Lantern circles and folded circle petals

Thought I'd post some pictures from our weekend o' fun. 

Here are the scraps from having cut out all the circles. 

Proof of having cut out the circles... here are the circles! There are lots of layers, so this isn't SO impressive, but if you were to see how many layers there are, you'd be impressed. There are probably about 1500 circles here.

Red circles, folded. Jenn dubbed them "petals." I liked it.

Same basket, different angle. And B's sexy sexy foot. Oh baby!
I'm taking a break from attaching them all together...by posting! 

FUN weekend!

Sucky Saturday aside, what a FUN weekend!

Friday evening: Jenn came over and learned how to make lanterns. I think she's now addicted. We cut out so many circles (you need 20 circles per lantern), and she made a bunch of lanterns! She likes all of the ideas, which is so comforting you know? I think it's pretty easy to get side-tracked and lose track of if everything goes together.

We also tried out one fondue recipe... she liked it, and it wasn't bad.... but the cheese didn't do what we wanted to It was good, but all the solid cheese bits somehow became tasteless (after an hour or two) and migrated to the bottom of the pot. This left cheese-flavored cream at the top (which wasn't bad), but the overall impact wasn't too positive after about hour 2. I'm not sure what caused it. I'm liking more and more Erin's idea about using the Campbell's cheddar soup instead of cheddar cheese. I wouldn't have the problem with the grated cheese bits, right? So maybe cheddar soup, blue/gorgonzola, wine, cider, salt/pepper, and some sort of swiss-type cheese. I know gueyere (spelling?) cheese is often recommended for fondue, but I think it's expensive. I think we may have to scout out Costco...

Saturday: Besides the sucky morning... B had to go to a conference during the day. So I cut cut cut circles and more circles. And then folded more circles. I took photos, will post later today.

Sunday: We changed from red to orange and repeated Saturday. Thing is, on Saturday I was able to actually construct a bunch of lanterns, whereas on Sunday, we just prepared the circles (cut, fold, separate) for construction. I also did the first parts on the placemats: cut fabric, ironed, spray glued onto backing, and tucked in sides. My goal was to set up one complete placemat before B had to leave this morning, that way he could tweak and change what he didn't like. I like having his input, and it feels a lot better to work on a project that he likes and agrees with rather than me just being bull-headed, my-way-only girl. I took photos of the process, but I'll post those later today when I have the entire process photographed (missing 3 steps right now).

Today: My goal for today (besides work) is to photograph the remaining steps of the placemats. Then, it's wedding stuff aside because I have to work on a couple of presents for people.

Circles and invites

I totally relaxi-taxied last night. It.was.wonderful. I didn't want to get up to too much, but I made a mock-up of our invitations, that way if B likes it, he can get to work on them with a friend this weekend. I like it, though I'm not posting a picture of it until AFTER they're sent and received.

I spent the rest of the evening cutting out circles. Each lantern on the string of lanterns requires 20 little circles. TWENTY. SO I figured I could totally veg and love the fact that stress is over for the week... and cut out circles.

I made a stencil, so it's easier. I can do 15 circles per page (they're small for the size of lanterns on the strings), and I can cut 10 pages at a time. So each time I finish cutting out one page of stencils I've made 150 circles.... so almost 8 lanterns. I did 5 stencils last night, so 750 circles. Yay! So almost 38 lanterns worth. Granted, I still have to fold and construct.... But I think it takes less time to do one BIG job of each step rather than do it incrimentally. Ie: make a TON of circles. then, make a TON of folds. Then make a ton of lanterns. Definitely saves time over making one latern at a time. I want to have 20 strands done by next Friday.... here's hoping.