Camping native style

Some of our guests will have to sleep outdoors and somehow we need to solve this. Racking my brain I realised we could use a very simple solution, the teepee. I got the idea after finding a site about a Scandinavian version of the tipi, a dwelling used by the native people of northern Scandinavia. The simple tent version is very similar to a teepee and the suggested materials are easy to find and work with. I think we may have a solution to our housing problem.

Walking down the aisle

We're having a secular ceremony on a field. It's quite open too so you can't really hide when approaching the place where it's supposed to be. It's an awkward and slightly silly situation to have people seated and then having to walk from the farm - alone - while people are looking at you.

There are several solutions. It could be a procession like event when everyone is walking together with music to the ceremony spot. One could also surprise everyone. It's entirely possible to build something that partly obstruct the view and have someone to distract people with some petal throwing and once you're there you blast some music that is dancing friendly from a boom blaster and make your entrance dancing.

The trick is to find the right music.

I love Säkert! and this one would be so right.

The batcomputer is none too frisky today, Batman.

This evening I have been working on Batman and Robin outfits for lollipops. As I mentioned the other day I was thinking I perhaps should have Chupa Chups, mostly because they're so simple and the bright colours go well with the theme in general. Then I spotted the idea to give lollipops superhero looks and decided to make a Batman and Robin outfit for those Chupa Chups. It's of course with the small ears on the mask and the less pointy black bat against a larger yellow background, just as in the original series.

Fake dreads

Some warn people that they shouldn't use wool dreads because they smell like sheep. They may or they may not depending on what kind of wool you use. The more lanolin left in the wool, the more sheep it will smell, especially when wet. The best thing is to choose a yarn which is well processed and with a fussy structure to it. This means a 1 tread yarn very lightly spun. If you use this your wool dreads won't smell more sheep than natural human hair dreads.

I have been making dreads today and I got 6 double dreads out of 1 skein. I have 1 left so I'll get 12, possibly 13 (there were some left on the first skein) 4 ft dreads. Folded in half they will definitely add length (and volume). Once they're all finished I'll fold them in half and sew on hair clips to keep them in place.

Me working on one dread.

For tutorial go here.

Here be dragons - some other day

I have been battling with the little cake topper dragon most of the evening and it's not really a success. One problem is that there are very few free patterns out on the net, so I decided to go for trial and error. It's been mostly error so far but I'm slowly making progress. I will eventually solve this.

I have also bought the wool yarn I'm going to make my fake dreads from. Or some of the wool dreads at least. I haven't decided if I'm going to have some brightly coloured dreads or not. Maybe I should have ribbons instead in bright colours. The yarn I bought today is dark brown and will blend in with my own hair colour. These fake dreads are meant to add more length because though I don't have any real plan yet, I want to have them tied up somehow.

Something like this I think.

Via Offbeatbride.com.

Outdoor inspiration

I have a vision of course. I am a designer so of course I have a vision. It also means I'm constantly looking for pictures that can explain my vision to people around me who are involved in this. Today I found the outdoor inspiration pictures.

This comes from the blog Bohemian Hellhole (a really nice blog if I may say so) and is about the person behind The Custards and her style. And it's spot on, with the colours and the atmosphere.

I won't be able to create that lushness because it is a yard after all, but the flowers will be there. As will the mismatch furniture and colour. I will do my best to make it look as inviting as I can and this picture above will be a great help to explain what I want to accomplish.

Superhero lollipops

Cuteness overload. I was looking at Chupa Chups lollipops the other day thinking it would make a fun little extra treat for everyone. Customizing them would make them even better.

Of course it's entirely possible to do something else, but I really like this one. Or Batman and Robin. That would definitely bring out some laughter.

Go to zakka life for the template.

Long term decoration project

We're fortunate to have a place to celebrate the wedding where we can have slow growing decoration. We will have some summer flowers like sunflowers, marigold and Indian cress among others in borders by the barn, but if you're in a woodland environment moss graffiti might be really cool, and it fits better in that environment than sun loving annuals.

The recipe I was taught when I was becoming a gardener was moss, some soured milk/yoghurt and some water. Whisk the moss and yoghurt well and add water until you get a paint like mixture and use an ordinary paintbrush to paint the surface you want to have moss on. If it's dry you might need to spray it with water. Quite soon you'll see the result of your work.

There's also a beer recipe where you whisk moss with beer, buttermilk and sugar and paint it the same way as with the recipe above. Some recipes say you should use a mixer, but I personally care too much about my mixer to do that.

More pages on the subject:
Stories from space
Inhabitat
Apartment Therapy
Craftzine

There are many other sites out there writing about this. Spreading moss by painting it on objects isn't exactly new knowledge and gardeners have known about this for very long, though it wasn't called graffiti (I dare to say centuries here) but it can never be repeated enough. Go forth and spread the knowledge!

Impressive DIY

Want to try to remake a pair of wedges? In particular a pair of perspex wedges? This is certainly a reminder that even shoes can be seriously DIY:ed, so if you stumble over a pair of sort of cool shoes that could be even cooler with some changes, just do it!

Go to (IN)DECORIOUS TASTE for tutorial for the shoes above.

Dear internet services

Technology is supposed to be useful. When I want to do a headdesk it's not useful.

No love.

Nerdy and absolutely lovely cake topper

It is the cutest topper ever. It made the Offbeat blog today but have been on the tribe for a week or so.

Click on image to go to the blog post on OBB.

And for those who have no idea why this is nerdy I suggest you start watching some Monty Python, especially the Holy Grail one. ;)

Propaganda invitation

It's funny how my mind works. I posted the picture of the Hong Kong couple wearing Red Army uniforms and that got me thinking about classic communist propaganda posters. The Chinese had a certain style on some of them that I really like. Considering our political past, it works too. I chose one that is very typical and copied the worker and the farmer, cut out the soldier (we are only two after all) and gave them our faces (and hair). Done!

I love the little subtle hint with the hammer and sickle! It's also incredibly simple graphically. All I need to do now is to find a good paper! (And have a fight with the printer.)

Invitation inspiration

I'm still looking at invitations.

Click on image to see the full story.

I love this little story of how these two got together. Problem is that it'd be incredibly expensive to do something similar. Not when it comes to making it. I'm a decent illustrator and can finish something like this and print it myself, but the cost of stamps would ruin us.

So, still looking.

Confession: I love flamboyance

Sometimes when I look through the various weddings out there, I get the urge to do something really flamboyant. Crimson dress, feathered headpiece with LED lights, fire show, circus performance... and it would have been great! It's just that I don't have the money to really splash, and since this is DIY from start to finish, I really need to be practical.

I also know that though all of the above is cool, the most important thing is to have people you care about and love around you and to have fun. In my job as a restaurant manager I learned that what matters is the people. The most interesting wedding we had was at the same time a very awkward affair. In the beginning it was stylish and rather stiff but in the end, when the dance started, the South American guests (her side of the family) decided that they'd had it with the stiffness and the stylishness and it became the party it should have been from the start.

I'm actually quite happy we're doing what we're doing. It's just that I'm awed by what some people have accomplished, that's all.

Comrade, lets get married

This is Jordan Chan and Cherrie Ying, a celebrity couple from Hong Kong and this is also one of their wedding pictures. This is nostalgic for sure. In the early 1950's this kind of a portrait of newly wedded communist couples were not unusual in China (one such rather famous one is in the book "Wild swans" by Jung Chang showing her parents in such a photo). 

It's refreshing to see something else than the traditional white dress/suit/lets try and look cute thing.

Via China Daily.

More on light

The other day I posted that I had decided on what sort of light we should have in the barn. Great! I have found a variation on the wheel chandelier idea.

Small ladders are sometimes used as pot racks. Larger ones could be used as lantern holders. I could mix having wheels and ladders, or just having ladders. We'll see what we can find on the farm.

I'm very tempted to get plastic ribbons in various colours and tie in the ladders/wheels too. If I tied them on the wheels on the edge and had the jars inside hanging from the spokes it'd become a really cool lamp/chandelier.

Blankets

We have no idea what the weather will be like in mid-August. Statistics tells us that it should be sunny and warm, but we could have rather bland weather too. The risk of rain is always present but August is usually the best time of the year for planning an outdoor event in southern Scandinavia.

I'm planning for chill at night anyway. Even if it's a warm and pleasant evening and night it's rarely as warm as in July when we can have tropical nights. Inside the barn there will be no need to for something to keep warm, but I'm planning for a lounge area just outside of the barn and some blankets might just be a good idea. These blankets can also be used for the ceremony to sit on.

I'm going to buy cheap fleece blankets from IKEA, and some quilt cover sets, cut the quilt covers so I get two sheets of fabric, sew one fleece blanket together with one sheet and give it a final edge finish with zigzag shears. Quite simple and perfectly in-theme. That's always something to look in to, quilt covers (or sheets). Really cheap ones are often cheaper than buying the same amount of the same kind of fabric per yard, and if you just need fabrics for simple things such as this, it's a good idea to check quilt covers first before looking at other fabrics.

Problem solving - beverage

I have been mulling over how to serve the drink after the ceremony. It's 22.5 litres (5 UK gallons) we're talking about and it needs to be mixed easily, kept cool and be easily served. Jugs? I'd have to have 12-14 (depending on size but extra large) just for the cosmo alcohol drink. That's not practical.

I started looking for dispensers but the only ones I could find were fancy restaurant ones and they're also quite small. 2x8 litre (2x1.75 UK gallons) is the usual size. Too small. I could find larger ones - in the US. And they weren't cheap either. I'm not buying stuff from the US because of taxes and p&p which bumps up the actual price even more.

The home brewers tend to have barrels and plastic containers with taps but though something like that would work, it's not exactly pretty. Sure, I could refer to the moonshine tradition on the countryside, but really, I'd rather not.

However, you can buy the taps separately with nuts. If you can find a suitable container, all you need to do is drill a hole and put the tap on place and you've got an instant beverage dispenser. I'm going to use two 16 litre (3.5 UK gallons) metal trash cans with lid from IKEA. To keep the beverage cool I'm going to throw in freeze packs. This way I'll have fancy looking beverage dispensers with cold cosmopolitan for a fraction of the prices I've seen.

A very important part of a party: food

After eating ourselves through the potential food I can honestly say that we're serving bulk food. The bean gumbo in itself would be enough, but we're also having vegetarian burritos, corn dogs and corn cobs. On top of that it's rocky road. You don't need much to get full. It's good though. Food should not only taste well, but no one should leave a table still hungry.

From the start we had decided on beer, but it's so much trouble with beer. You need so much and somewhere to cool it and it turned out both expensive and difficult to store cold during a party. Wine is easier that way. We're having one simple red and one white, both in bag-in-boxes. Right after the ceremony we're having a jug drink with white sweet sparkling, cranberry juice and Cointreau. It's a lovely raspberry red drink with a cosmopolitan feeling to it, albeit more laid back.

There will be drinks for those who don't drink alcohol. After the ceremony I thought a fitting substitute would be sprite, cranberry juice and some lemon. As for dinner drinks, I'm not sure. We really should have Coca Cola considering the theme, but I suspect Darling won't approve. We'll see. Water must be available at all times of course. You shouldn't have to drink alcohol or soft drinks to quell thirst.

Mushu and piglet

We're not religious and we don't believe that stars decide our personality and what will happen in life. However, it was rather funny to realise that the key personality traits we have, are the traits we should have according to our Chinese zodiac signs.

I'm a pig, homely, crafty, creative and a rather kind and gentle individual who likes to care for people I love with treats and little presents. I really am that way! Darling is a fire dragon. Bold, dominant, brave and passionate, with an air of a male lion in public. He's even up-scaled in size, 6'5 tall and nothing but muscles. If he only was the show a fire dragon can pull off I wouldn't been interested, but he has other, more gentle sides and we have many interests in common and think alike in many areas.

We've been joking about our signs since we found out, which was shortly after we became friends. I call him Mushu sometimes, and he calls me his little piglet.

Today I realised that toppers based on our Chinese zodiac signs would actually be rather fun. I made the little piglet today and will try and make the dragon in a day or so.

The light at the end of the tunnel

I have been going back and forth about how we're going to light up the barn. I've been thinking about party lights, but to get the desired effect we'd have to get quite many and though we have electricity, it'd be a big job solving the cable issue.

Then there's the crafty mason-jar-in-plank solution.

Pretty, but I'd need to get planks and a lot of rope too. And I'd have to saw all those holes. Quelle nightmare. For real.

However, today I saw the perfect solution. Wheels plus mason jars and any other kind of décor I'd like to add.

I very much doubt that I can find wooden wagon wheels on the farm, but I know that there are metal ones from old machinery with decades of patina. I only need to get some wire for the jars and something to hang the wheels in and we're done. I love simple solutions.

Browncoat invitation

I have been working on the invitations. I had decided on the polaroid kind, but there's still time to toy with ideas. Yesterday I crashed my computer working on this:

I embraced my inner nerd. If there's any sci fi series that would work with our theme, it's Firefly. I also made it in English. Thing is that we're inviting a bunch of people who don't speak Swedish and though I've made the site in Swedish and in English, I'd rather not have two different invitations. Everyone knows enough English to understand what the invitation says after all.

I'm going to think about it for a while. I might change my mind again.

Live music

If I could afford it I'd have these guys coming to play at the party.

They're called The Coffinshakers. If you want to know more, go to their website.

Quickfix when the wallet is empty

I would really like a sleeve. Or two. Well, I have two arms after all. However, money's tight so I'd never be able to pay for something like that before the wedding. Besides, it takes some time to make one too and I don't feel like stressing about it either.

There are solutions though. There are henna tattoos, an ancient way of decorating skin. I won't call it mendi because this technique is found from Morocco to China, and it's called differently depending on where you are.

There are also fake tattoos in the shape of polyester/spandex sleeves. I'm seriously tempted to wear that. If I did get those I'd have to reconsider the sleeve I was going to have on the dress because the tattoo sleeve will end somewhere just below that dress sleeve and that's not very pretty.

The only on-line store I've found in Europe who sells these is found in the UK (of course) and is called Space Monkeys.

Cool shoes

Shoes are evil.

I want these. Iron Fist Oh No Wedges. They're on sale on a UK site in my size.

The final version

I'm going to wink at Star Trek. The yellow dress I found is typical for the late 60's with it's experimental cut. The Star Trek uniforms are equally famous for original cut. Well, not the Star Trek Enterprise then. I don't want people to think "oh, that's a Star Trek dress" so I have decided to not do the two colour thing in the dress. I'm choosing a yellow fabric, but I'll cut the neckline in the asymmetric way Uhura and nurse Chapel's dresses are cut. I think that's the only real detail I need for those who knows their Star Trek to squee. The dress itself has a cut reminding you of a Star Trek uniform tunic from the early The Next Generation era so I really don't have do anything else.

 

I also found the colour scheme for the petticoat. It'll be a strong pink/raspberry red kind of a colour in soft tulle. I think I'm going to nick the idea to tie small strips of aqua tulle to the pink tulle, just like this tutu I spotted on Etsy. Without further ado:

I found the image below as a colour inspiration. I'm also wondering if I should find a polka dot ribbon, a rather wide one, to add to the tulle. I have to be careful though so I don't make it too full, because I'm not making a squaredance dress. I just want some ruffles because it's candy fun.

Sleeves! And a complete design.

I think I have the design now. I only need to decide on the colours. Yellow is wonderful. Do I use it alone or do I add another colour? Navy? Cerise? And that crochet I was thinking about, will I use that idea? I'd rather not think about that now. But having decided on the design is a great step since I can now go ahead and make the pattern and make a dummy.

I'm going to use the sleeve design above. This is a top from Banana Republic which they sold in 2008. Those along with the cut on the vintage 60's dress from this post and some tweaks on width, length, and neckline and adding pockets will be the final design.

Back to the food

I have worked on the menu some and cooked one course. I found a vegetable gumbo with rice that sounded tasty and tried that one. After tweaking the recipe some I must say that it's a winner. Problem though is that okra isn't easy to get hold of here. They're not spectacular in any way and I don't need it to thicken the gumbo so I could leave it out. The thing that gives it the gumbo taste is the roux after all. IMO anyway. We'll see what I end up doing.

We're still having the corn cobs and the corndogs, though I haven't made a trial of those yet. I've caught a cold and cooking isn't a high priority right now. The rocky road is still on. However, I kind of want something more for variation. American food is generally not very vegetarian oriented, it's basically all about meat, meat, meat and some seafood every now and then. However, it's a different story south of the Rio Grande. Burritos? I think so. It's something people eat all over the South too, though it's imported from Mexico.

Tortillas are again easy to make and keep in the freezer. They cost very little when you make them yourself too. Fried potatoes with a chilli sauce, tomato and onion salsa, guacamole, cucumber sticks and kidney bean salsa were the things I was thinking about having to fill the tortilla bread with. In the gumbo we have black beans so I'm trying to vary the bean assortment here. The one thing that has to be made the same day is the fried potatoes, but that something anyone could do. The other things even get better if they're kept cold over night. Well, the cucumber is best cut up the same day too. I think this will have to do actually.

Original gumbo recipe can be found at Meatlessmonday.com

Sunshine!

I think I may have found the dress that will make the foundation of my design.

I'm not going to buy this one though it's a lovely dress. It's too short, and the skirt isn't wide enough IMO. But I love the cut and I can see myself adding pockets to it. A girl has got to have pockets! I'm not going to keep the sleeves and the neckline needs to be lower, but not too low though. Not too long, too short, no décolletage, easy to move around in.

The colour is lovely. That navy is getting more and more difficult to justify. I could have the bottom part of the dress in navy, but the problem is that it might look like I'm wearing an apron. Or possibly too Star Trek-ish. I'm NOT doing geek things here. I'm such a sci fi nerd but star Trek just don't belong in this.

Dress from Beautvintage.com.

Colour!

I've been looking a bit on Etsy.com today, mostly because I'm in need of some inspiration. There are many pretty things to look at over there. For a splash of colour (and things to pull inspiration from), have a look at these! Click on images to go to the shop in question.