Well, I think it's safe to say that this has been a VERY LOOOOOONNNNGGG summer for me.
After months of working on my daughter Genna's wedding, she finally tied the knot on June 11th. Whew! Everything went off well and it was tons of fun dancing the night away with my friends.
We ended up back at our house, just me, my hubby Robert, daughters Genna and Tessa, David, the new son-in-law, and Christiana, Tessa's BFF, at around midnight and lo and behold, these young newlyweds were too pumped to sit still so they opened all of their wedding presents! That took until around 2 a.m. Good Golly! What a lot of stuff for their new home!
Then they were off on their honeymoon and I fell into bed. . . . hoping, silly I'm sure, to get some much needed rest.
Well that was not to be! I "entertained" out of town guests for the next two days, worked for 12 hours on my Over the Top Event at Convention on Monday, tried desperately to get caught up on things on Tuesday & Wednesday, and found myself helping Genna move into her new abode on Thursday and Friday. I can't even remember Saturday, Sunday was Father's Day, and early Monday morning, I left town with my 14 year old Fashionista for a week long shopping trip!
Yes, we seriously shopped for a full week. We started in LA's fashion district and headed north along the California coast up to San Francisco and Tessa had a blast shopping everywhere we stopped. . . . and I mean everywhere!
Then I was back just in time to place my order from the new catalog on July 1st (yes, it was a tad LARGE) and finish working on my Over the Top Events at Convention and make plans for my trip to Utah. My hubby, Robert, traveled with me this time and we stopped in Vegas for days before heading on to St. George and then to Salt Lake City, which is where Stampin' Up's Convention was.
I'm going to start with what happened that stopped my blogging in May.
In the midst of working on my daughter's wedding (photos below) my husband came home with something he "volunteered" me to do for some retiring faculty at the college he works at, Mt. San Antonio College (a.k.a. Mt. SAC). I had a meeting with those in charge and they gave me some albums that they wanted to present at the big retirement party they were having and they needed them in about 2 weeks!
I had never embellished a linen album before, so this was a challenge. Also in the mix, were the personalizations that I was asked to figure into the designs. So many of you asked that I share what I did, so here you go.
(I've blocked out the person's photos in the middle of the albums out of courtesy to them)
This album was for someone who loves black and white and Bling. I used Shimmer paints on the Pretties flowers and added a large rhinestone with a little silver punched flower for the flower centers. I did the wording with my computer in black, backing it with black, white & silver cardstock.
For this album, the guy is an outdoorsman, so I used my Lovely as a Tree set to make the "forest" with Garden Green, Close to Cocoa and Vanilla. I triple stamped the pine tree to make it look as if some are closer than others. Instead of ribbon, I used Twill, it's a little more "manly.
This album was made for a gardener. I was given a turquoise album to work with and I used the Elements of Style stamp set, stamped in Basic Gray and Aquapainted with Pretty in Pink and Old Olive. To bring in the turquoise of the album, I colored the Hummingbird with So Saffron, Tempting Turquoise and Old Olive with my markers directly onto the stamp. To finish this album, I added Old Olive and Pretty in Pink ribbons. Here's a close up:
These albums were a huge hit, I heard and everyone loved them.
This album work happened in between my working on my daughter, Genna's wedding dress, veil and shoes. The top of the dress was completely covered in sequins but there was none between that and the bottom of the dress, so she wanted more sequins added to the dress.
Of course, she had to have a veil with rhinestone edging and blinged out shoes too, so of course, I had to do them for her.
This dress had 9 layers of tulle and I had to go underneath the first layer to sew on the sequins. Why sew them on, you might ask. . . because I've been to too many weddings where they were glued on and they ended up all over the floor, that's why.
I had to put a brown shirt under the first layer so that I could even see the darn sequins!
Then it was on to the wedding favors. My Genna's wedding had a Cinderella theme, so we filled glass slippers (actually plastic, but you get the point) with turquoise and gold Jelly Beans.
Okay, so a little note of explanation here: When my daughter GENNA was little, she thought, especially at Easter, that they were hers. The jelly beans, that is. Why? Because she thought we were saying "GennaBeans". So yes, that's her nickname and it stuck all these years!
She thought it would be apropos to have GennaBeans in the slippers. Cute huh?
Here is a photo of Genna and my younger daughter, Tessa, working on the favors.
Yes, Genna also had her fiancee, David helping out.
David fill the shoes while Genna, Tessa and friends wrapped the tulle ( glittery of course) and tied them up with ribbon.
While they worked on those, I had a couple of friends, Sandy & Sheila, help me add sequins to the coaches for the tables. (photos on those later)
Next it was on to her shoes. She loved the gold sandals, but saw some shoes with rhinestones on the heels and, of course, Mommy had to do that too!
This was REALLY tedious! I had to use E6000 adhesive (no, Crystal Effects wouldn't work, tried it) and pick up the little rhinestones with a pin, place them on the heel and hold them in place until the glue set a bit. You'll see a photo of them finished with the wedding pictures soon.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
