Wedding plans and preparations are in full swing.
Our friends from out of town and abroad begin arriving tomorrow.
I will try to post when I can!

xo
Jelly

Centerpieces

I've decided to alternate the centerpieces on our tables...
half with hurricanes and half with floral arrangements.

A certain Je ne sais quoi.These are the hurricane centerpieces that I've put together.My Stepmom does event planning, and lent me several hurricane covers. She had created a striped pattern on the glass by taping it off and using etching paint to give the covers some detail. I then took some left over wax and melted it down into votive candles using old baby food jars. The candles were covered with vellum damask paper and a ribbon.
For a full tutorial on this go here.This is a super easy project, and is very inexpensive.
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Free Clipart: Vintage Wedding Photo

In keeping with the spirit of all things wedding, I thought I would post this old wedding photo that I found at a local flea market.

The poor guy really doesn't look like he's too excited to be getting married, much less having his photo taken. And the girl? Poor lass looks frightened to death. (Thinking of later on in the evening with Mr. Excitement, I'm sure.)

Enjoy.

DIY Wedding Program

I think I want to change 'DIY' to 'IDIM' (I did it myself).

These are my IDIM wedding programs. I'm very excited. I had made these seed packets earlier, but didn't know how to give them out as favors since we already had made chocolate fleur de lis suckers for the tables. So, I constructed these pocket programs, which each hold a packet of seeds in the outer pocket and the actual program on the inner pocket.

For the paper, I took a french wording rubber stamp and stamped a piece of paper. I then scanned in the image, and copied it so that it would cover the entire page. Printed it off on card stock, cut little rectangles for the outside pocket and then sewed them in place. I then glued it all together with ribbon and monogram stickers for embellishment and there you have it......As a bonus, I'm also including the french wording for you to upload!

Trash to Treasure: Vintage Hair Comb

I've taken more goodies from Mr. Peanutbutter's dumpster dive and made them into beautiful wedding accessories.

Remember this bejeweled piece?Well, I took it and made a vintage glittery hair comb.
TaDa!

I just used E600 craft glue to attach the back to my home-made comb, and after waiting 24 hours it was not going to come apart. I had tried using a plastic comb intitially, but that didn't work. So, I fashioned a comb out of some wire I had. The comb isn't really pretty, but it will be hidden by my hair - no big deal.

Now, I don't expect everyone to be able to make a wire comb and have their fiance chase after the families of the newly deseased to retrieve tossed out vintage goodies. SO, if you go to Etsy you can find some other ones similar to mine.From top, going left to right

Croska, Romancing the Bling, OhFaro, Belcanto

All photos courtesy of Etsy

Vintage Wedding Shoes With Clips

Remember these?
Well, I took the shoe clips that Mr. Peanutbutter found for me and some dyeable wedding shoes..

And now I have this......

Very vintage and very nice if I do say so myself!

Halloween is coming: Medically speaking

I guess we sort of all take our jobs for granted....at least a little bit.

Working in medicine for so long, I sometimes fail to recognize that what I do and see everyday may be interesting to folks who have never spent time suturing or reading xrays. However, last night while looking through my Netter's book of Anatomy I realized that maybe some of you might find these pictures interesting from an artistic stand-point. (Frank Netter was, afterall, an artist)

So, with the advent of Halloween, I thought I would share some images from my anatomy atlas with you. These are from Netter's and are copywritten - so they cannot be sold. Only for personal use. There are several popular atlases out there, and most are familiar with Gray's Anatomy. Personally, I find Netter's to be much more realistic not to mention aesthetically pleasing.

Now you can make cool candles like these from Country Living.

More Free Clipart: Vintage Typewriter

I'm just loving this 1909 Catalog!

Vintage typewriters are so cool. We recently bought one similar to this at an auction for $25. I can't wait to clean it up and see if I can get it to work. In the meantime, please enjoy this paper version.....

Psycho Blog-love, Vol. 6

Manic Crafty Madness

OMG Blogosphere! I think I found my patron saint of blog craftiness. I recently discovered Just Something I Made, and I'm still finding new and fun things to do on her blog. Most of the time I just sit and stare at the computer screen with my mouth hanging open in awe. I want to be her blog.

You may have noticed that I've given my blog a little bit of a facelift with some of her freebies. She's the Estee Lauder or the Clinique of the Dillards Blog Department - giving away little samples of her work to suck you in and keep you coming back.

Please go visit her and tell her Jelly sent ya.

See how to make your own custom poker chips
and tons of other stuff!Photo courtesy of Just Something I Made

Free Clipart: Vintage Ads

These old ads from the 1905 Sears & Roebuck Catalog crack me up. The bust cream ad reads:

'the right food required for starved skin and wasted tissues'

Those poor women of 1905. Click on the photo to see or download a larger image.

If you download one of my images, please leave me a comment & be sure to back link to my blog!

Cage aux folles: Bird Cage Card Holder

I've been hard at work putting together our card container for the wedding. I had seen photos of bird cages and really liked this idea. However, I had a little bit of sticker shock when I went shopping for an antique or vintage style cage.

Luckily, I found a set of wooden cages at Lowes on sale for 13.00. They weren't really the style I wanted, but with a little paint and accessories it turned out pretty close.

This is the Before...And THIS is the After!

Another Botanical Print

I found this botanical print on the cover of a 1965 Missouri Botanical Garden Bulletin.

I love that it's hand drawn.Click on the photo to see a larger view or to download.

Free Clipart: Vintage Shoes

Mr. Peanutbutter recently found this great copy of
a Sears & Roebuck 1909 Fall Catalog.

Below is an ad for ladies shoes. Click on the photo to see or download a larger version.

Enjoy!

Modern twist on French Vintage

So, now that I have the bowties for Mr. Peanutbutter and my Man of Honor, I needed some ties for the other guys in the wedding. I wanted to keep up the vintage french vibe, but when I would google 'fleur de lis neck tie' I would get nothing but New Orleans Saints paraphenilia. Mr. Peanutbutter is very sensitive about looking like a boyscout or a Saints fan, so that option was out. I even tried to design my own on zazzle. That was a total flop, and a waste of 30 dollars.

Luckily, I found this great silk screen artist on Etsy who does amazing work on ties or scarves. She has this vintage french print (complete with fleur de lis) which she can put on a number of tie colors, and in just about any ink color you can imagine.

This is the one we chose - with black ink on khaki.

She has loads of other ties. Great ideas for birthdays, holidays, father's day, graduation, etc.
Photos courtesy of Toybreaker

Penelope Coat update

I've had a few requests for the Penelope coat that I plan on making. Once the wedding is over, I plan on making my 'mock-up', and if all goes well I will start taking custom orders. I've even found a place online which sells the purple coat wool
(let me tell you, purple coat wool is very hard to find).So, please be patient and hopefully I will have photos up of the finished coat by November.

Seed Packet Favors

Yes...more wedding DIY

Sometimes I wonder what I will do for blog content after the wedding. However, that thought lasts for, oh, a second or two and then I'm off to dreaming up another project. So, rest assured that there will be plenty of new projects and craft mania to clog up the blogosphere.

Since we were unable to make apple butter for some of the wedding favors, I decided to give out seed packets. Saying that we have an abundance of cockscomb is an understatement. Burpee's should call us to supply next year's catalog orders.

With that said, I have been drying out flowers and collecting the seeds. I made these handy seed packets to give out at the wedding. All of our bouquets and centerpieces will be made up of our cockscomb, so I thought it would be a nice momento. Plus, I don't think it's possible to kill these flowers - so, even our brown thumb friends can grow them!

I took one of my cockscomb photos and stylized it a bit, and then attached the prints to paper envelopes that I crafted out of scrap paper from the invitations.For those frugal gals out there like myself, this project is very affordable because I didn't have to buy anything extra to make them. Plus, it's a green gift and I'm always down with helping out ole Mother Earth.

Green Floral Bouquets

Not green as in color, but green as in grown in my own yard.

In order to save money on the wedding, we decided to use flowers from our own garden for the bouquets and table settings.

Plus, I'm not really into buying flowers because they only last a little while and then they die. Call me a curmudgeon, but even though it's pretty it's money lost.

About 2 seasons ago, my mother-in-law to be gave us some Cockscomb from her own garden. These are beautiful flowers, and while they are annuals they self-seed and come back 3 fold the following year. This year, we let the flowers do their own thing and didn't thin them out as the seedlings started to take off. We now have a back yard full of cocks comb, which I'm going to use for the bouquets, boutonnieres, and table settings.

Since these flowers produce a ton of seeds, we're also going to make little envelopes and give them as favors.