I've been feeling really guilty about the rampant blog neglect I've suffered throughout this year. Really, really guilty.
'Oooh! I should really post something!" I'd tell myself, only to be followed by my telling myself, "No, I should wait for the right time to come," because what I was working on was always either secret
new designs for Sublime Stitching, or something wedding related that I wanted to be a surprise for all.
And now, here I sit, wedding over and done with, embroidery patterns published, working away in preparation for this year's
Blue Genie Art Bazaar, my own photo cards full from honeymoon pictures, and all of a sudden my secret little wedding projects arrive in my mailbox in photo form! What a perfect chance to share what I've been doing for much of the last year or so without ruining any surprises!
Luckily, my lovely, talented, and all around wonderfully awesome photographer,
Leah Muse of
Whitney Lee Photography, has given me permission to share my work via blog using the beautimous photos she took (which are soooo infinitely better than
my sad iPhone photo attempts!). Super thanks to you, Leah, for such great work and niceness!
And so, dear blog readers, here's what I've been working on instead of keeping up on my craft blogging. I'm making up for it all at once!
As you may have figured out from the above photo, this guy here is our Autograph Cat. I made this li'l guy (inspired by '
autograph hounds' of old) as an addition to the guest recording tradition.
Oh, how I heard many times during the reception that attempts to sign the butt were thwarted, as my little brother grabbed that spot for himself first.
And I've already posted my own terrible photo of my birds last time, but here they are looking far, far better, and in context keeping favors and such company.
Speaking of favors... I drew up five different button pin designs to match everything else: lovebirds, a dancing Texas, excited bride and groom cats, flowers and blobbies as featured in my overall 'design motif ', and the saying The Happier the Better,' infamously coined by my friend and bridesmaid, Emma (of
Tom Selleck cake fame).
The pins topped off packages of jordan almonds tied up with various ribbons. I know, I know.... jordan almonds are a lame cliche that cool weddings don't include. But I absolutely love them! So they were included in the 'favor suite' of almonds, pins, and COLORING BOOKS!
Yes. Custom, Alicia-illustrated, 24 page coloring books! With puzzles! And activities! And family trees! Bridal party inside jokes! Crayons included!
This I was most excited about working on during the entire wedding planning period, and what I would consider one of the biggest hits of the evening (aside from getting married). It was so worth it.
Next up are the table and escort cards. We came up with various garden plants and animals for each table name in Spanish as a nod to my Cuban side.
I illustrated them in the same manner as the invitations, programs, etc. Then we printed, tented, and assembled them, stick some drop dead gorgeous flower arrangements nearby, and ta-da!
We even slipped in some inside jokes and family references, like the hippofrig below -- a creature created by my grandmother, Gammon, that is a staple in my family.
And I just have to give a million kudos to Scott Jenkins from
The Flower Bucket while I'm at it -- he's the one responsible for our incredible flowers and he did such a phenomenal job. I still can't believe that we were able to have such stunning flowers with our budget!
And the other stunning flowers of the evening were available thanks to my mama! She's the one who made all of these gum paste flowers to deck the wedding cake and they were just absolutely gorgeous and incredible. I'm a lucky daughter to have a mama like mine.
It was always my dream as a little girl to have a wedding cake made by my mom. She ran a catering and wedding cake business in the 80s, and boy, did she make the best cakes! However, venue contracts and such didn't allow for us to make our own cake. : (
BUT we did get to decorate it ourselves, and it turned out perfectly -- a dream come true (awww!). And our super cute squirrel and cat cake topper was made by
Melabo of etsy fame, and it literally topped it all off just wonderfully.
And the groom's cake was topped off with its own piece of gum paste awesome made by my brother (returning the favor for
his wedding movie poster I made) and my mom tag teaming it.
Not being fans of the whole 'strawberries and chocolate shavings on a chocolate cake' groom's cakes (seriously, where the heck did that idea come from? I had never seen that before moving to Texas... and personally, I have to say, yuck!), we opted to go with the tradition of the goofy groom's cake. That's how we do it in the South, nice and goofy and as un-weddingy as you can make it.
Hence Bossk the bounty hunter with a dirt bike! Awww, his fav
Star Wars character and his fav thing to do! I think my brother did a really great job for being a gum paste novice, and my mom did a great job of sculpting that bike. Such a crafty little family.
And so, that's it for my big fat wedding craft post. Hope it makes up for the lack of posts for the year.
I'm closing it out with one the fans I made (co-opting
a template from Martha Stewart but adding my own design to suit our own style), which displays the overall design motif I used pretty well.
It's funny, because it feels like there was so much more that we did than is even presented here -- invitations, save the dates, programs, the fabulous (and hard to photograph because they move) Alexander Calder inspired custom mobiles built by my husband...and on and on and on....
There was just sooo much planning and making and designing, I can't believe it's all done with. But it was an absolute blast in the end, and we were so fortunate to have a wedding celebration that was truly 'us.'
A tremendously big thank you for all the help we received from our friends and family in getting all of this done. And a bigger thanks for celebrating with us. And the biggest thanks to my husband for enduring my insanity during all of this.
For those of y'all still reading, I'll close it all with the quote from Carl Sagan that was on the back of the fans pictured above (and in our programs) -- appropriate for weddings, the holiday season coming up on us, or any day as a part of mankind in general.
"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
True that, Carl. True that.
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