The journal as a lily pad

I've been rocking steady on my latest "Renew this book" visual journal for two weeks now. This is such a refreshing and motivating experience for me. I've been so caught up in the writing, the collaging, the journaling, and the creative byproducts that in the short time since my last post I could write about six updates.

One of my favorite comments from a friend was, "The journal stuff is grand, but I still want to see your cards, photo art, and gift ideas."

This week I made a goofy journal post about reindeer. I purchased the cool Fiskars reindeer punch at an after Christmas sale and wanted to stay true to my commitment to use new items within ten days of purchase. I played with the punch and made a couple thank you notes for holiday gifts. Using the punched out reindeer as a stencil I played with it again on a journal page.

From that journal post I did a leap frog from my journal lily pad to creating a Valentine card. I've always loved the the corny phrases used on many Valentines and the deer pun was too good to resist.

Moving right along....

I've signed up at Julie Balazar's blog for her Art Journal Every Day challenge. I've been taking pictures of posts and will show some on my web site and here.

A new article about  journaling was posted at Helium last week:
How Writers and Artists can use a Journal to Develop Creativity

Planning a wedding any time soon? There's also a recently published article called How to incorporate tree branches into your wedding decor

The newest video series "Renew This Book" is in process now. The first video is up on You Tube--the subject is selecting your base book. There will be written instructions for each video posted on my web site.

Summer means...cookouts, weddings, and travels

We're having a Red(neck), white, and blue cookout for July 4th. Here's out it works:
Bring your own--side dish, meat for the grill, and beer with cousins/spouses and chewing tobacco optional :)

Here's a few cards I made to send after our May cookout with family:

After the Memorial Day visit to Virginia we geared up for hosting our wonderful God-daughter's wedding. We really had a great time sprucing up the yard and hosting a nice dinner for Brittany, John, and their guests. I was honored to perform the ceremony for them too and the videos we took for far away family and friends are on YouTube here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPpgpBRjv3U

The Arbor you see on the video was built by Sir Henry and decorated with ribbons and florals from the craft store. We're so happy with how it turned out as a setting for their ceremony.

Below are some of the digital designs and photos of decorations created for the nuptials:

We made lots of flower arrangements, decorated bags of customized M&M's and baskets for sparklers used in the send off.  Photos should be forthcoming...

The support, labor, and food contributed by family and friends for this wedding has left us overwhelmed with gratitude and love. Although we could spend the rest of our lives thanking everyone, we're starting with some nice handmade cards:

The wedding and the thank you notes were all able to easily and creatively slide out of the studio with ease thanks to my new clear and simple method of organization.

No regular features this time. I'm still in recovery mode but my schedule will be lighter for the next few months so I hope to share lots more here and on the web site.

In the interim-- enjoy, create, and savor my friends.

Ya'll Come Now, Ya Hear?

RSVP or “répondez, s'il vous plait”

Remember when it was patriotic to remove all things French from the language? It makes me wonder why no one went after RSVP. I’m glad it’s okay and I’m even happier that people are doing it. Unless you have called or emailed or agreed to be in the wedding party—we don’t know you’re coming. Please let me know as soon as you know. Email me at nachattin@nachattin.com

We only had just over a month from winning to wedding so the invitations were marked to call or email with your reply. If you didn’t get an invitation, we only had 100 and they were rushed out—I can almost guarantee we meant to send yours. So please, just RSVP if you want to come to the wedding. You know we’d love to have you. We have discovered a couple that were addressed wrong already, but there are probably more.

Musical Delights

We met with MThree productions last week and Kelly Voice over there was fabulous. She was gracious enough to meet us at night so Sir Henry could attend too. They are doing all the music for ceremony and reception and we’ve picked out some favorite tunes for them to play. I can’t wait to hear “Time in a Bottle” and lots of other great songs that have meaning for us. We picked out a special first dance song that made me cry when I heard it again.

Flowers Finalized

North Palm Beach Flowers contacted me this week with the final flower delivery information. We’re going to be carrying and wearing some lovely blossoms that never would have been possible without this gift. You will be seeing a lot of mango callas like the one pictured above. They match the pretty linens we’re getting from Lulu’s. My Mom and a few other honored attendees will be wearing orchid corsages which I know are going to be gorgeous.

The centerpieces are a combination of fresh stems with my vintage liquor decanters so they speak to us and add beauty to the décor. I love that. We’re so grateful for the volunteers that are creating additional items to go with the decanters and jazz things up a bit on the auxiliary tables. Annette, Lynn, and Brittany are really jumping in everywhere that’s needed to create displays. The glass ornaments filled with sand and other treasures pictured above will be hung from a sand colored display tree on the registration table.

I gotta have Friends

Whenever I thank friends, I’m so worried I’ll leave someone out and when I do leave you out, please forgive me. This wedding would not be possible with out the generous support and assistance of some great people who are working tirelessly to get this all done.

Lynn has splashed right into the punch project with great ideas, she has loaned two more liquor decanters, given us a gift for arrangement displays, volunteered to pick up and transport the cool favors from A Design Just for You, and she’s working on a sweet surprise.

Annette has finished the amazing programs that match the decorations; she’s working on the gift table display, and volunteered to assist the planner with set up. Both these ladies will be arriving earlier, with husbands, to help set up.

Jill is creating the “room kits” for bride, groom, and restrooms. My God-daughter, Brittany, is coming in on Monday to work here on table cards, place cards, signs, displays, shopping, cleaning, hair and make-up, etc.

Paula has become our “seamstress detective” and is working diligently to help us find someone to fix the dresses that haven’t arrived yet….

If it weren’t for Jen the initiations might still be sitting here in the house. She’s always ready to jump in and work. Because she’s next door, she’s been so helpful with last minute jobs and just letting me talk things out.

Sir Henry and I are also so happy to be hearing from friends and family members that we haven’t seen in a while. I truly wish I was better at stopping and savoring each moment, because I’m so happy in my heart with all that’s happening. Thanks to everyone that’s calling and emailing.

We've finally narrowing our location choices down to two--please let us settle on one this coming week. I'm so eager to start the "fun part" for me which is decorations, cake, and, of course, fashion.

We decided to have the cake be a traditional recipe pound cake that my Mom will make. It's been in my family for years, we call it the Burnett pound cake and Burnett is my Grandma's maiden name. Thanks to my friend Jill's contribution of a Southern Living Magazine, we now have a decoration plan for the cake. It will be iced like the photo and then we'll use either berries or chocolate shells for embellishment.

The flowers will probably be natural from our yard and the grocery store combined with paper flowers that will be featured more in an upcoming post. The two pink/red arrangements pictured are from our yard and the the other two (snap dragons and orange daisy types) were purchased at Publix for $3.33 a bunch. The orange flowers are arranged in a crystal liquor bottle and there's a white daisy in the top. Isn't that fun? I used my fibers and ribbon from the studio to embellish arrangements or containers. At this point I'm not sure whether we'll be inside or outside and that will impact the container situation. It will all work out.

I'm going through a bell phase lately. I want to have lots of bells at my wedding. I have placed two brass bells with the orange flowers as part of the "table-scape" and I bought a cool crystal bell this week too. Please send me ideas for using bells at party or wedding. Thanks!

Thanks for looking and sharing. As always, I love to hear from you....Cheers!