INSTANT Modern Art...your kids can do!

I'd like to highlight a new artist I've just discovered...my son!! Connor is 2 1/2 and LOVES to create with anything I put in front of him. Earlier this week he did watercolors and paper mosaics for the first time and suddenly I knew what to do with that barren spot on the wall in my kitchen. I hung up a bulletin board and then tacked up his artwork so it overlapped the board by 2-3" on all sides (thicker paper like card stock works best as it won't curl on the edges). The result is one big, colorful, abstract art piece and it looks AWESOME if I do say so myself. I know I'm a bit biased, but it's just such a cheerful pop of color now where there once was nothing but a phone jack we don't use anymore. Just around the corner is a dark hallway that could also use some sprucing up...can't wait to see what my baby comes up with next! 

Anatomy of Wedding Design

When I found out my sister was getting married and wanted me to organize the decorations, I was SO excited and felt more than ready to take on such a monumental task. After my own wedding, 8 years ago, which cost me many, many sleepless nights in the months leading up to it, I swore I'd never do another wedding again. Funny how time makes you forget all the little details that drive brides and wedding planners crazy everywhere. No sooner had we started seriously planning then my living room was taken over by bits of sparkly paper and crafting supplies and my spare bedroom filled up with bags of stuff for The Big Day quicker than I could count to 10. Every page in my planner for the next 4 months had some monumental task written down for me to complete and I wondered how I'd ever manage it all, work part time and run a business on the side. Still, when the candles were lit, the stars hung, the railings draped, and the guests in awe, my sister had the wedding she deserved and it was worth every moment.

For any of you who might be starting preparations for your own wedding (Congratulations!), I thought it would be fun to document the process of designing a wedding, from just a sketch on paper to the actual event. FYI, we started planning in January 2009 for an early May wedding. Yes, 5 months - it CAN be done!!!

Here are some snapshots of how we came to settle on a theme:

My sister had initially wanted to get married in January and have a snowflake theme, but she quickly figured out she didn't have enough time to plan. "An evening under the stars" was the next best choice for a May wedding. Still, we had no ideas for colors, flowers or anything specific, so I scoured Google Images (gotta love it) for anything having to do with evening garden parties and put together several collage sheets to help her narrow down her choices.

My sister having chosen "stars" as the predominant theme, I whipped a few sketches for the reception area which I hoped were both practical and enchanting. This is the design she chose.

Now we needed to get down to the business of specifics. I agonized for hours (well at least it seemed like it) before I came up with a star mobile prototype that would hang evenly. The stars weren't cascading in a spiral like I wanted them to and the top ring hadn't yet been painted, but it was enough for us to visualize the final result. We centered my round kitchen table underneath it and topped it with a mirror off the wall, some spare flowers I had in storage and a few frosted votives. Voilà! The "look" was born.

Next we went shopping with the intention to only check prices, but ran into a 50% off sale at Hobby Lobby and came home with about 10 bags of stuff. Shazam!

It was decided that my address should be the destination for anything that had to be shipped in...I nearly cut myself several times opening the huge box of frosted votives we'd ordered since 4 were shattered into millions of pieces. The company was really nice though and sent replacements right away, plus a few extras. It always pays to ask!

The making of 100 of these wedding invitations by hand, could have been it's own blog post, but I forgot to take pictures. I approached the design of these in much the same way as I did for the overall wedding theme. These were the first true glimpses guests got at the wonders to come!

Before you can truly appreciate the photos below, it is important to document the transformation of the reception area. Obviously this is the "before" shot. (And yes, that's me up on the ladder in the background - not my proudest saggy-jeans moment, I must say.)

Just for the heck of it, I feel I should point out that over 600 sparkly stars, punched by hand made the event below possible.

And finally...the "after" shots. Enjoy!





So...with little time, but LOTS of creativity, a clear budget (we accomplished our goal in under $1000...mind you that was JUST the decorating budget), willing helpers and meticulous organization our little evening garden party came to pass.

I hope you found these tips helpful and wish you great bargains and wonderful memories on your own wedding journey.

Adventures in Gardening: Starting from Seed

Every year around mid-January when all the holiday hype REALLY has worn off and the weather is just depressing, I get a little gardening bug buzzing inside me and feel the urge to draw elaborate plans and make to-do lists for my upcoming outdoor masterpiece. I usually only make it as far as a few extra pots scattered here and there before both the money and the enthusiasm dry up, because, as easy as they make it look in the magazines, gardening is A LOT of work. So this year, in an effort to make my outdoor dollars stretch a bit farther, I decided to try starting seedlings indoors, to avoid having to pay full price for plants later in the season.

I bought one of those peat pellet trays (mine has 72) for a reasonable price - I want to say around $5 or less - and it really is as easy to get it started as it looks in the picture. I measured 2 quarts of warm water, as directed into a pitcher and poured it on the dry pellets (shown above). It got pretty splashy, so I had to go slow and was glad I'd chosen a "safe" spot at the kitchen table.

They expanded almost instantly. I was surprised. I didn't have to pour off any excess water, because they soaked it all up and I could feel the heat radiating off of them - weird. I wonder if they were "drier" to begin with because my tray is actually 2 years old (never got used last year)? Oh well, they seemed usable enough once watered. The next step was to "carefully" peel back the top of the netting (it does rip easily) and "fluff" up the dirt inside. These things are only about an inch and a half wide, so I used a chopstick, to make it a little easier. This part took about 30 minutes.

Next, I opened my seed packets, one at a time and poured the contents onto a saucer for easier access. I quickly determined that I would need about 10 trays to plant all the seeds, so had to settle for 1-2 rows in my starter tray per seed type. Some of these little buggers are impossibly small, like the size of a seed bead. I found it best to pick up one at a time and rub my fingers until it fell out over the spot I wanted.

Occasionally, one went astray. Thank God for tweezers!

Finally, all the pellets had been seeded. Most of the seeds were small, so I put 3 in each pellet (directions recommend 2-3). With the larger, zinnia seeds (slightly smaller than sunflower) I put 2 per pellet. About an hour. Pressing the seeds into the dirt and covering them "lightly", as directed, took another 15 minutes or so. All together, this was about 1.75 hour project.

As you can see, I have ambitions to have access to both fresh herbs all summer long as well as a variety of colorful flowers. I suppose it's a good thing that I wasn't able to get ALL the seeds started at once. If I start a new batch outside in about a month when the risk of frost is gone, perhaps I will have another burst of blooms later in the season when the first ones have faded. I usually try to pick plants that have long bloom periods though...I'll have to check and see if there are any shorter ones that it would be worth planting several times. Then I just have to remember to do it!

Since, I will have no clue otherwise what is what when these pellets start sprouting, I made myself a chart, complete with pink mark so I know which end is up (see corresponding on above photos), and wrote down which seeds I'd planted where.

The directions said to cover the tray with clear lid and place in a warm spot, out of direct sunlight (wonder why?) until all pellets have sprouted. So I chose the only out-of-the-way/out-of-sunlight/warm spot I could think of, which happens to be under my printer cart in my office, in front of the heating vent. When I pulled the tray out this morning to take a pic, there was a lot of condensation on the inside of the lid. I hope that's a good sign.

Update on 3/2/2010: OK, I never got around to finishing this post because the results were, frankly, depressing and not worth blogging about. I waited as long as I could to transplant the seedlings (a few weeks at most), but they quickly outgrew their little greenhouse. Next, I transplanted them and acclimated them to the outdoors for a few hours each day, just like the instructions said (and every non-newbie gardener knows to be proper). Then, when it was warm enough, I left them outside for the summer. I watered only when the soil was dry (hint: over-watering is the biggest plant killer) and I used an all-purpose liquid fertilizer occasionally, as directed. The big payoff for my meticulous efforts? What seedlings didn't die within a few weeks, remained scrawny and pathetic all summer until I finally gave up, dug them out and planted store-bought versions when there was just enough time before fall for me to enjoy them.

Maybe it was just a stroke of bad luck. Maybe I should have gotten a more expensive brand of starter pellets, or seeds. Who knows? But, I won't be going this route again. For people like me who HATE spending lots of time on worthless projects, it's better to leave some things to the professionals.

On a side note, I did pick up a couple of plantlings from a lady at a garage sale last year that have absolutely thrived in my garden. That's saying something about home-grown goodness!