Roundup

Just a quick roundup of a few things today...

Cards for Boys
...are not soooo difficult, I have found lately:

that's a special birthday, that is

To get the pennants - which are stickers from Echo Park - to stand up, I first stuck them onto some paper, just up to the point where I wanted to curl them away from the card, and then adhered them by the remaining sticky part.

just like they're fluttering in the breeze

And I employed the old paper-weaving technique again for a friend's birthday card. A friend who plays the bass in a band. A hippy living, reggae loving friend.

that's another quite special birthday

Paper Piecing
Just a quick share of something I worked on for a certain wedding anniversary last year:

 

Stuff Going On
Don't forget the Gauche Alchemy DT Call, running till the end of the month. And don't forget the March Madness at Scrapbook Challenges - we're taking bets now, and the competition starts tomorrow! You gotta be in it to win it!


Intelligent Product Packaging
I really appreciate it when a manufacturer thinks about their packaging. Check out this freebie I got from Revlie's class:

ooh, canvas flowers!

And then you look closely, and see that they've also given you a nice thick acetate sheet with beautiful white doily patterns on:

I like acetate with patterns on. A lot.

Has anyone else come across really intelligent packaging of scrapbooking products? I want to hear about them! And why do you like them? Because they're green? Because you can reuse them? Do share!

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part Five

I got a great write up on Gauche Alchemy's blog - go check out our wedding being famous!

getting married on the same day as the National Beer Festival... priceless

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part Four

Two big reasons behind the handmade nature of our wedding were the desire to express ourselves precisely, and having a small budget. The table decorations we pulled together show both of these:

I spy nautical stars again

The flowers, as you know, were handmade from paper. The vase was a coffee tin covered with punchinella (look out very soon for a video tutorial on using punchinella); the candle holder was a jar that once held gherkins. I designed the labels on the jar and candle myself.

We kept it simple and understated - just us. No frilly froofiness, no swan-shaped napkins, no bows on backs of chairs. There were a couple of other things that formed the table centrepieces - a quiz, again completely designed by me to look like a old diner menu, and the evening programme:

I totally love that microphone image

Once again those beautiful swallows made an appearance. I am planning something else for these swallows, something that I hope will happen this year.... to be continued....

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part 3

This is the only photograph of all 6 bouquets together, so feast your eyes for a while.

You recognise mine, of course, from my excited wedding day post and my Gauche Alchemy video tutorial.

The 4 bouquets of yellowed music score roses were for the bridesmaids. Those roses... I started making them in January, at which time I made about 10 (there are about 20 in each bouquet). Then I had a 'break' for 6 months (I couldn't face going back to them, because I was scared of running out of paper. But instead of acting soon and finding out with enough time to choose an alternative path if necessary, I put it to the back of my mind. Great forward planning skills. I was lucky I got away with it). In July I came back to them and blitzed the music score paper supply, ending up making too many roses in the end. But they are beautiful, so I don't care.

And the cute red gingham bouquet was for the flower girl, my husband's niece. My mum put it together, as well as making all the flowers (she was much more organised than me - she finished them all by May).

By now they are all home somewhere with their respective owners. None of them were caught, because none of them were thrown. There was NO way I was throwing mine. Hell, I even winced when the photographer told me to rest it on the trunk of the caddy (there's a teaser for a photo I'm waiting on!).

Flowers coming out of my ears

quite.

Wedding flowers, beautiful wedding flowers. Beautiful handmade wedding flowers. I've just made the bouquets for the bridesmaids, and I can't wait any longer (I can't wait at all, it seems) to share them with you.

I was so unsure for so long how I wanted the bouquets to turn out... I had one idea, then another, then went back to the first, then had a third, a fourth, and so on. Then we changed our minds about the bridesmaids' dresses, and that totally threw all bouquet plans up in the air.

But a late April visit to bluebell-carpeted woods convinced me that uniformity would be most visually impressive. And so I got to work. The result is a simple, understated and elegant little bouquet which should hold up pretty nicely against the bridesmaids' dresses.

Now just to solve the problem of my own bouquet...

Wedding Trees

What feels like a long time ago I posted about trees. I've been thinking a lot about them since then (and I still have to scrap that photo I took) - in the context of a wedding celebration.

Trees fascinate me, and how people live with them and use them all over the world sometimes just blows my mind.

Tree bridge at Cherrapunji, India (source: www.world66.com)

Treehouse in somebody's garden, NY State (source: www.treehouseworkshop.com)

Wishing tree in Phuket, Thailand (source: www.travelerfolio.com)

I love wishing trees as a way of bringing people together for a common reason. For that reason, I'm choosing to feature trees in the wedding. But I'm going to be mean and only share sneaky peeks of them right now.

Actually, they're quite generous, as far as sneak peeks go, don't you think? The first one is mine, the second one my mum made. I'll elaborate on them soon....

Wedding Flowers

This week I've been busy on the beginnings of bouquets for my bridesmaids.

Here's a little peek of something I've made so far:

And here's a peek of some of the flowers my mum has made:

I'm still trying to pin down all my ideas for my own bouquet. They're all still flying around in my head. If you have a tip, an idea, or a link to a bouquet that made you go 'ooooh', please let me know!

Moving up a Gear

With the exception of some DT posts that will appear from time to time, I’d like to officially declare June the Wedding Month here on my blog. Not because I’m jumping on the bandwagon: oh no. It’s because we’ve just returned from a long wedding weekend where we watched our friends get married, and as their wedding was one day shy of three months ahead of ours, we always felt invincible when it came to the organisational side of things.

Until now.

That date has passed, and we are now sharing a house with a pesky but necessary countdown timer. Every now and then this little fella jumps out at you from behind doors and makes you jump out of your skin. But we’re stuck with him for a while, a while that will speed by I’m sure (even if we suddenly need it not to).

So I’m taking a deep breath, and diving into Wedding Month with the card I made for our friends. It’s a box card of sorts, in that it is box shaped and it comes in a box. I wanted to make a summery, not-too-feminine (there are, after all, both a bride and a groom involved), cute-but-not-sickly kind of card.

I repurposed the box from some old packaging I kept...

 ...I covered it with some paper from a leaflet picked up a couple of weeks ago that I matched to some MME and Echo Park papers...
 

...added some American Crafts ribbon for the pullout...

...and, ooh, stamped on a chipboard frame and then chalked over it.

The card can stand up on its own (kinda useful) and is lined on the inside so whichever angle you look at it from, it's pretty.

That's about the extent of my sharing my Wedding Month time with others. From here on in, it's almost exclusively going to be about our wedding. Self-indulgent? Perhaps. A chronicle of creations? Certainly. Interesting? I hope so.

Back to the Grindstone

After a necessary break, I'm back, and seemingly with a vengeance. Life, apparently, goes on with or without you, so I'm not wasting a moment more of mine.

A recent Scrapbook Challenges DT Social event, generously and kindly sponsored by Nikki Sivils, The Paper Trail, Lawn Fawn and The Cutting Cafe, saw a flurry of creativity as we produced layout after layout.

This is the first one I produced - a real challenge for me because I'm not really a flower fan any more. It's about the time we went to Corfu and got engaged.

I used some rolled up Greek Drachma as a decorative element (they were long gone by the time we went to Corfu, but I had them and it was a nice touch, I thought).

And I used A LOT of flowers, including stamping some in acrylic paint. Which I think looks rather nice.

In the spirit of things, I'm going to keep this short to go off and do all the things there are to be done.

Oh, the Bluebells!

Easter walks at the weekend were a joy in themselves. Little did we know, as we rounded a corner in the woods, that we would be met with the breathtaking sight of a carpet of bluebells, undulating up the hill, between the trees and out of sight.

I combined this awe with my wildcard challenge this month over at Scrapbook Challenges which was to make a layout using one colour that you're not fond of and an embellishment you're uncomfortable with. Mine were: lilac, and flowers. And I have to admit, the challenge proved too much for me. It goes without saying that in responding to the challenge you should come up with something you like; but I'm afraid, despite some photo printing that I'm happy with, I can't get over the lilac, and I'm not entirely in love with my page. Nevermind; I'm sure my little niece-to-be will like it when she sees it - especially as she's the model in the photos.

I also entered the layout for the Pencil Lines challenge this month (using sketch number 234). But I'm wondering, what are your least favourite colours and embellishments, and why?

A Lady and Her Dress

I discovered something at the weekend - I can draw a bit. I was sketching and I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice to be able to draw like a fashion designer? So I sketched some more, and then got all brave and took out a black Copic pen and committed. I drew strong lines over my pencil sketches and did not look back.

This is not what my wedding dress looks like by the way.

Then the trusty Copic markers came out - they're really quite good - and a bit of paper shaping, and voila - a lady and her dress.

A teeny smudge or a snub nose? You decide...

It's a postcard, which means I haven't given up on my Postcard a Week challenge. But it's a departure from mail art for sure, into the realms of I-know-not-what-I-can-do. It's inspired by the fact that a couple of weeks ago I collected my wedding dress from England, and it now sits in my wardrobe to be peeked at (only by me though) every other day. Which is all Rather Exciting. Especially as I also have all but one item of the rest of my outfit, meaning that I am going to be trying it all on about once a week from now until September.

I'm not brave enough to draw feet yet. But it was important to get the crinoline in there! 

I'll be working on catching up with the postcards this week - after this, who knows what I'll come up with?

A Bride and Her Maids

I'm gambling on the bride in the picture not reading my blog, as this is her 30th birthday present and it's not her birthday for another week. I hope I haven't spoiled the surprise! Anyway, I made this page for a friend who got married a few years ago.

 

It's inspired by a Pencil Lines sketch from March (and the reason I'm posting it now is so that I can enter in time).

 

You can't see because the photo is black and white, but the blue I've chosen matches the bridesmaids' dresses (and that's me, on the far left of the photo). I also used a bit of orange - not my favourite colour, but I love how it goes with the blue.

I hope my friend likes this. And is surprised by it, in a good way of course.

After the Market

Yesterday I was at market. While many of you I'm sure were having a nice, relaxing Sunday, maybe at home or maybe strolling around a craft fair yourselves, I was behind a stall. Operating (or trying to) in French. And today I'm exhausted :-)

I just wanted to show you a few things I made for sale.

...Some altered wooden hanging hearts...

...a clipboard (I confess, I copied the one my mum made for me below)

...some embellishments...

...some gift tags (actually these are leftovers from a batch I made ages ago)...

...and some tags that my mum made for me to sell...

...as well as a couple of altered frames...

There were some other things I made too, but I'll share these another day - have to catch up on some sleep now!