My Sister Got Married

Photo by Jordan Pigott

I have been dying to have a chance to sit down and blog about my sister's wedding we were able to attend on January 7th! It was the most beautiful small ceremony (only about 20 people). They did it in Mike's (my sister's new husband) parents' house. I was so amazed with my sister because she and her friend Jordan made all the decorations themselves from vintage books. I thought it was ingenious. I had never seen anything done that way, and it didn't cost her hardly anything! I loved her dress. It was actually champagne in color and matched the vintage book theme perfectly. She accessorized it perfectly with a lace jacket, a family necklace with the traditional blue gem, some old family pearl earrings, and a beautiful veil. The kicker was that she had her dress specially altered so that the bottom piece was velcroed on. After the vows were said, to let the party begin Kylie surprised us all and ripped the bottom off the display a funky short dress with cute suede boots.She asked that everyone wear purple. Derek found a purple shirt and tie that he actually wears to work all the time. I found the cutest little purple dress for Liv, but I had the hardest time finding something for myself. After looking everywhere for a purple dress for myself that I could afford, liked, and would wear again, I finally found one at Walmart of all places.Liv was amazingly good and so was Derek. He totally took over parental duties for the weekend to allow me to enjoy the family time. Liv spent most of the wedding dinner on the floor picking up flower petals and putting them in the fun purse her Babi brought for her.
It was so fun to see all my family and to watch my little sister get married. Liv lapped up all the attention from everyone.BIG CONGRATS TO MIKE AND KYLIE!!!Photo by Jordan Pigott

Lastly, we finally got snow out here in Utah which really made me sad until I decided to bust out this sleigh and got some of the cutest pics with Liv and London. They are so cute together. Liv loves to play in the snow. I think it is a lot of work, but then when I get out there I'm glad we got all dressed up to play. (But in all honesty...I much preferred the 50 degree mid January weather that allowed me and Liv to pull out the jogging stroller for a run).

Remind me NEVER...

to take on anything that even remotely resembles a "craft project" again. Let me walk you through step by step how I screwed this one up:

Mistake #1: I've been wanting to make a magnet board for my kitchen to cover up a section of the wall where I accidentally removed a patch of paint from my last creative endeavor. My sister is getting married this weekend, and I thought why not make two and give one to my sister as a wedding present. Who couldn't use a magnet board? Anyone who knows me at all knew that my first big mistake (the mistake that could have saved me from the whole sequence of mistakes to follow) was me attempting a craft. This project was doomed from the beginning. I am just not a crafty person.

Mistake #2: I was reading someone's craft blog (you know one of those people who can actually pull off crafts like this- who is reality just give all of us non-crafty people this false sense of oh that would be easy to make)...anyways reading about how she made a magnet board and used her sewing scissors to cut the steal sheet to fit the frame. I had sewing scissors so I gave it a try. Yep snapped those sewing scissors right in half. Of course super crafty craft blogger can do it and make it sound so easy, but not me. Oh well, I never sew anyways, thus I don't really need sewing scissors. They only get used to cut an occasional thread to sew on a button. Any old scissors will do for that. Continuing on...

Mistake #3: My sister says she likes dark reds, purples, and moss or olive green in her house. So, I think a deep red would be a nice color for a frame and pick out a spray paint that looks deep red. It says Burgundy. Perfect! I come home spray paint the old frame I have picked out, let it dry and immediately realize that if someone asked me to describe the color burgundy I would probably describe it as a pinkish red or reddish pink and that was exactly the color my frame was, which was not at all what I was envisioning. I was hoping for more of a cranberry red (so why didn't I just pick the can that said cranberry?). Mistake #3 has resulted in a frame for my sister to hang in her kitchen that screams "I should be an 80s leotard!"

Mistake #4: Bubble magnets. How easy are those? I think of this as a craft within my craft which could only be problematic. I buy clear or what I think are clear glass stones, cut out some cute paper to glue on the bottom when I realize the stones are not clear. They are this shimmery opaque that you cannot see my paper through. Did you know you cannot return those stones once the bag has been opened?

Mistake #5: Blackboard paint. What a novel idea! It comes in a spray paint can just like the burgundy. There are all sorts of instructions on the back of the can to get an even surface like spray in sweeping motions beginning off the surface and continuing off other side. Follow a pattern of painting horizontally first and then vertically. I try to follow them but what inevitably happens to me is that just as I'm thinking things are going okay a little droplet of paint lands on the surface making a bubble in my black board surface. I get a paint brush to try to smooth it, which sort of worked, but ruined the paintbrush in the process (blackboard paint does not rinse out of paint brushes like regular paint). That situation rectified, I continue on in my sweeping motions when the dog runs by getting all kinds of dog hair on my wet surface. Ruined my tweezers plucking out dog hairs. Again with the sweeping motions, when wind picks up and blows the newspaper over onto my wet blackboard paint which messes up the surface again. At this point, I just flip the steel plate over and begin on the other side-- which ends up much like the first except worse with a huge ripple and now crater right down the middle of the board deeming it virtually unusable.

Mistake #6: This was the final slap in the face. As I was cleaning everything up from outside, all the plastic, newspaper, spray painted items, I see an outline of both black chalkboard paint and burgundy spray paint on the cement surrounding each section of my work areas. Anyone know how to get paint off my cement patio?

Which brings me here. Blogging to blow off some steam. To record in my digital journal this event in hopes that in the future when I am again reading one of those craft blogs and thinking that would be easy and I could make that. That I will remember this horrific incident and as Joseph of Egypt... flee!