Take that, summer!

So...it's hot.  Have I mentioned that yet?  Because it's really, really hot.  This is already the kind of summer where I wish I was a snowbird and had a summer home in some much cooler clime.  Like Siberia.

I know, I've used this photo before on this blog.  I don't care.  Non-Arizonans need to understand how painful this part of the country can be sometimes.

But!  The last few weeks, I have been testing out a brilliant heat-beating idea.

Summer time...time to sit back and unwind...

So it's May...and that means summer!  Well, honestly, in Tucson pretty much any time after tax day starts feeling like summer, and it continues until (or beyond!) Halloween.  Difference being, now the national chain shopping centers have gotten in on it, and you'll see stuff like swimsuits, cover-ups, pool toys, barbecue skewers, etc. in the seasonal aisle of Walgreen's, so that's how you know, "oh yeah, the rest of the world is finally having summer now too!"

And soon it becomes monsoon season, a.k.a. "the time when Whitney's phone fills with pictures of cool rainclouds and/or storm sunsets"!  That's always fun.

Remember when you were a kid and summer was SO EXCITING OMG because you got three whole months with no school, and you had fun things like camp, going to the neighborhood pool or water park, maybe sports or other summer activities, beach, vacations, road trips, and oh yeah, did I mention no school?  Super-fun.  

However, once you're done with school...it is no longer like that.  You still have work, same as always, only now it's scathingly hot while you work.  Not so cool.  Dammit, DJ Jazzy Jeff!  You've set my expectations for summer fun way too high!

But summer can still be enjoyable even as an adult, right?

Parties, painted stones, dog antics, and SPRING!

We had a good weekend, all the denizens of the Art Shack...it was both relaxing and productive, which is the kind of thing I like.  Productivity is good, but it's also good to sit down and have a beer when you're finished being productive, am I right?

We had our "yay, now we're married" party this weekend, which was basically just inviting all our friends over for a big party, since we had a small wedding and we couldn't invite everyone to that.  So I got to bust out our wedding flowers again...

And we did other stuff, too.

Getting ready for an arts festival/craft fair - what to do and how to do it

Over the past year I did a few arts festivals with the jewelry studio I worked for, and now I'm starting to think about applying to some of them as an artist myself.  Having done some already will give me a bit of an edge, I feel...each time we do another craft fair, we learn more, and the whole process gets easier.

Ahh, the smell of art commerce is in the air!

I'm hardly an expert, but I've picked some tips up from other people we've met at these fairs who are experts.  Based on my experience, and what I've heard from other artists, this is what I would advise...

Whitney's Cheap Artsy Wedding, Parte Tres: Las Flores!

This will probably be my last wedding crafts post for a while...and it's about flowers!  Who doesn't like flowers?  Grumpy cretins, that's who.  And besides, when you get married in the spring like we did, you're pretty much required to have flowers at your wedding.  It's the law.

Although I think nature supplies flowers enough of her own sometimes, no?

Fresh flowers are awesome, of course.  But when you have lots of guests who are allergic, or very scent-sensitive, or if you're just cheap (*raises hand* I am!), fresh is not always the way to go.  So you want silk flowers!  And for that, the goddess created Michael's.

How to have a cheap, artsy wedding, Part 2: get some autographs!

So...now I'm married! *fanfares* *throws confetti* That totally happened, y'all.

We had a seriously cheap wedding - but then, you can do that when you only invite 14 people.  And when you buy a generic white dress from Overstock.com, not a wedding dress.  And when you get an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins and don't tell them it's for a wedding (although it is equally delicious as your $450 cake, I just bet you).

 Since we would only have 14 people, a traditional guestbook would have been kinda weird, and would have ended up with tons of awkward blank space.  But no one ever said we were traditional.

No wedding bell blues here!

So, as I mentioned in my last entry, I'm getting married this weekend. (That's still a weird sentence to say!  I'll probably be still getting used to it for the next year...but in a good way.) I'm having a veeeeery small wedding, and I'm being as frugal as possible with most things: got my dress on Overstock.com, booked a pretty inexpensive venue, etc.  And of course, I made a bunch of wedding paraphernalia myself: I made my own bouquets, floral hair thingies for me and my bridesmaid, favors, guestbook, ring carrier...probably some others I'm forgetting.

It was really fun!  I tried to minimize my stress by working on these things bit by bit over the last few months, and it's really rewarding to have made lots of this stuff myself and put some creative skills to use.  I'm by no means the only bride ever to do this, as evidenced by Offbeat Bride and probably other websites.

I'm gonna go ahead and share, over the course of the next couple weeks, some of the wedding-related things I made, and maybe it'll be inspiring...does that mean that this is a... *gasp!* lifestyle blog?  Well, there are worse things to be.

Plying my many trades...

I haven't been painting this week, in spite of intending to paint or at least draw thumbnails for some new pieces.  I've been buzzing around getting wedding stuff ready (oh yeah, in case I hadn't mentioned on here: I'm getting married in two weeks.  Now you know!).  But at work I've been working on another art form, one that I've just recently gotten back into: jewelry making.

Made today...this one is not for work, this is for me.  I love the colors of these beads.