Book Club Gone Wild

I know I've mentioned this before, but I am in a book club.  It is a pretty rad book club with some pretty rad chicks.  We are close to celebrating our 6 year anniversary, so over the years we've laughed, we've cried, we've loved, we've lost, we've partied and along the way we've read some amazing books.  Good times.

Since my friend and fellow book clubber, Sharmee, is getting married, we decided we'd send her off with a bang with a book club bachelorette bash.  For our book this month, we read erotica and danced the night away to Madonna at a club that was having Madonna-rama night. Madonna wasn't there, of course, but we still rocked out with our books out.  Who says book clubs aren't cool??   We're bringin' reading back!

We all gifted Sharmee with a little something that night. Since I am working on about 6 different projects right now, I didn't have time to actually buy her anything, so here is what I made for her.

I drew out the shape of a bra, cut it out and cut up a doily to use as lace.  I added a bow and some bling (you can't really see it in this pic) to the front of the bra for the cuteness factor.  Then, I wanted the bra to look like it was hanging on a clothesline outside, so I added some twine and mini clothespins.  The blue cardstock looked too bare, so I added some swirls to give the effect of clouds.  It still looked too bare, so at my Seester's suggestion, I added some bling to the swirls.  Love it.  And I think Sharmee liked it.  :)

I only took the one pic of the card with my iPhone, so I will update this post with a close up pic/better pics when I get the chance.  I asked for the card back from Sharmee so I could take pics of it at home, but she kindly told me I could take pics of it at her house.  :)

May Obsessions

I missed last month's obsessions list, but I'm pretty sure you all were obsessed with the same thing.  The Royal Wedding.  I am not ashamed to admit I woke up at 3:30 am to catch what I could and I'm so glad I did.  Loved every minute of it. I didn't want to do a Royal Wedding post since there are much better blogs/bloggers out there that would do it far more justice than I, but just know this:  I can't wait for the next one.  So, back to reality. 

April and May have been pretty busy, but I've been wanting to change up my blog header for a while now, so I spent a few nights working on something summer-y.  Show some love if you like it. :)  Other than that, I've been pretty busy trashing my craft room - I will share my latest project soon - so this month the list is short.  Here are my obsessions for May!



Birds.  I don't know why but I have become completely obsessed with birds.  I see them on the stretch of highway I take on my way home from work.  Every evening, there are thousands of them sitting on the electrical wires along the side of the road.  Suddenly one of them will start flying and it will start a frenzy.  They'll all start flying around in loops and eventually land back on the wires.  Then it will start all over again.  It just makes me giggle.  I need to make something with birds.  Think I could get away with something like this on Made By Bird in my living room??  Too cute. 



{image via Cooking with Trader Joe's}

Cobbler.  OMG have I been craving some cobbler.  When we were in junior high, my dad's mom came to live with us for about a year.  Every day we'd come home after school and she would have dinner ready (yes, at 4:00 pm) and a fresh cobbler waiting for us.  Every day.  Eventually, my sister and I would want to puke at the sight of cobbler.  But, as they say, time heals all food aversions so now that the grocery stores are filling up with lots of beautiful, cheap fruit I can't stop thinking about a plate of warm fruit cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  Totally making some this weekend.  Maybe this one? 

Bon Iver.  I've been in a funk for a the past few months.  I won't bore you with the details.  It's not really important.  I just get like this sometimes.  And sometimes I like to just have a pity party and get really melodramatic and listen to sad music and watch sad movies and put on some sad, DVR'd Oprah shows so I can ball my eyes out so I can get it out of my system so I can get my butt up and smile and tell myself I'm just being melodramatic and continue to live the fabulous life that I've been blessed with.  Anyway, I turn to Bon Iver when I am feeling down.  I love "Skinny Love."



{image via Trailers Hut}

Guillaume Canet.  I caught Last Night on Apple TV a few weekends ago.  I didn't know it was just out in theatres, so kind of cool.  Not the best, but very thought provoking. I don't know that it'd be a good date night movie unless you and your SO like to analyze things.  I can see this movie causing lots of fights between couples as they leave the theatre. Ha. But, I have to say, the entire movie I kept asking myself, 'Who is this Guillaume Canet??'  Patrick Dempsey's French brother?  I've never really cared for Patrick Dempsey, but I need to see more of Guillaume.  Ruggedly handsome, yes.  But he's actually a really good actor. Totally going to catch whatever films I can of his. 

Alright, it's Friday night and my bed is calling me.  It'd be rude not to answer.... 

April Shower: The Details

Here are some of the details!  With 60 people attending, I knew the bulk of our budget would go toward food and drinks.  So the challenge Anita and I had was to pack a big punch on a relatively small budget.  I think we mostly succeeded.  Lesson learned here....when you make something, take a picture of it at home if you want a picture of it.  Setting up was pretty intense, so I didn't get pictures of everything. Boo.  But, here's what I did get pictures of.....

The advice cards.  This is something I like to do at showers because showers can get hectic.  This serves as an opportunity for each person attending to write down something special for the guest of honor that they might not have a chance to say at the shower itself.  Their thoughts, words advice, or wishes for the guest of honor can later be kept as a keepsake for the guest of honor.  I usually like to keep them private but often people like to have them read out loud. 

Here is a close up.  I designed the cards in PSE using the same elements from the invite.  I kept them long so they coordinated with the invitation.  The pens were made by one of the hosts, Priti.  She's an amazing cook/baker/crafter - as you can see from my previous post.  She covered each pen with floral tape and added a silk flower to the tops.  It's hard to imagine that something so cute was also functional.  We ended up placing each pen at each place setting along with a little box of chocolate covered raisins - Priti's doing - and it looked really nice....but you will have to take my word for it.  That was yet another one of the pictures I didn't get a chance to take. :(

The favor bags.  Priti got these cute white lunch bags for guests to fit all their goodies in.  Despite how roomy they were, some guests still filled two and sometimes three bags up.  I don't blame them.  If I was a guest, I would have hit the dessert table up before the food.  Just sayin'.

  

Here is a close up of the tags I made.  I used my silhouette to cut out 60 tags and wrote "Love is Sweet" on each one.  

I wanted something guests could just clip onto the bags to close them with, but I couldn't find any red medium sized clothespins.  So, I did what any self respecting craft addict would do.  I called my friend Mandy over and we hand painted 60 of those puppies.  And I don't regret one second of it.  It was the perfect shade of red and the perfect amount of cuteness.  

Then, as if that wasn't enough fun - it really was - we tied bows around the tags and placed a glue dot on each one so that guests didn't have to fool with adding their own tag.  They just had to place the clothespin on their bag and call it a day because the tag was already attached. 

Here is what they looked like in action on the dessert table. Oh my.  I'm so proud of them.  I think I just teared up.

The napkins. Since there were so many people, I wanted the buffet to run smoothly and didn't want to have anyone having to go back to get their plasticware. So, I wrapped the plasticware with a napkin. But, well, you know me.  I can't just leave it at that.  So I added a doily and some ribbon.  Doily, have I told you lately how much I love you? 

The tables.  The tables were 72" rounds, so I knew I needed a centerpiece that made a statement.  I would have loved to have had real flowers, but it wasn't in the budget.  So, Anita helped me make some tissue flowers that tied our whole color scheme in.  Much to Mr. Bean's chagrin, I used our cereal bowls as vases to hold said flowers in.  He only missed one morning's worth of cereal, so no worries. Then, I added ribbon because, well, I'll say it again, ribbon makes everything prettier.  For an extra punch of color, I used my old fall back and cut wrapping paper.  Priti brought her left over silk flowers and we tossed them around the centerpieces.  What I didn't get a snap of was the favor boxes Priti made with the chocolate covered raisins in them. The tables looked pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. 

The photo wall.  OK, so here is where I get a little crazy.  Only here though. ;)  Sharmee loves:  red, hearts, and taking pictures.  So, I thought, why not incorporate all three into her shower? So I did. I made a photo wall.  Anita was forced to wanted to make some tissue poofs that we hung around the photo wall.  We bought a lot of other elements that we didn't have time to hang but I love it all the same.  I was really nervous it would look cheesy.  And, well, it did.  In a good, Sharmee kind of way.

Here is the close up.  Anita and I made cut out the letters with the silhouette, which was hung using clothespins to cut down on time.  I then made a few doily banners and then attached lots and lots of streamers and ribbons to a pre-made tinsel curtain.  Unfortunately, the photo wall wasn't used but twice. And by twice I mean only two pictures were taken in front of it.  So, it was a lot of work sort of wasted but at least I got to try my hand at a photo wall.  I did learn a few things about these backdrops, though.  No matter how huge it looks in your house, it will look very puny in a 34' x 26' room.  Also, I shouldn't have let the tear down crew at it so quickly.  There were plenty of people helping me tear down that could have taken pics with it.  So.  Better luck next time.

All in all, I have to say I will never do this again. Ha.  Seriously, though, about 50 people ended up coming.  That is a lot of people.  We couldn't really do a whole lot with decor, but I think Anita and I managed....what do you think??  :)

I hate to make this out like an awards ceremony, but....thanks to everyone that had to put up with all my crazy emails.  I know they were almost a daily thing. :) A HUGE shout out to Priti.  You are amazing and so talented.  And to Julie for helping coordinate everything.  And to Anita for putting up with my obsessive craft-pulsiveness.  And to all the people that helped set up, namely Sonal, Bhavik, Mehul and Kishan.  We couldn't have finished everything without you guys.  And to Mandy for always willing to put in some hard labor for events you will never see in person.  That's dedication.  And lastly, HUGE thanks to Sarah and my Seester for having to listen to my worries and woes. Love you guys.

April Shower: The Food and Dessert

Although I can't take much credit for it, we had a pretty fab display of food and dessert.  For food, we chose catering and had a bhel puri, samosas, and khaman dhokla.  For drinks, we had sangria and lime sherbet punch.  Unfortunately, I didn't get too many pics of the food.  In fact I just got one pic. And no pics of the sherbet punch Priti, one of the hosts, made.  Or the sangria we made.  Yes, I already kicked myself in the butt for that.

I will, however, take credit for the food labels.  Although, you can't really see it, I used the same floral element from the invite on the food labels.

 
This was the khaman dhokla. Naturally, I had to apply ribbon everywhere.  Because ribbon makes everything prettier.....

For dessert?  Priti created a dessert bar that was amazing.  Everything was homemade except for the candy.  She started baking on Wednesday morning and actually packed it all up and drove for 4 hours on Friday.  That woman is a saint.  See for yourself.   

The only bad part of the table?   Priti now has several people that will be expecting this at their showers!!  I'm not going to judge, though....I'm one of them. :) I told her I'm going to have to get married again or have a baby because that spread was to die for. Or at least have a wedding and a baby for. :)

There was also a banner on the dessert table that Anita and I made that read "Love is Sweet" but I didn't get a snap of it.  More tears....  The aqua vases were also mine leftover from another shower I threw.  Anita and I made some tissue flowers to put in them and tried to fashion them like the floral design on the invite.  Not sure if many people got that, but that's what it was meant to look like.  One last post left!!! 

April Shower: The Invite

I will break this post up for those that have short attention spans because, well, it's a lot of pictures....  

I co-hosted a bridal shower for my friend last weekend with 5 other women. Four out of the six of us coordinated everything and poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the decor and food.  The blood was negligible, because really, you can't be a paper crafter and expect to escape paper cuts.  The sweat was, well, sweat.  The tears mostly came from Mr. Bean every time I told him we'd have to order in again, but he managed to stay alive. 

We anticipated 60 people would attend - 78 were invited - and had only an hour to set up.  This was definitely the biggest event I'd ever worked on with the most number of hosts, so for about 2 weeks I literally lost sleep trying to wrap my head around how we would pull the shower off.  But, I think we did a really good job considering. Half of us were working from out of town so big props to the iPhone, email, FaceTime, email, camera phones and email.  Yes, there were a ton of emails....thank you internet and Steve Jobs!

Once Anita and I hashed out a color scheme, we got to work on the invitations.  Sharmee's favorite color is red, so Anita and I were sure to incorporate that in the color scheme. I pretty much drove Anita crazy because I couldn't make up my mind whether to make the invitations or buy them despite the fact that in a few days I was leaving the country for almost two weeks.  To me, the invitation sets the tone for the event, so I am always careful to choose the right invite.  And, I will admit, sometimes I over think it. Handmade invitations aren't always the most cost effective approach despite the perception that DIY is cheaper.  Especially considering we had to make at least 65 invites.  But, it is a labor of love.  I think anyone that crafts will agree with me on that one.  But, I'm hard headed and crazy and paper is my thing so we went with handmade.  Since I used quite a bit that I already had in my stash, these invites ended up costing a lot less than buying something online. 
 

I designed the invite in PSE and went through about 200 different design options.  But, I finally decided to go with a long invite since we had so much text and I wanted to keep it as clean looking as possible. 

Originally, I wanted to add double faced satin ribbon to make a bow that would wrap around the invite, but the floral element threw me for a loop since I couldn't get it to not completely clash with the envelopes and the ribbon once it was printed, so Anita came up with the clever idea of using our scraps to make sort of a mod belly band around the invite.  Awesome idea.  

The invite fit into a #10 standard sized envelope.  I created some labels for each envelope since addressing 65 invites wasn't exactly the best use of my time 4 days before I left for Ireland but I still wanted them to look pretty and not like we just slapped labels on.  So I created some cute labels with fonts from the invite.  Anita was kind enough to put up with me a while longer and cut all the labels down and apply them while I was gone.  The label folds over the backside of the envelope and reveals the return address.  The invite was not what I envisioned originally, but everything I wanted it look like.  Love when that happens.

Update

Blog posts with no pictures make me sad.

I just thought I'd let everyone know I am still here.  I am working on a shower for my sweet friend and 60 of her closest friends/family.  Luckily I have a team of 3 awesome, talented, patient women working with me so it has been fun working out the details with them.

The shower is this weekend, so hopefully I will have some pics up soon! 

March Obsessions

Miss me??  Mr. Bean and I took a little trip to Ireland this month.  We went for a wedding, but in between rented a car and road tripped the island as much as we could.  I will upload a few pics for you soon, but I almost don't want to lest I make a mad dash to the airport with a one way ticket in hand.  It was that amazing.  Until then, I will show you my obsessions for March.

{photo taken off the west coast of Ireland along the Ring of Kerry}

Pano for the iPhone.  This app replaced my crappy camera while Mr. Bean and I were in Ireland.  And I think it speaks for itself.  The views could not be properly captured on my little Canon Sure Shot (I desperately need an upgrade) so after a while I gave up and let Mr. Bean take over.  This gem was one of the many that Mr. Bean took with his iPhone along the Ring of Kerry.

{image via A Lovely Garden}

Daffodils.  Speaking of Ireland, there were daffodils everywhere. It was hard not to become obsessed with these as you walked by them.  Don't they just scream happiness??  I've been daydreaming about a planting these in my front yard.

{image via Amazon}

Adele's 21.  I bought this album just before I left for Ireland.  I wasn't disappointed.  I am sure you've guessed by now that I love music.  This album proves why.  Check out her cover of Lovesong.  I am very pleased (but also probably biased because anything that involves The Cure kind of rocks my world).

{image via Apple}

Jo-Ann's iPhone app.  Jo-Ann's has an iPhone app!!  My friend showed me the light with this life changer.  After the Jo-Ann's near me shut down a couple of years ago, I haven't really gone out of my way to go to the next closest one.  It's just too far out of my way.  I downloaded the app just to see what it was all about.  Total awesomeness.  That's what.  They allow you to download digital coupons that can be used in the store.  Or you can have the coupons texted to you.  Finally a sewing store that has jumped on the bandwagon with this fad we call technology.  Love it. 

{image via Little Willow's Thinking}

The Hunger Games Trilogy.  I am the first to admit that I judge a book by it's cover.  For some reason, I can't stand to pick up an ugly book.  Reading it doesn't excite me like a book with a beautiful cover does.  I wasn't too keen to read The Hunger Games when my friend picked it for March's book club pick simply because it didn't look interesting, but I read it anyway.  And I was addicted.  I was in Ireland looking at the most magnificent views I've ever seen in my life yet I couldn't wait to get back to my hotel room to finish reading this book.  I started Catching Fire last night.  I just hope I put it down long enough to feed Mr. Bean.  For his sake.  He'll need his energy to buy me the third book in the trilogy, Mockingjay. 

That's all for March!!!