Hmmm

I just realized I have an odd assortment of things in my suitcase for this weekend, including:
* Vanilla beans
* Wood electric sander and sandpaper
* B's shaving kit
* New shoes
* Grudgy garden clothes
* Jewelry
* Glue gun
* B's new suit
* 14 rolls of ribbon
* 100 cardboard squares

Hm. If I get hit by the craft fairy on my way down to the Eug, I'm satisfactorily armed.

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.

Centerpieces

So at long last I'm posting a picture of the centerpiece. Well, of one of them (there will be 15). This didn't take the shortest time to make (there are something like 200 paper roses on there!), but I love how it turned out.

I wanted them to be all pretty much uniform, and so the question became: HOW? I bought a package of balloons, and then I flour/water paper mached the balloons. I figure, that way the shape will be approximately the same for all of them. That dried, then I painted the mache red so that any of it that showed through would be red (thus not noticeable) and not newspaper-y. Then I glued on the roses. I made a stencil for the roses, so that way they're all about the same size. What's great is that they all LOOK different because they're individually made and rolled. I like that they're tightly clustered.

B learned how to make these too. He was helping me. SO CUTE! Gosh I love him.

SNOW!

It's supposed to snow again. 

I swear, Goldie, my almost-teenager car, hates me.

She's originally a San Diegan

and really detests I moved her here.

That's why she's hiding in the right corner of the picture.

She's cold and mad at me. 

But Rumpole will again have something to watch.

He loves staring at the falling snow. 

What must he think is going on?

Please ignore the unmade bed.

Human again!

Oh it feels sooo good to have stress weight off my shoulders!

Breathing

There are days like today and the following two which truly make me think that there should be breathing lessons for more than just lamaze. Granted, there isn't any massive physical pain or babies involved here, but a "how to not panic" or "how to not hyperventilate 101" would come in handy. 

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat (preferably in regular, not fast or slow, intervals). 

Vanilla beans, part II...

$15 for 150 vanilla beans, including shipping. Bird nest here I come!

Vanilla beans!!

How great of an idea is this: Vanilla beans for branches on a wedding cake. I LOVE it. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. 

And, if I can find them cheaply enough, they'd make great bird's nest materials for our cake topper:

 I suspect that might be too expensive, so I may stick to nest materials out of peeled/sliced chocolate. But still... VANILLA BEANS! Genius.

Work work work and more work

I feel like I am only on the left-hand side right now. I cannot wait-- just a few more days and I can spend more time and home and enjoy myself. Work has been in such full swing. I can't wait to be able to go home and work on projects. 

SIGH. Ok, break over. Back to work.

Chair Covers

So here is my aspiration to achieve re: the chair covers. We think white covers would look great, as well as the yellow sash (though our sash would be out of material, not flimy ribbon). Instead of a live flower though, we thought we'd put one of the rose droplets there.  I think it will look really pretty, especially if the rose droplets are either red or orange. Hm. The pattern for the chairs should be really simple, and I have nice cotton material (easy to work with). It should just be a matter of cut and sew. I can get B to help out with the cutting part. :) Sewing, not so much, though he's pretty darn handy and wants to learn.

I think my back panel on the chair will be all one piece though. That way there will be 4 pieces total: Back panel, front of the backpanel/seat/front of chair and the two square side panels. It's not a garment for a person, so it should be error-hiding and relatively forgiving.