Picture this...

Beautiful antique shutters like so:

(for sale here)

As a display for name tags attached to vintage skeleton keys, like so (well, except with names and table numbers instead of a save the date note, of course):


So lovely! I'm slightly concerned that it's a little too rustic for my theme and my venue however. The Alexis is very modern, but eclectic. But, the room has lovely exposed brick walls. Is a touch of rustic okay mixed into the modern decor? Thoughts?

Whirlwind.

That's the only way to describe this past week. For those of you who live in the northwest, you know what I mean. Seattle + Snow = Totaldisaster. Now, I super heart snow...and really anything that gets me out of going to work. (Wait, was I not supposed to admit that?) But, I had to go to work on Monday - there were deadline emergencies to deal with. I was frantically trying to finish something and keeping an eye on the snow, which was lightly falling, but not sticking. And then, at 3pm, it hit...snow, snow, SNOW! I left work (and by "left" I mean RAN) just before 4pm, met up with the fiance a few blocks away, hopped into his work car - luckily a Jeep with 4WD - and we hoped for the best. However, we didn't expect the worst, which is exactly what happened. (Ok, it wasn't the *worst*, but it was super irritating, and an expensive night.) In four and a half hours, we drove less than two miles. There are only a couple of ways to get to West Seattle, and they all involve a bridge. Conveniently, all of the bridges are a fairly steep arch, and although never formally closed, every bridge was covered in a layer of ice (and car accidents) and therefore impassable. We tried to wait it out. We really did try. We amused ourselves by watching people driving waaay too fast spin out and slam into a chain link fence - one after the other - and then speed away, still too fast for the road conditions. Some people don't learn, apparently. Four and a half hours was all we had in us. We learned later that many people trying to get to West Seattle had an 11 hour commute. Um, we live 12 minutes from downtown.

We turned around and headed downtown and decided to call our wedding venue, the Alexis Hotel, and pray for a room. We were stupid happy when we got into the lobby, because it meant warmth and a bed! Oooh - and a bathroom!! (PS - These photos are from the Alexis Hotel's website - I'm not that good of a photographer.)


After hearing about our "harrowing experience" (ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating) and our "we're getting married here next year so we wanted to stay here" story they upgraded us to a suite. The suite was amazing - it has a bathtub the size of my bathroom. No, really:


The tub was just what the doctor ordered. Well, after foraging for some dinner anyway, since it was almost 10pm. It really would have been a fantastic evening had we not sat in traffic until we were exhausted and starving. Oh, and if we had had a change of clothes for the next morning. The hotel was great, though. They gave us toothbrushes and toothpaste. They even brought me a hair straightener as I tried to pretty myself up the next morning with none of my usual tools. (It takes a lot of tools. In fact, I've put a sample sized mascara in my purse now, just in case. I always feel better with mascara.) Needless to say, we like the Alexis even more now.

We made it home safely the following day. My office was closed so we had a nice snow day! (You'd think I would've taken a photo of the snow, but by then I wasn't a fan.) I made some awful soup, which we threw out, and we went out to dinner with the neighbors. I was also able to finish Chris' daughter's and nieces' Christmas presents!

I posted about these a while back, but I hadn't yet added the hearts. I made heartfelt bags a la Martha Stewart. Mine didn't turn out quite as well as hers, but they'll do.


I made four bags, although I only needed three. The first was kind of a "whoops, that's NOT how to do it" test, but it still turned out cute enough, so I plan to give it to a friend's daughter.

I love that even the handles form hearts.


I also added a heart to the back to hide the ugliness where I sewed on the handle.


I used two different fabrics for the interior.


I ran out of heart fabric, and I happened to have some coordinating bird fabric lying around, so two of the bags have bird interiors. I realize that this makes no sense, but the kids are three and I figure the "making sense" gene doesn't kick in until at least 35. And, even though I do know that it's nonsensical, I kind of like the birdies better anyway. (I'm not yet 35.)


I filled the three bags with Webkinz - a cat, a horse, and a bulldog/pug/?. Since two of the girls live in Wisconsin and one here in Seattle, I thought it would be cute for them to all have Webkinz that can live in the same place online. But mostly I bought them for a good price at Costco and kids love stuffed animals. :) I put some Christmas card making supplies in the bags as well, and I added Christmas critter slippers from the target dollar section after the photo shoot.


I'm happy to have one project and three Christmas gifts completed! Now to make tutus for other friends little girls! I have an abundance of tulle. Who doesn't have a bolt of tulle in their closet?

On Wednesday before Thanksgiving I stayed up until 3am. I made almost vegan mashed potatoes (I used lactaid milk at the end). Then I made homemade potato rolls (here's the recipe I used). There was nothing nutritious about them, but they were YUMMY! Again, I used lactaid milk and I subbed Earth Balance for the butter so I could eat these without wanting to die. Yay!


Then, I made vegan green bean casserole. It was goooooood. It was healthy until I added the fried onions. And, I forgot to take a photo. I also made cranberry sauce. Duh.

Because I was on a roll, and it was only 1am, I stayed up to make Chris an apple pie. He hearts apple pie, and he so rarely asks for dessert so I get excited when he does. Again, I used earth balance in the crust so I could eat some dessert on thanksgiving. That made it almost vegan until I did a nice egg yolk wash over the top (I'm not good at being vegan) and sprinkled it with sugar. The sugar was a special request from Chris. I like to be accommodating. And I never shy away from the opportunity to sprinkle sugar on something.

Before baking:


And after:


Mmm...pie. How much do I love miniature holly cookie cutters!?


Sometimes when you make pie, this happens to your pants:


It was actually much worse than the picture shows, but that's really neither here nor there. (And, yes, I was wearing a down vest while cooking - there are no heat vents in my kitchen. It's cold.) I was tired when we got home at midnight on Thanksgiving. So tired I forgot to put the leftovers in the fridge. I almost cried the next morning when I realized what I had done...and that it meant I would have to make dinner that night. (But, we ended up going out to eat while braving the crowds on black friday.) Only the rolls and the pie survived the night. Sigh.

OCD, anyone?

Ok, so I might be a little crazy. Hey, I said "might!" Last week (yes, 10.5 months before my wedding) I met with the venue to discuss tablecloth colors. Yes, I did. Angie at the Alexis Hotel is so so great, and she totally tolerates my insanity. I brought all my fabric flowers to lay on top of the samples and find the best linen color. (Of course I did.) I've decided on creamy-nude-ish (I need a crayola thesaurus) colored tablecloths with white napkins. The ribbon used for the napkin rings is the same color as the tablecloth, so that should tie everything in together. Angie has graciously offered to put on all of the napkins rings a couple of days in advance! I've started covering the buttons with scraps of fabric from all my other projects. Cute!


The polyester silk fabrics don't cover the buttons as nicely as some of the others, but don't tell anyone and I'm certain they won't notice! I'll have a mix of all the different fabrics I'm using, which will be extra cute - and free since they are scraps I would be throwing away anyway.

I also have quite a few more fabric poms now. And the prettiest piece of milk glass you've ever seen, which my aunt found hidden at a Good Will for $7! Drool. I think I saw that one for $30 on ebay (and I almost bought it for that ridiculous price)!


I had another craft night, so I had lots of help with these! My friends are so great and so genuinely excited to help me accomplish all my wedding crafts. I have a confession, however. I wish I could say I was one of those 'go with the flow' types, but, well, I'm just not. No, really - not at all. So, I did spend quite some time tinkering with the projects after my friends left to make them just so. I'm admitting that I'm super picky and it might be a problem (that's the first step, right?).

I need to take some more photos as I have over 150 yo-yos made from dupioni silk and about 15 silk flowers done as well. I'm getting a little concerned, however, as I really really need to spend some more time focusing on finishing these crafts up so that I can move onto designing logos and having letterpress plates made. My awesome designer friend Agnes played with my L Letterpress tool at craft night. Here are some of the cards she made.


I'll need to work on making sure that the edges don't show up in the image, but Boxcar Press has some excellent suggestions for this. I will be using Boxcar Press for my custom made plates, and if it weren't for their post on how to make the L Letterpress work well, I'd be very discouraged right now, but they've done such a comprehensive review of the product and how to improve it, I'm really excited to go to town and letterpress the logo on everything!

Because I can't focus on and finish anything I've started (ah, ADD), I've also started a project using these:


But I will reserve a post on that for the future, and if it turns out well, it may be the subject of a guest blog post! No, I swear I'm not making that up! I'm so so so so excited that our photographer, Abbey Hepner, has asked me to guest blog on the new segment of her blog that she is starting called CREATE. She talks about it here. Have I mentioned that I'm excited about this!? And that I love Abbey!? (Just checking.) And how cute is my fiance - when I told him (in my ridiculously giddy "GUESS WHAT!" voice) about the guest blog, he replied: "Wow! That's great!," followed (in a slightly less excited tone) with: "What does that mean?" I love that even though he had no idea what I was talking about, he was still genuinely excited for me. :)

366 Days (But Who's Counting!?)

Oooh Oooh I am! We officially signed our venue contract and put down the deposit yesterday. Yay! Chris wasn't even concerned when I texted him telling him that we had signed our lives away. I'm taking that as a good sign. I now have one year to accomplish the ridiculous number of crafting projects that I love and want to include at my wedding. But, I do have a good start on them. I have about 85 dupioni silk yo-yos (photos to come), and six silky flowers, thanks to an impromptu pie eating/wine drinking craft night at Chelan's last night. Here they are:



Love.

Also, last week I made this vegan cake and sold it to a friend. I really wish I had tried it! Vegan coconut cake with lime cream (soy) filling and lime buttercream frosting with toasted coconut on top. Mmmm...



I also feel the need to start the hunt for a great inexpensive wedding photographer. I'm afraid that such a thing doesn't exist. I understand that photographers put a great deal of time into editing photos, and sooo much money into their equipment, but it seems that all the photographers I like charge a minimum of $3,000 (without any prints), and that is a LOT of moolah to pay. Ah, another challenge. I'm optimistic that we'll work it out - everything else has gone well thus far!

Time for a Game Plan

(That's a sports analogy - Chris would be so proud!) This isn't much of a newsflash for those who know me (especially Chris!): I'm indecisive. I also want to make a very well-informed decision on which wedding venue will give me the most bang for my buck. This is a bad combo. I'm also a tad too practical to walk into a beautiful ballroom and think: "This is where I see myself getting married!" Perhaps this is due, in part, on the fact that I don't have 80 zillion dollars to spend, so the super gorgeous places are generally out of my price range. I learned today that the California Substation, which was number one on my list of awesome wedding venues will not likely be finished in the next year as it lost its funding. Sigh. So, now I think I have a plan...maybe. (See - indecisive!) I'm going to drag Chris around to a few more places, just to look. I'm aware that this will probably just make my decision harder, but there are a couple more places I'd like to check out. Plus, I'm afraid somehow I'm not finding some hidden gem out there that's like the California Substation - unheard of, cheap, and lovely. I realize this is rather unlikely given the unbelievable amount of research I've done, the amount of time I've spent collecting information and the amount of knowledge I have floating around in my head. (People ask if I've thought about such-and-such a venue, and generally I can approximate the room rental fee, number of people that can be seated and the food and beverage minimums from memory, which is met with a blank "what a freak" stare, followed by "I guess you have thought about it".) So, after a few more site visits, I am going to pick my top two - hopefully with Chris' input. From there, I plan figure out which venue provides us with more for our money. I'd rather spend a little more to get more, within reason, of course. And barring all of this, Hawai'i it is. Chris would be thrilled! But, I can't keep thinking about this anymore. It's literally making my head spin. I'm going to go take some dramamine for that!

Just for fun, here's a photo of the Pan Pacific Hotel. I think this place is beautiful (although spendy, of course):

This is significantly harder than I ever imagined.

Ok, so, yes. I always knew planning a wedding would be a challenge. Duh. However, it's proving to be a challenge in ways I could not have possibly imagined. Ok, I suppose I could have imagined it if I closed my eyes real tight and tried really hard. Anyway, I digress. Even an inexpensive, modest (but lovely, handmade, and well-thought out) wedding is undeniably and unbelievably expensive, especially if you want to have it anywhere near Seattle. I know, again with the 'duh.' I've put myself on a budget, and I don't want to go over it. Confusing me even more, however, is that when I think about even that modest budget, I think about how. much. money. it really is and I kinda freak out. What with considerable student loans, and a desire to build onto the house, and perhaps, some day, maybe (did I hedge that enough) be a stay at home mom (especially considering the fact that I don't make enough to even afford child care), I'm not sure I can justify it. I mean, it really is one 12 hour day. Seriously! I could pay off half my student loans instead!! My current *brilliant* plan is to win the lotto. I should probably have a backup plan, however.

Chris really likes the idea of a hotel wedding. It's convenient, they do all the work, and generally they throw in a hotel room for the bride and groom. Awesomesauce. However, I'd love to save a couple thousand dollars, have it somewhere way cheaper (I'm told I should say "more economical," not "cheap":)), where I would have to do more work, but I'm totally organized enough to work that out. Then, if we chose, we could spend a couple hundred dollars on a hotel room. Or not. Whatever, I don't really care much one way or the other about that. Most of the non-hotel places I've found are either just as expensive as a hotel, too small, or just plain meh. I'm still in love with the California Substation in West Seattle. Here's an old photo (it actually looks even nicer now that the Dakota Place Park folks planted lovely blooming flowers all around the front):


This place is fabulous. It's near our houses - so it's local, which is awesome. It's gorgeous in its old-school-ness without being overly ornate. It has new-old windows and exposed brick on the inside. It's a blank canvas, which I love because I can decorate it however I want. Rental fees are based on whatever Seattle Parks & Rec would charge (read: practically free in comparison to traditional "wedding" venues). There's a garden out back, and a large patio. The indoor capacity is 210, so if it rained, we could move everything inside. I have in mind a caterer that would let us buy our own alcohol. So, what's the catch, you ask. (There's always a catch.) The park outside has been beautified, but the building renovations (including seismic upgrades, and covering up that pesky hole in the ceiling, etc.) have been postponed due to budget cuts. It was supposed to be finished in late fall, 2010 (i.e. right now). Instead, they're hoping to start renovations this fall and finish in April, 2011. I should know more soon about whether the budget passed and they have money to actually get the ball rolling. However, even if they find money in the budget to get renovations started again, it's suuuuuuuuper risky to wait until next April and just hope that budget cuts or budget overruns (because of some crazy unpredictable weirdness in the building - I live in a 100 year old house - this happens) don't waylay the construction. If the venue falls through in April, we'd officially be screwed. But I don't want to spend a million zillion dollars on a wedding. I don't want to spend all that much on a wedding, to be honest. Could something please just be easy? For once? No? K, just checkin'.

Only in my dreams.

Lately all I dream about is my wedding venue. That can't be healthy/normal, can it? I don't remember the dreams, I just wake up frustrated and exhausted, so they must be realistic! Also, (although this isn't new) I can't focus at work. All day long I research and contact Seattle-area venues. I'm so going to get fired, which will make paying for a venue significantly harder. So, now I go work...no, really. For reals. I swear! But first, here's a picture of the project I started and almost completed this week.



Yay for sewing! I'm terrible at it, but it sure is a good distraction from stressful things. I made three of these for Christmas gifts. Thanks, Martha!(Yes, I know it's a Valentine's day purse, but what 7 year old doesn't want a purse with hearts on it!? Seriously. None. Plus, I plan to fill it with cheap junk. Kids LOVE junk!)

Frustrated!

Why are there no affordable venues in Seattle? Is no one else price-conscious? Is everyone ungodly wealthy? Seriously?