Desert Wedding

I finished putting together a set of wedding invitations late last week, and thought I would share. They turned out quite nice -- very simple, but that's exactly what they wanted.
Joel and Jessica came to me with the photo you see in the shot to the right. They were having what would probably be categorized as a destination wedding, but also a fairly small gathering of mostly family. They didn't want to go over the top on the invitations, like many destination weddings do. They just wanted one piece to announce the basic information, and were going to use the web for everything from RSVPs to directions.

I had paper in mind that I thought might be perfect -- Neenah's Peppered Bronze in a laid finish; the variegated color of the paper makes it look incredibly textured, but it doesn't present problems when it comes to screenprinting on it. Jessica liked it, and paired it with French Speckletone envelopes in 'Chocolate.' For ink we simply used the color of the opposite paper, and a clean script for the text.

The result is a compact little treasure, equally comfortable in a frame or on the fridge of its lucky recipients.

On a separate but related note, the rock garden is growing like crazy and blooming all over the place. It made for the perfect place to snap some shots of the new invitations.

Spring Has Sprung

Ok, so I didn't get new Etsy listings up, as I had promised. It was so gorgeous today that we ended up planting the garden and getting ever-so-slightly sunburnt instead.

A. has had the last few days off work, and he's been putting in the heavy labor of getting all the new dirt in and fertilized, so it was all ready for me to plan things out and put all the seeds in. We're hopeful that this year will go better than last. It couldn't go much worse; last year we got a total of maybe 5 tomatoes, 2 tiny ears of corn and 2 tiny spaghetti squashes, none of which matured enough to eat, and a small batch of deformed carrots. We did get a decent crop of Holy Mole peppers, which I harvested and then left briefly unatended on the front step, and by the time I got back Phaedra had chewed up each one. We blamed the dirt that was in the beds when we got the house, replete with bits of plastic, huge bent and rusted nails, chunks of glass, and all sorts of other treasures.

This year we've reworked our attack, with 6 sacks of organic compost, some organic fertilizer, and now that the roses have all been taken out, A. has given in to using the front bed for all of our full-sun crops. The front is going to have tomatoes, peppers, a smattering of herbs (fingers crossed for my Thai basil which I couldn't even coax into sprouting last year), spaghetti squash and zucchinis, a dense stand of corn, all intermingled with onions because they're supposed to keep away pests. We also moved the pathetic Rhodedendron bush so that it might have a chance at thriving and not being all lop-sided, and I planted climbing sweet peas (decorative flowers, not an edible crop, as I had to explain to A.) along the front fenceline since we're not going to get around to replacing the chain link with a real fence this year. The back is an extensive salad garden. Most of our salad greens fared okay last year, but this year we've actually given thought to full sun versus part shade. Oregon sweet pod peas, arugula, leeks, kale, butter and romaine lettuce, and lots of spinach.

Additionally, it looks like everything in the rock garden (save for one decorative grass that's on a sad state) along the front of the porch has survived the frost and snow of the freakish winter. A few of the sedums are just going nuts, and the remaining tulips (that Phaedra didn't dig up and eat last year) have poked up through the lava rock and are getting ready to bloom. I threw some poppy seeds around for good measure.

Things are happy at our little home.