wave of inspiration

 It has been a while since I've blogged because I was out of town for work and then went directly to an escape in the country for a few days. Admittedly, I was feeling a little beat up by NYC before I even set out to Jersey for tech week. And, not surprisingly, after 9 days of working 14 hour days making crazy crafty feathered headpieces and costumes for The Little Mermaid, I really needed a break before returning home.   In all, I was away from my laptop for 13 days and it felt pretty good.

rack of costumes in the mezzanine

It has also been a while since I worked as a costume craftsperson (actually building costumes) and I was feeling very happy to put my skills to use again.  I had the pleasure of working with two lovely and talented ladies who really inspired me as we discussed different building and painting techniques.  I learned a lot about different glues, and fastening materials, and some tricks for working with feathers. My world was all feathers and shiny things for a few days, and that was awesome. But,  naturally, after working for many hours in an air-conditioned room (using some toxic chemicals, no less) and then getting not enough sleep in a hotel room with more air-conditioning, my body started to protest.  I was feeling super achey in my (injured) shoulder and my hands from working with wire for hours on end.  I woke up with a sore throat each morning, and sneezed and coughed and had a runny nose.  I was worried that I was coming down with a cold, as is often the result of me doing a work binge like this.

So the opportunity came up to hop on a bus straight out of Jersey and take a visit to my friends in the country.  It all sort of came together at the last minute, and after a 6 hour ride, around midnight I found myself walking into the comfort of a big ole country house, quiet and peaceful, new yet familiar.  I have fond memories of time spent there last summer, and I had hoped to return. I finally exhaled.  

My friends Matt and Amy are couple that recently got married in a small civil ceremony downtown, and are planning and hosting a big wedding extravaganza on their property to celebrate their union and share this joy with lots of friends at the country home.  They're doing it all themselves, and counting on friends to help make it happen by sharing in their areas of expertise.  Amy and I were talking through some of the details, when I started to get ideas for decorations.  For some reason, I have an affinity for home-made bunting.  I have made some out of paper before, but had yet to sew some in fabric. I looked around the property and started to envision huge wire-framed flowers, tissue-paper flower garland, and of course a couple of swags of bunting. Still riding this wave of inspiration I got from working on the feathery fish costumes, I enthusiastically volunteered to design and make the decorations, it will be my gift to them!  the wedding site As someone who takes pleasure in making crafty items for friends, this is a big and exciting opportunity to really challenge myself while doing something very special.  This project, decor for a wedding in the country, is no minor feat and is a much larger scale project than my usual gifts for friends, such as jewelry or cards or weird airplant doll head magnets.  I'm very excited and have already started collecting images, fabrics and materials to make the bunting and garland.  Chances are pretty good that I will post on my progress here on the blog! PS- please excuse the small font- I am very frustrated with the formatting problems of this blogging site, but it's really the only one I know how to use right now (and obviously I don't really know how to use it properly!)  It will have to work for now!