Flowers, updated

I've been working on these, with the help of my master-petal-cutter sister, all weekend, and finally, the flowers are done. Here's a sneak peak of their various applications:







Okay kids, much more to be done! We'll try to pop back in before Saturday!

Patchwork for the Party

This and the next few posts are inevitably going to focus on the smaller DIY projects we're preparing for the ceremony and reception. Seriously guys, I had about two days after I finished my dress (did I mention that here? If not, the dress is totally done!), and then I was like, "okay, now what? I need something to do." For reals.

But this is the fun part--details!



So on one of many little trips down to AmVets, we picked up some frames to house a "board" (I'm not really sure what to call it) for seating assignments and one for photos. To tie in our colors, we decided that some patchwork would be cool here. I had tons of scraps from making dresses and flowers, so it made sense.



All in all, I spent about an afternoon and a half working on these. From sewing and spray painting...



...to mounting the patchwork, backed with batting and foam core, into the frames.



These pieces will be part of the gift/whatever table and are a little bit practical but mostly just pretty. I really like them.

Okay, so what's next?

DIY Cupcake Stands

A couple weeks ago, on a mutual day off (a rare and joyous commodity), Joe and I headed down to AmVets, our favorite local thrift store to score some supplies for a little wedding project. Cupcake stands!





We filled our cart full of glass and ceramic plates, platters, cups, candlesticks and vases. Vertical elements for height, horizontal elements for surface area.



I liked this milk glass vase.



Once we got our supplies home, all we did was add some glue! We bought epoxy, but found that plane old superglue did the job. We made a few with a two and three tiers, and others as just regular cakestands.



We think this will make for a pretty sweet dessert table, the perfect home for all those cupcakes I can't seem to go two posts without talking about!

Process: Vanilla Cupcakes

I made a batch of the vanilla chiffon cupcakes we'll be featuring at the reception, and decided to take some process photos along the way. For your viewing pleasure, vanilla cupcakes from flour to frosting:

Cocoa Cupcakes

A couple weeks ago, I whipped up a batch of chocolate cupcakes--the cocoa version of the Alton Brown Chiffon Cupcakes--for an end-of-year studio potluck. And because these cupcakes are definitely going to be on the dessert menu, I thought I'd share!

These pictures seem to focus on the frosting, though, because I was also testing out a swiss buttercream recipe (soooo good). The pairing of the two are pretty great. Since the cupcakes are so light and not super-sweet, you can go pretty decadent with the topping--and it is decidedly decadent.
Mmmm.. buttercream..

RSVPs Welcome

Now that everyone has (hopefully) received their invites, I thought I'd post the completed suite.

Behold:

Now let's hear those RSVPs! We'll take them via email, phone, text, Facebook if you're on it... you could even comment on this post if that works for you! June 30th is your deadline!

Check back in soon!

Love,
Gabby

Flowers?

So this past Friday was my official last day of classes (hooray!), and though I still have exams this week, I took a little break over the weekend to soak up the amazing (AMAZING!) weather and work on a few wedding-related projects. I'm not sure if we've broached the topic of flowers yet, but I do plan on making fabric flowers for my bouquet and for various other applications. I guess it depends on how well it goes. I can totally imagine freaking out at the eleventh hour and running to Wegmans to buy fresh, overpriced grocery store flowers. But in the hopes of avoiding that moment, I spent a couple hours Saturday afternoon looking up tutorials and messing around with the scraps of fabric I've collected from sewing bridesmaids dresses. Long story short, here's what I came up with:

Pretty basic. Just petals sewn on to a small ball of wool. To clean up the edges, I plan on just trimming the petals a bit, then painting on some fray-check or even acrylic matte medium. I know that if you use synthetic fabrics, you can flame-seal the petals, which also gives them a little shape, allowing the edges to curl slightly. This was pretty good for a test run, I think.

How this is going to translate into a bouquet, I'm not so sure yet. But this is some of the inspiration I've collected:

I'm thinking I might bleach or dye some of the scraps I have to get variations of the coral color. I'll probably play with some other fabrics to add some textural variety, like the charmeuse and chiffon that's leftover from my dress. I've seen some amazing felt flowers out there too, like these ones. I can't wait to have my slaves bridesmaids here to help me make them!

If anyone has ideas or projects (or better yet, templates!) they'd like to share, I'd love to hear about it.

Talk to you soon!
Gabby

P.S. Have you gotten your invitation yet? Let me know if you'd like to RSVP!

A Small Project

So I ended up having a whole bunch of newsprint scraps from printing fabric for my capstone project (which is now completed and on exhibit, hallelujah). I was already considering making some kind of sewn paper garland, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. It's a pretty simple project, made easier by that awesome fiskars 2" hole punch. The only thing I'm not so sure about it how to store the garland until the wedding without it getting tangled, bent, or ripped. Hmm. Thoughts?

Love,
Gabby

Invites!

Before The Joe was off to studio and work today, we got down and dirty with our invitations. And guess what? They totally got did! Done! Done-zo! It was actually a pretty fun DIY/DIT (Do-It-Together) morning project. We're hoping to get these printed and in the mail pretty soon.

Hey, check out that perfect "Z" that Rommel scratched into my wrist. He must be Zorro or something.

In other news,

You might notice that things are a little different around here. Spiffier, we'd like to think. Be sure to click through all of the new pages on the sidebar. Of course, we'll be filling in more details as we get closer to the date.

Also!
The dress is totally in the works! Spring Break is exactly what I needed to get started on the thing. You can follow my flickr to see in-progress pics as I post them.

Talk you soon!

Love,

Gabby

Wedding Dress Adventures

I apologize for the radio silence, but Joe and I have been busy. Not doing fun things, in case you were wondering, just working a whole lot. Anyway, we're both pretty excited for semester to begin in a couple weeks. Joe will be starting grad classes for his masters and I'll be finishing up my last year at Canisius and writing my thesis! Woohoo! Definitely more exciting than sitting in an office for 40 hours a week or slaving away at the airport all night.

Aside from that, I would like to direct your attention to my blog, where I've been posting about sewing my dress and the bridesmaid dresses. If you follow me on flickr, this is probably old news. But I have successfully produced a final mockup for the wedding dress! After about 3 muslins of my self-drafted pattern, I've got the cut and fit absolutely perfect. Now I just have to buy the nice fabric and start sewing the real thing. Look at me, 11 months to go and I am totally on top of this stuff.



Click on over to my blog to read my posts on...
Sewing bridesmaid dresses
Sewing my dress mockup
Finishing my dress mockup

Love,
Gabby

Did you think we forgot about the cupcakes?

Last night, around 10 pm, I decided to make some cupcakes. And not just any cupcakes. Dear readers, I do believe that I have stumbled upon the two most glorious recipes in the world of cakey confections. These are winners, no doubt about it.


Note: these were just testers. When it's time for the real deal, there will be a mountain of swirled buttercream atop these cakes. Fret not.

For the cupcake itself, I present to you: Alton Brown's Vanilla Chiffon Cupcakes
And for the very literal icing-on-the-cake: Smitten Kitchen's Swiss Buttercream

For the test batch, my additions were:
- almond extract
- 1/2 tsp of my own chai spice mix (cardamom seeds, fennel seeds, cloves, cinnamon, and black cardamom)
- ground almonds sprinkled on top along with my schmancy Williams Sonoma sprinkles

These babies are light as air, not too sweet, and taste like clouds of heaven in your mouth. I have found it, my holy grail of cupcake recipes. Amen.

Love,
Gabby

Dress-ing

So most of my pre-wedding work is going to be sewing projects. Admittedly, this is something I've brought upon myself. I'm not only making my own dress.. but have committed to sewing three bridesmaid dresses. If anything, it's just to prove how awesome I am. Also, we (bridesmaids included) are going to be saving SO much by not opting for boutique or big box store dresses. Seriously, I bought eight yards of coral cotton twill (decidedly not silk) for $30! You couldn't buy one bridesmaid dress for that!

To spare the uninterested, I'll be posting most of my wedding-related (and otherwise) sewing on my flickr. If you already follow my photostream, you may have noticed some work up there already.



My goal is to finish pretty much all of the sewing this summer. Yes, lofty aspirations, but I cannot imagine trying to find time to cut, sew, fit, and finish a wedding dress while writing my thesis and applying to grad schools this fall/winter/spring.

Soooo... I should probably get crackin'. Like now.

Cupcakes: Earl Grey and Lemon

So, I have a test run for you!

This week we made Earl Grey cupcakes with lemon-honey icing. We were both craving something light and citrus-y, and this recipe sounded interesting enough.
For the cupcakes, I adapted this recipe.



Earl Grey Cupcakes

- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 bag Earl Grey tea
- 1 tbsp. lemon juice
- zest from 1 lemon

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Mix dry ingredients, including loose tea. Beat half of dry mixture into the wet. Then mix in the milk, lemon juice, and zest. And then combine the rest of the dry mix. Stir until just combined. Line cupcake pan, and fill cups about 2/3 full. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350. Cool before frosting.



For the icing, I just mixed half a cup of confectioners sugar, 1-2 tbsp. lemon juice, 2 tbsp. honey and some extra zest. Mix to the right consistency and drizzle over cooled cupcakes.

So, what do you think, Joey?

Haha..

Yes, they're pretty yummy.
My only concern for them as a wedding treat is that they're not really a show-cupcake. They taste wonderful but they're kind of beige-tastic. I think if I were to make them for the wedding I would do a buttercream frosting instead, to give some height. And then probably fancy them up with some sprinkles and whatnot.



What should we try next?

Love,

Gabby

Engagement Announcements, Part Deux

Now that the prints have made there way out into the world, I thought I'd post them.

I had some studio time at the end of the semester after my exhibition went up, so what better way to spend it? This project didn't involve the purchase of any new materials, so it was a total DIY win. The paper, the linoleum block, and ink were all supplies I had left over from studio. Actually, the only thing we paid for was a couple books of stamps. That said, there were some epic printmaking fails. I started with an edition of 70, which was whittled down to about 40 because of problems like bad registration, an unevenly adjusted press, and some horrible printmaking travesties of which I dare not speak.

Anyway... this is what we came out with. And I say "we" cause Joe was a super duper help (he painstakingly cut out all the text stencils, which we only ended up using for like the first three prints).

The main print came from this photo.
You can see the original on my flickr here.


After some sketching and the magic of graphite transfer...


...and some careful carving, the image becomes printable!

Those are actually all the process photos I have. I didn't really have the blogger foresight to document this project, because, well... we didn't have this blog yet!

Anyway, we had fun making these to share with everyone. So we hope they were all delivered safe and sound, unravaged by the elements or angry postal workers.



Love,
Gabby