Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Wedding Day!

Dream.  Love.                                

I've been hiding a pretty big project for a while, but now I can finally share it!

My sister-in-law got engaged last July.  The wedding was set for 7/7/14 (love the date!) in Greece and my family was looking forward to an amazing trip.  Especially Big and Little, who had fancy new dresses for their roles as flower girls.

As if that wasn't all exciting enough, back around Easter, my sister-in-law and her fiance asked me to make charms that could be attached to their wedding favors.  I was incredibly honored, and thrilled to do it.  They had great ideas about what they wanted, so between that and a few suggestions from me I was off and running!

It started with 100 circles, each 7/8" diameter, in copper and aluminum.  Here they are after I've removed the protective coating and counted them (more than once) to be sure I had enough!


First, I hammered each one with at texturing hammer.  Then the aluminum ones were stamped "DREAM" with a swirl design, and the copper blanks said "LOVE" with a heart.  Fortunately for my sanity, the bride and groom wanted things a bit whimsical so the design stamps didn't need to be perfectly aligned and exactly the same from one charm to another!


No matter how often I washed my hands after adding color to the words and designs for depth/contrast, they still looked like this for about a week.  Well worth it, though!


Finally, I punched a hole in each charm, curved it, and added a jump ring and channel round Swarovski crystal (blue for the aluminum, red for the copper).


The final result -


All that was left was for me to get them safely to the wedding, which was being held in Greece.  I had many a nightmare about being stopped at security with a box full of metal in my carry on, let me tell you!  The wedding invitation was packed in there right along with the charms, just in case, but I made it through security in three different countries/airports without getting flagged.  Not sure if that's a good thing or not...on one hand, I got them there without a hitch but on the other, yeah...I just carried a whole lot of metal on two international and one domestic flight with no questions asked.  Apparently a whole lot of tissue paper can confuse the x-ray machine, in case you're wondering.

It was a huge relief to hand them over to my sister-in-law so she could take them to the florist.  Next time I saw them, they were at each place setting at the reception attached to bouboniera (traditional Greek favors given at celebrations like weddings and christenings, filled with koufeta - Jordan almonds).



Congratulations to my sister-in-law and her new husband!  Wishing them a lifetime of happy dreams and much love.  And of course I have to add a shout out to their gorgeous flower girls for doing such a great job.  Mommy is very proud of you!