Building the Poodle Chapel: Part 2 … and more!

Things have being pretty busy at the Poodles house, and not only here, our venue (Mr. Poodles grandparent’s ranch) is experiencing a lot of hard work to transform into our dream ceremony and reception site.

Remember the first post I wrote about  “making the chapel”, on that post I showed you all how many friends and family have being working really hard to help us out with the chapel, well this post is no different, even MIL got to drive the loader around and help removing the ground to make the beautiful aisle with rocks path on the sides.



An while MIL and I worked shoveling, FIL set all the stones for the aisle.
 

We gather all the rocks close to him so it could be a little bit more easy. (he’s so awesome!! )



So after that we all call it a day and went home to come back the next weekend.
The next step was to frame all the windows and walls, and a little bit of work on the aisle.



They made deep enough holes on the ground so the walls wouldn't need extra support on the sides.



and then set the frames up! YAY! first one =)



After that they set the rocks around the altar



and dig the hole for the fireplace.

[ Curly loved that place ]

Now from the road you can really tell there’s something shaping up!




They call it a day again and got ready to work the following weekend, while they all worked hard on the chapel, I got some wonderful BEE-craft help! ---  Recognize them?



How about now?

  [ Mrs. Moonbeam, me, Curly, Miss Stripes & Mrs. Sprinkle]

The wonderful Moonbeam, Sprinkle and Stripes drove up to help me out because, well, we only have two weeks before the wedding and the projects seem endless right now, I an so happy and thankful they help me out! We had a lot of fun crafting and eating fabulous cupcakes!

[ Thank you girls! that was delicious! ]

After we finish some projects, we head down to the Ranch to go check on the guy’s hard work of the day.

To my surprise the fire place was running and almost done!



The doors were up, corner and windows have already being sided! I call that an AWESOME JOB!




All of us checking the altar =) FIL wants to keep the altar and the fire place, so we can all go camp and have fires, s’mores and lots of fun!



and of course we had to get a BEE picture with a window panel as our background :)



Each time I go to the chapel field, I love it even more! and I don't think I can thank enough all of Mr. Poodle’s family and friends for helping us in such an amazing way.

As I mention before we are right now only 2 weeks away from the wedding,  and I already know that this next two weeks are going to be even more busy than the previous, so I wanted to let everyone know that I won’t be able to blog much.  I DO have lots of projects I want to show you all before I start with my recaps so ( since usually it takes quite some time to get the PRO pics) I will blog about all of those projects right after the wedding.

And just to tease a little bit, here are some of the projects I want to show you all:

I will also know the answer to my Mom’s second visa application this week, so please send a lot of good vibes our way! =)

xoxo, Poodle!

So unfair

After the earthquake in Chile, my MOH told me that she was not going to be able to make it back to California for our wedding and that made me very sad. I would have loved it if my very best friend was by my side on my wedding day, especially because she was as excited as I was to be here, but she ran into some problems that will not allow her to travel, so I got over it. I planned to have my sister by my side, even though my MOH would always be my MOH in my heart.

I was very proud of myself because I was handling it well. Things were not going to be the way I envisioned them, but it was going to be OK anyway.

That was, until today.

Today I woke up and headed to the computer, because today was my mom and sister’s interview at the USA Embassy in Chile for their Tourist Visa. They were seeking a Visa for one week in order to visit us and attend our wedding.

I waited patiently until my sister finally logged on to Skype. I asked her how it all went, and let her know that we’d been praying for them and collecting all the papers they needed for their visa.

My sisters answer’s put me in tears right away.

They were denied.

They were denied under Section 214(b), meaning that they didn’t show strong enough ties to Chile. It means they think my Mom and sister are going to come to the USA and stay ILLEGALLY!
I guess I cannot question the fact that they are really picky because after all, there are a lot of people coming and staying illegally. But they don’t know us. If they only knew that to us, doing something the illegal way is not even a possibility.

My mom’s (and sister’s) situation has changed a lot in the past year and a half. In Chile we used to have a house, cars, transport trucks and money. But things changed and we had a lot of problems with my dad, and in the end, my Mom, sis and I moved away from my dad and put a restraining order against him. He managed to get rid of everything he and my Mom had, without giving her a cent, but we didn’t care. We started from scratch, rented a place, and started to live with a lot less, but were much more happy and safe. I helped as much as I could and my mom managed to get on solid ground.

Everything work out perfectly for my mom and sister, until they tried to make it to our wedding.
When she left my dad, she left behind all of her material possessions.  So when it came to the interview, she had no proof of any “material possessions” that tied her to Chile—she has no title to a house, a car, etc. She had all of these things in her possession just one short year ago, and she COULD have lied and brought the papers that showed her house title and car papers that she owned just one short year ago, but she is an honest person, so she didn’t do that.

I got over the fact that my dad was not going to walk me down the aisle fairly easy. It does hurt a lot to know that the one person that’s biologically supposed to love you and protect you wants to hurt you, but I forgave him for that, and I am at peace with those feelings now. I knew I will always have my mom’s support and love. So, I’ve always dreamed about her walking me down the aisle to Mr. Poodle. Now, knowing that they’ve been denied for a visa breaks my heart.

I don’t know what to do, Mr. Poodle contacted his congressman but his assistant said there’s nothing they could do. Everything is pretty much up to the person that conducts the visa interview. They don’t even see the people at the interview, they just see their paper application, and they judge peoples’ intentions with just paper.

Now there’s a month until the wedding, and at this time it looks like I’ll have no MOH or any family present.   It just makes me so incredibly sad. It has been stressful, and on top of not knowing what things are like after the Chilean earthquake made me want to see and hug them even more. It just hurts to know that that they wont be here.
I think this is all not fair.

I’m turning to the hive for advice. Does anyone have any experience with visa denials? Is there anything we can do?

Poodle bouquet : DONE!

Previously I showed you how all my flowers look like, and by that time I had finish all of my BM bouquets and the tossing Bouquet ( I am keeping the one your about to see) But there was still a lot of details to finish on my bouquet, because I wanted the bottom to look like this!





I looove burlap! actually in my room in Chile I had tons of things made of burlap, I love the rustic feel and the soft brown texture, so  to me burlap was the very first idea that came to my mind when I was thinking about how to make the bottom of my bouquet. Luckily I brought some left over pieces of burlap from Chile, and it was the perfect size! almost like I plan it from the beginning :) YAY!
 
So I started with the top, I cut 9 3x8 inches pieces, and On one side I added some floral wire to add body to the burlap (I try it without the wire and it was very floppy)




After that I sew each one of them leaving the wire on the inside. I used the burlap strings to sew it so it wont show.




I finish all 9 but I end up using only 7 pieces around the top of the bouquet.




I wrap them around and secure them with pins, after that I wrap everything all of them with a long piece of burlap and sew each top piece to it, once they were secured I removed the pins.




And the last step was to add the top piece of burlap, I folded and sew the edges for a cleaner look.




Added some green pins just to add a little bit of color and TA DA! ready to be used!




I am planning on attaching the E-ring of MR. Poodle great grandmother (the one I wore for our legal ceremony) around it, just because I want to be able to wear it again :) I means so much to me!
I think it will be the perfect spot for it! what do you think?

Are you having details on your bouquet? Are you planning on DIY your bouquet?

Building the Poodle chapel - Part 1

I am not going to lie, for this particular project I haven't being as involve as I would like. And you know why?




Because Mr. Poodle, my FIL and lots of their friends like big machines way more than I do! And that doesn't not mean I don't like them! But most of the time we are at Mr. Poodle GP’s Ranch I carry a box of wedding crafts, so the girls can help me, while the boys play on the field :)

So I think I should start this post with the very first decision we had to make about our chapel, the perfect spot for the altar and direction of the aisle. To make that decision we consider the time and direction of the sun (so our guest will not be blind by it) but there were a few very good spots to consider. So after about 2 weeks thinking about it and being on the field, we were still doubting all of the spots.

Until we found something in one of the spots we had selected ---- it was a SIGN!

We were all wondering what was this white things we saw from far away and MIL went to the fence back on the field and found wedding balloons!!! --- How cool is that!

  [ YES! those are wedding bell balloons! ]

So after the altar and aisle position were selected, we did a plane of the space we will need for the chairs, walkway, etc.. So FIL K and Uncle S could mark the area.

That was a cold and windy day!

So the weekend after that FIL K and some family friends work on making the surface smooth and pretty.



On this next picture you can see, right there were he is will be our altar :) YAY!





The next thing was to decide the aisle, MIL liked the idea of having a stone pathway (that’s why there so many rocks on the first picture) but after making a small mock up, we realize that we will need TONS of them, that’s why FIL came up with this really cute idea of putting stones just on the edges, We all love it!! except Curly, he just wanted to be feeded :(



So after getting the thumbs up by all of the ones that actually had hands :P  Mr. Poodle started digging the whole thing so it could be easier to set the stones.



I can say that he had a lot of fun, even though this pictures don't show it --lol



I also had my share of fun shoveling while playing with the dogs :) after all I’m a poodle too!



I also help him with some extra weight to finish really smooth.



And we were ready to head off the field!

[ MIL, Mr. Poodle, Baby Poodle Curly and I at the end of the day ]

I was pretty surprised the first day that I saw all of this people willing to go down there and help us out. We are so blessed by all this people that want to be a part on our special day, sometimes is overwhelming. I love Mr. Poodle’s family they totally rock, and they friends are just as awesome, that last day we had about 11 people there with us, that’s pretty cool! Because well, sometimes it DOES take a village :)

Stay tuned because this is just the beginning!

Have you had a lot of people trying to help you on the process of planning your wedding? Did they get you by surprise?

Smells like fresh flowers in the house

 I wanted to thank everyone's concern about my family in Chile after the 8.8 earthquake that strike the central-south part of Chile, thanks to God my family is Ok - Full post about it HERE

 

oh! wait – That's not possible! because as some of you know, I am not using any fresh flowers. The original plan for the bouquets was to make them 100% out of clay flowers, and even though I made a bunch of them back home in Chile, they were not enough for my bouquet and the 4 of my girls.

So while making the pomander for my flower girl, I run into a color problem, I could not find tissue paper on the color I wanted, but what I actually found was paper napkins on the exact color I wanted! and what I did? Napkin flowers, of course!



I found out the paper flowers were was faster to make and fill just as much as my clay flowers. So i ditch some of the experimental kind of flowers and I just kept the roses. I mix them with the napkin flowers plus some tissue paper flower and some silk and this is what I end up with!

Here’s my clay rose tutorial in case you want to try them!

Now for my bridesmaids bouquets I stayed just with tissue paper, napkins and silk.




and this is how they looks all finish




So to make all the flowers I used on the bouquets I only used 1 pack of 50 napkins, and it cost me $1.20 so I was pretty happy about that!
and to make them this is what I used:

• 1 pack of purple napkins
• floral wire
• floral tape
• thicker wire
• silk lefts
• hot glue

I first cut the napkin in half, then I fold it again to have a long piece, after that I fold in little pieces and cut the end, the final result of that step is the picture on the left. after that I roll both pieces together to make one flower. (Since you end up cutting the napkin in 4 you get 2 pieces per flower)





Once they are really I wrap a little piece of floral wire to hold it together, and grab a long piece of thicker wire and I hot glue it to the flower, like on the left image. And after that's all cold I tape it all around attaching a silk leaf as showing on the right image.





You do that a few more times and you will end up with this!!





Now a few more pics of my bouquet!

[ All pictures by yours truly]

I really like the way it ended up looking, but I was worried I will regret it later, because I really wanted to make all out of clay, but with this one I still can use it on my desk after the wedding, like my original plan with 100% clay. Even though I cheated and went the easy way to finish sooner, I choose this route because I have so many DIY projects still to finish, time is very important right now!!


Did any of you changed you original plans on flowers at the end? Were you happy with your choice or do you regret it?