Wedding Wednesday - hiatus

"The Wedding Posse"

There is not much left of the wedding posts - just a couple of little things to tie up that I'd like to talk about. But for the meantime, Wedding Wednesday is going to be on hiatus as Term has started - and as this is the beginning of the end, (final year! EeEEEEeeepppPPp!), I'm going to be prioritisisng my illustration degree.

Sunshine is busy trying to get the 'official' photos edited and cleaned up, so will post here when those are up on flickr ... but while I have the chance, would just like to say a HUGE thank you to the bridal party + other halves + one hanger on; otherwise known as the "Wedding Posse"; for all their help and support on and around the day ... we love you!

Hoops for sale ...

Having a bit of a clearout here at planetmithi headquarters, and have put the original Meta- embroidery hoops on sale at etsy... grab the originals while you can!!!

Family Day

It is family day here at planetmithi ... Sunshine and I would like to say:

First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY lil sis Tiara ... who turns 24 today ... lookie at what a cutie she was! (with me aged about 12 I think) ... Woo .... loveses you!!!


Then, HAPPY 40th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY to my folks ... look at them being all cool in the 70s ... oh yeah ... my parents ... looking fiiiiiiine ...... ;)


And also, HAPPY 40th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY to Sunshine's folks on Monday ... can you believe it? The two sets of parents got married within two days of each other on two different ends of the world 40 years ago!

Woo! Have a great day all!
Much love, from Us

Wedding Wednesday - part 7

Today's topic ... entertainment! (other wedding related posts here)

Sunshine and I lead fairly active lives - infact we met swing dancing, via a mutual swing dancing/juggling friend who Sunshine had met through juggling. And as such, we had to do very little in the way of organising "entertaiment" for our guests - as they were all so entertaining themselves!

Our friends performed for us (clockwise from top left: Pich did his stick routine, Ed did a hillarious pizza twirling routine to "That's Amore", and Cookie sang for us.

There was a lot of juggling/manipulation gear about - and a lot of hoolahoops! As seen here enjoyed by both young and old ;) (please do click on the images to see them larger - especially little Manon who was just a gem of a guest!)

As we had met dancing - we had our first dance to a swing version of "Sunny" by Ernestine Anderson. (Sunshine - Sunny ... you get it, yes?)

DJ-ed by some of the best swing DJs in the country (who also happen to be our friends ... how lucky are we??!!??) ... thank you Daniel, Tom, David, Mel and Mark ...

Much dancing ensued till late under the marquee ...

Whilst in the garden, much multicoloured spinning could be seen.

The dancers were all trying to hoop and juggle, and the jugglers all wanted to dance. The non-dancer/jugglers also all joined in the festivities ... it was GRAND! So many of the parents generation kept coming to us an commenting what talented friends we have ... and indeed we do ;)

In other news, the wedding has been blogged about again - I have updated my Thank You post with the link ;)

Adana update

So, there's far more to hand-presses than you would think. I have been doing a lot of reading and yesterday even managed to see one of the print tutors and borrow a quoin key so that I could unlock the type and clean out the chase that came with my Adana. Last week I also managed to drop by the Impact 2009 product fair (I wasn't a delegate - just gate crashed!); and speak to the people who make these Safe Wash inks - and they gave me a couple of free samples :)

So today when my rollers finally arrivd in the post, Sunshine and I had a go at printing ...

We haven't really got the correct 'tympan' on the platen yet - I've ordered some in; but in the meantime was just using some paper and board of random thickness ... We tried the Christmassy type that came with the print... But didn't manage to get a very good impression ... (even after fiddling with the impression screws).


Then we tried some spice jar labels (something I had picked up at a charity shop a long time ago ...). OK but not great. I think we also don't quite have the right sort of paper - tried several varieties and the results are quite variable.

Then we tried a wood block that I'd got the same time I'd got those spice jar labels.

This was probably the nicest - but still with issues.

By this point we were both very hungry for dinner, so cleaned everything up (these Safe Wash inks are a joy to work with - oil based but cleans up with washing up liquid!); and we shall leave more experimenting (other papers? flexoplates? other inks? wooden type?) for another day ...

Website! Shop! 300th post! AND giveaway!

Whattalotta things going on! I'd like to introduce you to what I've been working on the last few weeks - my new portfolio site! Those of you who have been coming here will have noticed the two changes of banner images recently - one was a trial, and the other (on now) was to make it more in-line with the website, which is at : http://cargocollective.com/planetmithi

It's still in the process of being refined - lets call it a beta-release ... - and I'm hoping as I produce more work over the year; I can take off some of the old stuff, and put on more new stuff - but at least I've got something up now... Also, planetmithi.com is still redirecting to this blog - but in the future, when I'm happier with the state of the portfolio, planetmithi.com will direct straight through to the portfolio site ...

The other thing I've been up to is I've also finally set up a SHOP! After two years of having an account there, I give you http://planetmithi.etsy.com

Not much on there at the moment - but you can purchase mini prints of my little Charleston Bees Knees girls and also Mr Fox ;)

This is also, my 300th post! And in conjunction, I've got a little giveaway for my lovely readers... Remember our wedding invite and how much fun our guests had with them? Well, I have about 8 tweeters still available to the first 10 people who leave me a comment here (please make sure you put in your e-mail address so that I can get hold of you to ask for your address ...). Come on folks! Stop, lurking and say hello!

The first term on my final (yikes!) year as an illustration student officially starts tomorrow - although not a lot happens in the first couple of weeks ... Stay tuned for some exciting new adventures in the next year :)

Giveaway edit: Yay ... all gone!
1. Kerstin
2. SaraPham
3. Lucy H
4. Andrea
5. TheFrase
6. FabricNation
7. Claire
8. Emma

Will be in touch ASAP!

Thank you ...

The wedding posts have been really well received over the blogosphere - and I thought I'd say a little Thank You to all the lovely posters - and Welcome to everyone who is new to planetmithi! ... Click on the banner images to go straight to the article :)

Flaptastic!

I met up with the lovely Vicky of Clara Bows last night - first came across her at a craft fair selling the most gorgeous 20s style cloche hats I had ever seen! I'm doing a little fun project for her (see pics above) - and in return I am getting one of those stunning hats! Yay flaptastic me!

ps: have a look at Vicky's fab 20s style recent wedding, photographed by Bristol's own Rosie Parsons here and here.

Wedding Wednesday - part 6

Today ... my favourite wedding project: The corsages ... (other wedding related posts here)

Ours, and wearing them during our first dance :)

Rather than make boutonnieres, which just didn't appeal to me, I handmade little photo corsage/ribbon/brooch/award things for all the wedding party and immediate family. Unfortunately in the rush to finish them, I didn't document me making them, or the final brooches before I gave them out. The photos here are from after the wedding - and I've tried my best to include pictures of their wearers too - also found this difficult and am missing a few ... oooooh wellllll ...

The parents...

My sister...

Sunshine's sister and brother-in-law

The bestman ...

The man-of-honour...

My grandma (left) and the bridesman (right)

The missing photos are Nic, the bestlady, who had one similar to my sister's in shades of orange; and my aunt (mum's sister) whose birthday it was that day and who got one similar to the mums' but in shades of green.

The photo frames are little dollhouse frames that I spray-painted white. The whole thing is stuck/sewn to a backing piece of felt onto which I attached a safety pin. Fairly straight forward you would think - but it took a long time: sourcing the right colours and combinations of ribbons; doing all the sewing - especially sewing all the names on; sourcing all the photographs; and just in general putting it all together. The family photos are of us when we were young with the respective family member; and the ones with the "best posse" were again one of us with the respective wearer. I am SO happy with these. I am going to frame up Sunshine and mine's with the peg-doll cake-toppers that Sunshine's sister made for us, with a few other wedding bits and bobs into a shadow box. My mum wants to frame our family ones too ... really glad I took the time do this ... and so enjoyed it too :)

Holy Adana!?!

Years of keeping eyes peeled (well actually Sunshine spotted it...) at charity shops/reclaimers/ebay etc have finally lead to a dream find... let me introduce you to the latest addition to the family: "Adony" (that's what Sunshine keeps calling it!) - a vintage Adana 8x5 in fully working order. We've de-gunk-ified and got all the parts oiled and moving. Need to invest in some rollers, ink, and type/image plates ... and we shall be in letterpress heaven! Wow-wee!!!

Note: It's tabletop sized - looks a bit big because of the angle the photo's been taken in ... See pic below of Sunshine reassembling it:

Hawker Hart

Family project number one. Switch off the internets (we haven't got a telly) and make something instead...

Model bought kit while we were on honeymoon. Last night - Mithi on lower wings; Sunshine on fuselage ... still a way to go ... but so much nicer than staring at a screen ;)

Wedding Wednesday - part 5

Guestbook and Hellos ...(other wedding related posts here)

So these were the two projects that didn't quite go to plan - but turned out great anyways ... firstly, the wedding photo-guestbook.

*Above: Our friends who got married 6 weeks after us :)

Hugely inspired by all the photo-guestbooks on pretty much every wedding related website/blog that's out there. We set out to make our own. Sunshine, his dad, and the man-of-honour got together and via some trial and error fashioned a frame from bamboo poles taped together and stuck into two concrete pots that usually hold garden umbrellas. The large piece of floral fabric was originally bought as possible bunting fabric. I also made up a little chalkboard speech bubble using some thin plywood cut to shape; then painted with chalkboard paint on both sides. Add to that some chunky chalk; and a picnic basket full of random hats, leis, feather boas and other props; and there you have a great photo-guestbook set up. We got the bestman's digital camera set up on a tripod, and set it to auto ... and left the whole set-up in the garden ...

All our hopes of people spending time in the garden were unfortunately thwarted as it was quite a gray day, and most people spent most of their time in the marquee - this meant that not a lot of people discovered the photobooth (although we did try to get the word out), and so we only have about 30 pictures ... BUT they are some of the fabbest pictures of the wedding yet! See the full set of photos here.

The other thing I did was make up lots of "Hello, my name is..." tags for everyone. Sunshine and I know lots of lovely people, but they don't all necessarily know each other. I had hoped to make these up; written guests' names on myself; and maybe added a bit of "... ask me about ___" as a conversation starter; and added their table assignment on the back. But due to the last minute-ness of lots of things ... that never happened. Still, I didn't want them to be wasted - so I left a basket full of them with a sharpie by the entrance to the marquee. And not surprisingly, people found them and wrote their names on! Some did a more than just write their names though ;)

I didn't like the standard stickers you could buy, so made them up smaller and in a font that I liked and printed out sheets of them. I also bought packs of rectangular badges which I stuck to the back of my printouts with some spray adhesive. Then it was quite easy to cut individual badges out.

By the way, Burning Dan was our official photographer - he's not a wedding photographer, but he's a friend who's very good at getting reactions out of people, and we have some stunning shots of the wedding guests from him (that we are still working through ...) - that will be another future post ...

Next week - my favourite craft project of the wedding!

For Zorka

Very belated wedding present for the knitmeister...

Wedding Wednesday - part 4

Cakes! ... (other wedding related posts here)


Neither Sunshine nor I are big fans of wedding cake - especially the traditional fruit cake and marzipan sort. Most weddings I've been to I've found the cake was the 'least eaten' thing ... So instead, we did what Sunshine's sister had done at her wedding - asked our friends to bring us a cake in lieu of a wedding present! And MAN did we have cake!

As you can see, we had at least 15 different cakes, including gluten-free ones and even a vegan one. I had been collecting vintage cake stands for the last year or so, so lay them out on a long table, simply decorated in the front with some coloured paper doilies on string. I also made each cake a little label-on-a-stick. Very easy, just printed the names out on some coloured card, then cut round in a vaguely oval shape with my scallop-edged craft scissors. The sticks are those little stirrers you get in coffee shops.

At the end we picked one of the lovely cakes (made by Lynn and Jon, which had incidentally been assembled that morning at a camp site!) and stuck in a couple of peg doll cake toppers that my new sister-in-law Lucy had made especially (she even made them to look like us - aren't they just lovely!?!).

We also laid out some boiled sweets and my mum/sis/aunt made a stack of little cupcakes (haven't got good photos of those) and also you can just about see on some of the cake photos, Sunshine's parents brought us some lovely nutty petit-four kind of things from Dubai. And I have to say, it all went down a treat.... The table of cakes lay untouched - till after we had had dinner, and after we had cut our cake - and then it was like a swarm attacking the table! There was hardly anything left at the end of the night :) ...

So there you have it, our wedding sweeties ... more stuff to come next week ...