Crane Chandelier Project

What is the MOST exciting thing about this is that we made these cranes for ourselves, but they are going to be charitably re-purposed after our wedding. We got an email from a good friend (who is coincidentally getting married two days after we do). She knew that we were in the midst of crane-making, and stumbled upon a blog that mentioned the "Crane Chandelier Project," which is the work of a Toronto artist. The project is to collect 10,000 total cranes, from brides and grooms. The bride and groom sign the crane with their names and the date they are getting (or did get) married. For every crane that is given for the project, 50¢ is going to be donated toward cancer research. Sebastien wrote to the organization hosting the event (The Wedding Co.), and said, "Hey - I know that you are trying to get cranes, and that you usually get them one at a time - would you be willing to still donate 50¢ per crane, if we donate 800 of them?" (or some thing like that).
They said YES!, and so we are psyched! That is $400 (at least!) that we will be able to donate. I am so happy we can do this.

That's a Lot of Birds!!

I told you a couple of weeks ago that we had finished with our cranes. Last Wednesday (Canada Day), we had off from work, and we mainly stayed around the house getting things done. We wanted to begin to string the cranes, for decoration, and needed to make some sense of them, so I decided to dump all the colored cranes on our flat file, in the middle of the living room (most of them are there still....) Keep in mind that the flat file is approximately 3'x5' large.
Anyway, I emptied the multi-colored cranes from a box onto the table, and was in awe that they only make up a third of the number of paper cranes we made (it was interesting that without any planning, we had roughly equal numbers of multi-colored, large silver, and small silver cranes). I decided to pull the red ones aside, to use with some of the silver that we want to string. When I did that I thought, "I wonder how many orange cranes we have?," and so on with green and light blue, etc....

Soon enough, the table was covered in little piles of color, and it didn't take any time at all to give them a ROYGBIV-type organization. Once we said "How cool!" enough times, I realized that the center of the table was a perfect place for all the silver cranes as well (the top picture is only half of the silver ones!). You can see the results. We were pretty excited that the pictures turned out so well too.

Wonderful Party - and Great Inspiration!

I have been following this blog a bit lately - A Cup of Jo. The blogger also writes columns for MarieClaire and the New York Magazine and Glamour (to name a few), but I really like her personal site a lot. She has lot of good ideas about things to make and do, and she has a really good eye for design. There are two parties I found on her blog, and one separate entry (I think they are old posts) that I thought could be helpful if you are wondering what the Jazz Age style was like, and how it could be carried out.

These should give you an idea:

1930's (new) Depression Party

Great Gadsby Goodbye Party

and lastly (scroll down for this - these dresses are worth it), 1930's Europe

One Month and Counting!

We are quickly approaching July!! Our to-do list is getting longer and longer, even as we cross more and more things off.
Sebastien and I have been busy the last few nights, learning how to make neckties. We are sewing his silk tie, as wall at the one for his Best Man. They are looking good so far! This photo shows our living room, in the midst of project-time, and my "sewing table" (a.k.a. a plywood board balanced on a sawhorse). As you can imagine, our 760sf apartment gets pretty full, fairly quickly. You can see one of the silk ties on the table (we haven't started the other one yet), as well as our practice tie, made of cheap muslin. This photo is me, with the practice tie that we made this past week. It turned out surprisingly well, so I am excited to see how nice the silk looks!!

We've Finished....

Making cranes! We re-counted them tonight, and we have one thousand and one (1001) paper cranes!



2/3 of them are silver, and the rest are colored or patterned. They are all unique. I am excited that we finished with so much time to spare! Now all we have to do is sew them all together! We'll see how that goes....

Rooms at Edgefield

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are almost reaching the end of our "blocked rooms" date! On June 23rd I believe (please don't quote me) we will no longer have a hold on these rooms. If you haven't booked, please do soon. We really want to see you there, and if you stay on premises, you don't have to go home after the party! --And everyone likes that!

Some more Illustrations!

I thought you all might find some of these interesting too…. I just love the illustrations. Anyway…. That is all, until I find more!!