Wedding Bonbonnieres - Lavender Sachets

Personalising your wedding with handmade touches is a fabulous way to make your special day a day to remember . For my daughter Michaela's recent wedding, there were many handmade details - each one of them was a labour of love and took many hours to complete but they added an elegant, understated touch to her day and were a talking point amongst the guests. Today, we begin the "Wedding Collection" - a series of posts showcasing those details. This is the final instalment for the wedding bonbonnieres: boxed Lavender Sachets. Take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 for more details. The bonbonnieres consisted of a simple piece of cotton fabric filled with lavender. Michaela cut the fabric into a square, folded it in half and then stitched it on two sides to form a sleeve. Even kitty Kitty Kat wanted to get in on the act.  One hundred sleeves later and the pile looks like this. A project of this size necessitates you work production-line style and that you employ ...

Read more »

"With Love" - Bonbonniere Tags

A few weeks back I shared how to create a silicone mould for casting tags that will be attached to the bonbonnieres for my daughter's wedding. With the mould made, it's now time to cast the 100 tags needed.   We chose polymer clay as the casting medium for the tags - it gives them a nice weight. And because they will all be painted later on, we were able to use up lots of scrap clay that I had in the studio. To begin, roll out the clay to the thickness of two wooden stir sticks. Timesaving tip: Use a pasta machine to roll out a whole sheet of clay to the desired thickness rather than rolling out enough clay for one or two tags at a time. M y brain was a bit foggy with project overload before the wedding but i f I had been thinking clearly, I could have saved a heap of time! Cut the clay using the same oval cutter that the mould was made from.   Insert the cut tag into the mould positioning it so that it lines up. Press the clay down into the mould so that the...

Read more »

New Studio Lighting - Daylight LEDs

Good lighting is essential when you do a lot of close up work. When I moved in to my studio 5 years ago, I had a suspended double fluoro installed above my work table to make sure that the work space was well lit. But even with this central light, tasks lights were still needed at every station around the table. Having a suspended light seemed like a good idea at the time but with light only hitting the tables, the rest of the room was dark. And with so many cables and cords dangling from the ceiling, it looked untidy. But today, all that has changed. I had an electrician install two new ceiling lights which are flush mounted to the ceiling.  I am quite impressed with how much light they give off and as I sit here at my computer, I am amazed that the light is reaching this far. You can see that I still have the power cords dangling from the ceiling (for power at the work tables) but it's much tidier now without the cables suspending the old lightfitting. But the best...

Read more »