Robin's Handmade Wedding

I got to help our friend Robin plan her wedding, which incorporated as much handmade and DIY as possible.  The venue was a converted farm, so everything was very country-kitsch. These re-purposed pallets were painted with black chalkboard paint for use as directional signs.  The lettering was done with chalk pens.

Another friend of hers makes beer, and so made them a custom brew for the wedding.

Instead of a traditional guest book, Robin elected to do a signature quilt and a thumbprint tree.  She and I went together to pick out her fabrics, then I cut all the squares and brought them to the wedding for the guests to sign.  When she gets done reading them all, she'll send them back to me and I'll get it all put together.  (More on that later.)  For the signature tree, yet another friend of hers drew a picture of "their" tree in Michigan, where Matt proposed.

Our friend Sam, who also did the flowers for her wedding last summer, made the burlap roses using this tutorial over the winter.  Then they ordered fresh flowers from a local wholesaler.  Sam did all of the flower arrangements the Friday and Saturday before the wedding.

 

Robin and a few of her bridesmaids made the bouquets.

And of course, I did the jewelry.

As always, I had a lot of fun designing the jewelry with the bride.  I know I've said it before, but I love working with someone on a custom piece.  Sadly, the photographer hasn't finished with her official wedding photos, so we'll have to make do with the ones that I took.

But you get the idea.

The wedding itself was lovely, if a little cold. 

 I was honored to be able to be such a big part of it all.

Congratulations, Matt and Robin!  Here's to a lifetime of happiness for you both!

Thinking Inside the Box

We just got some new scrapbook papers in  The Shop this week, and I fell in love with them.  I had to have a few of them, at least, even though I haven't done any paper scrapping since last February.  (Seriously, it's been that long.)  But, as Kelly pointed out in her digi-scrap class on Saturday, there are other things you can do with scrapbook papers.  Things like decoupage.  

I am a pack rat.  I can't throw anything away, not if I think I might be able to use it later.  In this case, it actually served me well.  I'd held on to a pair of boxes that had once contained Godiva chocolates, thinking that I could use them for wrapping gifts.  Instead, I decided to re-wrap them.  So,

plus

 with a little bit of

 equals

Ta-da!  I used one of the papers from Kaisercraft's Utopia Collection for the top, and a sage green from my stash for the bottom.  I love it!  I loved it so much that I did another one.

I'm not liking this one as much.  I love the top (this time from the Tea at Elsie's Collection, also by Kaisercraft) and I love the bottom (another from my stash)--but independently.  They just don't look as good together as I thought they would.  I guess that means I'm just going to have to go to the PX and get another box of chocolates, so I can make matching mates for those mismatched box halves.

Darn.