I’ve started to infused my own spirits at home, and made bitters from Chinese tea. If you’re interested in homemade bar ingredients, leave a comment! I’ll do a post on them!
Homemade
DIY: Wedding Veil
Putting the veil on.
Wedding veils are a special piece of clothing. Patriarchal connotations aside, it is one of the things that marked me as a bride in my mind when I got married. I love the pictures of me putting it on before the ceremony.
Veils are horrifically overpriced. The ones I was offered while trying on my dress were all over $120. A quick scan of the major outlets that I considered, and these two come into (pricey) focus.
Courtesy of David’s Bridal
The most affordable one, at 66 GBP ($100). Others that were similar to mine come in at nearly $200, inexplicably.
Courtesy of David’s Bridal
You might think, as I did, that going the Etsy route might be a cost-saver. You would be mostly wrong.
How is this 81 GBP, exactly? Courtesy of gebridal.
I dreamed of making my own wedding veil for years. I used to wrap myself in my great-grandmothers’ table cloths, imagining how cool they would look as a homemade cathedral veil. I wanted to make my own, and this is how I went about it.
To Make Your Own Wedding Veil
- Decide what length you would like, and the style. My veil is a fingertip veil with a blusher to go over the face.
- Research your fabric options. Keep in mind that vintage fabrics will cost more. ALWAYS check the measurements with a measuring tape at home before ordering. Order a comb of a medium size as well.
- When your fabric arrives, play with it. For several days/weeks. Don’t cut it until you are sure of what style you’d like.
- Lace is hard. I originally wanted a mantilla-like veil. I decided the lace weighed it down too much and skipped it. If you want a mantilla-veil DIY tutorial, check out this one!
- Decide how to attach the veil. I used metal wire and wrapped it around the comb with freshwater pearls and beads, but plain string could work just as well. Make certain that the attachment will be strong.
- Sit down in the afternoon and attach the veil. Try it one with the comb and make sure you like the placement.
Close up of the attachment.
- If you’re happy with it, reinforce the attachment site with another round of wire/string.
- Be happy with your wedding veil!
Playing with the veil in late October.
My whole veil cost less than 20 GBP to make, and it was exactly what I wanted. If you only do one DIY project, let this be it!
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Garden Progress!
The Octopus’ Garden is making progress, in the tenuous English spring. Today we went to get more supplies and new pots for some of our charges, since the zucchini are growing well and needed more space. Our onions have also come up, and the garlic is growing intensely.
My favourite find today are the Dreadnought beans we found. I hope they grow big enough to hit costal targets at a distance of several nautical miles. The lettuces and potatoes are coming out, but the peppers and tomatoes seem to have stalled in the periodic hailstorms of this March. Hopefully it will warm up properly soon and they will get growing.
There’s also another DIY project that needs an update: our second batch of homemade mead! The first batch was a quick mead that we made for Christmas, with success. This is a bigger batch, split into two 5-litre fermentations. One was put into our fermenting cabinet from before, and the other we kept in our room. Both have the same amount of champagne yeast to drive fermentation. A noticeable difference is already showing up.
Cabinet batch
Batch in our room. Note the colour!
We hope to have both meads bottled and cured for weddings later this year.
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A Productive Lazy Sunday
My desk, a favourite feature in our room.
I’ve been training a bit in my spare time to make jewellery. In my beginner’s silversmithing course, I’ve made two rings, a keychain, and a pair of earrings. I’m on my way to becoming a maker, as long as I get some more tools.
My jewellery-making began with beading, and I’m still the most comfortable with it. Wire-wrapped projects like the necklace I made from rocks collected in the Ganges in India are frustrating. I tend to slice my fingers on the wire. I usually make the gifts I give for Christmas and birthdays, and I love to make hair clips with feathers and jewels. Beading is easier, and my hometown bead shop Nomad is a beautiful indulgence for a cash-strapped 20-something. I could always find what I needed, and running my fingers through the displays of beads in cocktail glasses relaxes me on even the worst day.
Today was a day for sitting around indoors while a chicken roasts in the oven, relaxing before the onslaught of the week. I napped off the worst of a That-Cider-Was-Too-Strong headache from celebrating Korean New Year with friends in London last night, and woke up with a strong desire to do some beading.
Findings box….
I decided on a button statement necklace. I made a similar one for my sister’s birthday early in January.
The finished necklace
Close up
Statement necklaces are just so IN right now….
Creative juices flowing, I started in on some interchangeable hoop dangles to update my earring collection. They took me only about a half hour, whereas the necklace took much longer.
Interchangeable earrings!
Dressy
Casual
Making things gives my days purpose. I feel accomplished even if I have sat around on my butt most of this productive lazy Sunday.
BONUS: Roast Sunday dinner, on low temperature all day.
Recipe: Cut up two sweet potatoes, two apples, two cloves of garlic, and arrange them around one cheap fryer chicken. Drizzle with 150 ml cheap red wine, a tablespoon of butter, and about 4 tablespoons olive oil. Shake coarse salt over it and put into a cold oven that is set to heat up to 100 C. Leave it there, checking on it and basting occasionally, for at least four hours. About 20 minutes before serving, turn the oven up to 180C and crisp the skin, watching much more closely. Let sit for 10 minutes when finished and carve.
Roasted Perfection.
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International Blanket: Progress Report
It will cover a full-sized bed when finished.
So much work!
Halfway finished. Only 30 more squares to go until it’s time to join them! This is my international blanket, which I began in South Korea in January 2012 and have carried with me around the world. Wish me luck!
