Wedding Bells A-Ringin'

My friend, Melanie, up and got married on me and asked me to do her hair for the reception. So this Saturday I was able to spend some time with her getting her beautified, then we went over to the church to finish setting up and getting her pictures taken. Man, the number of my single girlfriends keep getting smaller and smaller....enough already! JK. I am happy for her and glad she found herself an eternal best friend, can't think of anything better! Don't mind my outfit, Since I new I was gonna be moving around a lot I went for comfort, not style :)

Wannabe Domestic Attempt

There was a girl in my ward who asked for volunteers to help sew blankets for the babies in Haiti. I figured this would give me the chance to put my sewing machine to use and for me to try and develop a skill that may come in handy some day...not for me of course, for my nieces and nephews :)

Here is how my attempt #1 turned out. It's probably a good thing it is zoomed out! I didn't realize how stressful such an assumingly simple project can be! You know what assuming does...!(if it weren't for those lousy corners...)

Here is a close-up of the fabric. It was on sale and I thought it was fun.

Pysanky Eggs

My aunt is an elementary teacher and wanted to give each of her students a Pysanky Egg- or what my family calls "Stanky Eggs" (not to get confused with the 'Stanky Leg':) ). My sisters and I wanted to learn, plus my aunt needed help getting a lot done, so she taught us how to do them. I told my friend about them and she wanted to kind of learn the process so here ya go.

First you draw the design that you want on your egg (sorry the pictures aren't high quality)

Then whatever part of your design you want to stay white, you draw over with wax. You can see the tool you use in the background to draw on the egg. On one end of that black dagger-lookin thing (it kind of acts as a funnel) you put wax in, then you stick it next to a candle flame and the wax melts out the other end and then you are ready to draw on the egg while the wax is still liquid.

Once you have all the white designs you want you can dip it in the next lighter color you want. I chose orange for this particular egg. Then once it is dipped, you start drawing on the egg with wax again on the parts you want to stay orange (the point of the wax is to cover the egg for when you dip it in a different color)

Once you have covered the egg with wax on what you want to stay that color, you dip it again, etc. By the end it starts lookin pretty nasty and black.

Once you have dipped to your satisfaction (don't I sound professional? ha ha) you remove the wax by sticking it next to the candle flame, and once it starts to melt you wipe it off with a paper towel until all the wax is gone. Then your final design is revealed! Ta DAH!!! (This one originally had blue designs planned, but some kind of chemical reaction made that color turn like a tarnished brown, so some of my design was covered with purple to try and salvage it, but it still turned out ok for a beginnner egg)

Here are my sister's....all sorts of ways to go about this:

Here were a few more that were done. I know it's kinda hard to see, but there are a lot more details in these than the typical easter egg!

Welcome Home Grandpa

Shortly before Christmas my grandpa fell in his garage and shattered his hip and broke his shoulder (give him a break, he's 85!). He had to stay in a rehab facility until the doctors said he was capable of going home. After a speedy recovery of 6 weeks (we all thought it was going to be longer) he got to come home so we threw him a little "Welcome Home" party. The whole "muscle" thing on the poster I made is because while he was in therapy, only one of his arms got really strong and he was always so proud to flex and show it off to all the visitors. This poster portrays what he looked like at the rehab center (without his toupee) :) And yes, our family is high class celebrating in our PJ's, except my grandpa (I think seeing him in the rehab center was the first time I saw him without his dockers and collared shirt on, ha ha).

The poster is kind of bent so it doesn't look very proportional, but you get the idea.