Category Archives: wedding

doily table runner and other pretty things

There were candles everywhere.  I emptied out my cabinets and the pantry of jars in every shape and size and filled them all with ivory candles.  Jam jars, honey jars, canning jars, vases, whatever I could get my hands on.

The candle holders on the table were made in the style of faux  mercury glass, only in gold instead of silver.   Steve sprayed the insides a bit with plain water, then a coat of metallic gold spray paint and left them upside down to dry.  It gives a neat, uneven crackly sort of effect.  With a candle lit inside it creates such a wonderful warm glow.  He also spray painted all of the cream colored vases that show up in various pictures.  All of the spray painted items were five to twenty cent yard sale finds.

I wish I had more photos of the table runner.  I guess I could actually go and takes some, but that seems like an awful lot of trouble.  The contrast of the shades of white, cream and ecru over the dark cherry finish of my sewing table was just lovely.  I started from the middle and worked my way out because I had a particular piece that I wanted to be the center.  I pinned on a few at a time, overlapping them a bit and sewing them on the machine with a straight stitch and matching thread.  Normally when you sew lace you used a zig-zag stitch because it blends better, but for whatever reason the straight stitch worked much better for this.   For stability I tried to make sure that each doily was connected at least two points.  It was a very quick, fun, free-form sort of project.

All the photos above are by the lovely and talented Dawn Joseph.

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, pretty things, sewing, tutorials, wedding
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ribbon wand tutorial

Supplies:

 3/8″ dowels – a 3′ dowel will make 3 wands, a 4′ four wands, etc.

brass hooks- the kind that you can screw into things

a handsaw

pliers

sandpaper

ribbons: in a variety of widths, no greater then 5/8″ wide

optional:

ric rac, lace trim, pom pom trim

We made these wands for people to wave at the end of the ceremony.  The ceremony was supposed to take place in the garden, but an unexpected rain storm drove us inside at the last minute.  Instead we took shelter on the porch, which is rather small and didn’t leave much room for waving.  But it mostly worked out.  And Iain Irish Danced us back down the aisle with some in hand.  The wands were a big hit with the kids and wildly popular with pretty much everyone on the dance floor.  I think they would be a lot of fun for a kids party or just for dress ups and creative movement type play.  We’re planning on breaking out our collection for people to borrow for May Day next year.

For ours I used three different ribbons, all satin; a 1/4″ light blue, 3/8″ darker blue and 5/8″ sage green.  You can use any combination of colors, widths or textures and mix in other kinds of trims.  I think they are much prettier and more interesting with a bit of variety, all of one kind of ribbon would be a little dull.

How to:

Cut your dowels into 12″ lengths.  Sand well.  We made all of the edges on ours curved.  At this point we also polished ours with beeswax polish, but that’s entirely optional.

Carefully screw the hooks into one end.

Cut your ribbon to approximately 68″ lengths (somewhere around 5 1/2′)

Layer 4 or so ribbons on top of each other.  Depending on the width of the ribbons used, you might want more or less.  Fold them in half lengthwise.  Poke the folded edge through the hook to create a loop.  Pull all the ends of the ribbons up through the loop and tighten.

Using pliers, pinch the brass hook completely closed.

Dance around and enjoy!

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, tutorials, wedding
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his Eton suit

 

Do you see all of my handsome boys there together?  Oh my.  And a little man in a little suit.  Oh, I do so love this sweet boy!  It doesn’t get much more adorable then this.  Clearly he went  everywhere, saw every little thing and talked to everyone.  Also, I think that the photographer may have been a bit smitten (understandable).

Details for the bow tie can be found here.  As you can see, he was not forced to attend in his pajamas, as originally predicted.  Woo-hoo!  Score one for me!

The pattern is Butterick 6894, views B and D.  My copy is 12 years old, but it is amazingly still in print.

The fabric was a beautiful, thick, wool blend suiting with shades of grey, brown and black all mixed up in heathered diagonal stripes.

I had planned on making the older boys vests to wear.  But when I found these full outfits (shirts, pants, vests, and ties) on clearance, for around the same cost as just the fabric, well…considering everything else I wished to accomplish, it just seemed the way to go!  And they look fabulously handsome all the same, yes?

All photographs by the lovely and talented Dawn Joseph.

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celebrations and festivals, Kids, sewing, wedding
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flower girl bag tutorial

I wasn’t going to bother with flowers for Màiri, but when she heard that all of the other girls were going to have some, she didn’t want to be left out!

While looking at other floral supplies, I came across these bags.  I hadn’t really seen anything like that before and I thought they were kind of a cute idea.  Rather then buy the $27 bag, I bought a plain, $3 one and embellished it myself.

I do not have pictures of the process, but it was fairly straight forward.

I used a bit of unbleached muslin that I had laying around for the skirt.  First I measured from the top edge of the basket to the fold for the bottom.  Then I measured around the edge of the basket.  I multiplied the second number by 2.5.

1st measurement by 2nd measurement x 2.5 is the size you need to cut your fabric.

You can finish the edges if you like.  The unfinished edges really appealed to me for whatever reason, so I just left them.

Fold the fabric in half, right sides together, lining up the short edges.  Stitch the short edges together.

Run a gathering stitch along the top and gather evenly to fit the top edge of the basket.  Pin it to the basket and stitch in place.  I used a zig-zag stitch for this.

At this point you can do whatever else you like to decorate it.  I used a strip of 3/4″ cotton lace, that I had leftover from Màiri’s blessing gown.  I sewed it over the top edge of the skirt.  Then a used a little scrap of Alençon lace from my gown as an applique to cover where the lace trim was joined.  The whole thing took around 15 minutes.

To fill it, I found that a milk carton was the perfect size, so I cut the bottom off an old one and cleaned it (obviously).  Then I cut a chunk of floral foam to fit neatly inside.  Once the foam had been soaked, I simply stuck spray roses into somewhat randomly.  I really only wanted to use the peach roses, but we had so many of the other ones with short stems, leftover from bouquet making, that it just made sense to use both.

It was a little heavy because of the water saturated foam, but the Wee Miss thought it was great.  And now she uses the bag to hold all of her hair ties and things.

All photographs by the lovely and talented Dawn Joseph.

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Kids, sewing, tutorials, wedding
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the flowers

THE pictures are here.  I’ve decided to kind of unveil the details slowly, craft project by craft project, in the same sort of the way that the day itself came together…

Flowers!  Lovely, lovely flowers.  From the very beginning I really wanted lush floral arrangements (you can find some of my floral inspiration here).  I had planned on making them mostly with flowers from our own garden, but between needing to go with an earlier date to accommodate various schedules and very late and cold spring, I knew there wouldn’t be enough options.  Besides, with the ceremony and pictures happening outside I didn’t want to strip the gardens bare.

After a good deal of research, I decided to order from Potomac Floral Wholesale Inc because as far as on-line wholesalers go, they had a very large selection and small minimum orders, which meant I could get a little of several things, instead of having to devote our entire budget to a lot of one variety of flower.

To make up my bouquet, three small bouquets for my mother and sisters, an arrangement for Màiri and two large arrangements for the tables, I purchased;

12 stems of ‘Romantic Antike’ Garden Roses

20 stems of Girlie Folies Peach Spray Roses

20 stems of Ilse Spray Roses

10 stems of White Lilac

4 stems of White Hydrangea

and

10 stems of Hypericum Berries- I had wanted peach, but they were out of stock and I believe they substituted pink.

We supplemented this with bleeding heart, herbs and maple leaves from our garden.  Galen filled jars and vases with dandelions, which were placed randomly around the house (his idea) and seemed very “us” so we went with it.

My sister and I put everything together two days before and keep them cool on the porch and under the house, since the fridge was overflowing with food and cake (more on that later!).  We made everything except for the floral crown (4th pic down).

Some helpful resources for DIY wedding/vow renewal/really any special occasion flowers:

How to Do Your Own Wedding Flowers

How to Make a Wedding Bouquet

DIY: Spray Rose Bouquet

How to Make a Wild Flower Mart Wedding Bouquet

All photographs, with the exception of the top two are by the lovely and talented Dawn Joseph.

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Gardens, wedding
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stolen moments

Things are busy here.  So gloriously, nerve wrackingly, abundantly full.  My health is improving.  The weather is starting to turn.  We are so close to so many big and exciting things…the official start of baseball season (just as soon as the snow melts off the field!), two dance recitals, our yearly camping trip, our wedding, a private little trip for just Steve and I, an 11th birthday to celebrate…  My to-do list.  Ha! It’s a bit of a joke, with “need to do” and “want to do” blurring and running on into infinity.  In between the great big projects, I try sneak in little projects or tiny bite sized pieces of medium projects.  This bow tie (pattern: Sunday Best Bow Tie by Crab Apple Attic) was cut and pinned late one night, while talking on the phone with a friend, and quickly sewn up another morning, just before breakfast.  Ultimately I’m hoping he won’t be wearing it with a pajama shirt.  I guess it all depends on whether or not I get around to making the rest of his outfit!

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Kids, sewing, wedding
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practice cake, take 2

Yes, I practiced decorating a mug.  The kids each got their own hunk of marzipan to fool around with.  Can you see Galen in the background in that last picture?  You can almost hear him thinking, “come on Women!  Enough with the pictures, bring on the cake!”

This time (for a good laugh and a peek at last time click here) things went much, much better.  I decided that the wisest course would be to abandon the fondant entirely and go a different way.  I’m really quite pleased with how it turned out.

  Only one little problem…after about 20 minutes or so the icing started slowly slipping off the cake.  I think the chocolate coating underneath may be too slick?  I did forget to brush it with something sticky first to help it adhere.  Any fabulous cake decorating gurus out there with ideas on how to prevent this from happening in the future?

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crafts, Food, wedding
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Perhaps

you would like an explanation for the craziness of my last post?  There is a reasonable one, I swear.  Did anyone figure it out?

First a little story.  Steve and I have been planning to have a wedding since, well since we got married, but didn’t actually have a wedding…I remember us being in jeans and stopping in somewhere to sign some papers, on our way to somewhere else and not much more.  Two years ago we picked a time frame (this May).  Last year an actual date.  I started making myself a gown.  Then when I got ill this past autumn into winter, everything got put on hold.  When I started getting better we decided to go on with our plans, with a couple of alterations.  For example, I decided to be easy on myself and order a gown rather then making one.  I finally decided on and ordered one back in February.  And it was just last week, with less then two months to go, that I found out that my custom dress was not actually coming.  I haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement, and so, I’m back to making my own…in a much more stressful situation then it would have been if I had just decided to stick with that plan all along.  Such is life.

For something like this you really need to get the fit just so.  The catch being that it’s very difficult to fit something to yourself.

 Hence the need for a personalized dress form.

(did I just hear a collective “OOOOooooohh!”?)

The basic idea:

put on an old tee shirt

have someone wrap several layers of duct tape around you

carefully cut it up the back

tape it back together and stuff it

More detailed instructions can be found here.

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crafts, sewing, wedding
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(mis)adventures in baking

Next spring, Steve and I have decided to renew our vows.  We will have been together for 15 years and to celebrate, we’ve decided to host the wedding we never had.  It will be a very small and intimate affair, but very special and dear to us.

As I share a bit of the wedding planning process here with you, you will be laughing at me. Not with me, at me, and a lot.  It’s ok, I understand.  I see the ridiculousness.

So, teeny-tiny, not real wedding, you make a little dessert table. Maybe a bunt cake or some cupcakes or something, right? It’s the reasonable thing to do. Me? I want to make this:

image by: The Studio B Photography

Never mind that it’s like 15 times more cake than we need and I probably need some kind of culinary degree to construct it. My “logic” is this…I don’t need to become a cake decorating expert, I just need to master the skills particular to this cake. And I have 10 months to do it.

My darling sister foolishly very kindly offered to help with the cake baking and last weekend she was up for a visit and a practice run.  There were issues.  Lots of issues.  Dividing the batter evenly was clearly one of those issues.

Three layers in; note the size discrepancy. We made one small layer to practice on.  In between every other layer (ok, what’s the word for the layers that make up the layers of a cake?  There has got to be a different word for it because this is just getting confusing) was either raspberry jam or chocolate glaze. Then we covered the whole thing with two layers (there it is again) of chocolate glaze.  There was some orange flavoring in there too, which I think was a nice touch.

First layer of chocolate…


and the second layer after it had chilled…

Not too bad for a first try right? It’s all level, you can’t tell that the layers are uneven underneath, it’s fairly smooth considering we didn’t have the right tools or anything.  Seems like a fairly good base for the fondant.

Oh, the fondant. Ever make fondant before? Word of advice? Don’t. So not only am I trying to make fondant, which is notorious for being a big ole’ pain in the behind, but I’m trying to switch out ingredients to make it safe for us. We find this recipe that looks ok as is. Only it’s missing many of the ingredients that are in *all* of the other recipes. Worth a try, right?

Wrong.

Of course.

duh!

We make it anyway and number one: unbleached sugar does not a pretty fondant make. Unless you really dig salt dough and like the idea of covering a cake in it. Two: it is not the right consistency at. all.  Lots and lots of doctoring and like 10 lbs of sugar later, we have this HUGE amount of “fondant” that resembles leftover gravy that’s been stored in the refrigerator. No problem. We can make this work (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha). So we watch a few videos on decorating. (sure that looks easy. I’m sure ours will roll out just like that) (it didn’t) (at some point we ended up picking up small pieces of it and pressing them onto the cake)

It’s possible that Steve may have gotten his head bitten off,  just a little bit, while trying to offer up a compliment during a particularly strained decorating moment.  Sarcasm practically oozes out of the man’s pores, how was I supposed to know he was being sincere for once!?

This is the point where we gave up in frustration….

Yup.

See? You’re laughing already, aren’t you?

After we told everyone to “just eat the darn thing!”, that they had been begging to eat non-stop for the entire 48 hours we were working on it, we hugged each other and then practically collapsed on the floor while laughing hysterically.

I was prepared to scrap the whole thing, but my sister is now on a mission. I said I was considering serving like strawberries and cream. She said, “Oh, strawberry shortcake might be nice”, I said, “no, like strawberries…on a plate, end of story.” She’s researching and sending me ideas. The report from her roommates was that the chocolate part was awesome, but they didn’t understand the fondant, nor recognize it as such.

The fondant did *taste* good, at least if you didn’t look at it too much while you were eating it. It tasted way better than any fondant I’ve ever had. Which is probably where we went wrong. I still maintain that we totally could have made those decorations, if we….you know… had a substance that was actually capable of being shaped that way.

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celebrations and festivals, Food, Life, wedding
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