Teach me to love.

I'm preparing a christmas package for my brother, who currently lives in China with his Korean wife and daughter.  It should, if all goes reasonably well, be mailed out today.

There's so much love being shoved into that box, along with the various gifts. There's love layered in the pages of the children's books, and nestled in the folds of the wrapping paper, laid to rest beneath the bows.

Some of that lovingness is made up of handmade gifts. Handmade caramels.  Cards hand drawn by my other neice, handmade earrings, and the most beautiful tiny hand-knit sweater and socks for the new baby they're expecting.  My sister B made the sweater, and pictures of it are probably up on her blog, or will be shortly.  I also decided to give my brother a folio I made, to store precious images and/or documents.

It was a cozy, warm process, making what I did, and then packing up my carefully wrought gifts with those of my family.

Inside the folio, I nestled the program from my sister's November wedding, and a print this:

I miss my brother, and his family quite a bit.  It's too much love to keep to myself, so I must export it, and hope they receive it in good condition, all intentions properly interpreted, unmarred by the distance it must travel.

A gift for you.

In the spirit of the season, I made a printable to share with you.

In a fit of post-wedding-I-can-now-do-whatever-I-want-with-my-spare-time madness, I staid up until 3 am the other night, scanning in the fronts and backs of Victorian, Edwardian, and 1920s era postcards my mother has collected over the years.

Then I realized that I actually have no spare time to do whatever I want with, because Christmas is right around the corner, and most of my Christmas presents this year have to be shipped, which means I can't exactly spend an all-nighter the 24th, getting them done. Well, I could, but then they'd get them for next Christmas instead of this one.
(Which is exactly what's going to happen with some handmade aprons I promised my gal-pals last year. Sorry ladies.)

So, I've had these lovely Victorian images, and decided to turn the only Christmas related one into a free, printable Christmas card for you peoples.

My printer was behaving, for lack of a more technical term, wonky, so it may print a bit more vibrantly for you.  It kind of glows in an old-timey sort of way.
to download the printing proofs, follow this link.

The fonts I used are Maxinitiale and Heart Sweet Heart.

I also just love this postcard, not for the image, though the holly is lovely, but for the mushy things that the sender scrawled all over every available bit of the front.
Here's the original:

In case you're finding it hard to read, it says:
"With best wishes"
"Doz oo love me yes?"
"Oh, you kid!"
"How about this? xxxxx xxxxx"
"From you little Honeysuckle Tessie"

I don't know who this Tessie is, but she sure wasn't afraid to let the whole world (and the post-man) know about the depth of her affection.
She sounds perfectly lovely and enthusiastic.  Plus, she has lovely penmanship.

Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way

I've liked posting these verses.  However, I've gotten impatient, because I have at least 3 post's worth of things to show you.  Some are things I'm working on, and some are just beautiful.

So, I'm posting both verse 3 and 4 tonight, and then tomorrow I get to finally give you a free printable of Christmas cards.

people look east... verse 3

Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.

The artist is Ernesto Cailvano.  I stumbled on him while perusing butdoesitfloat.com, one of my favorite art blogs.

There's just something about his imagery that I quite like, every time, whether he's doing a floral study, or something abstract and geometric.


Have I mentioned how much I love using Google to search for images?   I frequently download hi-res images so that I can look at them again, organize them into collections, and hopefully use them as inspiration for later work.  It helps to have them culled out, rather than loosing track of where they are.
The problem is, once I've done so, I frequently lose track of who the original artist was or where I found it. Or, sometimes, I got it from a location where the source wasn't properly sited in the first place.  Enter Google to Save the Day, and let me learn more about the art I love.

another ernesto Cailvano link.

his artwork at the Marker Heller Gallery.

People Look East... verse two

Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way!

Glorious, aren't they?


the roses are scans I took from Edwardian era postcards, so they're copyright free.  Feel free to download and use them for whatever suites your fancy.  
I think I'm going to turn the red and yellow roses in to the background on my computer.

People look East...

People look east
the time is near.
At the Crowning of the Year
Make your house fair as you are able
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People look East and sing today
Love the Guest is on the Way.

I love that song.
It's one of a few pre-Christmas carols that an imaginative choir director will insert during advent to mix it up instead of singing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" again.  Not that I have anything against "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." In fact, I know at least 4 verses of it.  I always hear it in my mind in my father's warm tenor.

Anyway, back to People Look East.  It's words were written in 1928, but it's tune is much older: a French carol called "Besancon"It's the perfect Preparing for Christmas song for me. The tune bounces with optimism, with a beat you could sweep floors or wax furniture to.  It helps me remember why I'm doing all this shopping and working on these projects.  It also reminds me that I haven't waxed the furniture in far too long.

I'm going to do 4 posts: 1 of each verse, with pictures to match.

These beautiful floral arrangements were created and photographed by Sarah Ryhanen of Saipua.

Her blog is here.
She also regularly writes floral arranging tips for Design Sponge. lovely, lovely, lovely.

Wedding Certificates... or the importance of a piece of paper

I have a funny story to share with you.

My sister forgot to get married.
That is, they left the marriage license at home, and consequently didn't get anyone to sign it, and therefore were not legally married.
So, in the eyes of God, their souls were bound irrevocably together.  However, in the eyes of the state, they were still two starry eyed lovers who had gone to church and then thrown a big party.

They didn't realize this until about 11:15, when we were packing everything up to get out of the reception site in time.
Under more "normal" circumstances, they would've waited until the next morning and tracked the priest down after Sunday mass at his home parish, and sheepishly asked him to sign it with them.  However, they had chosen to have their wedding celebrated by a friend, a Dominican Father who is living in another state, and they didn't know when he was leaving on Sunday.
Luckily they knew he was staying at his (local) parent's house.  So at about 12:15, they knocked on the door.  Father Joe was thankfully still up, and they got married, for real, at his parents kitchen table.  The priest's mother got pictures.  I'm dying to see them.

In lieu of showing you my sister's "real" wedding photos, here's a few pictures of Jewish marriage certificates from Yale's Beinecke Rare Book Collection.

enjoy!

A link to the Beinecke Rare Book Collection website.

Wedded bliss

My sister Rachel got married on Saturday to the love of her life: James Bond.  

The priest made copious 007 jokes during his homily.

It was a glorious wedding.  I did a great deal of the photography, which was easy.  Shooting beautiful pictures of my sister and her groom was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

Now that the bride and groom have a disc of proofs, the mother of the bride has seen the pics, and the mother of the groom has a disc of pics on the way to her, I feel free to share a few with you lovely people.

Rachel and James are two of the most prayer filled people I know.  They worked hard to fill their wedding with prayer and thanksgiving, meaning, and beauty.  They succeeded marvelously.

I'm just a little bit proud of Rachel's bouquet, since I made it and got it to cascade every bit as much as she'd been hoping for. Here's a closer picture:

Around the ribbon, we put a rosary and a medal of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of marriages.  There was another St. Nicholas medal inserted into James's boutteniere. The medals were a gift from Tammy Hemmerle, who also did a smashing job with the choral solos.

Rachel had 19 different musicians and singers singing parts and/or playing piano, violin, flute, bohdran, and bagpipes.  I hope I'm not forgetting an instrument.  It was beautiful, despite several of the musicians having just met each other that morning for practice.

Rachel had a small horde of flower girls.  Half of them helped with her chapel length veil, and the other half scattered rose petals before her.  However, their main task was to look ridiculously adorable.

They did this with enthusiasm and panache.

My favorite part of this picture is the little flower girl who is hugging Rachel's train.  She's keeping it from getting dirty trailing on the ground, but you can tell how much she adores it.  The little girls loved Rachel's outfit, particularly the veil which I think they regarded as a particularly beautiful toy.

A couple more pictures of flower girl cuteness:

She's listening attentively to Rachel and James singing a duet.  They sang "Set Me As a Seal" to each other, and to dedicate their marriage to the Holy Family.  I cried behind my camera.  It was just so beautiful.  It was James's idea, which is a little surprising, as it's such a Rachel-ish thing to do.

I love it when guys are so in love, they simply can't hold their beloved's hand with just one hand.  Only holding with both hands will do.

The wedding party looked pretty smashing too.

and, of course, a good time was had by all.

Wedding sneak peek

My sister is getting married the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Due to a volunteering spirit and a love of large scale craft projects, I have been, am, or will be, the invitation designer, centerpiece creator, project coordinator, florist, prop maker, and official photographer, not to mention little odds and ends projects, like the cake topper, hairpins for the flower girls, and a spot of sewing on the dress itself when the seamstress went temporarily insane and did everything to my sisters dress except what she wanted done.

I bit off just enough to make myself completely crazy trying to get it all done.

However, it's worth it.  My sister is more precious to me than words, and the projects are finally coming together in a beautiful, memorable, and meaningful way.

Today, we decorated the reception hall.  It's really, really good to see large projects come together, like the "Picture Wall".

A total of nine people have put in hours of their time to make this set piece for the reception.  It's a large wall, with holes cut into it, so that people can pose behind it for a "framed" portrait.

The cream on cream "wall paper" is actually a repetitive stencil pattern that took way too long, but looks beautiful anyway.

We made it in two 4x8' sections with removable triangle legs, to make it easy to transport and store.  The frames around the portrait holes and the baseboard are glued on with liquid nails.

We only glued the frames on last night, so I've never seen it completely together until today.

After we got the picture wall together, we hung the wedding portraits of parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and one great-great-grandmother.

I love that we can take pictures of our current family and friends, surrounded by so much history and love.  I also love that all of the couples pictures were/are married for 25 years or more.  In this family, "till death do us part" has been both a fact and a promise.

The picture wall wasn't the only way we got creative with frames.

This is the bride helping assemble a backdrop made of frames that we installed behind the sweetheart table.

We bought wooden thrift-store frames, took out the glass, then stretched fabric in them the same way you stretch a canvas.

Then we hung them using twine and eye screws.

I love the clean blocks of color.  They look so modern, but at the same time have the perfect vintage charm the bride loves.

Here's what the centerpieces look like:

I love the red of the sumac.  It's so deep and rich.

One last pic:

I debated about including this, but it's just too darn cute.

Sometime soon, I'll post a tutorial both for the picture wall, which was darn hard, and for this kind of readymade cake topper, which is sinfully easy.

The fruits are prickly pears.  We couldn't find any real pears that were the right (small) size, so we got these because they're hilarious.  And they kind of look like Mr. and Mrs. Potato-head.

PS. Happy Thanksgiving!