Weddings are Fun!

So, part of the reason I made this blog was to advertise that I have skills of an artist and hopefully find people that would like to pay to make stuff for them, so that's kind of what this post is about. Hopefully it doesn't end up sounding like I'm bragging all over the place.... anyway, last month, I was in the wedding of a very dear friend, and she just started posting her wedding photos. That inspired me to do a wedding post! I've had the honor of helping out and making things for a good bunch of weddings, so I thought I'd share what I've done (with the permission of the brides, of course!).
The first wedding I helped with was that of my big brother Ben and his lovely bride, Angie. Her favorite type of flower is the daisy, and when I (somewhat shyly, I'm sure) asked if I could make myself a daisy wreath to wear, she really liked the idea and asked if I could teach the other bridesmaids to make them too, so I did. It was exciting; one of the moments that helped me bond with my new big sister.

Here we all are in our daisy wreaths!

When I have the photographers name, I will put it here.

That was before I went off to college. A few years later, during my junior year, several of my good friends got married. All of them wanted to save money (yay for smart friends!), so I was able to help with a bunch of different things for their weddings. The first one was a medieval/fantasy themed wedding for a dear friend (another Angie!). My biggest job was gathering dozens of stones from a river with the help of my longtime best friend, Alyssa, and writing bits of the knights' code on them for reception centerpieces or some such. I calligraphied(?) the whole code on a nice big rock as a wedding gift, but don't have pictures of any of that expedition... It was a lot of fun, though, and I was so honored to help!

The next wedding was for college friends, Ashlea and Kaleb. My main appointed task was to be the bridal hairdresser. How cool to be trusted with a friend's hair on such a big day! I also helped with some decorations and whatnot, including lining the flowergirls' baskets with satin, something the likes of which I'd never tried before. It was a fun little project, and was one less stress for the bride, which is always the goal for a bridesmaid. I also retouched the photos, which were taken by another accomplished friend, Jael Bewick.

Wedding Hair!

The bride had a lot of pretty hairpins she asked me to use.

Sparkles and braids!

One of the flowergirl baskets.

Don't they look lovely? And Jael took terrific photos.

The last wedding I was in that summer was for another pair of college friends, Becca and Nathan, and was my second stint as bridal hairdresser. I don't have as many photos of her hair, but here's what I do have.

The bride and her mother (and me, incidentally).

Photo by Ashlea Marshall

Don't they look lovely too?

Not sure who to credit for this photo yet, but when I know, his/her name will be right here!

Then, the next year, I got engaged! I was also in another friend's wedding; third hairdressing gig. Sadly, only one photo exists of this shindig, but here it is!

Look, it's me hairstyling! I was pretty proud of those super long ringlets.
Photo by Oran Weaver

I diy-ed a lot of my own wedding stuff too; check out this, this, this, and this. Also, check this out to see some jewelry I made for my cousin Joanna's wedding, which was just a few months before mine. All those are links to previous posts of mine, which is why I didn't go into a ton of detail about those projects. The only thing I made for my wedding that I haven't posted is my flowergirl's dress, which I made. I loved it and so did my flowergirl. These photos are by my big brother, Benjamin Hardy.

Here she is!

And here's a close up of the bodice. I wish I could remember who
decorated the basket for me... Maybe my mom or dad
will let me know when they read this (wink wink)!

So, to conclude, here are some photos of the most recent wedding. My roommate through most of college (and consequently best friend), Andrea, and her shiny new husband, Josh, let me help out. I got a new duty as wedding florist, and then, on a whim, became her hairstylist too (she had pinned a really cool hairstyle on her Pinterest wedding ideas board, and I couldn't resist asking if I could do it. She let me!) Bouquet photos are by me. The actual wedding photos are by Rebekah Dreisbach.

I'm not that good at taking pictures... but here are the bouquets!

And this is the "hat made out of a tree" that I made for the bride to wear.

The hair.

Another view of the hair.

So that's how I like to help out at weddings. Hope you enjoyed the photos!

30 Day Drawing Challenge: Days 4-14

As usual, it's been a while since I've posted; I think once or twice a month is all I can manage at this point in my life, what with settling in to the newest place(and remembering that I really am settling in this time! Yay!). Still I've been pretty productive! I'm almost halfway done with the 30 day drawing challenge, so today I'll be posting the rest of the drawings I've done. There are a lot of them, so let's get started!

Day 4: My favorite place~Michael's arms

Day 5: My best Friend~Handsome McHandsomeface

Day 6: My favorite book character~Beth March
(Little Women~Louisa May Alcott)

Day 7: My favorite word
I cheated a little on this one...

Day 8: My favorite animated character~Rapunzel
(Tangled~Disney)

Day 9: My favorite TV show~Dr. Who
I cheated a little on this one too, adding the logo and making it all obvious.

Day 10: My favorite candy~Hershey's
Cookies and Cream

Day 11: A turning point in my life
Ask in the comments if you want to know the story!

Day12: My most recent accomplishment~Three moves in less than six months

I was having trouble with day 13 (drawing a comic), so Michael drew this for my inspiration.
The text reads, "I'm Awesome" "Hi" "I'm Awesome"

Day 13: A comic~Verna Limousine
It was my Mom's idea to do a soap opera comic; you know, the type where someone's
always upset but you never know the backstory?

Day 14: My favorite fairytale~Beauty and the Beast

That's all for now!

2013

So, I'm going to deviate from my normal, artsy-type posts and do a Christmas newsletter type thing, in case people are interested in knowing what I've been up to all year... So here goes! I'll go month by month, and put in lots of pictures.

So, in January, I started my first full year as a married woman, and I also became an aunt! I have the cutest little nephew. He's super smiley, and I love him a ton. On a sillier note, I also managed to lose a game of checkers to my husband without taking even one of his pieces. That has given us a lot of good laughs all year long.

Handsomeface and Cuteface
(a.k.a. Husband and Nephew)

In February, I discovered that my husband is a sleep-talker, another thing that's given us lots of laughs.
A few quotes of his, while he slept :
"Just... stick with it... everybody... keep going!"
"You don't know about deserts at all, do you?"
"It's all right... I'm okay... Let's time warp!"

In March, Husband and I built a snow dragon together. It was epic. Also, for the first time ever, I went on a run just because I wanted to. It was a big leap for a completely non-athletic art nerd like me!

Me and the snow dragon.

Michael and the snow dragon!

In April, I got to rub a baby alligator's tummy, and my lighthouse painting made it into an art show! A very exciting month, to be sure.

In May, Michael and I moved from our first apartment into our second, which was much bigger, with a really great yard. I had a birthday party, and made rainbow Jell-o. Lots of people came, even though it was on Memorial day weekend! It was super cool.

The backyard at apartment #2.

In June, I got a summer job, went to a family reunion, and saw lots of wildlife, including the Tiniest Treefrog.

The Tiniest Treefrog!

In July, I started the 30-day drawing challenge, which I still haven't finished. Oops. Also, I quit that summer job I started in June. It was weird, and sad, and unexpected, but good in some ways too. It was the first time I'd quit a job for any reason besides the beginning or end of a school year, so it made a big impact on me... so strange.

 




In August, my little sister got engaged! I'm so happy for her! Shortly after that thrilling event, I went on vacation with my family, but without Michael. It was a lot of fun, but hard to be without my Handsomeface for a week. I started back at my usual job as an elementary school assistant.

My dearest sisterling

and her fiancé, who also

happens to be a Michael.

Me at the Silver Lake sand dunes in MI.

In September, we moved again, since the people we'd been renting from decided to sell their house. Apt. #3 since we got married. Lots of cleaning and not much else happened during this month of the year.

In October, Michael and I celebrated our 1st anniversary. In honor of the event, Michael got me a kitten! His name is Batman, and he's adorable. On a sadder note, my car died. Things in the engine melted. It was no fun.

Batman is super fierce.

Well... not always, I guess.

He helped my warm my hands up
after our car died. Wasn't that
nice of him?

In November, we moved again to escape bad neighbors. We moved in above some friends from our church, who helped us a ton throughout the moving process and made us feel very welcome in their lives.

Apartment #4! Our landlord let us paint a chalkboard on the wall. It's rad.

In December, I made some money sketching portraits at a school/community event. It was so much fun! I started out feeling very self-conscious, like I was doing an awful job, but everybody who saw me drawing thought it was super cool, so that helped me feel better. Coworkers showed lots of generosity and goodwill toward me and Michael as Christmas came up, we had more and more good times with our downstairs neighbors, and our families also dumped buckets of love on us all year. We had a very merry Christmas, and that's about where we are now! To the friends and family reading this, Michael and I love you, and God bless!

A bountiful Christmas for Handsomeface and me.
Thanks be to God for such a blessed year!

30 Day Drawing Challenge: Days 2 and 3

What?? A blog post? Yes, indeed, dear readers. I thought I would be able to draw a picture and write a quick blog post every day. I overestimated my abilities and also didn't expect to move in September and start getting ready for another move just over a month later... so I've only done 10 of the 30 drawings and I don't even remember what day I would be on if I'd kept up with it like I'd wanted to. Oh, well. Here are some of the new drawings!

I have lots of favorite animals, so I chose my favorite aquatic animal.
It's a cuttlefish!

Chocolate. Mmm.

30 day drawing challenge!

Behold, a post! Too long delayed, without much in it. Anyway, my husband and I are doing a 30 day drawing challenge together, so I thought I'd post my drawings each day. That means you get a post almost every day this month! Hopefully this burst of artistic activity will help me to create (and blog!) more consistently. So here's what I drew today:

Tiny Self-Portrait!

So there you have it. It was a small, quick sketch, about 2.5 inches high... Let me know what you think!

New Photo

So, I got another wedding photo all gussied up. I just plain used the "poster edges" filter on photoshop... I usually don't do just one filter, but it made it look like a comic book cover or something, and Michael loves comic books, so I left it that way. Sometimes I guess simplicity is best.

Me and Handsomeface, smooching.
Also featured: my exorbitantly effusive train.

On an unrelated note, I'm knitting a sweater. I'm using the o w l s pattern by Kate Davies. I should post progress pictures, but I don't have any right now... (I'm a bad blogger!) This is my first sweater, and will be my first time knitting with double pointed needles and my first time making cable designs. I'm really excited! Anyway, I'll try to get pictures done sometime soon and post them. Until then, goodbye, and thanks for reading!

Items for Sale

Hello, readers! I just thought I'd let you know I have a few items for sale. One is a necklace and earrings set, one is a painting. I was going to sell them at a silent auction for charity, but turnout was low and the amount of bids was lower, and they didn't sell. If these are bought, all the proceeds will go to Donate a Smile, a nonprofit organization that provides dental help to the Central African Republic. Please visit their webpage; it's a much needed organization! Here are the items I'm selling. If you have questions or would like to buy them, contact me at beth.jennys@gmail.com.

Necklace and Earrings  Set ~ $15

Pie Painting ~ 8 x 10 inches ~ Watercolor and Colored Pencil ~ $20