Weddingbee Blog

So, Mr. L and I had penguin cake toppers on our wedding cake, but I know that if Mr. L had been in charge, we would have had hamburger cake toppers. On a hamburger shaped cake. Scratch that, they would have been on top of a giant pile of hamburgers, because the man does not really care for cake.
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So, the flower arrangement from last week was a little bonkers, and not the easiest thing to arrange or maintain. So, in the spirit of giving out actual useful information, I’ll talk about some simpler flower arrangements made from the same bouquet.

This project would be good to note if you’re thinking about doing your own simple arrangements for your/anyone’s wedding. I could have saved myself a lot of money if I had some simple, accessible arrangements to crib from. Still, I carry with me some hard-won lessons. Leave flowers with multiple, large blossoms arranged vertically to the professionals.({Also, I will never be ready for floral foam.)
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I like being able to put flowers in unexpected places.
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When I’m working on other people’s weddings, sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that it’s not my wedding. Case in point: the vases above. The mother of the bride purchased about 8 narrow glass vases and a handful of silk roses, one or two per vase. She wanted them to be the centerpieces for each table.
My oldest brother-in-law (again, not the one getting married) and I both looked at them and hated them instantly, mostly because we both have black, black Martha Stewart hearts.
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Our next big wedding task was to purchase and make all of the floral arrangements. The farmer’s market is an awesome place to buy flowers for cheap if you go at the right time of year. My oldest brother-in-law (the one not getting married) and I managed to get all of reception flowers and greenery, seen in the picture above, for about $60. $60!
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I’m spending this weekend in Omaha for my brother-in-law’s wedding. The bride and groom are pretty relaxed about planning the reception, so me and my other, oldest brother-in-law will probably be doing a good chunk of the planning, at least where it comes to decorations.

Being a type-A, hyper-organizer, immediately upon arrival I took out my research notebook and grilled everyone on what needed to be done. We took charge of the flowers, the favors, and the cake topper. The cake topper would be the simplest to get done, so we addressed it first.
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Usually there are two criteria that must be met for me to find a LOL-cats image to be funny:

1. It must feature an animal that is not a dog or cat. The more exotic the animal is the more I love it.
2. There must be gratuitous profanity.

I don’t know. I think I’ve seen the picture above a hundred times and it still makes me chuckle.

Plus, anteaters are surprisingly cuddly. I never imagined that an anteater would be fuzzy, but they’re adorable. I kind of want one as a pet. We could even team up and have our own natural extermination company. That would guarantee some wacky hijinks, which are better than plain hijinks, which are kind of pathetic after a certain age. Man, now I need to go to the zoo this weekend and see if I can bribe the zoo keepers into letting me hold one. I am a bad pet owner, but I love weird animals!
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I’ve never understood why wedding cake toppers are so effing expensive. Even the boring plastic ones run more than $30 for a set. Plastic birthday cake cowboys, however, are about $1 each, further proof that anything involving the word ’wedding’ comes with a premium attached.

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I learned how to carve linoleum blocks in high school, and I’ve made a new one every year since. I used last year’s to print our post-wedding thank you cards. Linoleum takes a little more muscle to carve than rubber blocks, but you can put a lot more detail into a smaller space. The result looks a lot like a wood block print and the overall effect can be textured and rustic looking.
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My last post was about burning a screen using the power of the sun. Today we’ll talk about using that screen to print on some fabric.
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Screen-printing is one of my absolute favorite hobbies. I think I’ve burned close to 100 screens in the last two years alone. It’s a little cheaper than buying a print Gocco, and you’ll be able to print in a larger format. You’ll just need to buy a screen, some photo emulsion, a squeegee, and print out a transparency of what you want to print. In all, it will set you back about $40 if you order from Dick Blick.

First, you’re going to prepare your screen. I used a Speedball kit and squeegeed a thin layer of emulsion onto my screen, covering both sides evenly. We have a completely dark room under our porch where I leave most of my screens overnight. We seal it up during to winter to save money on heating costs, so I left my screens in a large cardboard box. I elevated the corners of the screen slightly with tiles for circulation, and covered the whole box with a black cloth. From this point on, you’ll want to expose the screen to as little light as possible until you make your exposure.

Once the screen was dry (~18 hours later) I used the same box to help make an exposure.
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I think one of the low moments of planning for our wedding was sitting next to several tealights one afternoon with a stopwatch and pouting when I realized that they would never make it through a four hour reception. I then bought enough supplies for a whole wedding of LED lights and never used them (dumb!) except for in some magnetic lanterns I built for an art installation.
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I bought a book at Kinokuniya in New York that has hundreds of 3-D packaging forms, covering lots of shapes and purposes. I think it’s one of the best book investments I’ve ever made. I put together one of the forms as packaging for the boxer shorts that I gave to my husband for Valentine’s Day.
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I’ve made penguins like this at least a few dozen times now and they’re pretty fun to make. I also had a whole flock of them on my own wedding cake. Today’s set is the largest so far. I made them for someone who requested penguins of a certain height.

These penguins are easy if you want to make a set for yourself.
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There are all sorts of shopping experiences that are one of a kind in New York, especially for those who are always on the lookout for unique crafting items. One of my favorites is Metalliferous, a purveyor of all things that are both metal and crafty. It’s a favorite of jewelry makers.

The store is located on the second floor of a building just off Times Square. Inside is a wonderland of metal items, all arranged from floor to ceiling in plastic bins. There is a dizzying array of metal chains and cords, jump-rings and doodads. I’m mostly in it for the doo-dads. I grabbed a bunch of metal leaves and I’m kicking myself for not emptying out the whole section. I also renewed my supply of metal alligator barrettes.
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