're tucked and pinned within an inch of their lives. Yes, the finished dress will have armholes. And I think I'll go for for more of a sweetheart neckline than a straight across for the fabric underneath. That being said... I'm pretty darn happy, even at this early stage.


Now I just need to get up the courage to actually cut into the lace... I only have one shot at this!

Thursday, July 3

Invitations, Fin.

I'm still working on collecting pictures from all of the shutterbugs at my bridal shower, so for now, here are my finished invitations!

Ok, you've seen this part, yes, yes, I know... but see that little eyelet at the top corner? It's for...

SHAZAM! Awesome.

The 'map' page, designed in Adobe Illustrator using Miss Peony's tutorial (part 1, part 2) from Weddingbee. It was an easy-to-follow introduction to Illustrator. I'd highly recommend it. And once I figured out how to print borderlessly on my HP home printer, these were a snap.

And the directions info page... designed in Word and proofread about a thousand times by three different people. I'm not too good with the whole 'directions' thing.

The finished suite. They turned out exactly as I pictured them, which doesn't happen too often. I couldn't be happier! Once again, many thanks to Lara Cameron of Lara Cameron Design for graciously allowing me to use her bird and branch graphic.

Here's a reminder of what the back of the RSVP card looks like... I've gotten back 4 already, and so far, no one has used it. I thought it was a neat idea, but such is life.

It feels good to be done with such a big part of the wedding process, but my 'To Do' list seems to be getting longer rather than shorter as we pass the TWO MONTHS TO WEDDING mark. Eek!