weekend snippets: autumn wedding

leaf prints

snickerdoodles

a bride in ray-bans and birkenstocks

stars, sunset, and trashcan fires

chandelier hanging from the barn rafters

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what did you love this weekend?

In Progress: Thank you notes and envelopes

Just a quick note to say the thank you notes are coming along, folks.

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Stamps are from Hobby Lobby--on sale. Score!

Fonts are from dafont.com, a great place for free fonts. I'm using traveling typewriter, trocadero, and home sweet home. Eclectic, I know.

Envelopes are made from the Free People catalog. This is one of the prettiest catalogs I've ever seen. I hoard them and use them in my craft projects.

Wedlocked

And loving it.

Thanks to our families! We couldn't have gotten married without all of you.

Let's Get Wed

Today is the day.

Saturday Night Singletons

Wine, cherries, cheese

Well, we haven't been single in a long time, but it was our last Saturday as unmarrieds. We kicked back with some snacks and watched The Big Lebowski. Romantic, no?

A Gift from Tomoko

Today Tomoko is heading off to school for a year of intensive English study. She'll be back in Louisville to stay with my mom during school breaks, and I'm really interested in talking with her as she learns more and more English.

Last night she came over to my house to say goodbye and she brought a wedding present for K and me. She made tiny origami cranes (tsuru) for us and told us about them. She explained (in English!) that cranes are a symbol of happiness, and they will bring us a happy marriage. K and I must sew the cranes into four columns, and then tie the threads from each column together into one knot. As we tie the knot (!), we should wish for happiness. Then we should hang the cranes in our house.

Tomoko's handmade gift is really wonderful. I love the thought she put into making this present and the time she spent folding each of those little cranes. On top of that, her explanation in English made me smile so much. She has come such a long way in one year. She used to come by my desk to talk at the Japanese high school where I taught, but she looked up each and every word in her electronic dictionary. Conversations took a long time! Since then, she has gained an amazing amount of confidence. She makes the English teacher in me so proud.

Thank you, Tomoko!

Making a Wedding By Hand

Handkerchief with crocheted border

In general, weddings make me feel kind of squirmy. There's usually so much pomp and circumstance, so many formalities, and so many things done "just because." So when I go to weddings, it's usually with a knot in my stomach and a thirst for wine.

Growing up, I never fantasized about my own wedding. My own children, yes. My future house, sure. Traveling around the world, of course. But weddings were for other people. When K and I decided that we would have a wedding instead of eloping, we both knew we had to find ways to make this wedding reflect us and our values. Our idea of a handmade wedding came from this decision.

With lots of help from my mom, we've made all of the decorations. Mom sewed about a million yards of bunting. It turned out so well, and I absolutely cannot wait to see it strung up at the party. We've made a ton of tissue paper pom-poms, too. For table decorations, we're going to have board game centerpieces (also, this will be entertainment for people that don't want to dance), simple flower arrangements in jars, and candles on vintage plates set on thrifted doilies and handkerchiefs. I love that we're using hand-crocheted and embroidered decorations. When I think of how much time someone put into each doily and handkerchief, I'm glad that we'll have them out where their beauty can be appreciated instead of hidden in basements and boxes. We'll also have cans of crayons* so people can let loose their inner artists on the paper tablecloths. It's gonna be fun times.

Hand-embroidery found at a local thrift shop (need to iron it!)

My favorite thrifted doily (I have crafting plans for this after the wedding)

My sister is making an iPod playlist, lots of women in our families are making layer cakes in lieu of a traditional wedding cake, and we're putting together simple picnic-style food with the help of our parents. Oh, and the favors! We've wrapped up a tea bag and a sugar heart for each guest. The sugar hearts were easy to make. I just added about 2 teaspoons of water per cup of sugar, mixed it up to the consistency of wet sand (yum, wet sand!), and put a teaspoon of the mixture into each heart-shaped compartment of a Valentine's Day ice cube tray. I popped the sugar hearts out onto a cookie sheet and let them dry overnight.

Favors--Sugar hearts and Earl Grey tea (our engagement tea)

My sister is doing my hair for the wedding, and I'm doing my own makeup. K and I bought handmade rings from Etsy, and I'll be wearing this necklace I made for the occasion.

My wedding necklace made from a clip-on earring and flea market pearls

K and I really wanted to make this wedding about our families coming together to celebrate. We're having our sisters stand up with us instead of having lots of bridesmaids and groomsmen.
We've only invited close family members and friends in order to keep the wedding small** and personal.

The wedding should be fun, but K and I are both more excited about the marriage part. The best is yet to come!

*Pronounced "crowns" if you're from Louisville. Thanks to Christine for first bringing this to my attention. I had no idea people from other places actually say cray-ons. Weird.

**As small as possible. My dad's family is huge!

Yesterday's Errand

Got the money? Yes, plenty.

Got your ID? Check.

Ready for the wedding? Yes, let's get this show on the road.

A Mad Dash from January to June

In January 2009, an ice storm hit Louisville hard. There were massive power outages that lasted for a week (or more). Extended families gathered together in whichever house happened to have electricity. Others stayed in shelters.

K and I were really lucky to have power throughout the storm and aftermath. We put on our snowboots and enjoyed the winter wonderland. We walked the couple of blocks to my dad's place and spent 6 hours watching Lonesome Dove. We roasted sweet potatoes and ate macaroni and cheese. We were like little kids having a snow day.

We don't have central heat in our house, but we do have large gas heaters that kept the kitchen and bedroom fairly toasty during the winter. We also wrapped up in quilts and made lots of tea.

One night during the ice storm K brought me a cup of Earl Grey tea in my new favorite teacup. When I picked up the cup to take a sip, I saw a ring on the saucer! He got down on one knee to ask me officially to marry him, though he already knew my answer would be a resounding, "Yes!"

We wanted a short engagement, so we quickly set the date for only 4 months away. We didn't want a lot of fuss about our wedding, and limiting the engagement time really did keep things under control. We emailed out this Scrabble picture to our friends and family.I already had this dress, which I bought on sale last summer knowing that I'd wear it at my wedding. It's super simple. I also picked up a black ruffly bolero to wear over it.

Here are the shoes and purse I bought as my wedding accessories. I got the purse at Tickled Pink, my favorite thrift store. The clip-on earring in the middle (a flea market find) is now the centerpiece of my pearl wedding necklace.

I can't believe the day is almost here. Everyone asks if we're nervous, but both K and I feel really good about the wedding. We don't have any doubts about each other (6 years together, the last three living together, have given us a lot of confidence in our relationship). I know I'd feel a little nervous if we were having a traditional wedding, but we're keeping it very low-key. A 5-10 minute ceremony followed by a party. No tossing of things, toasts, or spotlight dances, just family and friends, beer and wine, sandwiches and fruit trays, dancing and laughing. I'm looking forward to it.

what did my hands do before crafting?

I'm pretty sure my hands must have been bored for years because once I started crafting all of this pent up creative energy burst out and shows no signs of stopping. Seriously, I got to the point where I couldn't sit down and read a book because my hands always wanted to be doing something. Holding a book and occasionally turning pages just wasn't enough.

So I took a jewelry making class and spent many nights bent over my beads, stringing necklaces and looping earwires. Then my mom taught me how to crochet, and I finally got it. I had tried to learn to crochet at least 3 times before and just could not figure it out. I was seriously opposed to counting, which it turns out is integral to the art of crochet. After my mom took the time to teach me, I crocheted at least seven scarves in no time, all in a modified single crochet (because I didn't know I was doing it just a little wrong!). After scarves I discovered blankets and baby hats.

 My crafting thirst still unquenched, I checked out lots of embroidery books from the library and am working on that. And I carried a big box of cross stitch stuff up from my mom's basement (a place not unlike Mary Poppins' bag). Jackpot! I made my first cross stitch the other day, which is turning out quite lovely!

In just a few short weeks I'll be getting hitched to my guy of over 6 years, K. We're over the moon about the being married part, but the wedding we're both just wanting to get over. The highlight of the wedding for me (apart from, you know, declaring my intention of spending my whole dang life with a great man) is the decorating. It's a low-key, diy, vintage-feel type of deal. There'll be lots of bunting, the ubiquitous (but always sweet) Martha Stewart Pom-poms, board games, punch cups, hula hoops and more. Here are the envelopes for the invitations we sent out. I made them from recycled catalogs:

Look how many!
  My goal for each day is to make something, whether it be crocheted, embroidered, cross stitched, painted, cooked, baked, etc. I hope to share many of these makings here.