The rain continues, but gives more time for wedding crafts and projects!

It's still raining here on the Oregon coast, but I guess that just gives me more time inside to work on wedding projects.  And play with the grand kids!  There's so much to be doing outside but whenever we go out to work on the property we slip and slide and get all muddy! 

Here's the "save the date" postcard Jessica and Craig sent out:

Craig's sister, Kelly, created the graphics and designed the postcard.  I'm in love with her work, she's so talented!  First, notice the initials, "C J", and how Kelly got the letters to tie together forming a heart; simply delightful!  (For a crafter like me!)  Then notice the sparkly ring, this IS Jessica's ring!  (But not their hands!)  She used one of the photos from an engagement photo shot Mark and I did with them on our property.  We took a hundred or so photos and ended up with some real cute pictures for Kelly to select from, as well as photos we can use for several other things later.  One thing about mailing out the save the date postcards was that we found out which people we had the wrong addresses on our list for, they came back undeliverable.  So we can correct this now before we send out the wedding invitations.   Also, on the back of the postcards was the Internet address for their online wedding site, which is very cool, too.  This site gives maps, local attractions, photos, hotel information, attendant stories and so much more.  A wedding website is a "must have" these days!

For Christmas we gave Jessica a Singer sewing machine.  Now that it's time for her wedding she's going to put the sewing machine to good use and make her two flower girls' dresses.  She'll use the "C" style dress on this pattern:

We've got a couple other cute and original ideas for the flower girls, but I'll show those in September!

I sent the logo of their initial to my custom rubber stamp maker, TerBearCo, and had a stamp made!  We'll use if for a few projects, but the first project I wanted to show is the organza fabric bags.  I ordered a large lot of these on eBay and stamped the bags with the custom stamp.  We used the darker color of Fuchsia Pink (StazOn ink) so that it would show up nicely.  These bags will be for the wedding "favors", which is a candy, from a Candy Buffet that the guests should have a lot of fun filling their bags with!  Have any of you ever went to a wedding or other event where there was a Candy Buffet (or Candy Bar)?  I'd love to hear some experiences, what was good, what was loved, etc. Thanks!  We've got all the glass jars and containers lined up already, would you believe I already had most of them around the house? 

The wedding reception will be here on our property, which for the last 18 years I have called, "Sweet Woodruff Acres".  When we first moved here I bought a bunch of the herb, called "sweet Woodruff", and planted it all around.  I'd love to say the place is loaded with that herb, but it's all long gone now.  Guess it didn't reseed itself like the wild mint and oregano did!  But the name stayed, and so the "Sweet" part is what we're playing with for the wedding favors, hence the Candy Buffet!  If you've never heard of a candy buffet (or candy bar) go do a google search, they are so much fun.

Another project we're doing called for stickers, which I made on office labels.  I first used a lace stamp and stamped all the labels.  Then I printed them out on my printer.  I will cut them down to smaller sizes for what we're using them for.  Again, I'll show that later or in September after the wedding!

We'll serve dinner at the reception and we've been working on the menu.  (This is NOT our menu, but I love the chalkboard and will make one for the wedding for our menu!):

I think we've got it all nailed down, with a local caterer coming out to do the grilling on site.  We'll rent a big tent, but with these endless Oregon rains I'm beginning to wonder if there could ever be a big enough tent!  We'll see...

We had the kids yesterday while Melissa went to town for a few hours of shopping (and some mommy time!).  Here's the two grand kids yesterday:

Thanks for the suggestions of using the iron on for my cards, it makes it much easier to sew them.  I still like to sew them on the cards just for the fun of it!  I'm experimenting with papers and wedding invitation ideas, I have a few designs, and we may just make them ourselves instead of ordering them printed.  Anyone have experience or suggestions I could consider for invitations?  We love the pocket fold ones, and will use those, just not sure if we'll cut them all ourselves or order the blanks.

So these are just a quick glimpse of a few projects I've been working on.  I realized I hadn't blogged for weeks now, and just wanted to say "hi" again to my faithful readers, and "hi" to any new readers! 

Blessings!  ~Heidi