Beach Wedding Aisle Runner

Here are some pictures showing the process of making the aisle runner. Next post will be a how-to for making an aisle runner! 

This picture is the "inspiration", I asked my friend to just find a picture of something she liked and I'd do whatever she wanted. The main ideas we stole here were: starfish graphic on the top, cursive writing and beautiful blue color.

So after much search this is the starfish graphic I found. It was really hard to find one that looked "right". Some were too simple, too difficult, too cartoonish, too real looking. I needed something I could easily paint and get the look we wanted!

Then, I found a great font with hubby's help. I had to adjust the size because their names are longer than mine and I needed it to fit on the runner! Then I played around with the size of the starfish.

Then I transferred the words onto the aisle runner and started painting.  Note that the TV remote is to hold the runner down

and slowly but surely it came along...

Then the words were in place and it looked wonderful!

I was very nervous to do the starfish I was afraid it wouldn't come out very good. it was very difficult to transfer on there!

 Low and behold, it came out much better than I imagined. I was able to take some artistic liberty with the starfish. I didn't really have to worry about staying in the lines so much because the edges of each "dot" on the starfish did not have to be perfect like the letters.

Tada! The crease at the top is from how its laying.

Now, unfortunately I do not have a picture of the aisle runner at the wedding. It did not end up being used. While it is extremely disappointing to put all that hard work into something for nothing, I didn't let it bother me. I was excited to see my best friend from college get married and that is what was most important. Now, what happened was that hubby was at the ceremony site while I was getting ready with all the girls. He gave the wedding planner the aisle runner and she attempted to role it out. The ceremony was taking place on the beach, but on a cement walkway, not the sand. I had guessed it would be windy (it was the beach after all!) and bought large seashells to hold the runner down. I'm not sure if the wedding planner attempted to use the seashells or not, but the runner was blowing away so she scrunched it up and put it away. In the end I think if she rolled it out while the people were already in their seats it could have been fine, the people seemed to block the wind during the ceremony. However, the planner did use my seashells to line the aisle and it was cute. Plus I heard people commenting on the seashells lol. 

Broken Hearts

Ever have something bad or weird happen and you wonder if its an omen or just coincidence?

Last month Hubby and I have been dealing with the death of his maternal grandmother. Even though she was in the hospital her death came as quite the shock. However this story is not just a story of her life or death, I will tell the story of the broken hearts.

1) Hubby's grandmother went to the hospital for a surgery to that would increase the circulation in her leg. She was 87 years old. Despite getting many doctors opinions and having tests done to make sure she was o.k. for the surgery, after the surgery was done they somehow found that she had congestive heart failure. Her heart had been working at only 10% of capacity for probably at least 6 months. She was not strong enough for any rehabilitation after the surgery. Just a few days after they found out about her heart she passed away (Wednesday, August 8th). Her heart just gave out. Hubby had visited her in the hospital just a few days before and was able to bring Scout into the hospital to visit her (she absolutely adored Scout, called him her grandson) .

2) Hubby and I packed up Saturday August 11th for the funeral which was held Sunday the 12th. Saturday night when we arrived there I was in the den of his grandmother's house reading when hubby asked me what I had inside a ring box visible in my luggage. I brought with us a necklace that I was intending to wear the next day at her funeral.
Now, some back story... Hubby's grandfather used to always find heart shaped objects to give to his wife. Hubby, unintentionally has done the same thing for me. He always buys me heart shaped charms since our first (dating) anniversary. I wear them all together on a necklace everyday.
 As a kid hubby always admired a heart shaped necklace of his grandmother's because it had gold flakes inside of it and he thought his grandma was rich! His grandmother gave him the necklace before our wedding day and he gave it to me as his wedding present to me.
This was the necklace that I brought to wear to his grandmother's funeral, because it had such a special meaning. Hubby sees the box and sees the necklace inside and takes the necklace. He was so happy to see that I brought it that he ran into the kitchen to show his mother. His mother open the box and the necklace slides right out and falls down to the tile floor. The tip of it cracks open and the oil and gold inside leak out. I heard this happen from the other room and sat frozen in the den not knowing how to react.
My poor husband was absolutely heart broken and my mother in law felt awful. The next day I wore some other jewelry to the funeral instead of the heart necklace. We went to the jeweler that had fixed up my ring and they said their was no way to fix it, they could only put the gold flakes into some new pendant.

3)We returned back home very very late Wednesday night. On Friday we get a phone call saying my hubby's aunt (his mother's only sibling) was in the hospital. She had chest pains and was taken to the ER. Her heart actually stopped and they had to revive her. She had surgery for a pacemaker the next day. She's only 56 and there is nothing physically wrong with her heart, it seemed to be electrical in nature and I believe most likely caused by the stress of the last week. Luckily she is now doing ok and is back to normal.

So, this is how 3 hearts broke in 1 week. While loosing a necklace is nothing like loosing a grandmother and almost loosing an aunt, the coincidence is just weird. 

Beach Wedding Card Box

One project down a few more to go! First I need to get some bridal shower projects out of the way this weekend then I'm moving on to the aisle runner!

These are some of the seashells I bought. I got whole packs at the Christmas Tree Shops for real cheap, then some small ones at Michael's.

The top shows the small shells (actually starfish) that I bought at Michaels, then the varying sizes of stick on pearls that i also bought at Michaels. 

These are the papers I bought at a local small craft store. I got these because I thought they looked like sand and water. 

Then is the bottom box all covered with the hole cut already

This is the top box not yet covered. I use rubber cement to apply the papers. It works wonders. The top box as a wide hole in the bottom for the envelopes to fall through to the bottom. 

Both boxes covered and glued together! I did not to a great job covering the boxes (in my opinion) but I was able to arrange the whole thing in a way wear it isn't noticeable. 

another shot of the covered box

I then glued on a ribbon and glued a starfish to the top. The inspiration for this part was this picture:

This is a better shop of the top.

Then I started applying the starfish, shells and what-have-you. It was a pain the *** to glue the tiny ones. I used Krazy glue for most of them. A seashell just doesn't have a lot of surface area to glue on and the starfish are not flat enough. Luckily the pearls are self adhesive. 

Anyway, I did small to large making my way down the box. At first I was just going to go down the corner but as I got further I realized I had enough supplies to do more and I thought this looked even better. The large shells and starfish would not stick with Krazy Glue because they are too heavy. I was able to use good old Elmer's Glue and it worked great and luckily is not noticeable because I did small amounts applied with my fingers. Krazy Glue and Rubber Cement both dry invisibly.

The finished product!

good side view

good top view

better side view

In the end, this probably took me only 5 hours or less. I'm really glad I used the pearls I think it adds a fancy touch and brings the whole product up a notch so its more suitable for a fancy evening wedding. 

Take That DB!

David's Bridal quoted me 110 for alteration for the bridesmaid dress for my friend's wedding.

I just dropped my dress off at Anna's Alterations, some local place down the street from my chiropractor's office. I chose it out of convenience. The grand total for my alteration there will be $40

boo-ya!

Though it makes me wonder if I should have gone elsewhere for my wedding dress last year. Having alterations done at DB almost cost as much as the dress itself.

You know "It's A Dog's Life" when...

You have a Chihuahua napping on your shoulder
A Yorkie napping in your lap
Two dogs playing together by your side
A Basset Hound barking in your other ear
A Havanese cowering under you
Three other dogs mingling around

all at the same time

meanwhile...
your own dog & the Golden you are petsitting are home alone during a thunder storm...

you get home, walk the dogs since it stopped raining and happen to run into a client from work that lives in your complex and your dogs all get tangled together

This was the last three hours of my life

This is Scout (L) with the 13 year old Golden we are petsitting for a week (Ginger)

Headache Update

Despite using the BCP and the Low Dose Anti Depressants to lessen the frequency of my headaches, I've still been getting tons of headaches. I'm an definitely under a lot of stress between work, trying to start a business and regular life problems.

In April I finally decided to go back to seeing a chiropractor (which I did a year or two ago before we moved). And once again it worked wonders! I really have to recommend seeing a chiropractor anyone who gets tension headaches or even back pain, neck pain or suffers from some type of injury related pain.

Yesterday I switched to a different chiropractor in my town because Hubby heard that the one I was seeing used some bad business practices. While I really liked all the people in that office and definitely found a lot of relief from that chiropractor I think my new one will be even better... The new guy is (I hope) also going to help me deal with problems in my hips/waist/lower back. I noted to him that I have an odd swing to my pelvis when standing straight and he said that could be contributing to my neck and other health problems.

The unfortunate part of switching was that I felt awful "breaking up" with the one I've been seeing for a month and a half. I told him what I heard about his office and I hoped it wasn't true. He seemed really upset and wanted to know who said these things about him even though I couldn't tell him (I honestly don't know who the person was, hubby met the person at work).

So, I'm excited for my first adjustment at the new one this Thursday. I have had a headache almost everyday since last Friday which is the last time I saw the old one! I'm also going to talk to my doctor at my next appointment about losing the anti depressants since seeing the chiropractor works better than drugs. Although I wont be losing the BCP anytime soon thank you very much I quite enjoy being on them :-) 

Finished Mirror!

Finally, after about 10-20 hours of work, my mosaic mirror using broken china is DONE!
Here it is folks:

Waiting for sealant gloss to dry

Finished product with reflection of our light in it

Horizontal view of Finished product

Vertical view of finished product

Finished product on my bookshelf

Boy am I glad this project is done. It was quite time consuming. I wanted to just be done with it so badly but I felt like I had to get more important things done first (errands, bills, stress about work etc). In the end it is extremely rewarding and I find crafting helps relieve a lot of stress. I think for the next few months I'm going to just focus on my business and DIY/craft projects for my friend's wedding.