You can fool the fans - but not the players.... John Cage

There's just something about visiting the place where it all happens...

Last week I was with my co-workers wandering the halls of the state capital. We went to meet with representatives that work with communities in the Sierra, something we do about once a year just to remind them that we are here. There is something about being in the capital, any capital, that fascinates me because this is where it all happens - the lobbying, the arguing, the decisions that affect us in our little towns.

 

 

I love all the old buildings, the history, the pomp and circumstance. I like walking around the Capital area of Sacramento and all the detail of the buildings. I like the hoardes of school kids getting a lesson in politics.

 

There are two parts to the Capital building in Sacramento - a historic, rennovated section and a newer section. Of course I like wandering around the older section. There are a couple of politico offices decked out in period decor that a visitor may peer into; elevators with big, ornate, brass doors; and wide halls with high ceilings.

 

Things are "grand" in the capital... and reminiscent of a much more formal era.

 

We were successful, too, in meeting with legislative staffers and talking about a few of the issues that hit home with Sierrans... the water bond, funding for low and moderate income housing.

We had lunch at Magpie Catering

 

We've used this catering company when we've hosted the Vision Awards at the Leland Stanford Mansion and they are excellent....

 

Lunch was excellent too.

 

I wanted to take this bike home with me

 

only it belonged to someone else, was chained to a post, and I was in a carpool with three other people.

 

Still, one can dream.

 

Just one day in the city, that's all I need. A shot of brick and iron, a few photos of an older time.

 

And one or two treats...

 

that aren't easily found in a small town.

We packed our bags before evening traffic and were heading back up to the Sierra as the sun went down... happily returning to our rural homes.

No time to write - what is up with that?

I have been driving a lot and when I'm not driving there is so much to be done - classes to teach and all the responsibilities around that, the house that continues to be cluttered with post-wedding and whatnot, and then the pup (that isn't a pup) any more went into heat. I am constantly doing laundry now as I have towels spread over everything.

 

And of course in our little town there USED to be three pet stores and now there is only one, and when I went to get the little doggie underwear that helps keep everything confined - they were out of them. Really? So all the dogs in the valley went into heat at the same time? Geez.

Anyway, I wound up having to rig something up that requires constant fussing and works only marginally - so I am still doing laundry constantly.

 

This too shall pass.

So many ideas are floating around in my head asking to be made real. The studio is calling big time. Other things are under control - the mare is being ridden, a big project at work is completed. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I'll be back soon, really.

Wrapping up the wedding - part 2

Time to put this baby to rest for awhile! We're married already. I'm sure that as photos continue to trickle in there are elements that I'd like to post. I don't have any photos of how beautiful the lodge looked except glimpses here and there.

 

While I was drinking champagne and having my make-up done, there was an army of family and friends transforming the lodge and the cafe into wedding wonderland. And just my style with plenty of pine boughs, little white lights, handmade goodness. Hopefully some lodge photos will find their way to me and I will post them.

 

The lighting wasn't the best for photos in the lodge - it was mainly lit with our branch light arrangements and candles, so most of the photos were taken over at the reception. We didn't have a traditional wedding photographer but a friend generously stepped in and took some posed photos of us so that we would have something to grace the cover of a photo album should I ever have time to do one.

Over in the cafe Michelle and her staff had already transformed the look of the place from everyday eaterie to winter lodge and then the army began the finishing touches.

 

The table arrangments,

 

the snow globes,

 

and the finishing touches (thought of last minute) of mason jars with artificial snow and the flameless candles on each table. Adding just that little bit of glow.

I hope someone got a photo of the cupcakes. We had them on silver trays, we had them on the tiered servers I made from vintage plates, we had  black pin-striped boxes for take-home cupcakes. We had carrot cake, chocolate with salted caramel frosting, and red velvet.

The DJ was a hit and he got us on the dance floor early and often.

There was a lady's dance, a men's dance and the chicken dance. There was the obligatory "YMCA" dance. There was the first dance, the father-daughter dance, the money dance. And so many people got up and danced!

 

The photo booth was a huge hit. I wished I'd gone in there with each and every person but kept getting pulled away back to the dance floor. And I'm loving looking through the files on our computer. We're going to market and rent our booth locally, and we are going to sell kits for other DIYers. We learned a lot from building this booth and want to make it easier on other DIY brides and grooms.

At the last minute I decided I didn't want a guest book and went looking online for alternatives. We decided on cutting quilt squares and asking our guests to sign them.

 

There was a table set up in the store adjoining the cafe, where the photo booth resided, and enough light and space there to sit down and focus on a square. We'll send those off to a quilter friend and ask her to do her magic.

I wish I could hit the rerun button and do it all again. So much of the day and the evening are a blur. I suppose that is what the photos are for, and the few videos that were shot.

All the work was worth it. The flowers turned out wonderfully, the details were pretty much as I'd hoped, and everyone seemed to have a good time - which really was the goal. All through the planning we'd kept our eye on that one objective. We wanted our friends to come to celebrate with us and leave with wonderful memories of a fun, happy evening.

 

We're getting back to normal life and these posts will return to horses, dogs and making things. What shall I focus on next?

Wrapping up the wedding posts - part 1

I really can't believe it is over. So many months of thinking, planning and preparation and now, like Christmas ten times over, it is in the past. I'm not sad about that, but a little amazed and a little unsettled. Planning and doing for the wedding has been so much a part of my life the last 12 months.

The week following the wedding was a busy one with family trailing off day by day until Tuesday, when the last loaded-up car drove away. Then I had to hop in a car and drive away for three days of work. Friday night JC and I heaved a sigh of relief, looked around at the heaps of wedding stuff piled around the house and made tackling it a priority for the weekend.

The flowers turned out so pretty in the end and I really didn't have to make many more of the knit flowers - just some smaller gray ones for my bouquet. My flower geniuses had lots of filler and ribbon and tulle to make magic with.

 

It was gorgeous and not over the top. And something I can keep for a long time. The guys wore boutonnieres of coffee filter roses:

 

There were a lot of last-minute details to finish and I ended up abandoning my ideas for printing itineraries for the weekend, menus, paper placemats, etc. My advice for the DIY bride? Get all this stuff out of the way EARLY. No doubt you know what is on the menu for the wedding dinner months in advance so there is no excuse for waiting (like I did) until the end. It will end up on the cutting room floor. And you know what? No one missed it but me.

I can't remember what night this was - Wednesday or Thursday... but we were stamping signs and making labels for the cigars...

I bought gray matboard and used white acrylic paint to stamp these and they turned out okay... I could have used a size of alphabet stamp somewhere in between the really large ones here and the next size down I had, which was quite a bit smaller. Again, if I had started this task earlier I would have had the opportunity to find just the right size stamp but at the last minute, in a small town, that isn't going to happen. You work with what you have.

 

JC and my father cut out and printed the labels for the cigars, which were favors for the guys. JC had this humidor already and found a good deal on decent cigars on the internet. Some of these were consumed on Friday night out by the fire pit, but some made it to the wedding.

My dad and mom II had been here all week helping us to prepare, and the rest of the family began arriving a day or two before the wedding. We had planned a catered event at our house on Friday night to take the place of a rehearsal dinner and to give everyone a chance to visit before the wedding. I had the house cleaned on Wednesday, we started carting things up to the venue on Friday (we had a cabin for two nights that became a storage unit on Friday), and by Friday night the party was in full swing.

 

We hired a fabulous caterer and she was a one-woman show - pouring wine, heating and assembling food, clearing plates, cleaning up. She was awesome and so was the food she served. It was all a blur to me but a good blur - the blur of laughter, wine, family, friends from far away, and happiness.

Only one of my sisters was missing and not for lack of trying. She fell victim to the fickle forces of nature and the airlines.... her flight was cancelled Friday afternoon and then again Saturday morning. She was (and we were) bitterly disappointed.

The rest of the sisters and the lone brother were here and it was a rare opportunity for catching up. Of course no one thought to pull us all together for one big family portrait - so we have bits and pieces.

I don't have all the photos from Friday night yet and I hope there are more of our friends eventually... and I'm just now wading through what I do have. I thought this Friday night event was really fun and worthwhile. It gave us all the chance to hang out before the wedding. And there were some opportunities for priceless photos.

 

Such fun.

And finally, the day of the wedding. We were blessed with snow. Unbelievable. A gift completely unexpected and fleeting - but it did last the wedding and a few days beyond.

The photo booth was assembled and tested...

...and I have to continue this post later as this is as far as I've gotten with the photo editing...

Stay tuned for part II!

Post-wedding post

Snow for our wedding and snow all the way down to the valley floor to welcome me back to reality.

As family old and new slowly leaves in waves, I am beginning to look around, sort, clean, assess, and whatever other verbs apply to what you do post-wedding. Re-group.

 

By late this morning we will be back to just us and I feel a whopper of a cold coming on. I will be slamming the zinc and trying to nip it in the bud... who needs a cold to end such a wonderful week?

 

With no more wedding to plan I can turn my attention back to horses, weather permitting...

 

This one in particular is coming along so well and I want to keep "us" going. Which mostly means keeping me on her back without big gaps in riding.

 

I am so happy that it snowed - I really thought it was too late to hope for any this low. It might be the only snow this year, but then again, who knows? It has been such a weird winter.

 

We just don't get it all that often and it was truly frosting on the cake.

 

I'll be wrapping up the wedding in a couple of posts and moving on to other things... it feels good to be married and to have our household returning to normal.

Watching the flower magicians.

Some people are able to see order out of chaos... some people are merely able to supply the raw materials. Yesterday I was an assistant to two women taking all these piles of fabric, thrift store flowers, weeds, and paper and making beautiful arrangements.

 

Almost everything was used up.... and almost everything was completed in an afternoon.

Bouquets....

 

A wreath...

 

table arrangements...

 

centerpiece...

 

corsages and boutonnieres...

 

and floor arrangements just waiting for the pine boughs.

I am completely thrilled with how these turned out and I never would have known how to pull all these materials together. And in such a short amount of time. I am truly blessed to have these people in my life and willing to help me.

Then my dad and JC worked on the guy favors...

It is all coming together.

Wedding flowers are out the door

We were busy yesterday and sent most of the flowers out the door to VR's house in preparation of a flower workday today. It is strange not seeing all my knit flowers lined up, but I had a few left to make, along with painting the roses. Thank goodness I have help right now in the form of my Mom II.... who has diligently sat and rolled roses and mums.

We drove up to our venue to meet with Michelle, who has been so accommodating and kind. I'm trying not to turn into 'bridezilla' although I feel myself short tempered at times and am getting increasingly tired. We are all excited about the lodge and how it will look with the lights and the pine boughs and the decorations I've made and we'll make today....

 

The sachets arrived and they are breathtaking. If only Southern Charm and I lived closer together  - we could really make an business together. These I am particularly happy with and they have the mark of both of us on them.

 

Mom II got into making some smaller roses, more bud-like, and it was time to paint them last night. I have to say that getting the watercolors out, mixing colors and painting was so satisfying and I'd love to start painting again, even if only in a journal.

 

These show the roses a little damp still - but the base color is a creamy white... and I used white gouache with just a little yellow oxide added, and very watery. A flat brush and the petals went really quickly.

Then I mixed up a brownish red using burnt sienna, raw sienna and a little alizarin crimson with much less water and touched just the edges. The coffee filters take the paint really easily and with the petals already damp there is a nice bleed to the edges.

 

It takes awhile for them to dry so today we'll curl the edges again and take them with us to VR's for arranging.

I really can't wait to see the arrangements now... and the bouquets, boutonnieres, and anything else we think of.

By tomorrow evening everything that is going to be made will be made. Once the family starts rolling in there will only be time for doing - arranging, transporting, installing, hanging, etc. I hope I can power through - one of my classes started this week too so I was up until midnight checking in with my students and I'm sure I'll be doing the same tonight.

We all started taking Airborne last night - just in case.

Help is here and the countdown is single digits...

Reinforcements arrived and the scene around the house is increasingly cluttered and chaotic with dried flowers strewn around, snow globes half assembled, fabric and ribbon all over the place, food, people, dogs. And it will only build up until the big day.

Last night my Mom II and I were knee deep in coffee filter roses - trying to find the key. We watched YouTube videos and had tutorials up on the laptop...

Everyone who's done hundreds says they are easy to make and maybe they are when you hit that magic number. We obviously aren't there yet and were struggling to master them in a night. I had a head start since I'd made those first two using a different technique than "Mommy Makes Roses" showed on Martha Stewart (video here) but even I wasn't exactly cranking out beautiful roses.

 

We ended up with about three good roses and two that we'll either discard or rework, and then I have to tackle the watercolor part. Plus I cut out enough fabric for another five mums or so - that will be this evening's task. I don't have too much time left to make this stuff.

 

 

Meanwhile, here's what the dogs are doing...

 

What a life.

Photobooth completed, tested and is now out of my living room!

One major element in the wedding planning is completed and what a fabulous feeling.

The booth has been tested and works - we'll have to assemble it up at the venue and hopefully will have no problems on Saturday, but we waited until my parents arrived last night and let them test it out, including following the Sparkbooth instructions and there was no problem. I plan to make a cover for my laptop keyboard so that only the spacebar is exposed - that way there won't be any ambiguity about which button to push - and the Sparkbooth software can be locked so that no one can accidentally exit out of it.

 

I'm still making props (and flowers) and have some computer work to do printing out an intinerary for the weekend, some signs for the booth, and lots of odds and ends, but getting the booth together was a huge load off my mind.

 

In my first test photos the exposed PVC pipe was very distracting and it took me a little while to figure out how to deal with it - but in the end the solution was pretty simple. I tore strips of matching fabric from a pillowcase (old Ralph Lauren sheets became the backdrop) and, using sticky two-sided carpet tape, wrapped the pipe. Now it blends in with the backdrop.

 

We used two stools from a little bar table we have in our dining room and there is room behind the stools for a couple of people if more than two want to crowd in for a photo.

 

The computer sits on a platform JC incorporated and we really have to acknowledge the Instructable here, Offbeat Bride, and Make for the incredible online instructions, tips and tricks. It is a wonderful helpful online community we have at our fingertips.

 

Since we're doing black and white photos the CFLs in the tree lamp will probably be ok and if we ever do color we can switch them out to daylight bulbs or those pink flattering bulbs. JC picked that up in Fresno when he went over to make the repairs at the resort and I think it set us back all of $25.

 

Prop hats have been very easy to find except we are still waiting for an Elmer Fudd hat to appear. My dad thought that we were heavy on the girl hats and a little shy on the guy hats so I may have to go find some trucker hats or something but I think we are close. I wouldn't mind finding a few more mustache props and I've got a half dozen more glasses to cut out. For the most part we are ready.

 

We did a little customization of the template with our names and the date.. but left room for people to be able to write on the 4"x 6" photos. We'll leave a sharpie near the printer and a basket for the prints so folks don't have to carry them around all night. And I'll put a couple of people in charge of checking the booth periodically for malfunctions, ink changes, paper loading, etc.

We've got ourselves a photo booth!

A lull in the vintage....

Not too much vintage has been coming my way lately.... course my mind has been on other things and there hasn't been anything in particular I've been looking for. Still want a pie safe / buffet but that's out of reach at the moment so I haven't even been looking. Reclaimed wood floors are high on my wish list but again, out of reach for now. I ended up buying a whole case of new quart size canning jars to finish my snowglobes and to use as vases after several fruitless forays into the thrift stores. Just not too much out there right now or maybe just not too much within my budget.

One exception is this fabulous metal chair that a friend just gave us. I saw it in her yard and commented on how cool the frame was - and she told us to take it away, no one really ever sat in it. And it is functional... I can make cushions for this and we can use it at the resort or here at the house... but what I really like about it is the frame and the distressed, faded paint. It is a sculpture!

I've decided to list some of my vintage treasures in my etsy shop. I've had some of these things for years and haven't found a place or a use for them so they may have to go.

Like these beautiful Charles Jourdan shoes. This isn't the greatest photo but these have little leather pom poms on the toes, the famous red sole, and are still in great shape. They are just a little too small and require a more delicate foot to show them off.

 

I always thought there would be a way to display them but until I get that big walk-in closet with the excellent lighting and the 360 mirror (ha!) they just languish in a box in our dark, crowded closet. Someone else should enjoy them.

And this sweet little bag:

Made in the USA with a resin handle... crocheted body and satin lining. Again.. I have not displayed or used this since I bought it at the Choo Choo swap meet a couple of years ago. Time for it to go to a loving home.

I really like vintage but I don't want to be surrounded by things I don't use anymore. It keeps things moving through the house - these days I take almost as much into the thrift stores as I take out. I'm no longer hesitant to discard - my experience is that there is an endless supply of secondhand stuff as people's taste changes, we acquire new or "better" stuff, or we go on cleaning binges. Our house looks less cluttered but what we do have we love (for the most part - we are still itching to get rid of our current sofa and find a leather one).

I don't think I'll ever stop cruising the flea markets, swap meets, yard sales and thrift stores... you never know what you'll find.