September 1, 2010
My adorable bride Heidi will be relieved to see I don’t spend all of my time decorating the apartment – I do work on her dress too. And let me tell you, I sort of want to steal this from her. The chiffon arrived recently and ohmigod it’s KILLING me it’s so awesome. So soft and gorgeous – I wish I used it for my own dress. That’s right, I’m jealous. I wish we could do touch-o-vision or something, because for real, this skirt feels like a DREAM. But we can’t, so you’ll just have to look at it instead:
Bust pads are in place and aside from the hooks in the back, the foundation is complete.
Oh man, and just you wait for when I cinch in that waist band – holy crap, people, Heidi is gonna be breaking some hearts.
August 31, 2010
Too bad – it’s my blog. I told you there was gonna be more of this! So here it is, our dining room in its entirety. Once again, here is the before (AH!). And here it is now:
I was really unhappy with that rug, remember? But then I noticed that all of the crazy orange in our artwork was focused on one wall – there is no crazy orange in that rug, so they were sort of competing. I moved the Marlene Dietrich poster to the opposite wall and that allowed the reds in the other paintings to bounce off of the reds in the rug. I think so anyway – I mean, what the hell do I know? I just like it a lot more now.
I don’t know if you noticed (probably not), but I also changed some of the artwork as well and balanced the collection a little better. I just had to make the choice to remove pieces that were cluttering up the place. I have to do that with everything we own, actually – if you’re in the area, get ready for the yard/stoop sale of a lifetime, yo.
There’s Marlene in the back corner in all her crazy orange glory. So there you go – that’s our dining room! Just wait until you see the work room – I should probably save it for Halloween, because it’s scary in there.
August 30, 2010
Okay so I have apparently transferred my wedding planning obsession to an apartment planning obsession. Keith was gone all summer and I was left to hold down the fort alone, and let me tell you, that place was not working. I had completely ignored pretty much everything in that joint while planning the wedding, and now I see what a colossal dump formed around me. Just for the record, all of my friends will read this and roll their eyes – the place LOOKS completely organized and clean – but let me tell you . . . it’s a sh*t storm behind the scenes. Anyway, I started with the dining room a week ago and worked day and night, and now I can cross it of off my list – I’m totally loving it now.
It’s way more peaceful and calm – and although it doesn’t look like I reorganized anything, I did remove a good deal of extra stuff, which made the room much more useful and streamlined. And I painted too! This is the BEFORE. And this is the way-better-I-love-this-so-much AFTER:
I love how you can really SEE the details now. I painted the side board in a high gloss ivory, but frankly it just looks white to me. Which is fine, but at first everything seemed way off balance – the mirror frame was too much of a contrast. So then I painted the frame too – no big deal, right? Um yeah, somehow that project took three days to complete. THREE DAYS! First, I painted it in a pale pinky color, thinking that would pick up some of the pinks in the rug and artwork and junk. But it just looked white too. Why did I spend all of this money on paint?? Anyway, then I had one corner of the room completely off from the dark built-ins on the other wall. Ugh. So I painted the inside groove of the frame the same bright orange that is scattered throughout the artwork in the room. WHOA. It looked exactly like the contrast trim of my high school cheerleading uniform. Very go-fight-win, if you will. So THEN I took my pale-pink (read WHITE) paint brush and went over the orange very lightly, which looked much calmer and sweet. Bedtime. In the morning, the frame looked like it belonged next to a little girl’s canopy bed, so I went back over the washed-out orange with another coat of pale-pink-white, but that was still not right! ARGH! I pulled out a can of black paint I had laying around and soooo lightly brushed that over the entire surface of the frame, making it a little less gleaming and sort of aged looking. Okay . . . not bad. At this point, I decided to just walk away and do something else, so I grabbed the blue wall paint to do some touchups and *lightbulb*. Blue on the frame! Oh yes. That was awesome. It was starting to look very mid-century. And what does every mid-century frame need? GOLD! I did both the blue and gold very lightly and haphazardly and I ended up with this:
That’s kind of cool right? And that, my friends, is how you reproduce that look. Good luck. *eyes rolling* I can’t show you the rest of the room, because Keith just returned from his canoe trip and there’s like oars and junk all over the room. But I’ll show you the whole shebang tomorrow and then we’ll start to talk about the kitchen and my ultimate work room challenge.
August 18, 2010
Keith’s home! Keith’s home! My sweet, brand-new husband has come back to me after being on the opposite side of the country for the last five weeks. So good to have him home. And that’s why I’ve been such a horrible blogger – I’ve been much too busy drinking beer and cuddling to do anything productive. Except, oh, I did paint the dining room the first full day he was home. I know! I can’t help it! I’m a project-aholic! To be clear, though, he did convince me to do it – I was just talking about how much I wanted to do it. He’s an enabler. And he only taped the ceiling for me – I did the rest. So anyway, yeah, I painted the dining room on Sunday. It used to be insane:
And now it is less so:
I really wish I had a different rug, but you know, I don’t, so I just have to make do. Our apartment is full of stuff – I like stuff A LOT and Keith has been patient enough to let me display it all (even though he would prefer an empty house with two blocks and a tv). Although now I’ve been thinking a lot about making the house more functional as a living/working space (since I’ll be spending so much more time here getting my first bridal collection ready) and I just want everything OUT. I want it all simple and clean, since the place will likely be full of fabric and patterns (not that it isn’t already). But I still really like my stuff – I’m finding it hard to compromise with myself.
I’m starting by just generally toning everything down. I moved the cream barkcloth curtains from the dining room into the living room, replacing the crazy 40′s tropical ones that hung there before – that helped A TON. And now I think I’ll paint this green sideboard (which was left in my last apartment – it came painted that way) in a high gloss ivory color. I’m hoping it will balance the ivory sheers in the dining room and just plain ol’ lighten everything up.
And then I have to completely reorganize my work room. UGH. I need to act fast too, because I have actual work I’m supposed to be doing.
August 10, 2010
You know how the night before a vacation is so exciting that it’s practically impossible to fall asleep? You stay up way too late, and even when you do manage to sort of calm yourself, you’re still half awake all night? It was like that when I was a kid, anyway, now I can sleep pretty much anytime, anywhere. Except apparently when I’m working on this kick ass project! Remember that lace I showed you a couple of days ago? Well turns out I was onto something, because this is blowing my mind!
Look at that sleeve! I’m freaking out, people. Turns out hand-stitching lace is not a time-consuming project at all when you’re obsessive compulsive and completely in love with it. I stayed up way too late last night working on the other sleeve and then dreamed about it all night. I’m obsessed. Just wait until I start with the lace on the body of the jacket. And then add the ruffled tulle to the ends of the sleeves. And then line it all in pink silk. Whoa, people. Whoa.
August 9, 2010
Okay before I begin this post, let me just say that I am not intentionally withholding pictures from my own wedding. I’ve seen them, but I haven’t yet gotten my hands on them. So stop nagging me and enjoy this wedding instead! xoxo Love you!
My bridesmaid Stacey got married over the weekend – woo hoo!! I’ve mentioned Stacey here before – we’ve been friends since like forever and she’s one of the sweetest girls on Earth. That is not an exaggeration. She is incredibly sweet and loyal and adorable and hilarious and an amazing mother. I couldn’t WAIT to help her put together her dream farm wedding. She did all of the planning and everything, I just showed up the day before to help set up – oh and I made the dresses for her daughters and the bouquets. This wedding was a true DIY wedding down to its very core – Stacey’s dad and uncle roasted a pig, the mothers of the bride and groom made all of the side dishes and the groom and Stacey’s brother-in-law built the arbor for the ceremony. It was incredible!
Just look at that ceremony site! Who wouldn’t want to get married there?? With the corn in the background?? Adorable.
Oh and check this out – Stacey’s friend Cassie made her cake! And it was so friggin’ CUTE. It was delicious too. It looked a lot better when it first arrived – it took me awhile to get around to taking pictures.
So as I mentioned above, I made the bouquets the day of the wedding. I had never before done this using fresh flowers, and I am obviously nowhere near being a professional. I used a combination of mums and wildflowers and I cut some sedum from my parents’ garden as well (that’s the awesome green stuff). This was a surprisingly difficult project – I seriously had no idea what I was up against. It was super fun, but the entire time I kept thinking how happy I was to have not made fresh bouquets for my own wedding. That would have been one serious freak show. I thought these were pretty darn cute though, and it only cost $25 for three bouquets, one boutonniere and flowers for the mothers and grandmothers.
More pictures from the day:
It was such a sweet day and absolute proof that you can have the most amazing wedding on the smallest budget. Love doesn’t cost a thing, and it was everywhere that day. Congratulations to the new family!! xoxo
August 5, 2010
I had another encounter with a giant centipede last night. For those of you who don’t know, that lovely Chicago ivy we’re so famous for is a breeding ground for those a$$holes. The building next to us, although pretty to look at, is covered in it. And this is their favorite season, apparently, because I have to deal with one every single day – ACK. This one was in the bathroom, and thankfully I was fully clothed and not in any compromising positions. The Dyson sucked him up and hopefully sucked the life out of him too, because if I see a mammoth centipede crawling up out of the vacuum hose, well I guess that means I’ll never be vacuuming again.
Okay, so before that, I was working on this:
Which used to look like this:
That’s a whole lotta cutting. And it’s going to be even more hand sewing – yeesh. This awesome lace (with bows!) will be used on a fancy pants shrug I’m working on – imagine it over black velvet with ruffly tulle sleeves. Love it. I may have a hard time parting with this one. You see, in addition to my collection of gowns, I will also be offering handmade bridal accessories which will be sold in my online store. I’ll be doing shrugs and veils and lingerie – all super delicate and feminine. Very exciting!
August 3, 2010
Holy cow, people, I am an emotional WRECK lately – what is up with me?? Life is so much harder when Keith isn’t around. Like last night, I’m doing the dishes and a GIANT centipede comes crawling up from the drain and is so giant that I couldn’t flush it back down! Okay, I do not deal with centipedes very well. To this day I am terrified a centipede will crawl out of the toilet paper roll while I’m using it because of a traumatic childhood incident. It also doesn’t help having seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom five million times while growing up. Anyway . . . I’m forced to deal with horrific incidents like that every day and frankly, it’s exhausting. Screaming uses up a lot of energy.
Thank goodness I have this awesome project to distract me. My new bride Heidi flew all the way from L.A. for the first fitting of her Grace Kelly To Catch a Thief wedding gown over the weekend. And ohmigod, her dress is sooo much fun to make. It’s almost entirely handstitched – all of the boning and the gathers in the skirt – all done by hand. Check it out:
Those are some serious busts pads – aw yeah. We’ve got a set on the inside of the gown as well. See, the original Grace Kelly gown has two perfectly rounded domes and well, most of us weren’t born with perfectly round ta-tas. To make your own, use 5 – 6 graduating circles cut from batting and enclose them in two layers of tulle. Super simple. Obviously this is just the very foundation of the dress – it will eventually be covered in swaths of woven chiffon. Like so:
Can’t. Wait. Oh and I would also like to note that this foundation fits her like a GLOVE. The dressform is bigger than adorable and petite Heidi, so it’s not laying as well here as it does on her. Just looking at the photo makes me want to run home and pick up my needle again. Love it!
July 29, 2010
Oh! I just remembered I never showed you pictures of this wedding dress, which I made for one of the sweetest brides on Earth. Seriously. Katie was nothing but adorable and sweet throughout the entire process (not to mention her adorable and sweet mom and grandmother). For the record, every bride I’ve worked with has been lovely – I’m very lucky – but Katie was overwhelmingly so and I really loved making this dress for her.
She came to me with a few definite ideas: a halter with a cummerbund, a 1950′s silhouette, accents in pale green (to match her green sapphire engagement ring) and YELLOW. Okay, I have to admit, the green AND yellow terrified me – I had no idea what to do with that (aside from a circus theme). But I sketched a few things out, and after meeting her, I knew this dress was going to be AWESOME. This is what we came up with:
In order to get the perfect green, I hand-painted every single leaf and then hand-stitched them to white flower appliques and little tufts of tulle. And here’s the cutie pie wearing it on her wedding day:
And check out her adorable husband in his suit and the yellow tie – love it. Congratulations, you two!
[Wedding images by Emily Kamholtz]
July 28, 2010
Ohmigoodness. I have been such a very bad blogger. I am sincerely sorry about being so lazy, it’s just that, well . . . this is the deal:
It’s kind of hard coming down from the wedding high. I was having the time of my life planning and crafting and sewing – I really was – it was so awesome. But then the last days (and morning) leading up to the actual wedding were so exhausting that I think it traumatized me a little bit. I mean, a girl should be able to STAND the day of her wedding. Note: I was fine once things got going – girlfriend did not think one second about her feet when it was time to walk down the aisle. And then the other thing is that Keith has been out of town for a couple of weeks dealing with some family stuff. He was literally home for two days after our honeymoon before he left and not having him around just screws up my schedule. It’s really hard for me to sleep when he’s not home, so I stay up way too late and then I’m super sleepy in the morning and then frankly I don’t feel like writing a blog entry before heading to work. I went out to visit Keith for his birthday over the weekend, by the way, so I’m not complaining or anything – just explaining what’s going on with me. And in addition to all of that . . .
I’m working on the most giant project of my entire life. Could it possibly get any bigger than our wedding? Um yes. Because at no point were we risking all of our financial security for it – that puppy was paid for in cash. This, on the other hand, will definitely change the course of our lives – hopefully for the better – and I am determined to make it happen. Ladies and gents, I am in the process of designing my first wedding gown collection. Aw yeah. *high five* And you know, that’s kind of a lot of work. But it’s awesome, and I’m excited. I will also be handcrafting accessories – veils, boleros and cool stuff like that – I’ll keep you all updated as items are posted in my shop. So ANYWAY . . .
I’m not intentionally neglecting you or anything – I just don’t have all that much to talk about at the moment. And I’m tired from not getting to bed at a normal time and you know whatever. Excuses, excuses. If you’re willing to hang around and wait for me, I think I’ll have some cool stuff to show in the sort of near future. It takes a little while longer to make a wedding dress than to, you know, make some doily menus or whatever.
