064 - Blossom paper tutorial 2.0 a la Poodle

A while ago I posted all the different origami flowers I was working on for the wedding (here and here) and I had great feedback with all of them except one. Remember this cherry blossoms? from this post.

{ Image source and tutorial 1.0 (Link) }

Yeah! well I had a hard time trying to figure how to finish this flowers. So after I finally did I had to teach everyone in person so they could help me (MOH, Sister, Mamá Poodle and more) because they could not finish the last steps on this tutorial (Link) That for I thought I would be really helpful if I could add more pictures to the 1.0 version of the blossom tutorial and I came out with this next version (Basically the same but I added some more pictures and details).


So to make things easier I draw a "star", a "heart" and two lines on each corner, all of them in different colors, so that way If you draw and replace the colors I used ( Purple, Green, Pink and blue) you can follow this instructions in a better way.

1. Start with a square of paper and fold in half from corner to corner

063 - Button that up!

Ever since I was a little girl I have being in loved with buttons, I don't know what is about them that makes me want to have them all, specially if they have cute lil icons.

I saw on the wedding the perfect excuse to start a "buttons project". Here the images that make me want to make tons of them.

{ Image Source Link Left (Link) - Right (Link) }


{ Image Source Right (Link) - Left (Link) }

I loved all of those ideas! and then I run into this other wedding pictures that got my mind blowing.

{ Image Source (Link) }

How cute is the "Better together" idea!! I love it, maybe we could have our own combination and tie our cake topper idea with this buttons and do a "better together" sport themed, with different sport for our tables, kind of like this:

{ Image Source (Link) }

{ Image Source (Link) }

Of course all of this in cute little icons, I even found a great Etsy (Link) seller that offers costume buttons, I could just send her the image and have the pins on Mr. Poodle's door a week later :)

All of this looks like a cool plan on my mind, but I end up on a controversial situation. I am trying to plan our wedding using as many recycled material as possible, to make it as Eco-friendly as possible, and I feel that this buttons are going to end up on the trash, or maybe is just one of those "not necessary items" in our wedding.

Mr. Poodle is very suportive in every aspect and if I like the idea, he does not question if that's "green enough" he loves the efford I'm making on finding new options to go green, but he said that if I'm happy with some other project I should just go for it.

Now here's when I'm going to ask for your help hive, this choice has being bugging me a lot but only because I think that by having them I'll go against my "green vision" of the wedding, what do you think:

Should I go for this projects because I love buttons, and love the idea?
Should I forget about it because it's not "Eco-friendly" enough?

062 - A flower for my girls

There's an awesome PRO blogger on the hive - Llubav Choy Duerr - I just loveee her work! So weeks a go I saw her flower ring pillow (Link) and I thought - This could be an awesome way to add more color to my BM's gift! -I'll share the actual gift later ;)

{ Image source (Link) }

So I used her as my inspiration to make purple sunflower pins for my girls! but instead of sewing the flowers, I went the easy hot glue gun option :)




It took me half hour to make this 4 flowers for my girls :) Do you want to make your own? This is how I did it.


Materials You'll need:

• Brown fabric
• Brown beads
• Brown thread
• Purple felt
• Fake green leaf
  
• Hot glue gun
• Clothe pins
  

For one flower you will need 30 pedals, and 2 felt strip ; you have to make small cuts on one (bottom) and cut a zig -zag shape on the other one (top), just like it shows on the drawing. I wanted the pedals to be more "pointy" kind of shape - but you can make them as round as you want!



- To make the center of the flower , you first need to cute a round piece of brown fabric; sew around like I show in the next diagram

{ I used the left over form the felt pedals to stuff the center as you can see in the picture, after you close the center, you can sew the brown beads. }

- After that I hot glued the 5" long piece of felt around the center of the flower, the after that I hot glue all the pedals trying to spare them equally around.

- Then you need to grab the clothe pin, place it in the middle and secure it with two small hot glue drops.

- Make a circle with the wire of the fake fabric leaf and hot glue that too.





- As a final step and just so the back of you flower doesn't look so messy cut a round piece of felt and glue it to the back with the pin open :)

TA - DA! you got you felt flower pin!

{ I really hope my girls like their flower or else Curly is going to steal them and use them.
Look at him! }

Are you DIY something for your maids? After you got your maids a gift did you find yourself buying or doing another project for them?

061 - Asking them all over again

Back in February, after Mr. Poodle and I started our visa petition, we couldn't wait to share the news of our "engagement" with everyone! and of course we decided really fast on the number of boys and girls that we wanted with us - we decided 4 - In my case the MOH and 3 BM.

Because not all of my girls here in Chile can buy the ticket to go to our wedding in California, I decided to have only my little sister and best friend from Chile and my other 2 maids from California. I wrote every one an email and ask them to be my maids; but just like Miss Bearcub, I did that months a go - now I needed to let them know in a more "official" way that I REALLY want them with me :)

SO I jump on the card wagon!




I know I'm not a good card maker, so I needed something really simple, where I could pop the question again and where I could have plenty of room to write about the dresses I want to make for them, let them know each others information - since two of them are from Chile - and send them a lil piece of the dress fabric :) This was my sketch idea:




That way I'll have the cover to make the dresses and tell them that " I was missing someone on my party"; I could ask them once they open the card - and I could put all the information on the inside without them see everything at once.


This is the finish result. I had old purple ribbon and white thick paper; I also found a - not very cute - green paper, but well I had to use it anyways hehe. I first draw and them cut the little dresses and I use a tiny piece of tulle and on of the left over form the holes for my veil :)





As you can see, I lack the handwriting gene - But don't worry that's the reason I'm not doing our envelopes hehe... (hopefully my girls will not mind)

It took me around half hour to get the 4 of those done ( 2 cards in Spanish and 2 in English) I'm really happy to send them out today! yay!

How did you ask your maids? Was it too hard to coordinate if you had some of them far away? Are you into card crafting? -I if you are- please don't destroy mines hehe at least I tried.

060 - And the wedding planning begins!

{ The Poodle’s freaking out, ok we are not good at making faces :P }

For most couples after the - ohh so wanted! :) - proposal, the first thing on the “to do” list is –> set a date! But, for the poodle’s things can’t be done that way :( ; we first needed to do tons of forms filling and visa papers to send our petition package; after our package was sent and having the visa process timing on hand, we could have a better idea about an approximated month, not exact date yet. So for 6 months we had no idea of when it was going to be. Until this week! Now we know! January (woo hoo!)

Of course I wasn't going to sit with my arms crossed and wait for almost 6 months to start planning. De ninguna forma! I wasn’t going to let this tiny little problem get on the way of our "Green & Purple" wedding planning.

We had the most important thing (besides each other of course ;) ) our venue!

{ Mr. Poodle’s Grand Parent’s ranch – photo by Mr. Poodle }

We knew we wanted the ceremony and reception there, not just because we don’t need to check for availability and it’s free! But because it means so much to all of Mr. Poodle’s family. The ranch had the classic wood barn that could have being perfect for the reception, but during the big fire of 1994 it got burn, and Mr. Poodle’s family built it again, this time NO WOOD :(. So we won’t have the cute wood barn, but we still have the old caboose and lots of land to play with (yay!)

Next on the list, our colors, this was the easiest task just because each one of us picked our favorite color :) ”Green & Purple” . I’m guessing you’re wondering – but Miss Poodle your getting married on January? And it will be winter in California –Yup! Those colors are not exactly the “winter” scheme but I love challenges; our venue at that time of the year will be pretty much “brown”, So what I want is to give it little bit of energy with strong and vibrant colors. :)

{ Our color scheme }

Next on, the inspiration board, this is where everything begins (ohh so fun!), I know it might seem kind of “picture saturated” at first, but that’s because it was so hard for me to leave inspiration out of it!

{Image Credits}

a - (Link) / b - (Link) / c - (Link) / d - (Link) / e - (Link) / f - (Link) / g - (Link) / h - (Link)
i - (Link) / j - (Link) / k - (Link) / l - (Link) / m - (Link) / n - (Link) / o - (Link) / p - (Link) / q - (Link)

Now just so you know, there are projects there that I will not be able to begin until I arrive to California, but I’m so anxious that I’ve began to work on many others that I’ll have to carry with me on the plane. :)

Just because I like the hive sooo much I want to share the projects that excite me the most! (after making my dress of course), we will build our own outdoor church based on the inspiration from KC& Kara’s wedding blog (Link) Mr. Poodle’s dad is actually willing to helping us out building it! He’s a contractor so he has being “saving” old parts that we will use. I’ve manage to gather a lot of different kinds of purple paper left over thought the years so we are using those to make our origami centerpieces, we are also going to make cute stuff out of recycled plastic bottle bottoms, and I’ll be making my own clay bouquet and boutonnières for the boys.

At this point I’m not sure if I’m happier about making them or the chance I know have to share them with all of you :) ( follow by instructions of course)

You first knew a little about us, now you know a little about our wedding :) How about letting me now you a little better and describe your colors and inspiration? Seems fun to me :) what do you say?

059 - Hola from Miss Poodle!

So after jumping around the apartment all morning I finally got the time to sit calmly and say “HOLA” to the hive! I still can’t believe it! I’m a BEE! Woo hoo!

So why Miss Poodle? Well I have a son; he’s 11 years old and extremely hairy; he loves to eat oranges and apples (He can smell when you eat them and won't stop crying until you give him a little piece). So He’s the reason why I wanted to be Miss Poodle, and she has purple bows :)(My cute little icon)

{ Miss Poodle and Curly our baby poodle - Ok not so baby }

I thought I should start with a little introduction, I’m a Chilean Industrial and web designer, I graduated from the “Universidad de Chile” last year. As a designer I’ve always been interested on recycled material products and helping my community as much as I could. I never had wedding dreams or plans when I was a little girl, but one thing I knew since I was 7 years old, I wanted to make my own Wedding Dress :)

Back in 2006 and while I was on an exchange work experience program in California I met Mr. Poodle, it was the closest to love at first sight I’ve experience :) he picked me up while I was hitchhiking to work and a month after that we started dating.

{ Just in case you wonder how far we are }

Two trips for me and one for him were enough for us to realize, we didn’t wanted to be this far away any more; so we started our paper visa process and became "engaged".

{ San Diego 2006 - Patagonia 2008 }

We enjoy hiking, climbing, sky/snowboarding and camping together, every time Mr. Poodle wants to go on an adventure trip I’m more than happy to go with him :)

{ Climbing on Joshua Tree (2007) and Bishop (2008) }

I’m the kind of “bride to be” that doesn’t have a ring on her finger yet, but just because of distance. (It’s not easy to travel 5,576 miles just to place a ring) My MOH, long time collage buddy and great designer is making our wedding band and my engagement ring, which I’ll be allowed to see only after I arrive to California (She’s leaving to Colorado next month and will delivered my ring to Mr. Poodle, we designed each others ring and agree to have them made on wood and metal) I don’t mind if he doesn’t do the whole "one knee" surprise to give me the ring, but Mr. Poodle said that he “has” to ask me again, this time with a ring on his hand :)

{ Chiloé, Chile. on Mr. Poodle's last visit }

The first thing we knew after we started talking about our wedding was that we would love to hold our ceremony and reception at Mr. Poodle Grandparent’s ranch, not just because it’s free (yay!) but because It means so much to all of Mr. Poodle’s family.

My favorite color is Purple and Mr. Poodle’s favorite is Green, there you go our colors (that was easy! ) We have a rustic - ecofriendly – very DIY vision for our wedding; and I’m hoping to use as much recycled material as possible!

Well, now you know a little bit about us and all I have left to say is that I’m super happy to share my planning adventure with the hive. Poodle love to everyone!!

058 - Sometimes you don't get what you wish for

I wish they could all just be happy about us, since we got our petition approval last week (Link) Yess!! I’ve shared the amazing news with all my close friends and family. Now everyone that cares about us is just as happy as we are, and even screaming with me when I tell them lol . But then again were also the “SO not wanted” bad vibes coming from people that heard the news somewhere.

I truly think I have just a few really good friends and life has showed me who those are (They really understand me and support us), but I am really friendly and have tons of people I know and that at some point kept a relation - at some level. So from the beginning of our relationship whenever I got bad comments form them, I try to just not listen or politely ask them not to judge so fast; for the first year this worked just fine, but then it really started to bug me. I decided to have a line ready for those that wanted to rub in my face how naive I was for trusting Mr. Poodle the way I do, I would simply say “If you don’t have anything good to say I rather for you to not speak about us at all” and give them a big smile - Of course one the inside I wanted to punch them on the face lol

At one point it did really affect me and I wondered why people would judge our relationship and make awful comments when I never asked for them, I wasn’t even sharing things with them; I was dealing with lots of things that happened to me last year and of course dealing with the long distance between us. :(

Soon after that I realize that most of the people that talked stupid things about us (Mostly how he most have being cheating on me daily, since we are not even on the same Country) were cheating on their girlfriends/boyfriends or didn’t wanted to commit to anyone at any level. Then I understood that they were just reflecting their own personal issues and trying to convince me of how terrible was to believe in someone and love him no matter what.

Trust me I’m not naive when it comes to that subject,I've been there and seen how much it can hurt from first row, plus after founding out about how my ex cheated on me, all the bad family stories and the fact that I haven’t seen any good marriage example on my family, not even my Mom’s. Got me to the point where I didn’t want to trust anyone. All that until I meet Mr. Poodle, we had such a similar love background; we were both hurt before but manage to open our heats to each other. To me he’s the only man in my life I truly trust and the kind of love I’ve always dream of. :)

The only reason I can find to justify all those people talking bad things about us is just the fact that they haven’t found or know what true love is all about, nothing matters when you have such a deep connection, not distance, color, religion or language can get in the way. I didn’t choose who I was going to fall in love with but I did choose to be faithful, loyal and honest with him in order to keep our love healthy and growing.

I know I’m not the only one that has to deal with awful comments about their relationships, have you found yourself on that situation? What have you done about it?

057 - You light my day! I mean... night

I’ve been looking over for cute and not expensive ideas to light our reception (besides the recycled paper lamps I want to make). I thought that candles could add a great romantic look, so the search began and this was what I could find:


Good old paper bags! This one is the less expensive one and wow! It can turn out looking sooo cute! recycling is my motto! :)

{ Image Source Top (Link) - Bottom (Link) }

Cinnamon! Ohh I love cinnamon, actually I always keep a piece on my wallet pocket, smells sooo nice!! and "Canela"(Spanish translation) was the first baby name I pick when I was a lil girl, I would love to do this!

{ Image Source Left (Link and DIY tutorial) - Right (link) }

Make your own Wax votive? I'm down for that! but will I have enough time to do this? Um - I don't think so! but maybe you want to give it a try :).

{ Image Source Left (Link and DIY tutorial) - Right (Link) }

What about using rocks? or just paint a fake stone texture? Not one of my favorites, but definitely worth the share.

{ Image Source Left (Link) - Right (Link) }

What about pine or corn husks to wrap glass votives? neat ha? (Side note: Can you believe that I just NOW know who Martha is :O ? yup! met her work only when I started the wedding planning, I remember asking my FMIL who she was because I heard about her a lot - lol )

{ Image Source Left (Link) - Right (Link and DIY Instructions) }

But then I thought, Hey! maybe we can't light anything there? fire danger zone duh!! So I wen over the paper lanterns ideas again :)


This tutorial (Link) has being around lots of blogs and it's so simple! love it



This one comes with REALLY easy instruction found here (Link) How cute would this be doing some stencil over my recycled paper :)? Looks pretty on my head lol



Ok so this has NOTHING to do with lights, but I run into them while looking for luminaries ideas.

{ Image Source (Link) }

Last week I started working on a nest made from fresh branches so now I'm more familiar and I already have the idea on my mind about how to make my own "cute balls" yay! :) This is something I'm doing for SURE, but once I'm in California, so as soon as I make them I'll post a DIY tutorial to share :) pinky doggy promise! Stay tune!

This are all my random "light" ideas. Want to share yours? If you have an outdoor reception, how are you planning on bringing light to your party?

056 - Folding day

Yesterday my MOH came to help, we had some drinks and fold like crazy!! lol After a few hours and with the help of my little sister we fold 200 pedals! It could have being more but we needed to cut the papers too (We are not gluing the flowers because they have to travel all the way from Chile to California)

Here the pictures of the trial we made and some of the pedals :) You feel like you want to fold some of this? here the tutorial (Link)





We also finish the details on Mr.Poodle's wedding band design. I'm so happy with what we have so far, so as soon as I get the ring I'll take pictures and show you all (But shhhhh!! so Mr.Poodle doesn't read about it)

When we first talk about the kind of rings we wanted, we decided we where going to buy each others ring and keep it a surprise until the wedding day, but we did agree on the materials: Metal and Wood. Here the story behind this choice (Link)

As I posted before we are really happy that MOH actually designs jewelry and the fact that she offered to make the 3 ring at material cost (excited!! :) ) I thought that because we are working together on Mr.Poodle's ring I'll be able to have a sneak peak of what my rings are going to look but NO!! They figure a way so I could know and see NOTHING!! lol It's better to keep it a real secret :) but I'm terrible handling secrets, not keeping them but I feel it's a torture every time Mr. Poodle only gives me clues about gifts.

Do you bug or ask for clues when they tell you they have a "surprise" for you? Am I the only one like this :( ?

055 - OMG We've been waiting for this ...

For 131 days! Our Fiance Visa petition has being APPROVED!! (Notice of action number 2 - received on the mail!) and... what does this mean? Well in about 4 weeks our papers will be at the Embassy here in Chile, and then we will have about 5 more weeks for interview, medical and all the rest of the papers, after that I can flight to California to marry Mr.Poodle!! yay!!!!

I've been praying for so long! this approval is a huge and first step to reach our final goal of being together forever. I was jumping all over the apartment when I read the email sent from USCIS. I knew Mr. Poodle was at work, so I couldn't call him (He almost never get's service at the station) So I text him the news!!! I just can't erase the smile off my face. I'm sooo happy!!

{ The week the Poodle's met (on the sides) - the center is after we started dating ;)}

Yesterday was our Monthniversary 31 months together!! so this was the perfect gift for us ♥

We waited a little more than our months petition's twins, I can share - only with you ;) - that I had several lost of hope's days, when the whole wedding planning process seemed a dream that started to fade away as the day passed. We talk about it everyday and Mr. Poodle is extremely awesome on the "Cheering Miss Poodle up" task. So after my day was all cloudy and blue, the new full of hopes and planning came back.

The visa process has being an emotional rollercoaster to me, after we sent our I-129F package, my hopes started raising when I saw we got our NOA1 (Notice of action number 1) the next day! and the process time for those who sent their packages before us was between 30 to 60 days. I thought - Whoo hoo! this is going to be a piece of cake and maybe we could get married around September :). But, boy I was wrong, sadly our process wasn't as smooth as the ones I saw back then and even though I manage to stay busy, the waiting started to affect me. That's why I decided to focus a lil more on the wedding planning process and not so much on our immigration process, that's also because all I had left to do for the second one was "wait".

With this amazing news we have the timing so much clear and we can start planning - for sure - our February wedding! Now I can start thinking about how to re-ask my maids yay!

I know it's not so common to wait for an Email to set free the wedding planning process, but have you found yourself waiting for an specific event - besides the proposal :) - to start your planning?

054 - My clay roses tutorial

I’ve wanted to share this for long time, so finally here it is :)




I divided the process on two, because I’m not buying the Buds for the flowers instead I’m making my own and I’ll show you how easy this is, in case you don’t want make them, you can buy a 5 pack ($4.25). I found this store here (Link) that has the kind I wanted.

All of this materials happened to be around my house, so I'm really happy.


You will need:

053 - The trend I love

Here in Chile we don’t have the “Brides Maid” tradition, there’s only a Maid of Honor call “Madrina” and would be it! - I know!! What a bummer :( … Now in my case that’s one of the really cool things of mixing traditions for the wedding!! I’m having Maids!! Yay!

But from the beginning I never liked the idea of having them all dress the same, plus I never liked to tell anyone how to dress, but it’s our wedding, I still want them to match somehow.

I’ve seen a lot of post and it’s becoming more and more popular to have maids dressed differently, either different dresses, same color; or completely different dressed and shades, but still on the wedding palette. I couldn’t agree more on both of them starting on the fact that NOT every shape is flattering to every type of body, plus not everyone has the same taste regarding to dresses.

I thought about how to manage that because I don’t want them to purchase a dress that they are not going to wear again - Let’s be real, not everyone is into purple like I am!! So I came to the idea of making them the dresses. Yup I don’t know when thought because I still can’t finish my own wedding dress!

I think this could be a really cool idea because they would get the dress they want, really cheap, completely unique and personalized and I could try to make them match somehow - I would really liked them on different purple shades :) .

So here my BM's picture inspiration:

{ Image Source (Link) }

{ Image Source (Link) }

{ Image Source (Link) }

{ Image Source (Link) }

{ Image Source (Link) }

{ Image Source (Link) }

{ Image Source (Link) }

How cute is this shoot! :) Check the whole wedding here (Link)


How are you making your maids match?