Trying Something Different...

Look for me here.

Thanks for reading!

-FT

Something you should be paying attention too…still.

Here we are a few months have passed since the Gulf Oil Spill, did you forget? I completely understand…life gets in the way and it’s always so soon we forget about major events.

I’d like to just take a quick moment to pass on the info on a great project my good friend Molly at Emerson Street Creative is doing. She’s currently selling prints of her original paintings of Gulf wildlife with 100% of profits going to the relief effort. As of right now she has donated $1,116 to various relief organizations.

Please visit her Artfire Store and her website to find out how you can help and get some great art at the same time. She’s truly an inspiration and it’s an honor for me to call her a dear friend. Plus, she’s one freaking amazing artist with a huge heart.

-Tina

7 Kids, 1 Wedding

It’s been officially 10 days since I’ve become Mrs. Woodsman. Our wedding was great, we were only $10 over budget (that will be another entry) and now we’re finally back into full swing of life. I feel like I have so much to share but decided to begin where I got a ton of compliments…KIDS!

I understand that it’s a completely personal preference whether to include kids in a wedding and on a guest list. I come from a big, very close-knit family. My brother and I are the babies of a huge group of first cousins and closer in age to our second cousins. We’re all like siblings and to the younger ones more like aunts and uncles. If I could have included them all I would have.

From the beginning I could only be insanely excited that I was marrying into the Woodsman’s wonderful family AND he was already uncle to 5 of the best kids! Done deal, they were all going to be in our wedding. This meant 3 flower girls (nieces), 2 ring bearers (nephews) and 2 ushers (cousins) all under the age of 11. There were skeptics but we knew that this is our family and we honestly couldn’t think of our wedding without them.

Our flower girls looked so cute and were defiantly stars of the show. So many compliments on how cute they were and I must say my gut of not making them look like mini-brides was win! Anyways, one of them even caught my bouquet! A memory that will forever stick out is while in line waiting to head down the aisle my oldest niece (I just LOVE saying I have nieces and nephews…proud Aunt here!) turned to me and said it was the best day of her life. My heart melted and so did my fear of tripping! One of our nephews, the main ring bearer did a great job of keeping our actual rings safe and looked so handsome in his tux. My cousins who were our ushers owned seating people, from what I hear they seated like it was their job!

Each one of them rose to the occasion and we never had a doubt in our minds that they wouldn’t. They kept the order before the ceremony, got the dancing starting and kept the party going until after midnight. They helped keep us grounded…completely oblivious to the enormous stress of a wedding day. They were there to have the time of their lives and have fun…something we should take a step back and think about.

So thank you…

Kyle, Ethan, Trent, Maya, Olivia, Emma and Jackson!

We love you.

Check out some awesome photos from our wedding taken by friend C. Wade Photography !

Anatomy of a Wedding Invitation

When planning a wedding, everyone has his or her own idea of what is the most important. Some brides dream of their dress and sparkly tiara while grooms just want to be reassured that there will be plenty of food and beer (gross generalization, I know). We of course, like everything else have been much different. Throughout our planning our list of importance has pretty much been:

#1 Invitations

Yep, invitations have been the one thing that we have put the most time and planning into…everything else has just fallen into place.

Through out my career I have done numerous wedding invitations. I always worked really hard with my clients to make sure they got exactly what they wanted. Of course, I could always steer them in a direction that was a little different than they thought they wanted but ended up working out better than they had hoped. I’ve always designed them outside of the box and made them to be memorable but when it came to my own, I was straight-up brain dead.

The Woodsman and I (being graphic designers) felt completely self-inflicted pressure to make really kick-ass stationary. We had too many ideas and no starting point, what to do? Ask Emerson Street Stamps to created a completely custom stamp that would be used on everything! Not many details were given but she sketched on the fly and came up with something so perfect you’d know it was us just by looking at it! (It also doesn’t hurt that she’s a very good friend and bridesmaid). Next, we took a trip to the Paper Source. One of my most favorite stores EVER and picked exactly what we wanted (poppy and chartreuse accent paper and fino luxe cream for the main parts). The Paper Source is so inspiring those of us who love paper and crafting. It was there that we found another perfect element for our stationary…a desk embosser with a bird motif. It was love at first sight! We printed and cut everything ourselves. Simple laser output and 2 rotary cutters did the trick. Lastly, we gathered a few bridesmaids, 2 heat guns, lots of custom mixed Zing embossing powder and went to work.

We spent months trying to express ourselves and our quirky, handmade, semi-formal, DIY summer wedding on paper…I can finally say that we’re done and we couldn’t be happier. The best advice that I can give anyone would be to stay true to your ideas and your wedding. Calligraphy, white raised card stock and lined envelopes don’t have to be the only option. More and more people are making their own invitations and that is an amazing thing. Explore your option and keep in mind they don’t have to break the bank (ours total didn’t at all).

Thank you to all that gave input, proofread, carved stamps and battled a hot apartment to glue, emboss and assemble our invitations. We greatly appreciate the help and love :) Once everyone has gotten their invitations in the mail, maybe I’ll post some pictures of the complete finished set! Until then happy crafting and it’s now under 2 months till the big day…still no stress.

You're a What?!

Two actual weeks in and I'm still alive! Hooray! Seriously, it's been two weeks into my new job and what a difference it has made! I get home earlier, my boss is great (and very appreciative), got a new MacBook Pro, got my own office (eventually) and most importantly I have my sanity back. It no longer takes me hours to decompress after work and I actually enjoy my longer drive to work. There is really no point to this entry except that I love my job, even though it's not really anything I thought I'd ever be doing.

For as long as I can remember I always thought I'd be the person behind the computer/lens/canvas. I've been an artist my whole life and now I'm...MANAGING! EEK! I used to shutter to think about being a manger of projects and having to be the one on the front lines making sure everything gets done I am surprisingly loving it. I knew I wanted to make a change and I think this is exactly what I was looking for.

It's honestly nothing I've never done before. I've always worked for small agencies where we all had to do everything and always talk to clients. I must say that my design background has been helping and of course I'm picking up on things that most people wouldn't notice in designs and advertisements. So with my new found like of a career, hopefully that'll de-clog my brain enough to start getting back to my feather stuff and Etsy and Artfire stores. They've paid the price of 24/7 job stress! I can truthfully say I've never been so happy to be on the other side of the computer! Till next time! FT

P.S.
We have our engagement pics this weekend. We're working with some really AWESOME photographers...I couldn't be more excited. I'll for sure keep you posted on the experience!

Flowers & Feathers!

Here I am last day of my unplanned vacation….and unemployment. I’m both happy to go back to work but sad to go back to work. Over the past two weeks I’ve done a ton and slept a little. Finally this morning I was finally able to sleep past 7:30am, figures right?

It’s less than 4 months until I get married, and I’m really happy I had this time to make all the stuff I needed to make. Aside from a bunch of jewelry, I finally got around to making my hairpiece and my wedding party’s hairpieces. I’m actually really happy with the way they both turned out.

Orange dahlia and feather clips for the bridesmaids (I love color!)

Vintage silk camellia with feather and pearl clip for myself, I used one of my grandma's deco style earrings for the center. I'm still practicing the birdcage veil but it should be done soon!

Gift Makin' Time!

I like to make stuff…I like to make stuff for other people even more.

When it came time for me to figure out the gifts for my side of the bridal party I knew I was never going to find what I wanted to give them. So, just like everything else I do, I came up with an idea and I’d just figure it out along the way. Now 3 bracelets and 8 necklaces later, I’m sharing the results.

Of course I make jewelry for my hobby, but I’ve never not used feathers or assembled findings. I wanted something unique to each person, asymmetrical and birds. After a little research and finding an AWESOME Etsy seller (Below 14th Designs) and having a mini panic attack at Michaels I got everything done, just the way I wanted.

For Bridesmaids:

18” asymmetrical necklace, sparrow connector from eebeads.com and The Solamente Pendant from Below 14^th Designs personalized with first initial and birthstone charm.

For Flower Girls:

Sparrow chain with toggle closure and The Solamente Pendant from Below 14^th Designs personalized with first initial and birthstone charm.

I'm so happy with the way they turned out that I've made a set for myself. Who knows, maybe something like this is something that I'll be able to pursue as a jewelry maker when I get some more free time...only 3 months to go!