Weddingbee

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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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Today I’m going to use a circle skirt pattern I made on Tuesday to make a crinoline. The picture above is a little scary, but I promise that I’m wearing a slip underneath and the whole thing is meant to be an undergarment.

Below is my technique for making a circle skirt pattern from scratch. For the single pattern piece, I’ll be using a piece of fabric from a bolt that I bought for $5 from a going out of business sale. It’s a heavier cotton and about 48 inches in width, so it’s a good size for a knee-length skirt for someone of my height.
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