after

Two days after the wedding, and my bouquet is doing just fine.  The marriage seems to be going pretty well, too, although that could just be because my man and I have been too tired to do anything but smirk at each other, fiddle with our wedding rings, and giggle every time someone says "husband" or "wife."

We're on a plane back to Seattle tomorrow and maybe back to something like "normal" life.  Hopefully, I'll have some juicy photos to share with you all soon.  I definitely have some thinking to do about the future of the Sparrow in the next few weeks.  (Do let me know, dear readers, if you have any thoughts on that complicated subject.  I really would appreciate some advice on the subject.  Also, I just like to hear from you all...)

For now, though, I am going to just sit for a few hours and do nothing. Weddings make you tired, friends.  They are beautiful and brave and exciting, but man oh man, are they exhausting, too.

I'll be posting again on Wednesday.  After I've had a very, very long nap.

always living

I did end up planting one of those little cedar boxes I hammered together last week.  I don't think I can leave it this way for long, though.  Everyone just looks so crowded together.  Cozy and sweet, but definitely crowded.  I'll go through and divide the clusters a little bit, and I think I'll end up with enough to plant all three of the containers.  I thought I should take some family photos, though, of everyone together, before I started breaking things up.

Like a lot of the other beautiful things in my life, the sedums came from my favorite farmers' market.  I bought them from a lovely gentleman at the Phocas Farms stall.  Before I left with my shopping bag full of sempervivums, he took me aside to show me the tiny packets of saffron that he's grown.  Saffron.  In Washington.  Who knew?  They don't have a website, but if you're ever in Port Angeles, you should look up Phocas Farms.  I know I intend to.

I've mentioned this before, but I do love succulents.  If we were having a different sort of wedding, I might have done something like Martha's succulent favors.  I know, I know.  It's so ten years ago.  Still, having centerpieces that do double-duty as favors for your guests to take home?  When it comes to working out the details, it doesn't get much better than that.  Martha's got it going on.

And then, there are the succulent bouquets.  I really do want one.  (When I'm not busy wanting every other kind of make-it-yourself bouquet.  Or deciding that I might just skip the thing altogether...)

Back in January, designer Britney Stiles featured some gorgeous pieces on her blog.  

You can see more photos and read the full post here.  

And if you're totally inspired, Flora Grubb's blog, The Cutting Garden, has a handy little how-to for making your own succulent bouquet.  (Just scroll down their page a bit, and you'll see the step-by-step photos...)

For the time being, I think I'll just stick with my little tabletop planters.  I'll probably spend weeks tweaking them until they're exactly what I had in mind.  It's always inspiring, though, to see what other people are doing.  And sooner or later, I'll be looking for a new challenge...

blossom

I've had flowers on my mind a lot lately.  Partially because the mild winter and early Seattle spring have left us with blooms and blossoms popping up all over.  And partially because I've been trying to work out this whole bouquet thing.

I love flowers.   Every spring, I'm incredibly grateful for the snowdrops and daffodils that offer a promise of something other than bleak, gray winter.  And sometimes, in the summer, I can't get enough of the scent of lavender or roses.  I'll stand on the sidewalk, savoring the riches of my neighbors' gardens, until I'm practically hyperventilating.

So this whole bouquet thing should be easy.  I'm not sure, though, that freshly cut flowers are exactly what I need.  For starters, I can't stand the idea of taking my wedding vows while clutching a handful of something that's been drenched with pesticides.  I could try special-ordering an organic bouquet on-line or through a florist, but I'd really rather have something that's grown locally.

I'd love to have a bouquet of sedum and succulents, but that might take some real ingenuity in rural Ohio.  And a few wildflowers would suit me just fine, but I'm not sure what, if anything, will be growing in the ditches when our wedding rolls around.

I've gone back and forth about all this for awhile now, and I've started thinking that maybe I should just make something to carry down that aisle.  If I were a better seamstress, I'd try fabric flowers.  I've been playing around with tissue paper, but so far, it hasn't really worked out.  More on that some other time...

If you search for "button bouquets" on etsy, there's plenty of inspiration.  I do have quite a button collection, and I haven't given up on that idea, yet.  Really, though, what I've been fixating on for the past few days is this custom rhinestone bouquet by L.A.-based Noaki.  You can visit her etsy shop here.

The primal girly-girl buried deep within me really, really wants one of these.  And then, of course, the crafty-craft girl in me just wants to figure out how to make one.  Honestly, I'm inclined to leave something this ornate to the professionals like Noaki, but it has gotten me thinking about other things that I've seen lying around and how I might be able to cobble them together.

Like these glass curtain rod finials that came through the shop awhile ago.


And these little guys.

I have no idea what they were originally for.  I know they look a lot like earrings, and maybe that's what they are.  The posts seem awfully sharp for that, though.  Regardless of what they were, I'm thinking they might end up a part of my latest bouquet experiment.  Looks like I've got another project on my to-do list.  I guess I'll have to let you know how this one shapes up...