My Brother's Wedding

My brother got married a month ago, and I was the florist.  My first try, but everyone seemed to like the flowers.  I don't think I'd want to do it full time, but it's nice to know I have another skill.  The wedding and reception were at our parents' farm.  I don't have many good pictures as I was running around like crazy beforehand, but at least you can see a little bit of the flowers in these.

On my Mind

I slacked off a couple weeks on posting.  My bad (I used to hate when people said that).

We've been spending most every evening in the garden lately trying to keep ahead of the weeds and planting a few late tomatoes and sweet potatoes.  Sam likes all the time outside in the dirt, and he's insisted we help him catch (fire) flies once it's dark.

Any other free time has been spent trying to keep us in clothes and clean dishes . . . sewing, home projects, and internet time has taken a back seat. 

But here's what's been on my mind a lot: Wedding Flowers

{pictures from various online sources - search for baby's breath, dahlias, pomanders, sedum, and snapdragons}

See, I'm doing the flowers for my brother's wedding in six weeks - it has been a quick three-month engagement.  Our growing season has been strange this year, hot and dry, cold and wet, hot and dry.  Everyone around here is reporting issues with veggie crops and flowers.  I've been trying to source flowers (I am growing some), figure out how many of each I need, and make it work with her color scheme - coral (not the easiest to find in flowers).

I've narrowed it down - a dahlia bouquet for the bride, baby's breath bouquet for the bridesmaid, rose and carnation pomanders for the flower girls, baby's breath and herb boutonnieres, dahlia, sedum, and herb corsages.  For the aisle and reception - sedum, roses, dahlias, wildflowers and grasses, and snapdragons for half of them, baby's breath for the other half.  Accents of burlap and jute twine.  I just need to pray for some rain and keep those dahlias growing.  But I'm glad to have things figured out and sorted.  And yes, I have a spreadsheet.  With multiple tabs.

Hi There

Not much sewing going on this past week (or two).  I've been much busier gardening and working on house projects.  May always seems to be busy.  I have:

- made a tiered planter using Positively Splendid's tutorial (last month but never shared - I kind of want to add some ORB grain sack stripes later)

- planted flowers for my brother's wedding in August - I'm going to be the florist.  Wish me luck; I'm just praying all the seeds and such that I've ordered will sprout and grow properly.  I think I have every coral/orange/pinkish flower known to man.

- planted our vegetable garden.  Everything is in except a couple Roma tomatoes (sold out everywhere) and some peppers I started from seed.

- begun working again on our basement bedroom.  It started like this . . . (only before picture I have of this room, weird).

Ah, another before from the opposite side.

Spent almost a year (from last August to this May) like this . . . (well, the walls were primed and painted, but there was no trim on the walls and wood and tools stacked everywhere).

And as of this evening looks like this . . .

Still a long way to go, but at least I am working on it.

Well, it's 9:30, and my toddler is not in bed yet, so I should be going.  Priming some more boards for the bedroom is up next on the list.

Oh, and this is the best picture - my almost-86-year-old granddaddy helping Sam on the pedal tractor at a recent picnic.  He has no business doing that, but he's a farmer (they just can't sit/quit) and I know one day this will be a very special memory. 

Wordless Wednesday