Flower DIY Workshop, plus random stuff

The MOH agreed to take a DIY flower arranging workshop with me in a few weeks. Since it looks like we're now having flowers on the tables, as well as my bouquet, the two bridesmaids' bouquets, and boutennieres for Mr. T, his best man, our officiant, the dads, PLUS corsages for the moms (and my grandma, if she comes), and it also looks like we dumbly decided to do it ourselves (with Mr. T's mom's help), I thought some training was in order.

The workshop is $75 per person (supplies are provided), and they walk you through all of the items mentioned above. While I think it's worth it, I also think that the MOH shouldn't have to pay for my bright ideas, so that's $150 added to our budget...which I'm wrestling with. I know it will all be cheaper than hiring a florist to do these things, so I suppose I just need some perspective. Right? Plus, if we're just hopeless at it, that will be a nice warning well ahead of the wedding, and we can start replanning our tables and talking to florists. So I guess it's a worthwhile investment. Right?

Speaking of bouquets, I just love feathers in them. Here are some fun photos from the interweb:






I really love the idea of feather boutennieres and corsages. We can make them ahead of time, and then use those same feathers in the bouquets to tie everything together.

Regarding the centerpieces, we've been struggling with how to incorporate the candy jars into the centerpieces, now that we've added pumpkins/flowers into the mix. I couldn't help but be interested in this candy-themed wedding on Weddingbee. First, I love their invites--candy bars with a golden ticket inside! Who wouldn't love that??




Second, for their escort cards, they used images of candy to convey the guests' dinner choices. You can barely see it, but the cards were clustered atop different boxes of candy--whatever candy your card was on coordinated to the table where you were sitting. High-concept, but I guess it worked for them:


Here are some pictures of their centerpieces:



I love the bright colors and how the candy is also in the vase with the flowers! Nice.

Here's a picture of a menu on the table...they put a different quote from Willy Wonka on each table's menu. I love these people!


I've been talking about my love for papercutting...look at these great numbers and letters I found via Weddingbee, for an Etsy vendor:




I love these! Sigh. Maybe we can recreate something like this on the invites...

I found another great pumpkin image, sort of like the Martha Stewart pumpkins I've been admiring:


I also found some great cake images during my search for cupcakeries. Look at the amazing Corpse Bride cake, complete with cake topper to represent the two brides:


And look at this great Hello Kitty zombie cake! Obviously not a wedding cake, but I love it:


And finally, speaking of HK, I love this pic of a Hello Kitty wedding done in Japan! The bride and groom run the Hello Kitty museum in Germany. Look at the top of her dress!

Making Up is Easy to Do

One project that I have no problem DIYing for the wedding is the makeup. I love makeup. When I was in the third grade my mother got tired of me raiding her purse for makeup and bought me a makeup kit for Christmas. That's right, third grade! I didn't wear it to school or anything, but it enlivened any number of sleepovers, and I got practice.

Then in high school, I went through two phases: 1. hesher girl (note: Hesher=person who listens to heavy metal and dresses accordingly); 2. goth girl (self-explanatory?). Interestingly, both involved a lot of black eyeliner and bright red lipstick.

I stopped wearing the eyeliner everyday, but kept the red as my signature lipstick color. I remember getting stopped on the street when I was in college by men who would comment on my lips. This no longer happens, which is oddly both relieving and sad. Regardless, I think I'd count my lips as my second-favorite feature (eyes are first).

When I started to belly dance, while other newbies had issues with the makeup part of the costume, I had no problem at all reviving the heavy eyeliner look I'd sported in high school. When I started performing my teacher had firm guidelines for what was allowable: brown eyeshadow, black liner, blush (I never wore this), red lipstick. I guess she did this to make it easier on the less experienced girls. However, I quickly abandoned the guidelines and started wearing crazier and crazier colors...by the end of my time in her troupe, we were all wearing interesting combos like lime green shadow, white eyeliner, and blue/purple lipstick...I think we were being avante-garde? Anyway, in certain performance situations, it really worked (like the art gallery "soundscape" performance), although I have some interesting photos of myself from that time period.

I've tamed my performance makeup a bit, but only some. I have eye shadows, eye liners, and glitter eye liners in every shade of the rainbow, but I tend to stick with a signature red/dark red lip (though sometimes I layer red glitter over the lipstick, a la Hedwig). Not to toot my own horn too much, but one woman who saw me perform at a friend's wedding got my info and asked me to teach her how to put makeup on for her birthday party! The timing didn't work out, since I was busy the night of her event, but it was flattering. Perhaps makeup artistry will be my mid-life crisis career change. I did actually teach a roomful of coworkers how to put on false eyelashes for our work Christmas party (the first secret is that you need to cut those suckers down to size! Noone's lids are that long. The other part is to apply a thin layer of glue, and then wait for it to get tacky, about 30 seconds. The waiting is very important.).

My everyday makeup for work now consists of:

• concealer--drugstore stuff, like Physician's Formula or Almay
• foundation--from Prescriptives, light and doesn't clog pores
• loose powder--from Prescriptives, custom-blended to match my skin color--worth the expense!!
  
• eyeshadow--cheap beauty store find in "taupe"
• mascara--Physician's Formula or Almay in black; mascara is a must thanks to my unnaturally short eyelashes. In fact, if I had to choose just one cosmetic, it would be mascara.
• lipliner--MAC's Half-Red
• lipstick--MAC's Viva Glam V (yes, I'm branching out from red, but a girl needs a daytime look, right?)

Recently I found some new "faces" on MAC I want to try out for performing:






MAC has awesome colors for performance makeup--intense pigments (I wouldn't recommend using their foundations or face powder for that same reason, however!). These faces might seem a bit overdramatic (Scarlet Womanish, even?), but trust me, performance makeup is a different ball of wax from your every day street makeup. You want the person at the back of the room to clearly see your features and facial expressions. And, as we say in my troupe, "More is more!"

I will of course be sporting a more natural look for the wedding, although not too natural, since it's me we're talking about here. I read that glitter doesn't photograph too well, which I have experienced, so I will need to restrain myself in that regard, unfortunately. However, I do plan on wearing a red lipstick, not only because I love a red lip, but also because, come on, red dress = red lips, right? That's simple makeup math right there.

I've also considered looking into a primer like this Smashbox "Photo Finish" primer, available at Sephora:

Primers are supposed to fill in fine lines and even out your skin's texture. You would apply your foundation over the primer. I wouldn't do this for everyday makeup, or even performance makeup, but I thought on a day where I'm likely to be photographed more than any other day in my entire life, it might be a good idea. I'm also considering eye shadow primer so that my eye shadow doesn't crease.

Also on Sephora, this mascara might be a good idea:


This mascara is reputed to both add length to your eyelashes (which I desperately need) but also be tear-proof (which I am also going to desperately need). Supposedly it coats lashes and binds the thinnest of fibers to their tips, creating length, and dries to form tubes which encase lashes and hold a curl. Removal is supposed to be easy; the tubes slide right off with a combo of water and pressure.

Depending on how well this works, I might also wear false lashes. I wear them to perform; they are almost as necessary as mascara. I don't have to wear bejeweled or glitter ones to the wedding, necessarily, but I do need the length.

For eye makeup, I'm pondering either no eyeliner (since I'll have a dramatic lip) and a beige/cream shadow, or perhaps a cat-eye look, like Angelina Jolie or Dita Von Tease:







She's so gorgeous. Sigh. Anyway, the photo on the very bottom is close to what I was thinking of for my wedding look. The problem with this is that my lids are not as full as hers, so to do liner yet still look open-eyed, I need a very thin line (this is less a problem for performance, when my eyes are covered in darker eyeshadows anyway). But, I could do a thin line, so I'm considering it.

I'm also waffling on blush. I don't typically wear it. I like the look of more porcelain skin, and I don't need yet another thing to clog my pores. Plus, I think it can look overdone sometimes. However, sometimes I do like how it looks on people (in the last pic of Dita you can tell she has on just the tiniest amount, and I think it's well done. The blush in the photo above that is a bit too saturated for me). I'm curious about giving it a try. Perhaps I'll experiment before the wedding in order to make up (no pun intended!) my mind on that one.

So, here's the wedding makeup round up:

• primer
• eyeshadow primer
• concealer as needed (I have undereye circles like you wouldn't believe--thanks, genetics!)
• foundation
• powder
• red lip liner
• red lipstick (need to find a new color; MAC stopped making my favorite one, darn them. Stupid limited edition shades!)
• taupe shadow for lid crease
• cream shadow for lid base and brow line; also for inside corner of eye, as Carmindy recommends (makes your eyes look brighter and more open)
  
• potentially some brow pencil
• possibly liquid black eyeliner, waterproof
• black waterproof mascara
• maybe blush
  

And that's it! Easy, right? ;-)

Still Lovin' the Letterpress

I can't remember where I found these, but I love them. I love the literary allusion, the text "sea," and the kitty and the owl. So sweet.

Ironically, the letterpress place I found in our town seems like our cheapest option, period, thus far. Even if we DIY'd the invites, the Gocco machine itself is $200, and then we'd need to buy paper and envelopes. Unless we used the machine a lot, it seems to make more sense to skip the Gocco and get our invites professionally printed.

DIY is not always cheaper! I feel vindicated.

This and That

(Image thanks to www.savagechickens.com)

I love Savage Chickens! And I thought this one was appropriate with the Mr. T reference.

I talked to another representative for a venue yesterday, who was not nearly as organized as the coordinator at Venue #1. I didn't have my list of questions in front of me, and she wasn't really giving me anything unless I asked. I asked if we could tour the building, which is conveniently located about 3 blocks from our house, and she responded, "well, we have a lot of events going on, you could go to one of them...there's a concert on Friday...blah blah blah..." Um, okay, maybe this is my bridezilla coming out, but I do not want to pay money to attend an event I have no interest in to see a venue I may or may not want to use. And I would only get to see part of the venue, since I'm sure the folks running the concert wouldn't be thrilled with me walking all around the venue mid-show. "Pardon me, could you move your cello? I need to look behind this curtain here." She vaguely mentioned that it would be "open all day on Sunday," so Mr. T and I are going to take a peek. I actually performed at this place many years ago but I have no recollection about what it looks like, and neither does the MOH.

Mr. T and I talked about the invites again last night, and we're reconsidering potentially using a Gocco or a lino block method to DIY our own. I think the charm and imperfections of these methods would actually lend themselves well to the design he's envisioning for our invites. I'm leaving the invite design mostly up to him, since he's the graphic designer...I just want a say in the wording and the paper choices.

In other news, my usual hairdresser says he is no good at updos, which is a bummer. So I need to find a person, preferably in the East Bay. My guy said he'd think of people and give me a list next time. The good news is that he says my hair is long enough for an updo now, so it will certainly be long enough next year.

I think I have a moth in my closet. My t-shirt has tiny holes at the bottom, and it's not the first one I've seen like this. That's a bummer. I love my clothes, and I certainly can't afford to replace them right now. Are there any moth prevention solutions other than stinky mothballs?

The Invites--to DIY, or not to DIY

I don't mind a certain amount of DIY. I'm not the most crafty person, but Mr. T went to art school, so I think we could pull off designing and printing our own invites on our own printer at home. Mr. T is worried that they will look terrible. I guess I can't fault him for being concerned.

Still, finding premade Halloween wedding invitations is pretty much not going to happen. I actually did find one vendor, but they were in the U.K. and I didn't love their stuff.

We both love the look of letterpress printed stuff, but my initial research has been discouraging--I found one vendor on Etsy that charges $700 just for 100 invites. I will keep pricing, but that first amount doesn't make me feel very confident about affordable letterpress invites. But, you never know.

In my googling I did find some adorable DIY invites. I love the look of the inside of this first one:

It looks all Edward Goreyesque, which I love. I also love the white type on the black background. I'm not as crazy about the Hardy Boys front cover. Mr. T says it's obvious that they pasted the invitation together and says it looks cheap to him. I don't mind the pasted together look so much, but I'm not a graphic designer. I also found these:


I think this is from Better Homes and Gardens. I like the look of the vellum, and I like the font they used too. I haven't shown it to Mr. T yet, so I don't know if this is an approved font or not. I was joking with Mr. T that we should use Comic Sans or Papyrus for our fonts, trying to keep my best poker face on so he'd think I was serious, but he knew I was kidding. I guess 10 years of dating helps you to know stuff like that. Mr. T is very opinionated on the subject of fonts. An Italian restaurant opened up in our neighborhood and printed their very cheap looking sign using Papyrus...when they went out of business, he snorted, "well, no wonder!" (As an aside, if you haven't seen the documentary "Helvetica," and you are at all interested in books, typesetting, or graphic design, you should check it out.)

I also found some just plain old Halloween invitations, which we could have customized with our own text. I liked this one:



I like the simplicity, with just the black and orange. Perhaps it's too Halloween and not enough wedding, though? The bonus is, these are cheaper--$200 for the quantity we'd need. However, it doesn't include a reply card. I suppose we could do our own, just on orange cardstock (although that presents the problem of matching the oranges...). I also thought about having all the reply cards be vintage Halloween postcards, something like this:


We could get books of postcards and each invite would have a different postcard. Of course, we'd still need to print on the backs.

Mr. T would like to have one of our artist friends draw something for the front--do a totally custom invite--but I'm not sure yet where we could get those printed or how much those would cost. There are machines for home printing--almost like silkscreening--called Gocco, but they are hard to find and set up costs would be $200 or so, plus paper expenses and ink, etc. I like the looks of the ones I've seen, but I'm not convinced it would be cheaper, or that it would look good in my noncrafty hands...I guess Mr. T would be assigned silkscreening duties.

I mused aloud the other day that I'm considering taking a calligraphy class, to address our invites. Now, I know I could just address them myself in my normal handwriting and that would be fine. (Unless, of course, you're reading one of those wedding magazines that admonishes you, "Get your invites to the calligrapher early!" The calligrapher??? I priced this, just out of curiosity, and it would cost us about $5 an invite. Ouch!) But, I have plenty of time, and I think the calligraphy would be a nice touch with the Halloween theme. Also, I could do signage for the reception in calligraphy. Mr. T surprised me by saying he'd taken a class when he was a kid and that he'd be into taking another one with me. I guess there are still things to find out about your partner after 10 years! So, we might do that.

I'll do a separate post on Save the Date cards...those will be easier, once we get a venue, that is.