Crafting, costumes, jewelry, fashion, DiY grown fresh daily!
Today, in addition to the biggest wedding of the century, was my final day of student teaching. I’m taking a week off to sleep (kind of, because I will still be job-hunting), subbing for a few weeks, and then starting 6 credits of graduate research courses. Then I’ll be planning a wedding. And starting a new career.
So, ladies and gentlemen, good night, and good luck.
I had a great time applying my foodie tendencies to the deviled eggs on Easter! I had an awfully fun time creating different flavors with unique spices, sauces, even wasabi! Nick really liked the wasabi! Ranch was also a good addition, and I particularly liked the sage eggs. You can’t taste, but you can enjoy the photos!
How were your Easter vittles?
With Easter coming up this weekend, I’ve been seeing eggs and egg projects fly through my reader at an incredible pace! Personally, I LOVE me some eggs: decorated, deviled, scrambled, baked in a pie (or a quiche, as it were). Here are some fabulous options for your Easter or any egg-requiring celebration!
First of all make sure your hard boiled eggs – whether for coloring or deviling – are intact and delicious! Alton Brown, the man I consider a guru for everything food, says the following in an interview:
“I put however many eggs I want to cook into a pot of cold water. I bring it to a boil, I cover the pan, I remove the pan from the heat, and I wait eight minutes. Peel immediately under cold running water. That will give you a slightly soft yolk. If you want a really hard yolk, go with twelve minutes.”
DON’T ASK, JUST DO IT.
The good old classic Easter egg coloring event. Create your own egg dyes using vinegar and food coloring, or grab one of the myriad packages of dye, many of which include glitter, wax for blocking colors, stickers, etc! Fun for kids, but still fun for adults, too!
These totally incredible cross-stitched eggs have been all over the blogosphere, they’re that amazing!
My personal favorite, the deviled egg! This recipe is a classic, but there are literally thousands of variations! Like extra pickles? Why not! Need to add a little extra spice? Go for it!
What’s your favorite eggy creation?
Now that I’m in full-on preparing-for-teaching mode, I’ve been saving all sorts of containers left and right. Spice jars, pickle jars, peanut butter jars, you name it, I’ve got some! I’m saving them for a number of purposes: to store small craft supplies, for pens and pencils, or even just because I like the look of them. Here’s a few I have in stock!
Spice jars! These are the kind that typically come from the Simply Organic line at Target, and I love them because of their classic square shape and screw caps. I’ve been collecting these with plans to keep them at home for small craft items like gems and buttons.
Glass jelly jars are wonderful for so many things, even as cute drinking glasses! Right now, this one is storing a few buttons and wrapped with a bit of leftover ribbon for some decoration. These are also great for storing pens and brushes, even mixing paints and other raw materials. Need them to have an even more distinctive look? Try coating the inside with paint for a unique display (and to hide any messy stuff inside from view!)!
Ah, the plastic peanut butter jar! This I am planning to take to my classroom for storage of small items. Unlike the glass jars, there’s no risk of breakage with this little guy, but you can still easily identify the contents. Small items like dice, counters, pompoms, or pattern blocks will fit perfectly and safely into this container, even around the littlest of hands.
How are you repurposing your leftover containers?
Yesterday Nick and I made a trip to Best Buy for a new router (I think we’re developing wireless for our entire zip code), and while waiting for Nick to finalize his purchase, I spied a little offer tag hanging there… FREE 8x8 PHOTO BOOK. Well, hell yes, I’ll take one!
It appears you need a qualifying purchase, usually related to cameras, but our router purchase seems to have qualified (you need Internet to get there?), so I had the cashier ring up the card and lo and behold, when I got home, I had a code for a FREE photobook from shutterfly!
This was a great deal because I’d already been planning to purchase a shutterfly photobook as our custom sign-in book at the reception. It’s a great deal at up to 20 pages, and with our (only slightly less than professional!) engagement photos completely under our control, reproducing them in this format is a great option for us! What a great find!
Where have you found great unexpected deals that saved you nuptial funds?
Well, I’m just two weeks out from finishing student teaching and hopefully ending my job search! Education is a tough business right now with very limited financial support, and I need all the help I can get to create a great learning environment in my future classroom. And I would appreciate any help I can get!
I need some basic things like pencils, markers, and storage, but also some additional items like attention-getters, books, and cleaning supplies. All of these things will help me to create a supportive environment for my future students – who are of course our future leaders!
Make an investment that’s sure to have a great return – invest in education! Thank you for all your support!
This has nothing to do with anything other than being so incredibly awesome and relevant to my interests that I can’t NOT share it.
THIS IS SO AMAZING.
This incredible creation was made by Liz of Artisan Cake Company in Portland, Oregon. She regularly builds in fondant and cereal bar (and in rather nerdy fashion!), but turned to clay and glaze for this piece. I love it and I want one. Check out her whole process at Instructables.
No, not the proposal! The question that as a seamstress and costumer I inevitably get… “Why aren’t you making your own wedding dress?”
‘Cause I’ve pretty much made them before, right?
My sister in particular asked this question after we purchased my Claire Pettibone dress. It was indeed a question I had given serious thought to, and even asked of other seamstressy brides. I even know brides who have done it! I even made my sister’s wedding gown! But at the end of the day, it wasn’t what I wanted for me.
I’m not really superstitious, so the old adage of making your wedding dress makes your marriage a lot of work wasn’t phasing me. And it wasn’t that I didn’t have enough time; with nearly 18 months before the wedding when we started planning, I would have had plenty of time.
In all honesty, it came down to wanting to be a little spoiled. First, I didn’t want to have to do the work, I really did want that little bit of getting treated like a princess. Second – and this has a little more to do with the financial planning aspect – because I’m an experienced seamstress, I wanted something beautiful that I could be proud of. I accepted the financial burden with this reasoning because I know as a commissioner how much work goes into really high quality sewing work. I knew from the beginning that I was going to have to shell out the cash, but I knew it would be worth it. I’m lucky that that’s an option for me!
And it was all true! The experience of being surrounded with my girls while trying on the amazing dresses at Little White Dress – with the designer present! – was a completely magical experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. 
I am in awe of the brides who charge themselves with sewing their wedding gowns! And I count myself among the ranks of brides who have made a carefully calculated decision about her dress… that’s pretty much all brides! This is one of the most personal garments a person can ever wear, and all your reasons, as long as they’re true to you, are completely valid.
Besides… I think there will always be plenty of fancy dresses for sewing in my future!
What were your reasons for or against making your wedding gown?
I think I finally found the perfect shoes for the wedding.
These are Seychelles Aquamarine Pump, and they are pretty much perfect. They’re a gorgeous shade of pale teal matching our scheme, it’s a moderate 2” heel, strappy and vintage looking, and open toed. 
I know I’d found a pair earlier that I liked, but they were a bit long for my petite foot, and I really wanted a more vintage style to compliment my dress. This really meets all of my expectations and then some! They’re a little pricy at $90, but I know that’s a good price for really nice shoes! Also, free shipping, hello!
They have a few other styles that I really like, too, such as the Eyes of Mars Ankle Strap Sandal in Seafoam and the stunning Pot of Gold Pump in Seafoam. I could probably be persuaded to purchase the sandals for the reception…
Also, on a side note, this wedding took place in Denver and WOW, the locations are so amazing! The flower wall! The copper light sconces (that blue-green copper tarnish is just the color)! I may have to hunt down these spaces for some of our photos, too!
What are some of your stunning wedding finds? Shoes? Locations? Anything exciting?
I’d originally thought that I’d wanted at birdcage veil. I loved the cutie vintage look and the fun style, not to mention the potential for DiY! But upon trying one on with my Clover, it was kind of a ‘meh.’ I think the look is so charming… just not with this particular dress.
That’s when the fantastic Claire Pettibone approached with one of her beautiful chapel-length veils and perched it upon my head – that was it. I was going to wear a veil. A LONG veil! The lovely dramatic elegance! I’d had no idea!
If you’re Nick, please don’t click on the cut!
I picked up a few of these on recommendation of a friend, and I think they’re really neat! Goody’s new Spin Pin!
It’s kind of a neat little tool. My hair isn’t QUITE long enough, but even so, the spin pins still worked to hold back what hair I could pull back into a bun. I also bought the LAAAARGE size spin pin for a bun, but again, I don’t have quite enough hair. As I understand, it’s a lot more comfortable and better for your hair, and prevents a lot of the breakage you can get from having regular up-dos. Now that I’m getting close to the length where I can put my hair up successfully, I’m excited to start using these!
What’s your favorite new fashion tool?
I took the opportunity over my spring break to test out some of my ideas regarding wedding decorations, favors, and centerpieces. 
My dad was kind enough to give us this miter box with which to saw straight lines (HAHAHA). Since I’ve opted to create centerpiece ‘vases’ from 4 and 5 inch diameter PVC pipe, we needed something that would help us cut the bottoms of each vase flat, so they would stand securely (this works out to much cheaper than buying glass vases, which run about $8-10 in the sizes we want. A ten-foot section of PVC pipe was only $12 and will yield about 7 vases. This of course only works because I’m covering them with paper). We discovered how difficult cutting PVC by hand can be when we chopped the ten-foot pipes in half AT Home Depot in order to be able to take them home in the car. Heh. 
I also needed to paint the bamboo reeds something other than their original blonde color. I opted to use the chocolate color from our palette, since it seemed more natural and we happened to have several cans of brown spray paint left from various projects. I laid out several reeds to use for the test out on paper on the front patio and sprayed away! I did it in two shots, one for each “side” of the reeds. It seemed to go okay… until I picked them up to bring them in. The spray paint was tacky to the touch and refused to stay stuck to the bamboo. Yuck! That really made me glad I did the initial test. Even though the paint job was a failure, I continued on.
I kept going with an attempt to saw a section of the PVC alone. This was a mistake, as it was too difficult for me to keep the saw straight AND hold down the heavy additional length of the PVC as it hung off the edge of the miter box. Oops. The results were rather amusing…
Haha. Miter fail. I will employ Nick to do the sawing next time.
SO MUCH FAIL. Even so, I had my first test piece pretty well complete, and I’d managed to learn several things NOT to do in the future, which was the point of the exercise after all. I went ahead and used the sticky reeds in my original test piece vase, a purchased glass vase (nice, but not big enough!). The look was rather nice, and seems to go alright with the faux mercury glass I’m also making.
All in all, it’s not looking too bad! I think a more natural stain will look a lot better on the bamboo reeds (and also be a lot less hassle than trying to spray them), but you can get the general idea of the look. I really love the paper-covered vase, I think it’s a nice foil to the wood texture of the bamboo and it takes the edge off what could become way too much glass for the more soft, informal look we’re going for. I’m really enjoying creating and learning as I delve into our DiY wedding projects!
What’s your favorite wedding DiY, yours or someone else’s?
