Friday, February 28, 2014

Whittling Down my MOTB To-Do List. . . .

Well we are 3 months and 1 week until the big day and I have been keeping busy making all of the goodies for Lizzy's wedding and trying to get well. That stupid flu bug left me with a nasty "hanging on" cough that just wears me out! But I am making good progress and tonight I felt as though I had gotten so much done already that it  was time to clean everything up and take a break for a week or so (we'll see how that goes). 
So I decided this was a good time to show you all what I have been up to. . . 

This is the banner that my Monkey will be carrying down the aisle. I still need to finish the pole (cut it, paint  it and add finials and ribbons) but Try as I would tonight I just could not cut that wooden pole with the only rusty hand saw I could find around here. I will have to get Gary to take care of this for me later.  

 After a lot of hours and even more frustration I finally got the stems wrapped on all of the bouquets! I had a devil of a time figuring out how I wanted to cover all of those ugly wire stems. 
 I ended up wrapping them with twine and adding little pearl pins and Liz & I are both happy with them. Now we just need to find the perfect ivory satin ribbon for the streamers and these will be complete! We are having a hard time finding that perfect ribbon so if you are local and know of a good place to buy nice ribbon I would love for you to share. Hobby Lobby, Joann's, Mike's and SAS were all a bust. I wish the Lace Place was still in business!

Liz is using frames as part of her centerpieces and I got those all done this week as well!
 I only had to buy 4 frames - I had the other 10 so that was nice. I just had to take them all a part. . .
 Prime them. . . 
 Paint them all this bubble gum pink. . .
 Then dry brush them with white paint. Stain them with a brown stain. Dry brush them again with gold paint and then seal them. Ta Da!!! Look how pretty they turned out! Who would have thought that pink would end up looking like this?
 This is "sorta" what her centerpieces will look like - a frame with a clear mason jar full of baby breath, 2 smaller blue mason jars with tea lights and some classic love story book pages punched into hearts sprinkled around. Also there will be lace under the frame and Liz informed me that the frame will sit at an angle on the runner - not straight like I have in the picture.

 She is also doing a candy/treat bar at the reception and these are all of the jars we will be using. I got them all washed and realized one was cracked . . .back to the store and then back home to get them wrapped in burlap and lace. I ordered little pink scoops that I will wrap the handles with twine and pearls. It's going to look so pretty once all of the goodies are in there! 

UPDATE: the little pink scoops arrived the very next day! So they are now all dressed up and ready to attend the wedding


 Aren't they cute!

Lastly I finished all of the table runners tonight - YEAH!!!
Burlap makes such a mess when you are working with it!
Originally we were going to add a wide ivory scalloped lace to the whole length of the runner, right down the center. But that would have taken about 50 yards of lace and at $6 a yard that was just a waste of money in our opinions. So we decided to fringe the ends, tie the fringe in little knots and then add a ribbon. It just didn't hang right and since I am the only one in my family that can tie a bow, that would mean on the day of the wedding I would be busy tying 30 bows! 
 So I came up with this - just a pretty ivory lace across the top of the fringe. The "stitch witchery" that I used to attach the lace kept the fringe from continuing to unravel so we got to eliminate all of those tedious knots. This was much faster and ya gotta love SAS - I got 15 yards of this lace for $3.75 total!!!
 Here's my whole box of runners - all rolled up and ready to dress the tables at my baby's wedding!
I still have the Guest book to get done and several other things but we are coming along quite well since we had so little time to put this celebration together. 
Monday we are doing her food tasting. She has hired a chef instead of going with a traditional caterer or restaurant. So he is coming to MY house to cook for Lizzy, Richard, Richards parents and the 3 of us here. You know what that means. . . gotta scrub the house - especially the kitchen! Always something to do right?

Anyhoo - that is my life these days - just busy being the Mother of the Bride and loving every minute!
Have a great weekend Friends
till we meet again. . .  

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Happy Valentines Day. . .a day late

I was so hopeful that I was on the mend - then I woke up yesterday with my fever raging again and no ability to function at all. I had hoped to post a new doodle for you as my Valentines to you all but I did nothing but lay in bed all day. 
So here is my Valentine to you all, just a little bit late. . . 
Feel free to print it out and get out your markers, pencils, pastels or even your kid's crayons and just have fun coloring! I did this one last month and even colored it in. It was TONS of fun to color, it just turned out so bright and cheery! You can't really see it here but, I added lots of glitter and gel pens to make it even brighter. 


But you gotta be careful when you have all of your pens out on the table. . . 

As you can see in the doodle below I accidentally grabbed a turquoise glaze pen instead of a light blue glitter pen when I wet to highlight my clouds! I didn't have much choice but to finish coloring in the clouds. I also ran out of my #19 yellow pen while I was doing the border. So all in all this is not a fav of mine. I might have to print one out for myself to color and give it another try. 

Can you see the differences (not just the color) from the printable I posted on Thursday? I added some more doodley details - I hope you will add some of your own touches as well if you are printing my doodles!

Well time to go lay down some more. I guess I am glad I moved my class that was scheduled for today to March - there is no way I would be on top of my game!!!
Till we meet again. . . 

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Boo Hoo. . .

So my last post was titled "YIPPEE!!!" today is not so yippee - Gary and I have both had the flu all week! Actually he got it on Saturday night and I came down with it Tuesday night. Sadly poor Gary has been on vacation all week and the only place he has been is the bed and the backyard. He is actually moving some today and looking more human. And I am trying to keep up with him. My fever is gone and I have been able to hold my head up this morning. I spent my morning doodling and figured I'd share with you guys in case any of you are feeling less than human . . .
It will print out on a 8.5x11 sheet of paper for you - enjoy!!!
till we meet again. . . 

Monday, February 10, 2014

YIPPEE!!!!

They are ALL finished now except for the decorative wraps!
I am so excited to have them finished and pleased that it took less than 2 weeks to do. 
The bouquet in the center and the one in the close-up is Lizzy's. The little bouquet in the background is the one for the bridal toss. 



The star shaped flowers in this picture are made out of my Mom's wedding gown - the button centers are from the sleeves of my Mom's wedding gown. The lace inside the centers of the 2-toned flowers are from my wedding gown (hard to see but it's there).

Next project - the guest book!

Speaking of books. . .  did any of you local gals get signed up for my hand painted journal class? It is coming up this Saturday at the Occasional Artist 

Well it's late - time to go to bed - I got a sick husband to take care of in the morning!
till we meet again. . . 

Friday, February 7, 2014

Here Comes the Bride. . .

Four months from today the wedding will just be a beautiful memory! 
But until then I have lots to do to keep myself busy!!!

I have been working like a maniac on the flowers and I am happy to say that I have ALL of the flowers made! 
 And they are all separated into pans for each of the 6 bouquets

 I am working on putting the stems on each of the flowers now
 Just a close up of some of the flowers



I even have one of the bridesmaids bouquets finished. Well, all but the wrap that goes around the stems.
 It really isn't lopsided - It is just leaning inside the mason jar. 

I also got the toss bouquet done tonight. 

See that box in the picture below? Those are bandaids and trust me, I have used tons of them!!!
 I cannot believe how sore my hands are. Between the hand-sewing, hot glue gun, cutting and wire twisting my little hands are just raw. Yesterday I made 37 flowers and I had bandaids on almost every finger. Then I stabbed an unprotected finger with the needle and blood was gushing. All I could do was yell at Gary to get a towel so I could save the flower. Sadly he could not move fast enough :( 
People have asked me why I am working on this so early, and my answer is simple - I want to be able to actually use my hands on the day of Lizzy's wedding! They are so sore and ugly right now, but they still have time to heal!

Well, I hope you all have a GREAT weekend!

Till we meet again. . . 

Saturday, February 1, 2014

The New Super Heroes of Hollywood for 2014!

Warning - this one is gonna be long so grab a drink and a snack.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I went to the theatre to watch a movie. I think it has probably been about 8 years or more! I used to love to go to the movies. When I was a kid my girlfriend Colinda and I would go to the movies early on Saturday and stay all day. In the old days you didn't have to get there at the beginning of the movie and you didn't have to leave at the end. In fact usually it was a double-feature. For you young ones out there, this was when you paid one price and they played 2 different movies back to back. We would pack some snacks in our purses, buy a soda and some popcorn and settle in for whole day of movie watching.

I loved getting lost in the story and all the darkness of the theatre. I loved the ability to not be distracted as I soaked up every nuance of the story, this is unless I had a noisy "neighbor" (I have been known to change seats more than once to get a quiet neighbor). In the 90's I had a great movie buddy, Michelle, she and I went to the movies together almost every week. And I have gone to the movies all alone and enjoyed that just as much. As I said before I like to get lost in my movies and I don't want to talk while I watch them. But something happened along the way. I lost my movie buddy Michelle and my Girls and Gary and I have totally different tastes in movies. The tickets got so expensive and the sound systems got too loud (am I showing my age here?). And honestly most the movies in the past several years have just not interested me. I am just not into comic book characters. I really dislike vampires and zombies and I am just too plain old for cartoons (yes I am a bad Grandma and I don't take my grandkids to all of the Disney and Pixar movies that come out). So these days most of my movie watching is done on DVD - oldies but goodies and the occasional Red Box rental.

I am feeling like 2014 might be the year that gets me back into the theatre! It seems Hollywood has some new Super Heroes lined up this year, and from what I read, next year too. With the success of last year's "The Bible" miniseries, Hollywood's big movie studios are taking a chance on some non-fictional super heroes, Noah, Moses, Jesus, Mary and others. I Have highlighted some of the upcoming movies below for you.

This Month (Feb 28th), 20th Century Fox is releasing "Son of God" about the life of Jesus. 20th Century Fox has teamed up with "The Bible" creators, Mark Burnett & Roma Downey for this one. You can watch the trailer here



Just 8 days later on March 8th Paramount releases "Noah". I hope this one will deserve it's $150 million budget! I can't wait to see Russell Crowe as Noah and Anthony Hopkins (one of my favs) as Methuselah. So far it seems to have gotten a lot of good press about its production quality, but I did read an article by Hollywood insider Brian Godawa that said "If you were expecting a Biblically faithful retelling of the story of the greatest mariner in history and a tale of redemption and obedience to God you'll be sorely disappointed,". But his comments were based on his review of a draft of the script before production started. So I will hold out great hopes that it will be good. Here's the trailer for Noah


Then on March 21st we have another Faith based movie coming our way, "God isn't Dead". Although not by one of the "big" studios, it does have some "big" actors like Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain and even an appearance from some of the Duck Dynasty folks. I told you all about this movie awhile back and I am still excited to see it. You can watch the trailer here


In April, Sony Pictures is releasing the movie version of the NY Times best-selling book "Heaven is for real" by Todd Burpo. It is the true story of a four year old boy that has a near death experience and sees heaven. It stars Greg Kinnear. You can watch the trailer here


So far it looks like I will have to budget movie tickets into my budget for at least 3 months in a row!

In December, 20th Century Fox is giving us another one! This time it is the story of Moses in "Exodus".  Ridley Scott is directing this one and Christian Bale will star as Moses. I wonder how it will compare to the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments"? There is no theatrical trailer as of yet but you can watch a music video from the movie here

December is a busy month with yet another movie. Lionsgate Films is giving us "Mary, Mother of Christ". Perfect timing, releasing it at Christmas time. The cast includes the late Peter O'Toole, Ben Kingsley and Julia Ormond. And apparently Joel Osteen is given an executive-producer credit, hopefully this means good news about this film. There is no trailer for Mary either but they do have the beginnings of a website started here

So that is what 2014 is looking like in the theatres, but it appears that there are even more of these Biblical super hero movies on the horizon. Warner Bros is working on a script called "Of God and Kings" which is another Moses story. Will Smith is said to be working on a story about Cain and Able while there is buzz about Brad Pitt playing Pontius Pilate in yet another movie.

So what do you think is causing Hollywood to get all Biblical on us? The last real big budget, faith based movie we had was Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" in 2004. I watched that one on DVD and had to look away most of the time. Before that we had Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" in 1988. Although I would NOT call that one a faith based movie - it was so far off from what the Bible teaches it was offensive to most Christians. Maybe Hollywood is making a nostalgic return to its glory days. Days when movies like The Ten Commandments,  Ben Hur (both with Charlton Heston) and The Robe proudly played in the theatre and actually won Academy Awards and earned money!

It's no secret that the industry is stuck in a bit of a rut. The demand for blockbusters is bigger than ever, but there are only so many comic book characters and stories, and you can't reboot the Spider-Man franchise or churn out Iron Man sequels forever. The Bible, meanwhile, has chapter after chapter and verse after verse (pun intended) of action-packed material—Moses, David, Job, Joseph, Abraham, Jesus, and so on. Plus it has a "fan base" that's even larger and more avid than Marvel Comics'. And unlike movies based on superheroes, or the latest literary sensation such as Fifty Shades of Grey and Harry Potter, the studios will not have to pay millions of dollars in copyright and licensing fees. The stories in the Bible are free to use.

But here are the questions of the day. . .
Will the filmmakers respect the source material or use it to push standard Hollywood themes?
And will we actually head to the local theatre and spend our money to watch these movies?

I'd really love to know what you think? Leave me a comment and tell me are there any of these movies that you would spend your money to see?


Till we meet again. . .