Possibly My Greatest Accomplishment Ever...

....my wedding favors. Yes, that's right. This is going to look crazy for a second, but this is everyone who came to our wedding:




These photos were taken in haste the day before our wedding. As were individual portraits of each.

Like this.

 

And this.

And this.

Actually, THESE portraits have been cropped. So there is no carpet background or occasional limb of mine.

This is me taking 120+  pictures in haste.

I really disliked wedding planning. But these personalized wedding favors were something I knew I wanted to do from early on. And so starting sometime in January (for our August wedding), I tracked down pictures of all of our guests and got to work. The generic male/female bodies made things a bit easier. What I worried about most was offending someone with their portrait. Of course, there were also a few people who I had never met in person. I totally relied on their photo being an accurate representation of themselves.

So I'm on a mission now to crop all of the individual pictures and make some sort of "cool" collage. (Better than what was slapped together above.) One of those photo collages that look like a picture of something from far away would be awesome. Not that I know how to do that.

Charming Your Guests

I just went to one of the most delightful bridal showers I've ever been to. It was very non-traditional, which I very much enjoyed. There was no awkward opening of gifts or silly games. (The games were fun and consisted of mad libs and blind wine tasting.) Just lots of eating, mingling, and some drinking. Like the song actually: "...eat, drink, and be merry."

For the party favors, they had a make-your-own-wine-charms station. So fun! And I will definitely use these. I did, however, forget to be social for the 20 minutes that I sat making my charms. I was extremely focused.

My creations:

 

My one complaint is that the dim lighting made me think that the beads on my leaf charm were green. Clearly, they were not. Oops. Oh well.

For the Kids

Completed 2005

16"x20"

Acrylic

During the year I lived at home, between college and the real world, my nephew V. and I spent a lot of time together. Specifically, we spent a lot of time watching Shrek and/or Monsters, Inc. So for his 3rd birthday I painted him this picture of him and Sully. Stopping by their house this weekend, I was pretty happy to see it still prominently displayed in V.'s room. (He's older now, and I'm pretty sure he has moved on from Monsters.)

As I was leaving his room, this caught my eye...



Seems we have a budding artist. Win.

Since I was already poking around the kid's rooms I stopped into N.'s. Mostly I just wanted to snap some pictures of her wall. (I also delivered her picture this weekend. Not sure if she liked it or not because she gave me a look that said, "You're a weirdo.") 

 

 
Ignore the creepy doll

As you can probably infer from the pictures, mostly everything in her room is pink. So we lucked out when we chose the paint color! The flower-mural-thing was my baby gift to her.

I'm reminiscing as I write this post... and feeling really old.

By the way. When I asked V. what his favorite subject is in school he told me math. Double win.

Mike's Favorite Things II

Completed 2011
16"x20"
Oil

Lucky Mike gets another painting. He's been asking for a painting of a Colombian flag guitar forever. (See Colombian flag here.) So I've kind of owed him one. Well... "owed" in the way that a wife kindly does something for her husband occasionally.

I threw the Rubicon in the background as a tribute to his old Jeep.

...And now that I'm looking at the painting, I'm realizing there is something I need to fix.... oops. Hopefully no one sees what I see.

Evolution of a Birthday Gift

Mike's birthday was actually a few months ago, but I forgot I had taken these pictures. He works in the power industry, hence the man working on power lines.

My Obama figurine used to reference the size of this painting: a petite 3"x3".

Mike's favorite things

Looks like I got distracted last week...

Completed 2007
24"x36"

Oil

Probably one of my most thought-out paintings is this one I did for husband/ boyfriend at the time. I like to tell him that had we not "made it", I wouldn't have hesitated to take it back and repaint over his face with someone else. Luckily I didn't need to do that!

This typically either gets a laugh, or a funny look. It's definitely an interesting mix: Gary Williams (UMD basketball coach), my hubby, Carlos Valderrama (Colombian soccer player), and Beaker from the Muppets. All the food and drinks on the table (mostly drinks) are also some of Mike's favorites. Another shout out to Maryland with the Cornerstone mug...

Orange Flowers

Completed 2006

16"x20"

Oil

I'm not a fan of the flash photography here, but this was taken before I realized that no flash is better. It's also hanging in a friend's house that I don't have access to at the moment- this was another wedding gift for a different wedding.

A Wedding Gift

Completed 2011

11"x14"

Oil

My most recently completed painting is this one; a wedding gift for one of my best and oldest friends. Thanks to Facebook, I was able to snag their silhouettes off of one of their wedding pictures.