New wedding essentials!

In the past two weeks or so I have been working

with two brides-to-be on some essentials for their upcoming wedding. One is a save the date, a little more traditional with no picture. It turned out beautifully. The other was table numbers and place cards. Those of course turned out beautifully as well. I'm very excited for these two to get their orders and have them be a part of their wedding. Check them out:

'Til Death Do Us Part...

I am SO SO excited about this one! I finally finished this amazing sign for my amazing friends Crystal and Branden. Clearly this is not the traditional wedding sign, but these two are not your traditional couple. In fact, they aren't having a traditional wedding! They are eloping! This "wedding sign" won't be used at the wedding it will be a piece of art hung in their home to commemorate the day they were married. We had to make this sign as original and they are and tatted it up just as the two of them are!

Brand New!!

I just finished our very first directional signs for weddings! A customer actually came to me with the idea. I hadn't really thought of it before. But they came out amazing! Check out Kati & Chris's wedding direction signs. Sounds like a super fun wedding just for the signs!

The Flynn Family...

So far, this is one of my favorite designs. I love all the work I do, but for some reason I really like how different this from my normal designs. Although it's pretty simple it just looks so good! I love the little swirls in the corners and the frame in the middle makes it look so classic. The fun thing about this design was the added extras from Jen. She and her husband came up with incorporating their favorite number (and mine) but a little hidden. If you can tell, there are little 17's in the corners. Also, after finalizing the design, I got a text from Jen asking to add their family dog to the sign. Of course I loved the idea, but it was a secret from Brian. He had no idea. It all came together perfectly and Brian was really surprised and loved the extra name!

Love is the Poetry...

This is one of the first signs I have completed in my long list of orders. This sign is actually being gifted to a couple that is getting married in FRANCE and again here in the USA. How cool is that? The groom is French so they will be having a wedding in France for his family and coming here to the States to have a celebration wedding for her family and friends. So very Gwen Stefani of this bride! In lieu of the heritage, Crystal decided to throw in the saying not only in English, but in French too. Very creative. This sign was made a little smaller from the normal 24 x 24, we made this a 20 x 20. Hopefully the bride and groom will be pleasantly surprised with their thoughtful gift and love it.

All mine...

This is not one of the signs I was working on, but since Olivia messed up that one sign, I decided not to let the wood go to waste and painted myself a "wedding sign." Although I've been married for 3 years and should've just done a family sign, I decided to show a sample of another type of wedding sign. So check it out!

Lots of new stuff...

So I have been busy with multiple signs lately. The first of the bunch that has been completed was the sign for Kaylee, then a family/home decor sign for the Hernandez Family, a gift sign for a friend's wedding for Crystal (the Love is a Journey sign), a sign for the Flynn family, and lastly directional and thank you signs for Kati and Chris. Lots to do! I got the orders for all these signs pretty much at the same time so I have been jumping around between all these signs. I have half completed signs everywhere. Most of them are crackle paint too, so I had the process everywhere. Some had a base coat, some were in the process of the crackle glaze, and some were drying with a top coat! It was a little hard trying to keep track of the timing for drying and when to put the top coat on. But they all turned out awesome. Big ups to the new Ralph Lauren roller I bought that has SUPER done an amazing job on the crackle. It has been hit or miss some times with the crackle in the past and this roller is getting the job done. Yay! Stay tuned for a LOT of new signs. I can't wait!!

And baby makes three...

I have finally created and finished my "first" baby sign. I've been doing so many wedding and family signs, but have yet to make a baby or child sign. I have made plenty of other types of baby/kid signs and wall hangings, but none on the type of wood I have been making my wedding signs on. It was fun. This sign was custom designed for baby Kaylee. She has not been born yet, but I went to her baby shower yesterday and brought the sign as a gift. I matched it to her bedding/room decor. Luckily everyone loved it, including the mommy to be. It went perfectly in the nursery.

Blackburn Family

So I actually finished this sign on Saturday but haven't posted it yet because I've been so busy trying to build up my blog and creating a look book for Forest House. But here it is. Although completely intricate, it was relatively easy to do. I think the best part was that it didn't have crackle paint. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of the crackle paint, but the process is long and difficult. It just never seems to come out just right. A little annoying. This one was so simple and elegant. It is my first family/home decor piece. I'm very excited to take off "coming soon" in that category and actually put up a sample. Yay! I'm very proud of this sign and hope to make many more family and home decor signs. Thanks Christine, I hope you and your new family enjoy it!

A new family...

So I'm working on my first family/home decor sign. This sign is for my friend Christine who just got married in June. Her and her new husband both have children from a previous marriage. So she wanted a sign for their home with all their names together as one family....including the dogs! So we made the last name the focus and also included their wedding date as the time the family was established. We kept the colors neutral so it would match the home decor since they are trying to buy a new house. The colors are chocolate brown and toffee brown. Of course the base is an ivory white. This sign should be relatively easy considering there is no crackle paint (ha ha) but there are quite a bit of swirls. Of course that makes the design look so elegant though. Oh how I love to make my job harder!! It's worth it though!

Begins Here...Ends There...

So I finally finished Justin & Jenni's wedding sign, and not without a few TRILLION bumps along the way. For whatever reason I was not meant to do this sign easily. I started this sign in the midts of Natalie and Aric's wedding preperations. A week of staying up until 3 am every night to get things completed. I did the sign when I could and spent a lot of those late nights at the sign, doing wedding things in the day and staying up late to work on the sign. The day after the wedding it was almost done and I had come home and started preparing to finish it up when all of a sudden I realized, my 2 year old is awfully quiet. I ran over to find her pouring BLACK paint all over my almost complete sign. My heart completely sank and I knew I had no one else to blame but myself. I shouldn't have left the sign out and I shouldn't have left the paint out, and I shouldn't have taken my eyes off that curious little girl for ONE second!! Needless to say, it was ruined. I had to start ALL OVER AGAIN. Of course that couldn't be an easy task either. When I went to get the wood, there were no more pieces. When I did the crackle paint, it came out horribly. When I went to my parent's house so that I could work on the sign and my mom could watch my kids, I forgot the paint. It was a nightmare. And yes, I even had a nightmare about this sign! After I finally completed it, I went to bed (at 3am) and had a dream that someone had spilled something on my sign and decided to clean it up with a wet rag and the paint on the sign was completely smeared! What is wrong with me!?! But all in all, the sign is done it has been picked up from my house and is ready to be displayed at a wedding this weekend. I'm so happy. I'm hoping Jenni is happy with it too and loves how it came out. There were so many different colors to incorporate it was a little difficult to distribute where the colors should go so that it was even and went with the theme. But I think I got it done.

Starting work...

Let the layers begin! So, while the design is at the printers, I have started work on Jenni & Justin's wedding sign and being that we are using crackle paint, this has many steps. First the base coat, then the crackle paint, then the top coat. Of course all have to dry for 4 hours each. Yikes! However, it is worth the wait. I love the vintage look it gives each piece while still looking elegant. Great choice! I decided to go with a toffee color for the base because I needed an earthy light color, nothing that would conflict with the chocolate brown and olive green and nothing that would match too close so we couldn't read the font. I think it look delicious and makes me want an Almond Rocha, yum! Of course this is not what it will look like at all, just the very beginning to the many layers of this amazing sign. Stay tuned...

The first stages..

So I'm starting a new wedding sign. This one is for a friend of a friend. She is getting married July 24th. She's having a rustic/vintage/outdoors wedding. So I created a very vine-y flowery sign with fonts to match. As anyone would be, she was a big fan of the quote: Happily Ever After Begins Here. So we've got that on her sign just in a little different font. I just finished the design, so the next step will be to get all the supplies and start the paint. She really liked the crackle paint I did on Natalie's sign, so that is a couple steps in itself. Stay tuned to see the final creation!

Love is a Journey...

Crystal & Kelcey were married June 26th, 2010. This project was done in record time! Crystal and I are friends on Facebook and after I posted the picture from Natalie & Aric's wedding sign, Crystal wanted one for her wedding almost immediately. She was a little hesitant. Reason Crystal was hesitating to ask was because she made a comment about it on Friday and was getting married the next Saturday. Of course I didn't want to turn her down so I told her I could do it, of course I would do it. And I almost had to convince her instead of her having to convince me. :)
So I started the design and process that Friday and finished it by Tuesday. Crystal & Kelcey were leaving that Wednesday to head up to the ceremony site. Probably the quickest I've ever done a project, and it still came out amazing. They had a small Hawaiian themed wedding with nature in mind. Crystal found this quote and I took it from there.
The couple are now on their honeymoon but will be able to hang this in their home to remind them of the day they became husband and wife.

Happily Ever After Begins Here....

Aric & Natalie are getting married July 17th. The date is approaching fast, and as one of the bridesmaids I know that date is getting closer and closer. With all the tasks I have at hand for the wedding, making the sign being one of them, I decided to start early. And I actually completed it quicker than I thought I would considering all the detail that went into the design.

The couple are getting married at Forest House Lodge and originally Natalie wanted a sign to be hung at the ceremony site so guests would be able to spot the location from the road. However plans have changed and guests will be shuttled in and Natalie didn't want to waste the sign being on the side of the road. After the wedding Natalie plans to hang the sign in the couple's home forever being able to think back on the day they were married.