A Reprive: Charleston Flowers

For Christmas we got rain, lots of windswept, sideways rain. In many ways it reminded me of our honeymoon :lol: Seems like this year is just a wash, literally. Unfortunately between all the running around we did over the last 4 days I did not bother to take my camera because honestly it's one more thing to cart around. I can not wait till I can convince Chris that we only need to go to 2 family events for the Holidays, not 8.

In any case here's something to cheer you up if where you're at happens to be a bit dull and grey right now :)
This was snapped at the Boone Hall Plantation. It was a very wet and chilly day, but it made for a vibrant picture.




I hope to have some more crafty pictures up in the coming week :) It's going to be very busy for me since I have some rare down time from the 9-5.

A Reprive: Charleston Ironworks

I didn't really talk a whole lot about our Honeymoon to Charleston, SC, so I'd thought instead I'd share some of the best pictures (that I have) of our trip to the south.

Charleston has a real obsession with iron. Very ornamental iron. It's on every single house that lines the inner city. I think what amazed me the most was the symmetry of each piece. Perfect symmetry is one of the most catching things to anyone's eye.









But the most interesting find was this gothic goat head door knocker.

I love it. Maybe because it seems devilish. Charleston has over 100 active congregations in the "Holy City" so finding this piece of work makes me curious about the darker side of Charleston.

Thank You Notes

Well, that's that.


It rained. Then it rained some more on the honeymoon. It wasn't perfect in fact there was an incident prior to the ceremony that I didn't find out about till this past Sunday. It involved one of the servers spilling a pan of chicken an hour before the reception and getting Sterno all over his pants thus igniting them (funny but not). So our lovely caterer Renee had to make a mad dash to the ER, swing back by her restaurant to get more chicken to prepare and cook, and sprint back to the reception.

And you know what. I totally didn't know anything was going on. Why? Because my mom is awesome and got the Barn decorated and laid out and somehow still had time to get ready.

It was a fun day, it went by way to fast and good ol' Aunt Flo had to stop by in the middle of the reception which caused me to be absent from it for like 30 min :( I was really bummed about that. I also almost threw up when Chris fed me the cake because I was feeling so ill. I can look back on it and laugh because it's fun memories now, but at that time all I was thinking was, Oh God please don't let me barf.
I cried for an hour the following day mostly from relief and from feeling like I totally missed my own wedding. Ah guilt.

But I don't look too sick here ^_^



I can put on a brave face when I have to.....or a nonchalant, careless pose in a doorway lol.



I'm glad it's over and everyone had a blast even if it rained. Now I have the joy of nesting in my own home with new flatware and a boatload of thankyou cards to write.
My hand will never recoup at this point.

SO Close To a Vacation

I'm literally days away from the Wedding now (10.09.09 eep!), so this is more than likely the last post prior to the wedding craze that's about to commence. I find it hilarious that the forecast has changed about 6 different times in the past 2 days. But as of today it's forecasted to rain, like 70%.......and if you haven't guessed, yes the ceremony is to be held outdoors. THANKFULLY we do have a backup plan because I like to to be prepared.

I'll use the word "prepared" loosely because this is not always the case :lol: but I've been really good at it when it comes to the wedding. Maybe it's because there's a good chunk of change involved in pulling this day off.

I'm going to Target today to nab some ultra colorful umbrellas for me and my sisters aka my bridesmaids because I'll be damned if I'm going to let a little downpour ruin some spectacular photo opportunities. And I want to have FUN! I demand fun. Everyone should.

My AWESOME favors arrived yesterday right on time from my friends over at Whimsy & Spice. They are mini bundles of the Brown Sugar Gingerspice Shortbread cookies, seen here. I'm immensely thrilled and proud they helped me out with all 120 favors :lol: including tying lots of ribbon onto the boxes. It was a long time in the making and I can't believe I managed to get them to do them for me. To me they are like the Elvis of Cookies.

Got lots more to do including finishing sewing my centerpiece squares, putting together the programs, finding the rest of the reception music and generally keeping all manner of cat-kind away from anything tempting.

So keep me in your prayers and I'll see you around the week of October 19th!

Forecast: Chili with A Broken Brain

Strangely enough I don't feel nearly as stressed about the wedding as I did nearly a month ago. Maybe it's the feeling of victory nearly here? Meh. All I know is that I'm trying to mend my broken brain and that part is becoming harder than I care to admit.
Curse my worrying mind. I'm almost waiting for some strange package to arrive on my doorstep with claws to mangle my carefully arranged order.

So I made chili. Because it's delicious and it's nearly Fall...kind of...well mostly because it's delicious. But I was evidently out of chili powder (OMG) when I called Chris to start the pot up. I called him because I had to work OT at the "9-5" and he was already home, safe, comfy and I was stuck in diabolical, hellish traffic.
After stopping at the doctor's office and getting some new "fun" things for my broken brain I set off back down the hellish Highway of Doom to the grocery. Bought chili powder, came home and dang it if we weren't short a can of kidney beans.

*apply cold compress or heat pack and relax*

But I made the chili anyways because I'm stubborn and I was stressed and nothing was going to screw with my already wasted evening! Not even kidney beans.

At least I had chili and it was well with the world once more.

Birds Are Hoppin' These Days

Tumus strikes again, in the weeeee morning hours.

I do have another bird cut out I just need to sew it's little beaky-self together.

I've really been busy in crafty land despite the sad posts and the general angst that comes with wedding planning. Seriously, I'll take some photos tonight to prove it. Mostly just alot of template cutting and getting pieces cut out and ready for assembly. I need to go get alternate storage for my yarn collection too as it's just messy imo.

If I must have chaos I deem that it be organized chaos. But right now the sewing room is a mess and it's totally blocking my creativity which is weird because normally I'm fine.

I made some new "kick sticks" for the cats too which seem to amuse them. I don't have any catnip to add to them but they seem to like them well enough. I added fuzzy tails to them for more shredding fun.

I'm also thinking of adding a non-pet related personalization option to Tumus once the wedding is done and over with. I have a feeling that this Holiday season is going to put me to the test with two shops. I want to be ready, hence cutting the billion and one templates for pincushions and dogs alike.
In fact I already have another order of 5 personalized dogs to make once I reopen in October after the wedding. How hilarious is that??

I plan to do the centerpieces for the reception this weekend too before August is officially done and over with. Can you believe it's practically Fall? Good grief.

All the Funnies

I posted this up on another blog, but thought some people here might get a kick out of this.




Also I STILL have not ordered felt. HAHAHA! CRAZY! I did eat lasagna though lol and I did stay inside and work on orders, but the felt got pushed back. Even now it's like 7pm and I just got home from work (that's like a 12 hr day *dies*) and am eating in front of the PC, digging thru wedding stuffs and I realized I need to get a friggin' officiant!
What the crow? I mean of ALL things to procrastinate on. I'm SO glad i'm only getting married once because all this planning for one day is just overkill.

Well at least mom is coming over on Saturday to help keep me sane and start addressing envelopes.

I may for the sake of my sanity temporarily close Tumus and Pinpinnalmost 3 weeks out before the wedding and keep it closed till 2 weeks after. That's about a month and a week. Not horrid, but ideal and hopefully understandable.

Now if you'll pardon me I have some pizza to nom on and felt to hopefully order.

Accomplished

There. The main invites are all done and God willing I won't have to make any more and I'll have leftovers.



We got back from Dublin earlier this afternoon. It was a good time minus the fact that I had some bad fish and chips which later came back to haunt me after numerous beverages were consumed. I was not a happy camper. Needless to say I only slept about 2 hours last night. Even so I was still determined to finish the last 20 invites I had sitting around ready to string with ribbon. Then I took a 3 hour nap :lol: Everything else from this point out should be cake! Nothing but printing, cutting and stuffing envelopes.

Back in Dublin I managed to find the vendor who sold Jammie Dodgers and picked up a few packs as a treat to myself. Also found a Christmas present for my dad, a t-shirt for myself which says "Tis a fine cup o' tay", and a new Guinness sign for the kitchen.

Tomorrow it's back to the "9-5", bills and grocery shopping.

It's All Good

2 months and counting and all I wanted to do is sleep and forget that I still have last minute details to iron out. You'd think the wedding invitations would be done and they mostly are, but I have to make an additional 20 and get the new, revised address list from Chris' mom (if she's actually done it). I also have to rearrange the RSVP card wording to fit another line of text on there.

And sometime today I have to get to the grocery to get a few odds and ends, trash bags and pack up a few custom orders from late last week. And unfortunately my arm is being twisted to work OT at the "9-5" this week.
This means that the shops will more than likely not be updated for the next week or more. I apologize, but the closer the wedding gets the less time I'll have to get out the new designs.

I want to pull my hair out because it seems like time wants to fly by while I sit here wondering how last month seemingly vaporized. At this point I can't wait to get the wedding done and over with :lol:

Sure Feels Like It

moar funny pictures

I keep staring at my pile of wedding invitations. I'd say the main invites are still at 80% complete. I managed to discover that the prints out I had done were wrinkled noticeably on the bottom half (I did 2 invites per vellum insert sheet) so I could only use the top half. This annoyed me considerably. I pretty much stopped working on them after I finished cutting out the good half. *sigh* I just had to walk away.

Then I discovered that I'd left my can opener at work so I had to figure something else out for dinner that did not require the use of a can opener and I hurt my hand trying to open a beer to soothe away the annoyance of a bad batch of invitations and not having a can opener, then spilled part of the beer.

So I just made mac and cheese and went out to the porch and read for almost 3 hours.

What IS it with wedding planning?

Obviously no part of me was screaming "BE CRAFTY" last night.

Sometimes....It Really IS That Funny

Sing the jingle for more hilarity. For the record that is not my cat. It's one of the many LOLCats found on icanhascheeseburger.com
Some mornings are alot like this. You win some, you loose some. Right now the wedding invitations are totally winning all my free time and this makes me sad. I do plan on trying to take at least the next 3 days to diligently plot out 3 more cushions, sew them AND take pictures. But wedding invitations are SLIGHTLY more pressing at the moment.

It's been on the drawing board about what to do with Tumus. I've been pondering it quite hard the last few weeks as a friends on Etsy and IRL can tell you. There may come a point where you have to cut your losses and go with something new. The "new" Tumus has been running circles around in my head, how do I transition, SHOULD I transition or just do a clean cut, will this be a good business move, what on earth do I do with all that inventory? The last part is especially baffling because, not to whine and moan about it, but my beloved bunnies and cats just have not hit like I was convinced they would. This depresses me greatly. I have decided that Tumus will move towards a more seasonal and slightly "primitive" genre.

Not to worry though! The dog ornaments that so many loved last Holiday will still be available thru Tumus with a few more breeds added into the mix :)

Where does the day go?
Did everyone have a good Father's Day?

I'm Creating I Promise!

I've been dreadfully lax on my photography as of late and promise a well deserved blurb of photos and a new pincushion over on Pinpinn soon.

The invitations have taken over my dining room table so my one space to photograph products has been in use for about 2 weeks now. I will have to improvise soon :lol: I discovered that there's no way I'll be able to hole punch all my invites and this will require me having to have Chris help me out. This is because my hand strength is definitely compromised with as much typing and data entry I do in a day. My tendons and joints flare up more frequently and frankly I can't keep taking Advil to mask the pain.

I'll have to suck it up and get to a doctor about it very soon :( If only I had a job in gardening or something OTHER than data entry. It would be alot easier on the ol' hands.
Would you believe that sewing doesn't aggravate it nearly as bad?

A fairly successful weekend, woot!

The wedding reality is sinking in a bit more now. While I'm not panicked (yet LOL) I feel a bit more stress as final details are still getting ironed out. So once again I put myself to work this weekend on getting invitations made (I have to make 150). This will definitely be an ongoing process this coming weekend as I need to get all the main invites done and then work on the response cards and find envelopes for them as well.
Deadline for these is August. Should be able to get that situated without much ado.

I managed to get one new pincushion done for Pinpinn and decided to give ye olde ArtFire a go with some of Tumus' items over there. I want to see if the traffic equals the same amount and if I can sell more there since there are NO listing fees, just a flat rate subscription which I must admit is more affordable than Etsy at the moment. We'll see. I'm going to sink about 2 months into it and if doesn't work out I'll pull it and move back to Etsy.

I've splurged a bit and decided to advertise on CraftCult! Woo HOO! This is pretty big for me as it's my first legit advertising splurge and I've been really looking forward to it. I'm very eager to see how much traffic it drives over to the shop. BUT that means I need to get more items out there!! EEP! Pinpinn also managed to get an alternate on one of Sunday's FP on Etsy AND a shout out in a Storque Article in the mini treasury there. Hooray for promotion ^_^

I've had some pretty odd pincushion designs floating around in my head as well as a few basic ones. We'll see how soon they end up coming to life. I'll be sketching at my desk this afternoon working out details as I while away the day.

Sometimes it's like the weekend never existed for me.

Cupcake Dress

 

My sisters have started this horrid tradition that as we each get married off we have to try on at least ONE super, ridiculously poufy, frou-frou dress. None of us like this kind of dress so it's pretty fun to try it on and act super serious like all the other brides-to-be. I obviously am not that "serious" about the whole deal.

So obviously no crafting took place. Shame on me :lol: This week will prove to be good for Tumus as I will dedicate time specifically for it.

Next weekend, the Caterers.......gasp!