anoisette

Ok so the real reason I got inspired to update this blog is because I was so happy to find Pink Panda Fabrics, a Canadian online fabric shop that offers free shipping in Canada and carries Cloud 9 Fabrics, who do terribly cute organic cotton prints. That was probably a very poorly constructed sentence, but I needed to fit all that information in there.

Now that things are winding down post-wedding, I want to get some sewing projects going but I’ve frustrated by the lack of cute eco-fabric options. It is  such a breath of fresh air to see that there is stuff out there. With all those cute prints to choose from it’s going to be hard to decide which to get…

New favourite wedding blog that I wish I had found much much sooner: i-do-it-yourself. They have a huge amount of resources for DIY brides! I just spent the past hour skimming through their archives. So. Much. Awesomeness!

After I got my sewing machine it was only natural that I would need a pin cushion. Except of course I couldn’t find anything I liked in the store, the red tomato? No thanks. So, like pretty much every other time I can’t find anything I like (wedding dress, anyone?) I figured I would just make one. At some point. In the future. I still haven’t, but along the line my mom gave me an extra magnetic one she had so that serves my purpose well for now.

However.

Today I came across these beautiful linen and lace pin cushions at namolio.etsy.com

Would make a lovely mother’s day present for a crafty mom, no?

I’ve made a muslin of my dress, but despite the fact that I know it’s a muslin and will look different when it’s made out of the read fabric and has a proper lining and all I can’t help think there’s something missing. I sure wish I had found out about this book Bridal Couture: Fine Sewing Techniques for Wedding Gowns and Evening Wear sooner. I put a copy on hold from the library but it will likely be a few weeks before I get it, since it’s currently signed out. I found it while considering going back to a lace dress idea, but realizing that I don’t actually know a whole lot about working with lace since I never have before. Regardless, if I do stick with the idea I’ve been working on, I’m sure the book will have some very good suggestions and techniques for inner construction. In the mean time, as I am planning on making the dress out of Dupioni Silk, I found some very helpful information about sewing with it here and here.

I stopped by Michael’s the other day and picked up some ribbon to have a try at what it would look like on the invitations. I really like the ribbon with the organza middle and it’s just the right shade of navy (the green of that type of ribbon was sadly too yellow), however in the end I think adding ribbon is a bit much. I feel like it makes it look too cluttered. Better to keep things simple. So I’ll just do the punched corners and the green mat. I ordered the paper, hopefully it gets here soon. A friend of mine is coming to visit next week and is staying at our place. She’s probably one of the most fastidious people I know so maybe we can put that to good use However, I’m not exactly sure what the best kind of glue would be to use to mount the invites. Any experienced invitation makers or scrapbookers have any suggestions?

My friend Tracey sent me a whole pile of inspiration boards from snippet & ink. She’s all about the fantastic ideas and resources! Anyway, I just wanted to share a couple of my favourites:

Love this navy and lavender combination. I also really like the idea of the navy suit with the lily of the valley boutoniere! Navy isn’t a color I had considered for a suit…

Apple green and black, a nice crisp and modern combination. What can I say, I like green… A lot!

I really enjoyed the DIY Wedding Favors series over at Style Me Pretty. A lot of those ideas could also be used for other occasions or even little Christmas presents. Some of my favourites are the Custom Seed Packs, Spice Jar Favors, and Tea Tins. Currently I’m thinking our favors will be based on the Spice Jar Favors, just because I love how they pull double duty as place ard holders.

I was just playing around with the fantastic pattern maker at bgpatterns.com and was pretty impressed at how easy it is to make nice patterns I’d actually want to use! It would be the perfect place to make a quick background for say your wedding website. If only they let you download the patterns in a higher resolution so you could use them on your invites as well… Anyway, the site is super easy to use and you can pick from a very nice selection of patterns, pick the color, the size, the texture, and a whole lot of other stuff that makes it so easy to end up with something you like! Even if you don’t have an immediate need to make a pattern, it’s a lot of fun to play with.

This is what I worked on yesterday. Put up the SLÄTTHULT wall sticker and I had picked up. It was surprisingly more challenging than I thought because it all came in pieces and my first few attempts didn’t feel authentic enough tree-wise. I originally started it so it would begin below the table height, but after all the unsticking and resticking I did, I guess it migrated up without me noticing. The tree is centered on the wall, but the table isn’t and I’m not sure if it looks funny that the tree is off center from the table. What do you think?

The table cloth was an awesome find of cut of fabric in the As-Is section for $3.50. I hemmed it up on my sewing machine and the result is easiest best priced table cloth ever. That print is from the KATRIN set which even at the regular price of $7.99 a meter is not going to break the bank.

One of my lovely friends, who often sends me delightful etsy finds, directed me to elephant and chickpea to look at lovely soft mary jane room shoes with tasty names like Avocado, Mustard (the two are such a good combination) and Strawberry. Seeing that they are made here in Vancouver I went to the blog to find out more and found a cute photo of little house pincushions. Her style feels very zakka to me, and I like it.