Wall Week: Wedding Wall

To wind up "Wall Week" I have one more gallery wall. As it turns out, this one is my favorite, so it's lucky that it was also the last finished. 

Our Wedding Wall, from right to left, starts with the 1 year anniversary present Alan made me: our vows hung from one of the signs we made to direct people to the wedding. I love that the sign has our initials and an arrow pointing to the picture of us next to it.  Planned that.

The picture it's pointing to an enormous black and white that we blew up for a few bucks at Costco, and framed with one of the free frames Molika gave me.  There is no backing, and no glass, which doesn't matter to me. Though, I really should get some more tape to stick it to the wall so it stops having that big curve in it.

Next up is the GORGEOUS guest book my super wonderful friend drew for me. She used a picture of the house we got married at, and added us to the front porch.  But she free-handed all of that!  So talented.  She left all of the leaves off of the trees, the flowers off of the bushes, and the bricks off of the driveway, and our guests added those with their finger tips and some stamp pads. She worked the table to make sure everyone signed in, (and did it right) and she even took pictures of all of them doing it! Because she's amazing. 

Above that is a picture of every guest at the wedding. Love it. 

To the left is a gift from our officiant/day of coordinator/lovely friends.  The picture is one from the ceremony, and the words are all of the blessings our friends said during our "ring bearing" ceremony.  After deciding not to have a wedding party, we asked all of the friends and family who would have been included to say something about love or marriage while passing the ring from he back of the crowd to the front and eventually to us.  It was my favorite part of the ceremony, and actually the whole day.  And this is such a lovely reminder.

Above that is another gift from another couple of amazing friends.  She swears she bought this Etsy art before we even ever decided to get married.  Lucky for her it worked out for us. Even luckier, the color she picked out was one of our wedding colors.  Fate. And love. 

On the far opposite side of the wall is a first dance picture, and my gift to Alan for our 1st anniversary (a list of all of the things we did in our first year of marriage behind a silhouette of us). 

I just love this wall. I love all the white frames (so many of them were white to start, that I painted the rest to match).  I love the balance.  I love the straight line on the bottom. Mostly I love the story it tells about the best day of my life so far.

Love Love Love. 

Eventually there will be a few more additions: a couple more photos, my "something old" hankie, and Alan's airplane pin. 

As for the walls in our apartment... there are a few more that need some love:

Bathroom walls, and bathroom in general: SO BLAND.

Gigantor: the biggest wall in our apartment, spanning from living room to dining room is EMPTY.

Jacked: the wall in our dining room that inexplicably has a phone jack in the direct center. Ugh.

We'll get there.  Or maybe not. Got any ideas?

Week 38: Fenceboard Wall Hanging

 Hey!  Remember when I picked up all this GORGEOUS ceder fencing for free?!  Remember how I was obsessed with it, but Alan was feeling warily supportive?  Remember how it then lived in the trunk/backseat of the car for weeks, and our car got super buggy? Well I've made something out of it!

I'm actually still in the process of making a table top with it, but I finished an art piece with some scraps.  Yeah!

 I had to cut it all up into much smaller pieces.  So I had to figure out how to use this crazy saw thing.  I'm basically amazing at it, seeing as I still have all my fingers. 

And look at those smooth lines...

So I took some left overs of differing widths and laid them out to make some signs...

LOVE this scrappy wood.  

Then I flipped  them over and added some scrap wood left over from a friend's wine rack project. I screwed them together with a drill.  Slightly challenging because of the wood's OLD quality.  Notice I didn't say "poor quality."

Then I nailed a heart into the front of the wood.  I drew a heart on some magazine pages, cut it out, and nailed all around the edges.  I LOVE plump hearts so that's what I made. 

Then I strung twine all around it, and decided that this heart is too plump.  Filled in with twine, all I could see was a butt. Bummer. 

So I pulled some of the nails out and re-wound the twine. The nail holes aren't too noticeable thanks to the somewhat holey nature of the wood. 

Then I made an E for Erin...

And an A for Alan, to go around the heart. 

Because that's the truth friends.  Man I love that guy.  I love how patient  he's been with this garage sale-ing, wood gathering adventure I'm dragging him along on.  I love how he fixes up my bike for me without me having to point out that I don't know about bikes.  I love how hard working he's been, even though his current job is part time, which means I'm "bringin' home the bacon."  I love how he actually makes sure to pick up bacon to cook for me when I'm on my way to work, and how he wakes up with me at 5:30 so he can send me to work with a warm breakfast and a lunch with little notes and a sandwich shaped like a heart.  I love this guy, and art that proclaims it. 

A few more notes on making this art:

• If you're working with antique wood like me, you may need to shout expletives every now and then, when all the nails and screws come out.  This might be an easier project with newer wood.  
• To hang the signs, I screwed eye-hooks into the pieces of wood that hold it all together.  I figured that the older wood wouldn't be strong enough to hold it together.
• I tied a piece of twine between each hook, and then hung it on a nail.  SO EASY!

Supplies and Cost

Wood (free scraps of fencing)

Twine (Free, left over from wedding crafting)

Screws (Free, left over from table project)

Huge box of Nails ($4.59)

Eye Hooks (free, in possession)

Week 28: Happy Anniversary

July 30th was our one year anniversary.  Woohoo!  We have had 365 days of laughter, love, adventure, and tickle fights.  Definitely the best year of my life so far.  I love everything about the man I chose to spend my life with, and I'm so thrilled about what the future has in store for us. 

With wedding season in full swing (5 friends getting married this summer), we decided to get away for just one day.  So we packed up and headed to Placerville, because neither of us had been there, and because it was so close to the wedding we were at the night before. We stayed in the historic Cary Hotel, and explored the little town and Apple Hill.  It was perfect.  

For gifts, we decided to go with the traditional first-year-gift of paper. Also, we made the rule that it had to be homemade (my favorite rule). 

I used one of my favorite pictures form our wedding ("The First Look," above), traced our silhouettes onto some card-stock, and used an Xacto knife to cut us out of it.

Then I taped our silhouettes onto the inside of the glass on an extra deep frame.  Then I turned the frame into a shadow box, by cutting out a piece of cardboard that was too big to fit inside the frame.  I glued a list of all of the adventures we've had in the past year to the front of the cardboard, and then super-glued the cardboard to the back of the frame.  Then I super-glued a soda can top to the back to use as a nail holder (thank you Pinterest).

I love the idea of this gift.  I love the picture of us. I love the record of our first year in adventures.  And I love that I already had all the materials at home, so it was free!  

I don't love that the tiny bit of tape I used on the silhouette, failed after I super-glued the back on.  GRRR... Fortunately it was still looking good when I gave it to Alan.  Also, we don't have a wall to hang it on yet, so when we find a permanent place to live, I'll fix it, and then hang it. 

Alan re-used a sign from our wedding (love that guy). He added some eye-hooks, and some wire...

And hung two frames from the bottom that hold our vows in them (there's the paper). 

Exchanging vows was one of my favorite wedding day memories, so it will be so lovely to have them displayed on our wall as a daily reminder of all the promises we made.

As if that wasn't enough, he had another surprise waiting for me at the hotel...

He secretly sent this picture of our wedding cake toppers (mini Turkish gourd people) to a local cake maker, and she did an amazing job of recreating them!  Her gourds aren't gourds at all, they're perfectly painted marzipan! Stunning!

Cake re-make!

Alan, thanks for making this year so special!  You're my favorite.