i'm tickled pink. I've been saying for the past 2 years that i would get around to doing this but never bought the freezer paper (lamest. excuse. ever.)

My son (4) needed new tees for summer so i swore to myself i'd not spend crazy money on pre-printed stuff (i hate spending more than 3 bucks on kid's clothes anyway...clearance racks are my bestest friend) so i picked up shirts at michaels (i would have reused shirts he already had but they were all too small  ) and voila! hand sketched, exacto-cut acrylic painted goodness. and now i'm hooked and am hunting down more things to stencil....




(i probably could have hand painted that one, since i ended up hand painting the text anyway... eh well!)

the green shirt was my very first one- i messed up on pressing the paper to the shirt and it ended up coming away from the fabric, hence the bleeding on the "who," part

So... i'm making this dress for my wedding in 2011. It's crocheted using organza ribbon and then the pattern simply says:

"Pin out dress. Mount on nylon tulle (3 yards) which has been cut to shape, and fitted with darts at bodice. Sew zipper extending to underarm of bodice. Sew ribbon inside waistline." (i'm assuming they mean to attach the tulle to the crocheted ribbon at the waistline because there's no ribbon used anywhere else)

K. Soooo i've never sewn anything more than a travel tissue holder. I have NO idea how to make a dress out of 3 yards of tulle! here's a pic from the pattern:



I have a sewing machine. I'm thinking i'm going to put some kind o cotton fabric between my body and the tulle. lol. but... i don't know where to begin on this! help? tia!

sooo i was browsing vintage patterns on ioffer.com after purchasing a pattern for a snood (a friend requested i make one for her)... and i saw this dress:



I don't think it comes with a pattern for i guess what would be called the 'lining' of the dress...? The pattern is for the crocheted portion only, i am assuming (i'll be getting it in the mail later this week). My mom and i are going to sew up the 'under dress' (since i don't know the correct term for that part of the dress... lol). I've got to figure out how we're going to do that since the pattern i'm getting probably doesn't have info for that part... hmm.

anyway... i'm going to get started on this probably by next month. Our wedding isn't until 2011 but i want to make sure i have plenty of time to get this done.

[Other projects to work on]

We will be having our ceremony and reception at our community clubhouse, which we are going to be able to rent for free (woo!)

'Fiance' has left the colors and decor up to moi...mwahahahahaaa a. I've chosen dark brown and light blue.

updates! Check out the red text items:) latest update 03-03-11, 8 months left to go

*bouts and corsages! i haven't assembled them yet as i am still working on details for them but i at least have all the rosettes crocheted up and the leaves cut out and embroidered:)



I was gifted yarn for my crocheted Crocus Bud wedding shawl, and i'm slooowwwwly getting that started. i'm beading it and it's consequently taking FOREVER.


*Wreaths:


the larger one isn't done yet. i have to soak it some more and wrap a few more smaller boughs around it to help round it out some more. i have one more i can make now, and will have to cut some more branches to make a couple more. Then i just need to figure out how to 'accessorize' them. ribbon and love birds (sewn) added on there somehow, maybe?[/color]- I've decided the wreaths are fine as is. I've picked up some scrapbooking paper in a lovely brown floral print to cut out letters for the words "Love", "Cherish", "Family" and "Forever", which i will then add to the wreaths after sticking some artfully arranged preserved moss and small bundles of mums on the wreaths. These will be hanging behind our ceremony arch on either side of the arch.

i have also decided to crochet up my bouquet. i may still use the coffee filter roses in some fashion... in any event, i did some pattern research and decided on this pattern:
http://www.crochetspot.com/crochet-flower-pattern-rose/
and here are the first two. I used ummm. a bernat acryclic and cashmere blend in a sportweight. th smaller rose used a 3.5 mm hook and the larger rose used a 5.5 mm hook.


I crocheted up part of a doily to use as part of the ringbearer's pillow:

it will be sewn onto a dark brown pillow. I haven't quite decided if i will also crochet that pillow or sew one up using a matte satin.



Other projects to work on-
*decoupaged mason jar luminaries: i've already started collecting jars i'll be docoupaging light blue and brown tissue paper to them and placing lit tealights inside for both the ceremony and te afterparty

* heart-shaped birdseed 'ornament' favors

*ETA (01-29-10) I'm making my veil- totally forgot to add that to my list. haha. I'm thinkin a fascinator with a birdcage type veil. Have decided against a veil... depending on the hairstyle i choose i may make either a hair comb or fascinator to wear instead

* I will also be making my own garters (one to keep and one to toss)... am not going to be able to get this one completed on my own and i don't think we're doing a garter toss... these are the two i made for my best friend's wedding. I will likely do something similar for my own:


* personalizing pint glasses for wedding favors- they will have our wedding date and a short quote (yet to be determined)

* making cup sleeves using blank cardboard sleeves felt to write each guest's name on each sleeve to keep track of each guest's pint glass

* White christmas light canopy for ceremony- not quite sure how we'll construct that... i hope the weather is decent that day if we're going to put that much effort into it! lol ceremony will be indoor, decided to nix the light canopy

* grow our own white pumpkins to use as decorations... not sure if that is actually going to work out though, i still need to do some research The Fiance says no vining plants in the garden this year. Also, i figured white pumpkins probably won't quite work with what i've got planned.

* buy potted mums (brown or as close to brown as i can get) to use as decor. I'd grow our own but the mums we planted  last fall don't seem to be thriving as well as we'd hoped for general landscaping.


I've got a bunch more stuff running around in my head and we now only have 8 months to get all of this in order. We just found out that we are expecting (unexpectedly!!) our 4th baby, due roughly a month before the wedding, so this makes things a little more challenging. We will probably be trying to stay as well under $3000 as possible. I'm already overwhelmed with the details of this event and it's so far away! i'll be perusing the craftster boards for more ideas of course:)

So my best friend is getting married... I can't be there as i am 8 months pregnant and her wedding is just a few short weeks away (Oct 3rd!!)... she lives in WA and i'm in VA... yeah. So i asked her if there was ANYTHING i could do for her, i'd love to make her something, anything, since i can't actually be there. I suggested crocheting her garter first off, and that's exactly what she was going to ask me to make. SO.

i couldn't find a single pattern i liked, aside from the fact that there just aren't that many out there to begin with. So i freehanded the whole thing. I'm going to try to write up a pattern later, i haven't had time to sit down and get it sorted out on paper. I used a 1.8mm hook for the 'body' of the garter and a 2.5 mm hook for the 'ruffle'.

I use a 2-ply lace weight silk and cashmere blend i found on ebay. She requested an ivory garter with some blue somewhere and that was all. so. i picked out the ivory laceweight and found some iridescent ivory-ish seed beads (my first time using beads in crochet... what a learning experience) that you can't really see unless you are close up. Then i picked out the lightest blue satin i could find to make the casing for the elastic.

note to self: i cannot pretend to be even a beginner level seamstress and this will probably be the last time i use my sewing machine ever again considering i can't sew in a straight line to save my life and i don't have the patience for hand-sewing.

SO. i present the possibly but probably not quite finished garter... 1 of 2, i might add. she wants one to toss at her reception and one to keep. I haven't decided if i'm going to add anything else to it yet. a ribbon or some kind of cabochon-type bead to cover what is supposed to be a "seam" for the satin casing...

and sorry for the unintentional belly shot, it was the best  i could do under the circumstances!!

on the leg:


and a close up to show the beads:


and i've never actually seen a garter in person, so i can only hope this looks wedding-worthy. the last and only wedding i have ever been to was years ago when i was in 3rd grade and i don't remember much of it at all. LOL. here's to hoping she likes them!

I've decided to dreadlock my hair (and so far nothing is really happening, so i'll have to skip over this 'neglect method and do some work...lol) and to honor my new hair decision i decided to make some tams. these are all acrylic, the chunkier dark blue is made with Tweedle Dee (i've had that yarn for months and months and could never figure out what to do with it... and voila! it's PERFECT for a tam!) of course, it's starting to get a tad too warm to wear them now but i hope to get some cotton-ease to make a lighter-weight open work tam or two to wear to cover up the nappyness of my hair while it works through this awkard 'starting out' stage. lol

ok, so i didn't sew a single thing on this... but since it's for a kid i figured it'd be better suited here.

i'll have action shots at the end of the month:)



also, the tutorial i used is here:http://vermillionrules.blogspot.com/2008/12/extremely-detailed-tutu-tutorial.html

I'm acutally not sure if this belongs here or not.... sorry if it's in the wrong spot! i couldn't find a real "accessory" section aside from the jewelry forum... and this isn't jewelery.

anywho. my daughter's first birthday is at the end of the month and i am crafting up all the party favors and such... i made her a tutu, will be making tissue paper pom poms to hang around the house, etc.

i  was at a loss for party favors though... i had all this extra tulle leftover and couldn't think of anything to do with it. Then i remembered seeing the fascinator tutorial on burdastyle and had to make kiddie sized fascinators for the 3 little girls who will be at the party. I still need to figure out how to get them to 'fasten' to their hair... hot glue them to a slim headband? a barrette?

anyway. here's the pics! and remember... it looks teeny on me because i have a ginormous adult head and these are for an almost 3, almost 4 and a 6 year old. so they need to be smallish.






that's one... two more to go. And then i need to figure something out for the 3 boys (about the same age as the girls) who will be at the party too... hmmm

thanks for lookin'!

after completing our wood flooring project a little over a year ago we kept all of the smaller scraps and stowed them away in a corner of our workroom. lately we've been on an incense burning binge but didn't have a burner to use... so at one point my boyfriend grabbed a small scrap of the flooring, drilled a hole diagonally in it and stuck the incense stick in there- voila!

i decided it needed to look a little less like scrap flooring, so i took our chisels and dremel tools to it, then sanded it down and used an oil topcoat finisher.





this is what we started with:

i'm sure this board has seen plenty of fleece soakers, but this is my first ever sewing project and i'm just too stoked about it and had to share