And now...
Back by popular demand...
The Inchies, ladies and gentlemen!
Actually, there hasn't been any demand, popular or otherwise, but I do have two and a half month's worth of unposted inchies...along with all their back stories.
Seems like I should know how this happened, but I really can't remember much, except that I had my gears in overdrive for a lot of May and June.
So, anywho...
Because this little blog really does serve as a log for me, I'm going to round up some of those inchies and kind of bounce back and forth from past to present for awhile in my posts.
Today I'm looking back on part of May...
Someone I love is getting married, and I had the privilege of being one of the hosts of a wedding shower for he and his bride in May.
On and off during the month, I worked on decorative details for the shower.
I already showed you the invitations...
...though I don't know if they were complete at the time.
Once the invitations were in the mail, I got serious about making decorations for the shower.
Because we were trying for a casual and comfortable atmosphere, but wanted to have something pretty for the tradition-embracing bride, we decided on sack lunches for dinner, but something beyond the brown bag.
Imagine how thrilled I was to discover the perfect napkins to do the job for us!
This little business of having sack lunches (croissant sandwiches, fruit, chips) prepared - along with help-yourself drinks on ice and tiered trays of pretty cupcakes - really left all the hostesses free to enjoy the evening, and the guests free to eat whenever they wished.
It was perfect.
And finding the napkins and being inspired with the design was my perfect inchie moment for the day.
After that was figured out, I turned my attention to Phase II of the paper dogwood blossoms.
For the shower, I wanted to use book pages for some of the blossoms, along with the 'natural white' paper, so I scouted the thrift stores and made a couple of great finds.
One book was titled, "Flowers for You", and was a collection of scriptures and stories for the various seasons of life.
I considered it a bonus that this book was printed with brown ink; highly unusual, and so much 'gentler' for the blossoms.
The other book was titled, "I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah" ; a scriptural look at love and marriage by one of my favorite speaker/authors, Ravi Zacharias (it was difficult to cut that one up, but I knew my "adopted" son would appreciate the details; which he did).
I left the leaves off one of the branches and used it as a guest book at the shower; letting each of the guests sign a leaf as they came in, and then attaching them to the branch with glue dots (I love me some glue dots).
Also at the entry table were the name tags which were made using the leftover paper from the invitations (the bride was meeting many of the guests for the first time).
Because we were using books (one of the bride and groom's great common interests) and flowers to decorate for this shower, I was really happy to find I had the perfect rubber stamp on my shelf for the name tags.
Completing this pretty little detail was the inchie moment for May 13.
The night before the shower (gasp!) I remembered I was planning to make a wreath for the front door using an idea from this great book.
I am so glad I remembered and had the time to make it - with Miss Helping Hands' help - because I loved it.
We used every page from this book...
...along with a few sheets of green patterned paper (which previously served as placemats on the tea table) to make the wreath.
I started by running my ink pad (and I'm totally loving this color and it's name - Pear Tart, dig it) along all the edges of the book.
Then we took all the pages out of the book and starting rolling them into cones.
Since I was behind the eight ball on this project, I completely forgot to stop and take pictures (but the step-by-step instructions are in the book).
Some of the pages were rolled from the long edge, and some from the short.
They were stapled at the narrow end and some more color was added by just lightly running the ink pad along some of the points and sides.
Then they were glued in circular rows to a large round piece of cardboard.
I remembered to take one other picture while we were working (probably when I realized we were going to get it done and I started breathing again).
Somewhere around the point when I started breathing again, I also realized I was growing faint from hunger.
Miss Helping Hands kept telling me to "Stop and eat. You need some protein, Mom."
I finally said yes to her offer to reheat a barbecued hamburger patty.
I guess she thought it was a pathetic sight all by it's lonesome on the plate, because this is what she brought to me:
I'll bet you've never had mustard served to you in such an artistic fashion.
Don't be jealous; you can copy this if you want to.
All I ask is that you give Miss Helping Hands the creative credit when you post your pictures.
Bwahahaha.
Once we had all the cones on the board, I had to do a little digging around on-line (I was grateful for Facebook at this point) to locate a photograph to personalize the center.
The addition of a few small blossoms finished the job.
I had Miss Helping Hands hold it so you could get an idea of the size; I had no idea it would be so large.
...but it was perfect for the door.
The shower, on May 20, was wonderful.
Just like the bride and groom for whom it was given.