Make a Wedding
Today is Matt’s and my 1st anniversary.
Once we got home from the honeymoon last year I did a series of posts on the wedding, and one of the posts I wanted to do was on the crafty aspects. I never got around to it because it would make a long post and I was intimidated at the thought of all the how-to. I’m not going to make this a complete guide, but I thought it was worth at least highlighting all the things we and our friends made for the wedding, and share some of the cool photos I haven’t had a chance to share yet.
1. Flowers
I don’t like flowers. Wait. Let me reword that. I love flowers growing in the ground, or in pots, and I love plants of all kinds, but I’m no gardener, and I don’t really get the point of cutting flowers off their plants to die. I realize some flowers actually grow better if they’re cut, but the whole idea, especially for a wedding, sort of annoys me.
Initially I didn’t want flowers at all, but after thinking about it, I wondered if we could do some kind of steamerpunk-esque flowers, maybe with hinges, or clockwork moving parts, or… I got a little crazy in my imaginings. In fact I sort of let the whole idea go until I mentioned the idea to one of my Kims (we had two Kims and Maid of Honor Amy in the wedding) who said: “Ooh that will be so much fun, let’s do it.” Actually I’m not sure that’s how it happened, but she doesn’t read blogs so I figure I’m safe blaming her.
We took a trip to Pat Catan’s (like a cheaper version of Michaels) and just picked up a bunch of… parts. Cool metal looking buttons and beads, 3 colors of substantial foil, weird clock things, modeling clay, star sequins and all sorts of bits. We had a couple parties (by we, I mean Kim, who hosted everything) with Amy, both Kims, Jack and my brother Brian. After a bit of experimentation we gave up on the clay and mostly on the hinges. We did manage to get LED lights through the center of seven flowers on the bouquet, plus Matt’s button flower thing (whatever those are called, I refuse to try and spell it).
Making the flowers was not that bad, relatively speaking. I say this, because to be totally honest, Kim did most of the work. We rigged the bouquet up with a switch so I could turn the lights off, but the wiring got messed up somewhere and it didn’t work. We managed to “fix” it so that it was permanently on instead. I’m not sure when they eventually burned out, but when we got back from the honeymoon they were still burning bright.
There were three kinds of flowers: the lilies made from gold foil, the- I dunno- flower-flowers in copper foil, and the baby’s breath.
The baby’s breath was the easiest, though most tedious, and this is the only flower I ended up working on. All we did was take some of the thin jewelry wire, twist a couple silver or gold star confetti/sequins on the end, and twist it off. Eventually Kim discovered that it made more sense to do this seven or eight times per strand which saved a lot of time. This was somewhat unsatisfying, since the yield per time was pretty low, but they looked extremely cool. I think real baby’s breath is pretty useless stuff, but this shiny delicate spray was something else altogether. Kim made a more continuous strand of this as well, which she twisted in my hair.
The copper flowers were also pretty simple, and invented by the other Kim.
They cut copper foil into roughly flower shaped bits, folded away the sharp edges, and crinkled, then used the jewelry wire to thread on a textured silver button and twisted the whole thing onto cooking skewers.
The lilies were a bit more complicated as we wanted them to light up. Kim (the first Kim) used the gold and silver foil to cut out shapes the same way you would for paper flowers, but slightly more angular to keep with the metal look. As a plus, they kept their shape much easier than paper.
We wired up some long strands to the LED bulbs, gave them twisty stems from the thicker gauge wire, stuck them in the center of each flower, and sort of… sewed the whole thing together with the jewelry wire.
This was all far more complicated then it sounds, but it turned out amazingly beautiful. The guys got silver foil cala lily button flower things, with confetti/sequin deely-bob centers. These were much easier. Matt got another normal lily with copper foil, a light in the center, and the sole hinge, because we discovered that was just too much of a pain in the neck to do it for all the lilies. The bouquet took a CR2032 watch battery messily taped up in the center (we covered it with leather ribbon to make it pretty, and Matt’s took a very small watch battery (he doesn’t remember the serial number and I never knew it).
I was sort of shocked at how beautiful the flowers ended up; after buying three giant bags of STUFF I suddenly became positive that they were going to look like crappy cheesy foil things made of a bunch of… well, stuff. Instead they looked amazing. The end result of the flowers was AWESOME, in the literal sense, awe inspiring (I can say this since Kim made most of them).
We used the rest of the random craft bits to make charm bracelets for Amy, Kim, Kim and my sister-in-law Jen (just to clarify, she was not my sister-in-law at the time, being Matt’s sister) who was also in the wedding.
Which brings us to
2. Centerpieces
We wanted a non-traditional wedding. We got a priestess to marry us, I had henna (and am clearly not Indian, nor any other ethnicity that can claim it as heritage) Indian food, an Irish-punkrock band, had the ceremony AND reception in a zoo, and metal flowers we made ourselves. Also, I wore a blue dress, not white, and everyone else wore pretty much whatever they wanted.
So we clearly wanted to do things a little differently, and for that matter, not spend hours of our lives struggling with the decorations (we failed there, but oh well).
The wedding favors were just boxes of animal crackers in the old school Barnum boxes, which was possibly the easiest part of whole thing even with hand written labels (it ended up being easier than printing them believe it or not). The centerpieces presented a dilemma though.
There are ton of low cost, simple centerpieces that would have looked great, but I was unsure how much light there would be in the building, and thought local lights might be a good idea. We considered using those stupid dancing animals and creatures that hook up to ipods, hoping they’d light up and dance to the Irish music, but we weren’t sure we could make them work, and honestly they’d be small enough that they probably would have ended up looking kinda dumb in the middle of the table. The simplest (and probably least expensive) solution would have been a bunch of candles. I’ve seen a few arrangements online that are cheap and beautiful, but the zoo was kinda iffy about open flame, even in candles, and we didn’t feel like messing with it.
Soooo… I suggested light up trees. Because THAT’S easy.
Ikea had some cool LED lamps that inspired my idea, only they’re something like $60 which seemed like more than we wanted to pay, and are actually a bit larger then made any sense. So we collected various online guides to LED creations (couldn’t find any of the initial links we used, but guides are pretty easy to find) and got started. The construction was, in theory, simple. Wire frames (gauge about the same as a coat hanger, maybe a bit thicker) twisted together at the trunk, then branching out for the… branches. Long single strands of insulated wire with LEDs soldiered to the end, taped once around the connections, wound around the wire branches then taped again to hold them on the end.
Matt ordered some C battery holders, we got more switches (and these actually worked) we stuck in the batteries, taped the exposed wire with electrical tape, taped the whole battery mess with clear packing tape (to protect any unnoticed exposed parts) then stuck the whole thing in a glass cylinder and filled the whole thing with silver tinsel (which is why we needed to be so careful with the tape… the tinsel is actually made of metal and could cause some problems).
(BTW… worst definition EVER of cylinder: “Geometry. a surface or solid bounded by two parallel planes and generated by a straight line moving parallel to the given planes and tracing a curve bounded by the planes and lying in a plane perpendicular or oblique to the given planes.” from dictionary.com. I knew what a cylinder was before reading it, now I have no idea.)
I will say right off, that they looked fantastic on the tables at the zoo. There turned out to be plenty of light in the room, but they gave great mood lighting and may be the only centerpieces in the history of weddings that disappeared without the desperate couple urging guests, “please, take them!”
Matt and I managed to snag two (the one from our table was a bit different so I wanted one of the normal ones as well) but it took some effort to make sure we got them. I will also say that Jack and Kim once again came through like champs, letting us bury their home under wiring components for what might have been weeks.
The major thing I must say though, is that by the time we were almost finished with the second tree, we all wanted to scream, and if we hadn’t already paid money for all the electrical components (more than planned) and if we hadn’t been weeks away from the wedding, with no time really to come up with something better, we would have abandoned the whole thing to the depths of craft hell.
Oh yeah. Also. Our friends are amazing.
Anyway, Matt and I couldn’t really give up, and our friends were as mentioned, amazing, and stuck with us (possibly because it was the only way to get all the wiring crap out of their house, but still) so we sort of assembly lined it and eventually got all 10 trees finished (doesn’t sound like much, does it? You have NO idea).
I didn’t end up doing any of the wiring on this one either, instead I did all the tree structures (gloves and goggles both very necessary). With all the loose wires, batteries, and tape, the house looked like a bomb factory.
Each tree had 15 bulbs. We soldered all the positive wire ends together in one clump and the negative ends in another, then soldered them in place with the battery holders. As they were being put together, I started to worry that they all looked freakish, then decided I didn’t care, and eventually, realized they looked quite nice even if they didn’t quite look like my initial designs. I suppose the frustration was worth it, but if we’d known, we definitely would have chosen something easier.
Even so, I suppose as wedding work and wedding frustration and wedding decoration and wedding flowers goes, Matt and I got off pretty easy. I say weeks, but actually we got the trees done in just a few LONG sessions. Most of the wedding party chipped in to help with at least a bit, and Kim did most of the bouquet herself (she claims she enjoyed it, so I try not to feel too guilty). If we’d had ten friends (and maybe 5 soldiering irons) helping with the trees, we probably could have done it in a couple hours. As it was, the centerpieces ended up being the biggest headache of the whole wedding, so really, I guess I shouldn’t complain.
3. Other Bits
The flowers and trees were really the only wedding things we made ourselves (well that and our vows) but there were all sorts of other things provided by others.
When we mentioned we needed a broom (to jump over) for the ceremony, Kim (the other Kim) volunteered to make one, using broom grass and other plants from her garden. She tied everything together with cooper wire which sort of connected it with the flowers and centerpieces and all. My brother dug up a staff I’d picked up on a camping trip, left at his house and forgotten all about. The result was lovely, not quite dried, and is now hanging on our bedroom door (dry!) until we figure out where else we can put it. It looks very welcoming there, and we’d love to leave it where it is, but it gets a bit battered with all the opening and closing, so we should really put it somewhere safer soon.
I think I covered most of the other makers in posts last year, but just to re-mention… here goes:
There was the intricate henna for all the girls done by Lisa (also the person who married us) and then the gilding for me on the wedding day. Jeff, a talented local jeweler, custom made our rings from our ideas and his own, giving us something completely unique, and perfect for the two of us. Amy put together a surprisingly fun bridal shower (bridal showers are not my idea of fun) in spite of my inability to give her addresses until the very last minute. Kim (first Kim) helped me turn my dress from something shapeless to a surprisingly pretty roman looking thing (I’ve always said my dream wedding dress was one of the dresses Lucilla wears in Gladiator). The band we found (a month before the wedding!), the Mickey’s, kicked ass Irish rock style. The lady (owner I think) from Create-A-Cake listened patiently to my out there cake ideas, looked politely at unlikely sketches, turned them into something actually possible, and even seemed excited about it, which is always a plus. India Garden catered with super yummy Indian food and ended up taking over ALL the food and service details that Matt and I hadn’t really considered (table cloths, utensils, plates, servers, food warmers… they even provided plates for the cake) AND they gave me roses which was just amazingly sweet. Our family provided support and funding, which gave us the opportunity to have a dream wedding and honeymoon both. Finally, our friends John and Holly TOOK OVER the day-of planning, acting as guides for the guests and participants alike. Their generous intervention is probably all that saved our wedding from our lack of planning, which, I’ll be honest, was vast. They also found us our photographer, their daughter Willow, who did an amazing job.
I think that’s the real reason I wanted to post this today (and to be clear, I absolutely did NOT write it today, I’m busy celebrating with my husband). There are so many amazing people in our lives. I think of people I know with “frenemies” and I can’t imagine why. I read about people who cringe at their in-laws and am extremely grateful that I actually love mine. I guess everyone’s wedding is special to them, but I think ours will stay special to us, because it was about so many more people than just Matt and I. We have wonderful people to love and to love us, and we are both so thankful. Happy Anniversary.
*photos by Willow, Jack, Amy, etc.
Last year’s Wedding Posts:
Wild Wedding – Part 1 (posed photos)
Wild Wedding – Prepare (henna)
Wild Wedding – The Ceremony
Wild Wedding – Party Time
Celebrate (a VERY short honeymoon journal)
Slinking Suburbs
I heard a story on NPR the other day (ok, maybe the other week) about a weird trend in recent post bubble real estate, where realtors pay ACTORS to pretend to be neighbors in suburbs, with staged barbecues and invitations to nonexistent little league games, so that an empty neighborhood would seem to have people living there on Open House day. The feeling I got from the story, and that I get hearing people talk about suburbs in general, is that does not just represent the dishonesty of some realtors, it is an example of an atmosphere of duplicity that is increasingly associated with the suburbs in general.
Why does everyone hate the suburbs? Why have the suburbs come to represent all that is evil, all that is fake, soccer moms and security moms and helicopter parents and materialism? This annoys me, because as Matt and I start looking for a house I find myself having to defend our choice to look in pure suburbia.
Really I know the whys. One of the first culprits is Tim Burton. More specifically, Edward Scissorhands. I’m sure this movie wasn’t the first vision of suburban sameness, but the uniformly green grassed sameness has come to be part of popular consciousness, whether people realize it or not. The creepy echoes in Buron’s invented neighborhood are a fairly accurate reflection of many developments in post 1960s America, but they just as well describe the world of Camazots from Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Not exactly positive associations, as was clearly intended.
And that’s fine. The artificiality being satired in Edward Scissorhands absolutely exists, and it can often be found in the suburbs. The problem I have is with the modern assumption that the suburbs are the cause. I grew up in Eugene, Oregon, a small enough city that it might as well be a suburb of itself. In my memory I lived in two different houses that were both cookie-cutter floorplans resulting from Eugene’s relatively rapid expansion. In spite of this supposed “sameness,” there was NEVER during my childhood, any sense of conformity in the homes around me. I’ve seen developments where the only difference from one house to the next is the paint color or a window shape, or a brick pattern. In the neighborhoods where I grew up, there was no need to fight for differentiation, because in spite of the repeated architecture, there was no standard look that the residents needed to fight against or conform to.
The sameness we find, I think comes from desire rather than actual similarities. The reason is not the location (suburbs), it’s that keeping-up-with-the-Joneses race that probably helped get us into the whole real estate mess in the first place. I need a bigger, more perfect house, because the neighbors have one. He needs a BMW because his cousin just bought one. It’s stupid, and it has nothing to do with a place, it has everything to do with people.
Matt and I eventually want to live in a house with a bit of land around it, in a safe neighborhood, with decent schools (since we’ll eventually be having kids) and less than an hour commute to the city. These are really not ridiculous wants, and the obvious answer, the only answer, is the suburbs. We hope to keep a garden that grows as much of our food as possible, maybe put up some solar panels or even small windmills, to keep energy costs down. I grew up with a backyard and I want my kids to have one too. We’d like some sort of woodland nearby. Basically, we want a compromise between urban and rural living.
If the human race is to survive into the 23th century, or the 30th century, I imagine someday we’ll all end up living in cities. This is (or could be) the most sustainable way to live, and at some point we won’t have a choice. In suburbs, people use hours worth of gas daily getting to and from work, burn up heat in poorly insulated homes, and spend gallons of water on uselessly green lawns. Maybe that’s why living in the suburbs is so detestable: the seizing of privacy, of space, of control and resources may well be selfish. I am occasionally drawn to the idea of living in an urban environment, with rooftop gardens and shops downstairs. There is appeal, until I remember that I can’t breathe after a few hours in New York, that I get itchy when I hear my neighbors through paper-thin walls, that the only thing I would own of the outside is a door. Someday I hope, large buildings will be planned with more public space, more green space, more space in general to keep us sane. Right now urban living is fun for some, but not a life I can imagine.
Ultimately, the life I’m seeking may not be sustainable. Suburbs, and most rural life, may fade away as energy sources dwindle and people are forced to huddle together for conservation. My response to that is to try and make a life with as small a footprint as possible, mainly to assuage the guilt that we’re contributing to the problem. I do think it’s possible to enjoy living in a dense population, I just don’t think it’s possible for me, today. I can only hope that by the time we have no choice, urban designers have come up with ways to make living wall to wall more tolerable.
*First photo by Wildernice, all others by me.
Chicago Coffee
I meant to write this post after our last trip to Chicago, then I forgot all about it. Fortunately, when Matt and I went back to Chicago last week (ok, two weeks ago?) and I remembered again.
We found this funky coffee shop somewhere near Evensville. In terms of design elements, the main thing that caught my attention was the use of coffee mugs: they had an entire segment of wall pegged with non-matching mugs. 
There were a few pretty ones I guess, but most were nothing special. They weren’t all that different from a collection you might expect to find in a less organized home cubbord. Some of them were pretty dated, some were downright ugly, though not ugly enough to be really special, if you know what I mean. The total effect was interesting. The fact that they didn’t match just made the collection more impressive, it looked fun and eclectic, and really matched the feel of the coffee house. Also, eco-friendly– using obviously recycled mugs instead of buying new ones or using cardboard cups– which is nice.
Another feature I liked was a more common coffee shop element, a collection of for-sale artwork hanging on the walls. This is a great, probably free (or even profit making) way to decorate a coffee shop that also supports local artists (I assume local) which is fantastic. 
I love to see businesses helping each other, realizing that it’s possible for more than one party to profit at once; not everything is competition.
I’m not sure whether it’s a common occurrence, but the night we were there, a drum circle was practicing/preforming. When they started out I thought I was going to have to leave, the rhythm wasn’t all that, well, rhythmic, and it was unbearably loud. Pretty quickly though I got used to the noise level and, more importantly, the drummers warmed up, and pretty soon I was really enjoying it.
While I was there I did some sketching:
Edit: Sketches added in later post.
Day of Drawing
Haven’t had any time to come up with any deep topics to share today, I’ve been working on a project for someone. I thought maybe people might like to take a look at my process, though I don’t think it’s necessarily much different from the process most artists use.
One possible difference is my reliance on hard pencils. Most people sketch with a soft pencil becuase it’s easy to change and intended for dark, loose lines. I use a hard pencil from habit, when I’m being more diligent I use a softer pencil like I’m “supposed to” and I recognize that it actually does work better, but I just like the paler line.
Before I ink I like to put in as much detail with pencil as I can, even though I’m often disappointed at having to get rid of all the graphite lines. I love the look of the graphite lines along with the ink, but leaving the pencil is usually not an option because by the time I get there I’ve managed to smudge and overwork all the pencil.
I guess one option would be to add in the “sketch” lines after it’s been inked and erased, but that seems a little dishonest. Still, I guess art is all about visual tricks.
One of the weirder things about drawing is you end up with all these bizarre photos of yourself in strange poses. I occasionally use Poser, a software program, to give me anatomical dimensions, but sometimes a photo just works better, and often I’m the only model around. At least my current camera makes taking goofy self portraits easier.
I may post the finished drawing here later, I haven’t yet decided. I’d like to share, but this one might be sort of private.
Even if I don’t, there will be more drawings here soon. Once I finish re-writes on my novel, I’ll be spending much more time on sketching and finished artwork for my portfolio. I told my current advisor that I’d have those done by the end of January. When I actually think about that it sounds a little bit INSANE, which is why I try not to think about it. Actually I need to get quite a few things done by the end of January, and I’m really trying not to notice that it’s already the 22nd. Deadlines are necessary but painful. Sometimes I envy my cat.
New Header Image
Well I guess that’s pretty obvious really. New header image, see? (*psst* look up!)
Up until yesterday night the header image for my blog was the default image that came with the Emptiness theme. It was a nice nature image, tree branches or something, but since this is supposed to be my blog, and since I’m supposedly creative, I figured I ought to get my own image up there as soon as possible. So there it is!
If it doesn’t look awesome, that’s not my fault. I spent five hours trying to position it where I wanted it, and it still won’t look right to everyone. More specifically, if you see a white stripe cutting across the top of the tree, it means you’re viewing this site in Internet Explorer. Eventually I’ll fix that, but right now I’m designing for Mozilla because it’s a better browser, IE still has lots of quirks (including rendering my header image wrong). Eventually I’ll figure out how to fix that, but for now I’m kinda stuck. I’d suggest downloading Mozilla, not only so you can view my blog in it’s full “glory” but because it’s an easier browser to use, generally more correct, and less virus prone. If you happen to be using any other browsers than Mozilla or IE and my blog looks weird, please let me know so I can take it into consideration during design.
I want to keep the clean, open feeling of this blog theme, but I’m planning on adding a 4th column (that’s right FORTH) to the left side, for ads and other, less commercial applications. I’m hoping I can do that just by tweaking Emptiness, but I may end up having to start from scratch, which could be tricky since I don’t know PHP, am barely proficient in CSS and am still unsure of the difference between XHTML and HTML. Anyway, if you have ideas or suggestions of things you’d like to see in the design of this blog I’d appreciate the input.
You can see an underdrawing of the header image in an earlier blogpost. Eventually I’d like to replace the default avitar on the side of each blog post (the pink thing under my name) with different hand drawn avitars for different categories. Currently it’s set to display a photo for different authors, but since I’m the only author here, that’s not actually necessary. I’m not sure if that hack is possible, but I’m going to try. Ideally, the category avitars would be in a similar style to the header image, and could help to tie the whole thing together. We’ll see. I also need to figure out how to tie the blog into my overall website.
Shopping for the Economy
Technically, most of the shopping probably did more harm than good. Since almost all the money we spent today came in the form of giftcards from the wedding, we’re pretty much taking away money from stores. I think Macys can probably handle it though. 
In addition to a few somewhat more practical purchases, Matt and I got to buy some pretties. We’re probably most excited about the dishes we found, which are actually the only thing we ended up spending our own money on, since we didn’t have any gift cards for World Market. We bought ten, in hopes that it will see us through breaking a couple, and last a good long time. I love the pattern on them, which the lable claims is a “modernized cherry blossom print” but to me looks like some of the nicer 70s style illustrations. It reminds me a bit of this garden illustration from Outiart. Anyway, now we have cool plates! Somewhat dampening the excitement is the fact that we’re going to keep them in a box for about a month. Sometime in February I’m going to take a week and paint the kitchen, which badly needs it. It’s hard to see in the photo, but the wall is a pinkish with darker rose poorly sponged on top, the cabinets are a butter yellow, and the cabinet doors are sage green. It’s not as repulsive as it ought to be with that color combo, but it’s not good either.
One purchase from today that we WILL be using immediately is the biggest pot I’ve ever seen. It’s a 20 gallon stew pot, which we’ll be using tomorrow to make split pea soup (in a quantity which will barely reach the bottom 1/10th of the pot). 
This is somewhat useful now, though it makes our standard size range look like doll furniture, but it will be especially helpful in few years if we can get an extra freezer. Matt and I like to make soups and such to store then eat later, but right now we just don’t have the space to pre-make more than a couple meals at a time. Still, it’s a (comically) cool looking pot. We registered for, and already got, a whole set of these bulbous styled pots, stainless steel with thick bottoms and really neat looking. They look like the kinds of pots you’d see on movie set of olden days, or possibly in a hobbit hole. They’re fun. Normally I’m not a huge fan of shopping, but it’s more enjoyable for me when I’m shopping for house stuff rather than clothes. Especially when the money we’re spending isn’t real money. Gift cards officially rock.
Wild Wedding – Prepare
Any wedding takes a great deal of preparation. We tried to squeeze most of that into the two weeks before the day.
Photo by me.
One of the only things we did get done ahead of time was the rings. The wedding bands and engagement ring were custom designed by Broestl & Wallis Fine Jewelry a jeweler in Lakewood. He worked with drawings and photos we brought in and came up with something unique. They’re beautiful.
Photo by Amy.
Lisa, the woman who preformed our ceremony, is also a henna artist.
For Matt and I there is no particular cultural significance to henna, I just wanted the henna stains because they’re pretty.
Henna stains are made by applying a thick paste on the skin, which is left on as long as possible. I got henna on my left hand all the way up to the upper arm, my left hand, and both feet and ankles.
Photo by Amy.
It took about two hours just to get the left arm finished. She left my ring finger blank, designed around where the ring would go.
Photo by Amy.
There was something fascinating about watching the pattern unfold under Lisa’s henna packet.
Photo by Amy.
We did the henna three days before the wedding because that’s about the time it should take to get the maximum stain.
In order to get a really dark stain, you need to leave the henna paste on as long as possible. Lisa recommended keeping it on overnight. That meant we needed to protect it somehow which we did by spraying it with, I think just hairspray, and then taping it up.
I sort of looked like a burn victim, which was interesting at dinner that night.
Photo by Amy.
All my bridesmaid’s also got henna.
Photo by Amy.
The henna got a little darker each day. By the day of the rehearsal, it was a nice rich brown.
Photo by Morgan.
It was even a little bit darker the day of the wedding.
Photo by Willow.
At some point on the wedding day, Matt and I realized we still needed a candle for the ceremony. I was busy being painted and such, so Matt hit a craft store and managed to come up with a candle holder that not only protected the zoo carpet from any melted wax, but also fit in nicely with our steampunk theme.
With Matt’s sister Jen I went down to Lisa’s at about noon to start getting gilded. For my face Lisa put a vine pattern up my cheek, with jewels glued up the length.
She used a black ink, but for some reason it looked more like green, which ended up looking really cool.
Photo by Amy.
There was also glitter. I love glitter, it’s one of my secret girly pleasures.
Photo by Morgan.
She used golds, silvers, and bits of green to gild my hands arms and ankles, and also added jewels in the flower centers.
Photo by Morgan.
Jen got a pattern in black (and glitter!) along her back. She couldn’t get henna with the rest of the girls because she lives several hours away, so I’m glad she could go and get something.
The ink is called harquus and was traditionally used for temporary face tattoos. Lisa has books and books full of henna patterns, indigo patterns and harquus. She also has a photo page with her work which I would highly recommend looking through.
Everyone kind of teamed up to help me figure out what to do with myself.
Photo by Amy.
We wrapped pearl and bronze colored ribbon around my dress which was otherwise a pretty but shapeless blue dress from Folk Ways in Eugene.
After wrapping the ribbon around me, we realized that even though it looked cool, it wouldn’t stay put if I, you know, moved.
Fortunately Jen had a sewing kit with her (she knits beautiful scarves and bags that she sells in a Jewelry shop) and she fixed me up.
Photo by Amy.
Kim worked for a while on my hair, which is good since I’m pretty useless when it comes to anything hair related.
After a few trials, she ended up doing this cool wrappy thing using wire and little silver stars.
Everyone spent so much time making me wedding worthy that we ended up scrambling a bit to get to the zoo on time. We ended up being late, not becuase of our preparations, but because of traffic, but we got there soon enough to do the important thing.
Photo by Amy.
A Big Box of ADHD
Sometimes I have trouble focusing. Most of the time actually. My high school coach warned me about burning the candle at both ends, a college professor recommended Zen meditation. By now I’ve learned that a necessary part of life is making choices, and that means sometimes letting a few of the things you’d like to do go to the wayside.
I think I’ve done that, but then I look at all the things I still want to do RIGHT NOW. I’m in the process of rewriting my novel and when that one’s done, I’ll need to find a publisher and start on book 2. I have plans to start a webcomic about the back story, and another graphic novel I’m trying to work on with my brother. I’ve recently decided that I should probably be trying to get some illustration work in children’s literature, so I need to pump up my portfolio in that area, and really, my portfolio needs work all around. Of course I also have to make some changes to my website since all the artwork on there now is pretty outdated and I have to make some changes to my blog. There are a few other website ideas I’ve been meaning to get started, including an art blog index, a challenge blog of monster art, a webzine for junkers and a few bigger projects. I have a fencing Tournament with a capital T in less than two weeks so I should be training for that, plus I need to get my epees in working order and make sure that I have all the other equipment I need. I’ve got a few short stories I’d like to write, a couple nonfiction pieces I should get started on, and a nonfiction book idea that I think has a lot of potential. Also, I want to learn to program.
You should see all the wishes I cut out.
The problem is I’ve trimmed my goals as much as I’m willing, and now I’m convinced that if I can just sit down and FOCUS, it’s possible to get it all done. The trouble is, the more I try to do, the more quickly I get overwhelmed and too often I end up doing nothing at all.
So. I made this box.
This is my ADHD box. The theory is that my lack of focus doesn’t HAVE to be a bad thing. Afterall since when is it bad to have diverse interests and skills?
I’m hoping this box can be the organization that my brain is lacking. This is meant to keep me from getting overwhelmed. I can work on whatever I want, so long as I’m working on something.
I started by finding a box that would let me compartmentalize my goals. I eventually found a wooden jewelry box from Pat Catans that was perfect and got started on painting it be something FUN to use. Note: if you are the person looking for more focus, you might want to skip this part. This project has been a two-month long excuse for procrastination.
I separated the different things I want to work on into 8 categories with “time” in the center.
In terms of prioriries, getting my novel finished so I can graduate is pretty high up there, so for a while the novel drawer will be seeing the most action. Still, I can only correct my own grammer for so many hours before I go insane, so with an organizational structure in place I should be able to get a lot more done than I have in the past. It’s so easy to waste time when you’re not keeping track so this is a crucial first step.
What I’ve done is put all my hours for a week into the center drawer: time. When I work on something for an hour, I move a button, or coin or whatever from the time drawer to whatever I’ve been working on. That way even if I’m “in progress” I feel like I’ve accomplished something, which helps keep me going. I may have to put caps on some things so I don’t spend all my time “brainstorming” but I think this is going to be an enourmous help. It’s simple, but it’s also a powerful visual reminder, which is exactly what I need.
I think this could be helpful for other people who have trouble focusing, especially kids with ADHD. It doesn’t have to be a box, just something visual and tangible. It could be a series of jars with marbles to drop into different subjects. A re-purposed connect 4 board, with each row a different activity. That one would be even more satisfying because at the end of the week you’d get to dump all the hours to start over again.
The point is, having lots of hopes shouldn’t be a bad thing. There’s no rule that says I have to work on things consecutively just because that’s what most people do. If this works I think my distractibility could finally be an asset, allowing me to express all my varied potential, rather than a liability holding me hostage to my own whims.
Bazaar Bizarre – The Strange and the Fine
Just a few more artists I wanted to mention from Bazaar Bizarre last weekend, then I can go back to my normal tangential (as opposed to secant-al) ramblings.
In addition to the energetic collection of colorful crafts, there were many things at the Bazaar that were a bit off the beaten path. Or on the beaten path, as is the case of the beaten metal and wire (and beyond) jewelry of Valerie Tyler Designs, some of the more elegant jewelry I’ve seen. It’s very different from the kind of thing you could expect to find in a mall corner store, but every bit as fitting for a formal occasion.
The jewelry of Oh Melisa is maybe not quite so suited to a black tie event, but the steampunk-esk pieces still have a formal, classic look to them that I love. They were also one of my husband’s favorites of the day. We tried to give our wedding party a steampunk look (photos soon, I swear) so maybe it’s an emotional connection, but the jewelry and presentation have a stand alone beauty beyond any attachment we might give it.
Another favorite of Matt’s was the felted head from I Felt Like It. Actually, all he said was: “Oh wow, can we have a felted head like this for our house?” but I think that means he liked it. I also approve, and agreed that we’d have to find a place for one in the house of our future. Personally I think it would look great hanging below the gargoyle, but we might need to pick of a few other oddities to complete the look.
Somewhere else in our future house, we’ll have to find a place for some of these lamps from Kirkiture. They’ve got that lovely stark Japanese look to them, and the gentle way the light bleeds through them gives me a feeling of calm. I think they’d look great in a bedroom or library, or anywhere that’s meant to seem quiet. I expect we’ll have a bedroom before we have a library, but since we’re intending to turn most of our living space into a library-ish space eventually, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to fit in these cool wooden lamps.
Then we came across some wings made by Faerystone Creations that would make either a great part of a Halloween costume or a neat ceiling hanging.
Ok, honestly I’d buy some and wear them around all the time, but I’d be afraid they’d get broken. They remind me of the wings I saw sold at a Renn Faire this summer, but I don’t think they are made by the same people. These are simpler, and more stylized, and I think a bit more adventurous. Check out the green leaf wings and ice faery wings on their website… very unique and beautiful.
I would also like to mention Psycho Reindeer, the only booth where we actually ended up spending money (I got a kick-ass dead Pac-Man T-shirt and Matt got a shirt with a creepy owl), and Supernova Design which had some awesome pirate-y art, which is, you know, always good, and also lots of other pretty engraved work.
I’m glad I went this year. Even though I knew the disappointing sights last year were caused by our bad timing rather than the Bazaar itself, it put a crimp in the excitement leading up to this one. Now I am cured of that worry and looking forward to next year without reservation. Who knows, by then maybe I’ll have something of my own to contribute? I doubt it, but stranger things have happened.
Bazaar Bizarre – The Clever
Any modern craft show is going to have a huge number of creative people. Even people who stick with traditional crafts, where innovation is not the purpose, are pretty much guaranteed to have some artistic qualities, or else they wouldn’t be so interested in creating. With a show like Bazaar Bizarre though, the room is just packed with people who are pushing the boundaries of their crafts, always trying to be the first to come up the next new thing.
Often I’ll flip through some crafty magazine and come across something interesting, something I’ve never seen done before. Just once. Then two months later it’s suddenly in EVERY craft themed magazine. The same thing happens with new ideas in organizing and storage magazines. So I always love that first new moment, when you see something you’ve never seen before, just before it explodes into popular notice.
These nostalgic bags from ConTrive are a pretty good example of that feeling I think. In spite of the fact that those juice (I use juice in the loosest sense of the word) pouches are extremely durable, so durable they broke the straw half the time, it never would have occurred to me to turn them into an actual bag. If I were going to buy one I’d go with Capri Sun (not pictured) since that’s the kind of juice drink I preferred as a kid. They’re rather cute and definitely attention grabbing, and I suspect over the coming months we’ll see many more repurposed food packages like this, if it hasn’t started already. The only downside is I suspect these bags are no longer water tight.
Then there’s these plastic things from PhilosoPhrets. I love that they’re unusual enough that the creator felt the need to include a “what the heck are these?” sign in his display. The explanation didn’t quite cut it for me, but I suspect anyone musical would get it without any trouble. As I understand it, the boxes go outside of a device that adds weird effects (wammy?) to guitars.
Somehow, I don’t think these will catch on quite as quickly as the KoolAid bags, not because they’re less cool, (though possibly less Kool), but because the potential audience is much smaller. These boxes are beautiful, and actually I can see having them just as decoration, but I think for the most part the niche is limited to people who, you know, play guitar. Musicians who can afford luxuries like art. On the other hand, artistically painted guitars sell for a whole bunch of money, so who knows? Maybe the next Craft Magazine will be full of painted guitar effects enclosures.
Finally, my favorite new idea from the weekend, these bangle style bracelets from Sassyfrass. The bracelets are bent out of knitting needles.
I love the simplicity behind the idea, and the shiny metal finish used for most knitting needles is actually quite pretty and contemporary looking. I’m also impressed with the method used for displaying it, which immediately caught my eye.
It’s been a lot of fun to watch the craft movement over the last couple years: a combination of green attitudes wanting to reuse the old and the desire to create something new and different. Maybe eventually, I’ll move from spectator to participant, but for now I’m really enjoying the view from the sidelines.
Related: Bazaar Bizarre, Bazaar Bizarre – The Cute
