Monday, March 31, 2008

More Ribbon, Please

I've barely mentioned that I've been very busy putting together a 30th wedding anniversary dinner for my In-Laws. They were married in Hawaii 30 years ago this April 29th. To some of you ladies this probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but I am no event planner. This is all pretty new to me. I have reserved The Winchester Room at a local country club, picked out a menu, picked out flowers for centerpieces, and sent the invitations that I made myself (I am a graphic artist by trade in case you forgot, although I haven't worked in 9 years). I will have a display table for photographs. When I went to my In-Law's house for Easter, I picked up the pictuers my MIL wants on the table. Well, she had a handful of loose (unframed) photos, so I decided to make a photo board out of the Hawaiian print cloth that I'm using under the floral centerpieces. I always see these things on HGTV so I figured, "Hey, that looks simple!" Yeah, my brain is simple.


I went to Home Depot and bought a 24" x 24" piece of plywood. I had some batting already, and I had the cloth. The first picture is the back of the plywood with the batting already stapled down and the cloth underneath. The next picture is the finshed board and I was so happy everything went so well. Well, what happened was, when I laid out the ribbon to figure out the criss cross pattern, I realized I did not have enough ribbon.

Saturday we went back for more ribbon. I bought all they had. Today, I started working on the layout of the ribbon, was feeling good and had a plan. Everything was going great and then... And then I ran out of ribbon. Arrrgh! The third picture is my unfinished photo board. I have a doctor appointment on Friday to get a referral for a hand doctor because my right thumb has become almost useless and painful to the extreme, so I will go back to see if they have restocked. If not, we will go on Saturday to a different location to get the ribbon.

In case you don't know what a photo board is, the 4th picture shows you how it works.

Also on Saturday, we went to Party City and bought 35 pink silk flower leis. They wore pink leis at their wedding so, I thought it would be fun to hand them out to the guests. This is what 35 pink leis look like in a pile on my couch:


And at the fabric store I found this heart wreath foam thingie and made a little tube with my Hawaiian fabric to cover it.



Except for the pain in my thumb, I'm having fun with all these projects, but my advice to you is: If you ever get the insane desire to make a photo board, make sure you have about 800 thousand yards of ribbon and that's probably 6 kilometers if you live in Canada.

15 comments:

Jammie J. said...

Wow -- that's pretty cool!
I had a little laugh because I see that you have pink scissors in the background of one of your pictures and I was impressed that you scissors were color coordinated with your project. :D

I hope you get your thumb taken care of.

geewits said...

J,
~~What you can't see is "Cloth Only!" written all over the handles of those scissors. I don't know if you sew, but sewing scissors can NOT be used to just cut "stuff." And husbands and daughters don't seem to get that.

Thanks for the thunb thought. I imagine I will need surgery and I'm dreading it.

Cycling Goddess said...

Wow, I'm impressed! And I so understand the cloth only scissors. I have pair that I've been cherishing for years.

Sorry to hear about your thumb. But I think the celebration will be a success, you're doing very well!

Carole said...

Wow Gee, you are so crafty! That picture board is super nifty, and I like how you have the picture "woven in" cause it matches the criss-cross pattern in your ribbon. Clever idea for the heart too! Also, that material and ribbon are beautiful. Hawaiian with a romantic touch; just what you intended! Nice! By the way, did you find more ribbon the same color? We went through this last summer with my son's wedding. It's nice to have more stores to run check if you need to. If you have to get thumb surgery, I'll bring you ice cream! Yeah, I know it's suppose to be for tonsils, but hey, ice cream is good for any surgery.

Russell said...

When you are a guy, well, you don't even try such things. At least not a regular guy. Maybe a metro-sexual guy would, though I am not exactly sure what that means I have an idea.

If it were left to me, well, I would put the photos in a photo album (not real creative) or maybe get some poster board and tape them up on that! Primitive, yes, but.... Well, women do things like this much better than guys do.

I would probably make sure there was a keg of beer, grill stuff like brats and maybe steaks, and that we had plenty of chips and dip and that the big screen TV was working good .....! I have a feeling my ideas might get knocked down for being crude, but I think the guys would like it...

I would like the idea of having a big cake to eat with everyone - but the idea of grilling steaks and brats and having a cold keg of beer sounds like my type of gathering!

Okay. I guess we could drink the beer out of glasses instead of plastic cups if we wanted to be a little fancy!

Seriously, looks like you are doing a great job!! Take care of your thumb and let us know how this all turns out.

Jo said...

Move over, Martha Stewart!!!

I have a feeling this is going to turn out really well, Geewits, and you are going to be a star!!!

Please keep us posted. :-)

geewits said...

Sylvie,
~~Thanks, I'm pretty much winging it.

Carole,
~~It was Jo-Ann Fabrics so they are all over the place. If they are not restocked by Friday, I'm going to try the Grapevine store on Saturday. They wore dark pink leis at their wedding so that's how I ended up with those colors. The table linens will be white with seafoam green napkins.

Russell,
~~Maybe I'm a guy at heart. I'd rather go to your party!

Josie,
~~I hope so. Everything seems to be going well and I still have plenty of time. Now if the people would only R.S.V.P. I've only had two!

Jocelyn said...

Hmmm, or you might have to use two different colors of ribbon?

I'm so impressed with all your efforts, especially in the face of that pain. Take care of it, sweetie!

geewits said...

Jocelyn,
~~No, I'm too picky to do that. If I never find more of the same, I'll remove all that and start over. The staple gun I'm using doesn't push the staples all the way into the board so I could use all the same staples, just thread new stuff through there. I hope I find more of the same, though.

AJ in Nashville said...

Gee - This is pretty much a random visit, but I thought it was time I returned the favor of your looking in on my blog a few months ago — especially given the fact that we have so many Blogger friends in common (most notably Michael and Miss Josie).

You have a delightful blog that I've barely scratched the surface of. I look forward to seeing more of it.

And as far as the sewing scissors are concerned, my wife's fabric shears are never to be used on anything else under penalty of death!

You are obviously very talented and extremely nice to do something so wonderful like this for your in-laws.

Oh and BTW, my wife's and my 30th wedding anniversary is coming up next March, so if ya feel so inspired...

;)

Leslie: said...

Very talented lady! I love that photo board, but when my Dad passed away, I used plain old black poster boards, put the photos on them, and used gold ink to write the dates. I guess that was okay considering the occasion.

geewits said...

Hi AJ,
~~I think I first visited your blog a couple of years ago. I believe you were talking about barbecues or barbecue sauces. And it sounded delicious!

Leslie,
~~Hawaiian print would hardly have been appropriate for that. He wasn't Don Ho, was he?

OldLady Of The Hills said...

It looks gorgeous! I thought to myself What Fun to be planning all of this and making these things, too! I bet your In-Laws will be thrilled with this very special Celebration!

Anonymous said...

It looks really great! I can't believe you ran outta ribbon again! I love the leis!!!! It's going to be a great party, I know it!

Anonymous said...

what I was looking for, thanks