Weekend Craftiness

Ah. I have the house to myself this weekend. The girls are with their dad, AJ is away for the weekend, SO, I am taking the weekend to finish some DIY-ness before school starts up again.

This morning I finished these:
My bouquet. It still needs to be fluffed out just right, but this is pretty close:

My two daughters' bouquets, along with mine (the girls are my bridesmaids):

The boutonniere for AJ and our best man:

I got the idea from this post at offbeatbride.com: http://offbeatbride.com/2010/02/crystal-bouquets. Thank you, Megan!
And now that's done, I am going to finish my skirt! And then, the center pieces! And then...well, it'll probably be the end of the weekend by then.

In other news, we're figuring out the music for the actual ceremony. The first song (processional?) will be Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" in a classical, instrumental, cello version by Apocalyptica. Yay!

Photographer worries

So we got our photographer a few months ago. The process was...fine. I mean, it took a couple of weeks, lots of phone calls, and quite a few visits to different websites, but we found him. We spoke on the phone several times, got the details down and decided we like him. We signed the contract, gave him the deposit, and answered some more questions. Last we heard was "your wedding is on track as far as my part. Do your thing and we'll talk when we get closer to the date." Great!
A couple of weeks ago we wanted to run some ideas by him and to get some more information. We sent an email; no response. We sent another one a few days later, still no response. Yesterday I sent yet another email....nothing.
Should I be worried? I'm getting a bit worried. If I don't hear from him today, I'll call him this afternoon. If he's bailing on us, that'd be bad, but I would rather know now, 8 weeks out (eeee!) while we have time (barely) to find another one.
In other news-We're getting married 8 weeks from tomorrow!!!

Squeee!

I do not squee often, but this calls for it:
Our wedding bands arrived this morning! Squeeee!!
They are plain 14k white gold bands. Mine's 3mm wide and AJ's is 6mm wide.
We put them on to make sure of sizing, showed the girls, and took the rings right off again. They are now in our bedroom, in plain sight as we worried that if we put them in a "safe place" we'd forget where that was.
Pictures will come when we have them on our rings for real.
Until then, again I say Squeee!

Tassels

I forgot to add a picture of the tassels that will hold the Chuppah onto the poles. I made them from ribbons and beads I had around the house.
This is a crafty house; we have lots of material lying around. It just all happened to come together nicely for this project.

yay!

Chuppah

As many of you know, I quilt. I love to quilt. I quilt quite often.
I've made quilts from crib to king size ones, table runners, one big gigantic 3 yard square quilt. I've made them for weddings, babies, birthdays, Bat Mitzvas and just for fun. I've given them away to loved ones, sold a couple, and given more to charities. I made my first one when Rahel was a baby (14 years ago) and have easily made 40 since then.

My latest creation is this:

and a close up:


It is a faux crazy quilt, made almost entirely from scraps from my (way to extensive) fabric stash. The only fabric I bought specifically for this project is the silver fabric.
The quilt measures 65 inches squared

I am quite pleased with the way it came out, and very very pleased about its use: it is the Chuppah for our wedding.
AJ and I will be married under it, two months from today!

It seems I have a problem

I cannot stop myself from taking on more new projects. Even after I have told myself, and everybody else, that enough is enough, no more new projects, that it's time to start wrapping up projects, not begin them, that I'm stressing because we're getting closer (just over 2 months) and the semester starts in 3 weeks, I still think of new projects.
However, things are indeed wrapping up, some projects anyway. Things that have happened this week:

1. My older daughter started making our favor cds and organizing our playlist.
2. She's also made necklaces and earrings for herself, her sister and me (they girls are my maids of honor).
3. My younger daughter's designed our card box (and will start working on it next week)
4. AJe is going full steam with his current project (the programs) and they are looking beautiful!.
5. We've got the final menu from the caterer for the family wedding.
6. We've had our questions answered from the main guy at the place we're having the friends' wedding (and enjoyed the venue visit! But that's a different post)
7. I've cleaned up a draft of the prenup for the lawyer to see.
8. I've retained the services of a lawyer.
9. I've been sewing a lot, working on our Chuppah (i.e. wedding canopy) and it's almost done!
10. We ordered our wedding bands (!!!!)
11. We ordered, and received, silver colored Jordan almonds for favors.
12. I'm almost done with the crystal beads bouquets and boutonnieres, using the fabulous tutorial I found on offbeatbride.com.
13. We've received all but one RSVP for the family wedding and one for the friends' wedding. Mostly in the positive too, which is great.

Seems a lot when I write it out like that. Lots left to do, but lots already done.
Yay!

Legalese

I met with a lawyer today to talk about the prenup. I like her, and have decided to have her represent me in this, but I do NOT like the process!
The terminology is confusing, the issues are complicated, and the whole thing reeks of ick.
Based on our conversation, I've just spent an hour cleaning up the draft. I'm dizzy. I know it's for the best, but I don't like dealing with it. The next meeting with the lawyer is in 2 weeks. This means I don't need to do any more tonight.

AJ getting crafty

AJ and I have been doing a lot of crafty in preparation for the wedding. We are making a lot of things ourselves, including invitations, decorations, favors, and so on. I'm also sewing a lot, including my skirts and our Chuppah. The Chuppah is a canopy under which the couple is wed. There are many aspects of tradition and symbolism to this element. We decided to make the Chuppah a focal point, and part of the decoration. It is a meaningful part of my culture, and also a chance to do some sewing! (I'll be posting pictures when it's done...). Traditionally, the Chuppah is held up by 4 members of the couple's family or community. Since we wanted the only participants, other than us, to be my girls, as special special members of the wedding, our Chuppah is being held up by dry branches and wooden poles. The poles and branches will be collected in 4 glass vases we found (again, pictures will come once we've assembled things) and we knew we wanted the whole thing to go with the colors we chose.
And here's AJ painting the poles in our backyard:



The color is deeper in real life and will go nicely with the black and white branches in the vases.

Not that there was ever a doubt, but my engagement ring is here, and totally worth the wait.
I posted about the saga of the ring earlier, so I won't go into the whole thing again. Here's a synopsis: AJ picked the design, I picked the gem (blue sapphire) and the metal (white gold) and AJ's father made the ring. He made my ring. He cut the stone and set it in the band. It offered many challenges, the design had to be tweaked, new epoxy had to be used, the project had to be put on hold for a while, and now it's here. It's beautiful, created by AJ and his dad, made with love, one of a kind, and I love it.
What more could I ask for?
And here it is:


The photo doesn't really do it justice; the sun catches it just so and there are blue sparkles all over it. Purty!

I can has a skirt!

I finished one of my skirts:

When I first started thinking about making wedding clothes for me, I knew I needed to take care with it. Up until now, I have made lots of quilts, and kid clothes, but no fitted clothes for me, and certainly nothing out of fancy material. So I knew I had to do this right. I bought patterns, and muslin for mock up clothes, and a sewing form. I was having a tough time figuring out how to translate pattern size charts to my clothing size (they do NOT conform to clothes tag sizes). Well, thanks to some lovely ladies, I figured it out and made this; having the sewing form (which AJ has named Rosa) made it soooo much easier.

It is silk on top and tulle on bottom, in a separate petticoat. I will wear it at the wedding we are having with our friends and the top will be a corset of black fabric with blue needle point at top and bottom edges.

I am very happy with it.

I have another skirt to make, for the wedding we are having with our families, and that is going up on Rosa as soon as this one goes in the closet.

Woohoo!

It was a long time in the planning and a long day to do it, but we actually have a draft of the prenup done!
We've been putting it off, as it is really the LEAST pleasurable part of this experience, though we realize we need to do it. So we have been saying and saying that we need to do it (the closer to the wedding date, the less likely to be held up should things go sour), but we've not been doing it. Imagining all the different scenarios we will have to deal with if we break up is not fun. However, with a house, and children, involved, the ickiness now will cut down on a much larger dose of ick if it comes to divorce, so we did it. Another unfun aspect is the legal language. We are both fairly intelligent, well-read people. I'm an English teacher for gossake, and it was still hard to decipher. Some terms I am still not clear on (and will need to ask a lawyer about...)
Yesterday, we decided to tackle it for real and 3 hours later, and with a massive headache, the draft is done.
What a relief!
Now we print it out and each bring a copy to a lawyer to have it looked at. Then we make whatever changes need to happen, and have it signed by a notary, and it's done. Where to find a lawyer? And how to find one?
I shall ponder while I do some more fun stuff, like craftiness!