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....

Trayding Places

Altering things is a pastime that often evades me. I fail to break down the project into small, manageable pieces and then get so overwhelmed with the seeming enormity of the task that I put off starting - or, to be truthful, in most cases, finishing - the job.

Not so with this one. It kind of wrote itself, in a way.

do they actually have a name for these cushion-tray-things?

Take one TV-cushion-tray-thing. Take a bunch of old scraps of paper, a pair of scissors, and some glue. Sit down in front of the TV (in my case, it was a silly film called Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), and proceed to cut and stick. Afterwards, laminate and paint the wooden frame (only if you like painting wood. My husband near forbade me to do it as the tray is one of two which came from his late grandfather and for some reason he dislikes painted wood to an almost extreme degree. But I am working on that, now we're married).

it's mine. it's not any one else's.

Finally, brand it as yours so no one else can use it. Then promise that you'll make one for said person trying to steal usage minutes of your tray, but remain vague on the timescale involved. You never know, this might be a one-off case of finishing something within a day of starting it.

it's the shabby-chic distressed effect of painted wood he dislikes the most

To round things off, here are some end-of-the-month competitions for some weekend crafting:

• Punky Scraps - three October challenges to choose from: a collage, a spooky sketch, and a recipe
• True XOXO Girls - October's scraplift challenge is still open: choose one of the team's eye-catching creations as a jumping-off point 

As always, if you enter you could win a prize. There's no excuse not to get crafting!

And if you're still reading, a small toot: I'm usually their video alchemist, but today I'm also being written about on Gauche Alchemy's blog.

Caddy Love

Lily Bee Designs are starting to offer sketches for inspiration - and they're good.

I joined in with the first one by creating the second ever page of my wedding album. This was the sketch:

For over two years we had known which car we wanted for our wedding. And for over a year it had been booked. It was a 1956 Cadillac Sedan de Ville... this 1956 Sedan de Ville:

*sigh*

Why the sigh? Because at midday on the day of our wedding, I received a phone call from the car company, saying that the Sedan de Ville wouldn't start.

look! look how calm I am!

I went into Seriouser than Serious mode. The company offered me, instead, a Rolls Royce in silver or a Jaguar in British racing green. There was no way I was letting this slip away from me - the car was a big part of our vision, and my underlying desire was always only for everything to be coherent - so of course, I simply said that no, neither of those options were any good. That's when the company told me that they might have another Cadillac... it was from 1960, just about on the edge of what would work for me. It was also from the higher price range, but they would provide it at no extra cost. Naturally, I said. Then I heard the word 'tailfins' in my ear, and I was sold. Relieved, too.

Less than an hour later, the Caddy turned up. It was only at this point - while I am having my hair painstakingly put in place - that we discovered it had no roof. Now, I can look back and laugh at how I've always liked the windswept look. But on that day, at that moment, the journey to the Town Hall (we were running late, and there was an annual Beer Festival taking place which meant road blocks and diversions on top of that) was the most stressful of my life* because the wind in your hair is nice and all, but not what you want on your wedding day.

Anyway, back to the layout. I wanted to stitch on my page. I've cleared the way to the sewing machine again so I can stitch on my pages once more. But for me, to stitch the circles would've been too obvious. So I brushed on some acrylic paint, didn't like the look of it, and smudged it with a cotton wool pad. And then I was happy.

see them circles and stars again...

I used some paper and stickers from Lily Bee's Picket Fence collection, and combined them with Echo Park Happy Days bits and pieces, with some sparkly Thickers thrown in and Tim Holtz stamps.

still loving those nautical stars I made for the invitations

I didn't win the sketch competition, but the sketch was a great starting point for a layout that I'm happy with. 

The official photos have arrived now so I'm planning, planning, planning... how many pages can you fit into a post-bound album?

*coming in a close second is the one on which we transported my fish in their bowl from Norwich to Brussels by car. They learned about tidal pull that day; not to mention a little surfing. One of them was so traumatised it jumped right out of the bowl that evening after we'd arrived and went to fishy heaven (which was either somewhere under the sofa or in the doggie's stomach).

 

Practising Alchemy

As a Gauche Alchemist, I am lucky enough to have received a package of goodies from them - a package which kept on spilling more and more goodies as I sifted through its contents.

I have been using Gauche Alchemy products in almost all of my creations since then - you'll remember My Bouquet, the Copenhagen Album, and the Skullies Box - but I've just made a (very almost) solely GA creation, and it was so easy. They basically provided me with everything I needed to put this card together - all I added was the spray mist, the ink and a Tim Holtz stamp.

a card without an obvious message - there were too many things to say

So, the card came in September's Going Postal Kit, along with the bakers' twine, the shiny orange circle stickers, the 'Comprehensive Guide' punch and the 'Congrats' fake stamp punch. The button came with the Scarlet Fever Mixed Media Color Kit. The map and the foreign text and the labels can be found in various kits and the ouchless cardboards is plentiful and varied and can be bought to suit your needs.

I got the look I wanted with the splashy flicky paint splatter look: I took the tube out of the mist spray bottle and dripped onto the card, and then blew with a straw so they spread out. I used Versamark ink to give a watermark stamped effect with the Tim Holtz sunray stamp at the top of the card. And then I just layered and layered and layered.

For more inspiration on what to do with GA goodies, check out the Gauche Alchemy SNR event later tonight - 7pm EST at Scrapbook News and Review. The SNR design team were given a bunch of GA products to work their own alchemy with. Pop in and see what they've been up to!

The One Hundred

Have you ever expected something to be a really momentous occasion, and then realise that it totally passed you by?

I recently hit 100 followers on this here blog, and in the flurry of the True XOXO blog hop, I didn't even mention it. So here's to Christa (follower number 100) and everyone else for making me feel special and all warm and fuzzy inside.

Thank you to each and every one of you - loyal commenters, silent readers, shy sometimers, occasional dip-inners, and those who are too busy to do much at all. From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful and flattered at the way this blog has turned out - because of you. I am guilty myself of letting things slip, only sometimes skim-reading what I should instead eagerly jump on, even of neglecting those things I truly want to read and comment on but in reality look at the clock when everything else is done and see that it says 'bedtime'. I know it's hard to keep up in this environment of ever-increasing social platforms (I'm struggling, for sure). So, thank you all for being you and keeping my blog alive with your comments that make me laugh, think, want to have a conversation with you, send me off to look at your blog, inspire and more.

Now, I had planned a giveaway to mark this grand event, but I have been in a state of disorganisation lately, one that I am finding it hard to shake off. So, instead, I am going to share with you a few ideas for the future of my blog, and ask for your thoughts in return. And to one of those thoughts' owners, I will send a little handmade something to brighten their day and make them revel in the amazingness that is the online crafting community.

Before the year is out, I'd like to:

• revamp the design of the blog
• tell you more about my creative process - what happens before and around a creation
• include more tutorials

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with any of these, or if you want to see more or less of something here, or if there is something else not here that you'd like to see more or less of. I'd like to work to make this blog more readable for you, the readers. What piques your interest, whets your appetite, gets your creative juices flowing?