Extracting Essence- a senior exhibition by me!

Exhibition postcards are finally here! Just 2 more weeks until the opening reception!

Saturday December 1st at Art Avenue From 6-9pm

212 East 5th street Greenville nc 27858

I will also be having an open house a semi repeat of this exhibition in my hometown of Epping New Hampshire! Dec 15th 1-4 pm

Wax carving

Carving the last few rings for my show a few octopus tentacle rings and a ring with a square stone for my casting demonstration!

I will post the carving process for the square stone ring after my presentation and demonstration in a few weeks so keep an eye out!

Earrings on a tree... Casting process

Sprued up and ready to invest. Each of these little wax models were made from several different molds I've made and carved/ altered from their original mold into dozens of unique earrings!

One "tree" of earrings will be cast in silver with the other two cast in bronze.

The largest tree is not made from wax but is actually plastic grapes cut up and arranged into earrings as well. They will also be cast in bronze, some may have pearls, enamel, or other components added afterwards. Keep your eyes open at the Holiday sale November 27th - 30th.

Bling N' Things Sale

The ECU Metals guild will be putting on its 1st annual Bling N' Things jewelry sale at Wright plaza, right in front of Dowdy on campus October 24th-25th!

Our sale committee has done a great job organizing this event (big thanks to Ellen Hinrichs, Samantha Clarke, Ashley Ray, and Kate Lambeth).

 This will also be our first go with taking credit cards! Yes, that now means you have no excuse to support the arts and growing guild on campus. Atleast stop by and say hello, steal a few business cards and take a peak at all of the fabulous jewelry

The sale will be from 9-2 ...more details below on our fabulous poster (lovin' our graphic design by Erin Meekins!)

special jewelry for a special day

Jewelry for the mother of the bride aka the 2nd most important lady of the day. The bracelet was made from an old spoon of her grandmothers with a D on it which is also the first initial of her name (Deborah). The mouth of the sppon was cut off partially and formed into a sterling silver bracelet

This necklace and matching earrings were made specially for my mom for my wedding. Her dress was a deep purple pinkish color (Raison it was called). I cut out a decent sized piece of silver and pierced out the simple design in the middle and drilled a hole to hand the pearl from. It also has a hammer texture and the chain is recycled from an old broken silver necklace my grandmother had left behind. The necklace fell low in the center of my moms mid section to draw the eye up and down and it was beautiful against her dress.

My necklace and earrings were recycled from an antique necklace of my grandmothers. I took the large center piece off and took two of the three crystals and made them into earrings. 

Brazilian wedding sweets, Portuguese, and cities of Brazil

"Bem Casados" also known as "Well married" or Good Marriage" are sweet morsels of delicious Brazilian wedding tradition. These little cakes are filled with a dulce de leite filling and covered in a sugar coating. The guest are supposed to make a wish for the Bride and Groom before their first bite! These were a big hit at the wedding and a great way to incorporate a bit of Brazilian tradition to share with our American guests and bring our cultures together. 

Another touch of Brazil was added with our table cards all named after cities in Brazil including Fortaleza- the home town of the Groom, Brasilia, Recife, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and many others. 

Of course I little Portuguese for everyone to enjoy. "La vem a noiva" - "Here comes the bride" !

meet the maids, meet the grooms, sign the rocks

For our groomsmen and bridesmaids we had these photos put together with a short bio of each and how we know eachother. "Meet the maids" and "Meet the Grooms" added a personal touch to our reception and gave everyone the opportunity to get to know our wedding party and their importance to us. 

Love rocks! We had several creative messages on our love messages from our guests. Including "Save $"...Thanks Uncle Norm... and "Rock Solid" along with few stick figure drawings and lots of good luck and I love you's. Thanks everyone! 

We displayed these rocks along with our sand pour vase. The vase was only half filled with our mixed sand so we secured it by placing the love rocks piled on top for a keepsake display.

The rings- before and after

I did of course receive a beautiful ring from my husband when he proposed. However, being an aspiring metal smith/jeweler I wanted to use this opportunity to make rings for both of us that were unique to our even more unique relationship. After finally solidifying a design and went on to take apart my original ring which was an odd process at first. I used the gold from my rings as accents on my new design and also as the setting around the 3 stones in the center. I used my original diamond from my husband but also added my grandmothers diamond and a yellow sapphire.

The overall look

The Florist arranged our beautiful displays for the table in all of my grandmothers vintage glass bottles. The flowers were added the the girls hair to tie the two looks together.

The hair, the dress, the necklaces, the lace, the flowers....everything just came together perfectly. 

Signs, Letters, "Thank you's" and "I do's"

Using text and words at your wedding ceremony and reception is a nice touch to use in photos later, or use as thank you notes for your guests. It shows that you thought about them even before the wedding began because you planned ahead and while you were focusing on each other you still took the time to remember that special moment when you thank your guests. Text in your photos is also helpful when you put an album or display of photos together later. The text adds a moment of pause when looking at the photos and engages the viewer. 

Text for your guests at the ceremony engages them as well. For our ceremony our ring bearer carried a sign that said "Here comes the Bride!" and translated in Portuguese for our non-English guests. Even if we didn't have guests who didn't speak English it was a nice touch to bring the two cultures together. Our sign had a small lace/fabric bag hanging from it  so the ring bearer didn't have to carry two things at once. We also put fake rings inside the bag just in case! 

hand made boutonnieres

Can't forget about the guys! For all our grooms, ring bearer  fathers and grandfathers of the bride and groom and our officiant my mom and I handmade these adorable boutonnieres. Each one starts out with a circular doily which we folded into a cone shape. In the top of the cone we stitched in different fabrics that matched the clutches for our bridesmaids. All the grooms had different colored fabrics inside their boutonnieres and each had a flower made from ribbon. There are tons of tutorials on how to make flowers from ribbon online but you can also just add a touch with the wire edged ribbon that ripples and folds easily  we also added a bit of tool, a pearl, and the blue fabric in the front is left over fabric from the girls dresses that was removed from the bottoms of the shorter gals. To differentiate the Groom's his was the only one with a white lace flower on the inside rather then colored ribbon and fabric to match the clutches.

Vintage display and lace inspired cake

I have always been attracted to the delicacy of lace and its vintage quality. I wanted to use lace but not have the wedding feel old so I used it in places like my cake to add a touch of detail, or as the ribbon on signs, and around bottles. However, my grandmother has many beautiful items from her life, old gloves, vintage purses, and gorgeous vintage lace.  I wanted to display all of these items not only for their symbolizm but I wanted to display photos of generations in my family on their wedding day as well. We have a photo of my parents on their wedding day as well as both sets of grandparents and my great grandmother. It seemed like a great way to show comparison of weddings over the years and those precious moments being captured each time.
       The Wedding cake came out so beautifully and the flowers tied it all together again. Chickadee Hill Cakes made it exactly the way I had explained and it tasted delicious!

Photos by Kyle Hoffman Photography

Just in case peopl forgot which ones were getting married! ;) My dad had a box full of molding samples so I picked out two that I liked and painted them white, added the letters and drilled holes for the lace ribbons. Voila! Using what you already have in your house is the cheapest way to make crafty ideas come alive!

Ceremony touches

photos by Kyle Hoffman Photography

  











Our ceremony being right outside of our reception space we definitely had to tie the two together and the best way to do that is with the flowers and special touches for your guests. We had flower petals down the whole runway, along with flowers in mason jars tied to the end chairs with lace/ribbon to tie into the mason jars and vintage bottles on the tables inside.
  
   There are cheaper ways to decorate a gazebo rather than doing the typical wrapping of tool up and down the posts. Our florist (Suzannes Flowers) added this special touch keeping it simple and not distracting.

Marrying a Brazilian native I wanted to bring our two cultures together and symbolize the joining of two lives from two different places. He brought sand from the beaches near his home in Fortaleza and mine from Rye beach NH. After mixing them it was nice to actually see the different colors of sand layered together. (NH sand was much darker and coarser than the beautiful beaches of Brazil)!

Alterations to fit your style!

Photos by Kyle Hoffman Photography

This necklace and earrings were transformed from a necklace that my grandmother had in collection I got after she passed. The original necklace had a large pendant in the middle of a silver fillagree flower shape with three tear drop shaped crystals hanging from it. For my wedding I wanted something a bit more simple with matching earrings. I took two of the crysals off of the necklace and made them into earrings and removed the pendant from the necklace to have just a simple chain with tiny crystals for my special day.

For my headpiece I had an idea of what I wanted and my mom and I were going to try to make something. While shopping for the materials we came across this beautiful bridal headpiece at new boutique called Accessory Appeal in Exeter NH. Lucky for me the bride who had it personally made for her never showed up to get it so it was the only one in the store!. To help it fit me even better I bent some of the feathers so they fell closer to my head instead of sticking up and out. Added a few antique pearls with the already white pearls so it pulled in the pearls on my necklace. I also added a peacock feather to the back. Although Peacocks or their colors had nothing to do with my wedding I do have a pretty good sized peacock tattoo on my back and it was sure to be shown off. Just to let everyone know that "Yes I know I have a tattoo" and "Yes I like it there!"

Leave an impression and help them fly away!

As a guest book I loved all the different versions I'd seen on this idea. I decided to make one of my own, so I draw this old fashioned car for us to "fly away" in or float away with the help
of the balloon thumb prints. My husband loves old fashioned bugs and I even added the little detail of the headrests to look like a brazil flag and american flag for our international marriage!

Unfortunately, most people did not get the "balloon" idea and printed below/all around the car. None the less it came out really cute with little smiley faces, drawings, and messages next to many of the thumb prints. This was a great way to interact the guests with the guest book.
Coming up...another great untraditional guest book and keep sake for years to come!
Photos by Kyle Hoffman photography!