keepin' it hardcore

I am lucky to have had the same best friends for basically my entire life. Who else could I possibly ask to be my bridesmaids then them, my flock.  Originally I didn't want to put anyone out by asking them to be part of my wedding party but when I thought about walking down the aisle, I said to them, "I'm not gonna be the first one to get married and do it all alone, you guys are walking first!" I made it somewhat easy and requested only that they wear all black and their only duty will be to walk ahead of me.

For sharing the special day with me, I decided to make them a little something to wear to remind us of a past time we all shared together...being punk rock. Those were the years of my life that left the biggest impression on me and really formed me as a person. A safety pin through our ear was something we all tried and it is a symbol of the way we were. For each of them to wear in their ear on my wedding day, I had 14k gold safety pins made. 

Displayed in a unique box with a current picture of each best friend and a picture on the flip side of me in those punk years over a decade back... keepin' it hardcore with all of them—I love you riot grrrls.

delivery!

I was so excited last week to receive a package I have been waiting for for about three months! I ordered a ton of phantom crystals (130 to be exact) for the wedding (going with a crystal theme). In their fully loaded box, they were all lined up, pristinely wrapped and each one had to be meticulously undressed. I cleaned them all up (with goo gone to remove tape) but still need to bathe them of their old energy and give them a new life. Hosanna told me a glass bowl of water in the sun should do the trick. Happy to hear that I won't need to rinse them in the East River!

Two deliveries arriving at once is overwhelmingly exhilarating—when you've waited so long. I opened the second box that encased this odd rock ball... 

Yes my geode is here!

the untraditional wedding invite

I'm really not the wedding type but... I am getting married. 

It took months to figure out what we wanted to do to celebrate, we decided to throw a party. The party has morphed into what I would technically have to call "a wedding" but we are doing things a little differently.

It starts with the invitation. After being time warped into the 1950's for the film I was working on, I became obsessed with ads from the era. I couldn't stop flipping to this Shirley MacLaine sweepstakes ad in the center of a Spencer Gifts catalogue and decided that was it!

With some play on words and handy Adobe Illustrator, I re-created the mail-in as our wedding invite.

Our theme, crystals.

I was struggling to find the right image for the back of the postcard and I came across this article on a contortionist in another old magazine. I just loved the photos and thought they were so fun, crazy, different and kind of represented how I feel when I think about weddings—they looks like fun but are always a little uncomfortable. Why not bend the wedding "rules" a bit?

A stack of invites, complete and ready for the usps.

Martha's Plaid

We started back up at Martha on Monday after being on a (long) summer hiatus. Day two, arrived the new Martha Stewart line of Plaid craft paint. We unpacked it to get inspired and study the colors. It's a pretty innovative paint line—it works on all different surfaces– you can use the same paint on glass, ceramics, metal, wood, paper, fabric... basically anything! It's a thrill for me to experiment with new products and oddly enough, exciting to be back at work!

The art department took a lunch break stroll on the high line as well and these beautiful  colored glass windows made me want to dabble in gradients of paint colors when I got back to the studio. Color makes me happy... but complete lack of color makes me happy too!? whatever