Ri's Bridal Shower and Quilt

Saturday has come and gone, and with it, the first ever bridal shower for one of my girls.  We had a great time.  Lys, her Maid of Honor, was in charge of planning, inviting guests, and decorating, and I provided the food.  Not to say Lys, and the other girls didn't help prepare the food, they certainly did.
The pics look a little blurry in the post, but will look much nicer if you click on them. 

Lys wanted to play up sunflowers since they will be in the wedding, so there is plenty of yellow and green. The girls worked very hard to get all the decorations up since the ceiling is so high and we don't have a ladder.

A small table was set up in the sunroom for the punch. This gorgeous old punch set was borrowed from my mom, and Bree painted the stemmed glasses.  They are so cute.  My mom, Lys, the groom's mother, and I each got to keep one, and Ri will get the other eight for her new home.

The girls used the bistro table, and my jewlery box to display the favors.

All the favor boxes were decorated differently.  I'll show how they did those in the next post.

The favor boxes had a trio of sunflower seeds in them; candy coated, chocolate covered seeds(in yellow, green, and brown), toffee coated seeds (Ri and Lys made those), and roasted, salted sunflower seeds.

There was plenty of food.  

M & M's are in the tall, stemmed glasses as a play on her new initials. 

We had little, drawstring organza bags available so folks could take some home with them.

Of course, we had some of Ri's favorites, like stuffed strawberries,

strawberry cupcakes with strawberry, cream cheese icing,

(can you tell she likes strawberries?)

and cookie dough dip.

There were also plenty of candles,

(Bree painted this holder too)

to go along with all the sunflowers.

They choose a few games to play, a couple of which left us in stitches.  

Now we just have to find a place to store all her gifts until close to the wedding, when we plan on going over to Superman's home to help her set everything up they way she would like.

And here's her quilt.  

As I mentioned before, I did manage to get it finished just before she got home from the girls' visit with my mom, so she didn't see it completed until her shower on Saturday.

I did an all over, swirly stipple for the background of the top, hoping to set off the flowers.  

I in-lined the petals, and quilted a flower pattern in each brown center.  Don't pay too much attention to the not-quite-straight lines.  From a distance it looks great. :D

Then I did a serpentine, open feather pattern for the border.

I think it turned out all-right.

T.Lynn's gift to her sister was a decorative pillow to go along with the quilt.  I used some of the extra pieces to make the top, then T. helped make the back (which is designed so Ri can take the case off to wash it), helped program my machine to write out, "Sisters are best friends you can never lose.  Love T....."(which she came up with herself), stitched that on, and then sewed on the button that holds the flap closed on the back. 

She did a great job. 

I'll have to try and re-locate the quilted, denim, scrap rug that Beenie made for her sister, so I can post pics of that later.  It's somewhere in the mass of gifts that we currently have sitting on, and around the hearth, just 'til we can find room elsewhere for them.

All-in-all, it was a wonderful day.

DIY - Bridal Shower Invitations

Since Ri's favorite flower is the sunflower, and those will be the main flower at her wedding, we decided to use that same theme in her bridal shower.  Her Maid of Honor, who is primarily responsible for the shower, told me about seeded paper, and suggested we find a way to use it for the shower.  I'd never heard of such a thing, but I looked it up and loved the idea.  I wondered if it was possible to use sunflower seeds (they are rather big) so I kept looking around until I found a company that did make seeded paper with miniature sunflower seeds.  The paper is kind of pricey, but it isn't going to be a huge shower and we could cut the paper in half to make it more, invitation size anyway, so that way, the price wasn't too bad.  Then we got a few stamps, a couple of brown inks, and set to work.

I just loved this stylized sunflower stamp.

Clicking on the pic will give you an unblurry view.

The stamps make it all so easy.  Just fill in the blank.

Look at all those little seeds.

We also found these cute stamps.  Ri loved this saying, and the dress.

Nearly done.  We just had to fill in the info., and put planting instructions for the paper on the back.

I measured the finished card to see what size envelope to use and ordered some from a place online that allowed small quantities.  Hey, I didn't need a whole box of A2, avocado green envelopes, but the green did set the yellow invite off really well, so we wanted that instead of plain white.

Making the invitations was a lot of fun.  Her Maid of Honor was up for a week and we had a good time making these and trying out food for the bridal shower and reception.  One of Ri's other friends came for a couple of days during Lys' stay, and we decorated the favor boxes with her and Lys.  I hope to put up photos and instructions for that soon.  They turned out so well.

It's getting close.  

Bridal shower in less than two weeks (and I'm trying furiously to get her quilt done by then), and then her wedding will be 7 weeks after that.  With time out in the middle for my brother's wedding.  Whew!!

Wedding Plans

     For those of you who have planned a wedding in the last, say 21 years, congratulations!!  You have my respect.  I don't really remember it being this involved, but then again, my mother probably did more than I remember, or ever gave her credit for.  Thanks Mom!!
     I must first add that unless you like to be harassed, don't go to one of the big chain bridal stores.  Give them a little bit of information (which they supposedly need for your daughter to try dresses) and suddenly you're receiving snail and e-mailings by the truckload.  Ugh!
     Other than that, things are going along pretty well, but wedding stuff is starting to take over.  I'm considering adding onto the house for it all. :D  Last night, Ri and I went through everything we had so far for the wedding, reception, and shower, which will be given by her maid of honor (Lys), but will be held at our house, because Lys lives too far away from most of the guests. We catalogued everything, boxed it up, and listed the items on the outside of each box. We didn't buy one of those fancy wedding planners, but early on, after seeing Ri fumble around with things she had written on different scraps of paper, Kay went to the school room, commandeered a spiral bound notebook, found some self stick, write on tabs, and made her get it all organized.  It's worked out great.   
     We have the places for the ceremony, reception, and a private family dinner (per the couple's request, and later in the evening) all booked and ready to go.  We have decided the menu for the private dinner, and will be working on food selections for the reception and shower within the next few weeks. 
     Ri and the maid of honor's dresses will be in by the middle of Feb., and Lys will be up at the end of Feb. to start the fittings.  As of this week, we've acquired everything else Ri will need that day, from her shoes to her decorative hair comb - she doesn't want a veil.  We've also talked to our stylist, lined her up for the wedding day, and requested a "trial run" day for the hair styles she'll be responsibe for at the wedding. 
     Superman has already picked out his suit and had it tailored, and the best man and ushers also have their suits.  We just have to help them pick out the right color shirts and get dark green ties for hubby and the best man. 
     T.Lynn's flower girl dress is in and we got her hair decor as well; she wanted a tiara.  We'll wait to pick out shoes closer to the date since she's growing pretty quickly right now. 
     We came across a lovely blouse just the other day to go with the skirt I'm making for Beenie, which just leaves Kay, Bree, and me to dress. 
     We have the favor boxes for the wedding, and for the bridal shower, but I'll have to show you later what we plan on doing to the ones for the shower - it's too cute. 
     I have the cake stand we want for the cake - yes, I am making it - no, I'm not crazy.  Not yet anyway.  Hey, I made my own wedding cake, and this one will be much easier. 
     We have several other small decorations, and a few other small details to think about with regard to decor, but the biggest decor item, flowers, we haven't really worked on at all.  Ri and I have to go visit a couple of florists soon to get that taken care of.  Thankfully, we do have a general idea of what we want, so it shouldn't be too hard.
     We are having acustic guitar for the music, and do have the muscian lined up; Beenie's guitar tutor. We just need to go over some of the selections with him.
     We're working on the wedding invitations.  We already ordered one so we could see what it would look like, but have decided on a few changes to make, so we'll do that and order another trial invite.
     Lys told me about seeded paper, and after looking around, I found a company that makes some that is seeded with miniature sunflower seeds.  How cool is that?  It's yellow too.  I ordered it and we'll use it to make her bridal shower inviatations.  I've also picked up most of the stamping supplies we'll need to make those.
     Let's see...is there anything else?  I can't think of anything right now.  There probably is, but it's packed in a box. :D  So I'll leave you with this:

This is T.Lynn's basket - and the monkey (ok - oraguntan) she insists on carrying.

Ri doesn't much care for traditional flower girl baskets, and I can't say as I blame her.  I found this cute little wire basket at Hobby Lobby and couldn't resist.  I told Ri if she didn't want to use it for T., I could certainly find a use for it somewhere in the house, but alas, she loved it. 

The rustic look will go so well with the sunflower theme.

Got any great wedding ideas or tips?  I'd love to hear them.

Tutorial: Do-it-yourself lined envelopes.

Between the holidays and wedding plans, we have been hopping.  Since some of Superman's family will be coming from out of state, and will need to make travel arrangements, we decided to send out Save the Date cards.  Ri designed them using Shutterfly.  I kind of wish I posted head shots because they are very cute.

But I digress.  This post is about adding a personal touch to cards, invitations, etc., by linging them with pretty paper.  I saw this idea in a magazine I was looking through recently, and Ri and I decided to try it for her Save the Date cards.  It turned out so well, we might do it for her invitations too, which she also designed through Shutterfly, using a picture she took of one of our sunflowers last summer.  BTW - sunflowers are her favorite flower, and will be the primary flower in her wedding.

All you need is your envelope, a glue stick, scissors, and some pretty paper.

We designed our own paper using some of the gimp brushes Ri has downloaded to our computer for blog designing, but you could copy any pretty pattern.  I've even photocopied fabric to get a design I liked on paper.  A couple of things to keep in mind:  One - I don't know about all copiers, but mine doesn't always copy true to color, so when that happens, we scan it into the computer and then print directly from the image in the computer - for some reason, that works better. And two - you need to use regular paper.  Most scrapbook paper, while pretty, is too thick.  One standard sheet of paper made two envelope liners for our 5 1/4" square cards. 

You have to lose one of the envelopes, so I hope you have extra.

Carefully take it apart along the seams.

There you go. 

Fold it out flat, and then call for one of your kids to bring the scissors you forgot.

Cut across the bottom, just inside the fold.  You are cutting off what was the back of the envelope.

Oh, and when you make that call for the kids, make sure you tell them to bring you a grown up pair of scissors.  The only criteria I gave was for a pair that was for cutting paper (you know, as opposed to my sewing scissors), and I definately could have used a bigger pair since I have rather large hands.

Now cut up the sides, again, just inside the fold.

This will allow for the pattern to be just a bit smaller than the envelope, making it easy to insert the lining later.

Finally, cut off the glue strip at the top.

Now you have a pattern you can use to cut your lining paper.

As you can see, I dispensed with the scissors and used one of my rotary cutters and some acrylic rulers for this part.  Don't worry, this cutter is specifically for paper and never touches fabric.

Cut out all your lining papers.

There you go - now you just have to slide one in the envelope,

and line it up with the bottom of the glue strip.

Fold back the paper and apply the glue.

Then press your lining into place.

After giving it a few minutes for the glue to start drying, go ahead and fold down the flap, pressing well along the edge to crease the lining paper.

And there you go.  From plain to pretty.

We choose the black on white because, as you can just catch a glimpse of, her Save the Dates are black with white, including the photos, and there are a few scrolls thrown in here and there.

  I love it when things coordinate.

Just for good measure, we decided to allow these to dry completely overnight before putting in the cards and addressing the envelopes.

Mouse Pad Re-make

My mouse pad was looking, well, blah. Actually it looked pretty blah right from the beginning, but now it was looking dingy, diry, and blah. I've seen some really pretty mouse pads for sell, with toile or calico prints, but a new mouse pad was always way down on my list of things we needed for the house.

What can I say?

It was a freebie they gave us when they came to hook up our internet access.

I started by pulling off the old cover.

I tore apart a paper shopping bag so I could protect my work surface, then I sprayed the back of the fabric and the top of the mouse pad with a heavyweight spray adhesive. I waited 2 minutes and then sprayed a second coat. After 2 more minutes I flipped the mouse pad over on the fabric, turned it over and smoothed it out, pressing firmly. You can't reposition the pad once initial contact is made, so you have to make sure any pattern you have in the fabric is turned the way you want it when you lay the pad down.

When I first picked the mouse pad up to turn it over, I folded the bag so I wouldn't lay the pad back down on any adhesive. After I'd smoothed it out and pressed it firmly for a few minutes I used the rotary cutter I use only for crafting to cut away the excess fabric. As you can see, the paper bag is sitting on top of my cutting mat.

 .

I took a second to clean any adhesive off my rotary cutter and then I applied fray check to the edges of the mouse pad.

Voila!! A beautiful 'new' mouse pad.

By pressing the pad firmly as I was laying it down, I was able to drastically minimize the bubble/ripple that was along one edge of the pad. You can see it clearly in the second photo, and not so clearly along the top of the mouse pad in this photo.

I let the mouse pad sit for an hour or so before we used it. You can kind of feel the difference in the surface once the adhesive is set and the fray check is dry. All in all, I'm quite satisfied with the results. Even if you have to go buy a can of spray adhesive it's cheaper than one of the decorative mouse pads which can run from $10 to $16. And then you have the spray adhesive on hand for all kinds of other crafty things. It's great stuff. Everyone should keep some around.