Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts

June 28, 2009

June



The world has been a busy place this June. D's little-est sister graduated from high school as the valedictorian. She quoted Emerson in her speech and made us all cry. D's family had quite a graduation party for her, but my all time favorite part was sitting on their back porch. I could spend hours on that porch drinking coffee and talking to D's mom about crocheting. The view is amazing.



My birthday came and went. I feel like I've spent the last year making the transition from adult to grown up and now, at 28, I don't feel like such an impostor. We had a nice quiet dinner with friends followed by amazing chocolate goodness from Central Market. D's middle little sister showed up at my school with flowers from her and D since D couldn't get away from work. I decided a long time ago that I wanted zinnias for the wedding. And the beautiful bouquet on my desk confirmed that.



We went camping the weekend after my birthday. It was beautiful and hot. We spent the weekend alternating between hiking and sitting in very small waterfalls reading. We ate the requisite hot dogs and roasted marshmallows and enjoyed our lack of cell phone service and Netflix.



The wedding is just over 4 months away and my current project is organza and tulle flowers for mom corsages and hair decor. It was a bit of a challenge finding fall colors at the beginning of the summer, and I keep burning myself...but otherwise I absolutely love the way they're turning out. I'm finishing them with seed beads and vintage buttons. And the kitten keeps trying really hard to run off with my scraps.

We've started spending all our evenings and weekends house hunting. Houses in our price range move incredibly quickly so we keep finding that perfect house and a moment later it goes under contract. Fortunately there's a lot on the market and our Realtor, Abbe Waldman, is amazing. I can't wait to post pictures of the elusive new home...once we find it.

February 13, 2009

Happy Almost Heart Day!

I'm usually such a scrooge when it comes to Valentine's day, but this year I've gone all out. I was up until midnight last night making button flowers and cards for all the teachers who work for me (I direct a small child dev. center). The flowers are pins that are just stuck through the card. Everyone's running around the center wearing their flowers today.

I love it!



And as promised here are the lovelies from East Side Bride in all their gold-leafed glory:





Thank you First Milk for putting together the swap! I can't wait until next year!

January 22, 2009

Acorns and Flowers

I've started playing around with the buttons and felt. They were cute, but somehow too cartoon-ey. I kept trying to imagine my father with a felt/button boutonniere and I just couldn't see it. I was on the verge of giving up when I came across a fabric sample book of wonderful material. One of the parents at the school where I work is an interior designer and she donated a ton of fabric sample books (the kids love exploring the colors and textures and most of the books have handles so they make great 'purses'). There's not a word of English on the sample books so I don't know exactly what the material is, but it feels like really thin wool felt. The material is in really great fall/winter tones of warm reds all the way to a dark charcoal grey. I started working with it last night and created my first full boutonniere. I like that the material is thinner so a little easier to work with and layer and the colors are so amazing. I'm finally happy with what I'm coming up with. I'm afraid I don't have enough material, or enough colors to make pieces for everyone so I'll need to do a bit of fabric searching, but at least now I feel like I'm on the right track.

January 16, 2009

Button Jars



I've been toying with the idea of making button and felt boutonnieres and corsages for the wedding instead of live flowers. I went and found felt last night then sat down to 'organize' my buttons. I have jars full of buttons that I inherited from my mother (I actually remember playing with them as a child). I separated out ones that I wanted to use and hope to start building flowers this weekend. I figure I have quite a while to make them or to decide it doesn't work. I'll keep you posted.