Happy Year of the Fat Dragon Baby

My friend Kristen (of such internet notoriety as Kristen the Christmas Diorama & Kristen and the Wedding Tchotchkis) made a dragon costume (and flame on a stick! what!) for her friends very "healthy" (read: chunky muffin) baby and then convinced her co-workers to pose for this picture just so that she could wish all of us a very

Happy & Healthy Chinese New Year!

(And also because dressing babies up as animals is awesome.)  Thanks Kristen!

One Last Christmas Post: the Christmas Diorama

In December I helped my friend, photographer Kristen Mallory, make this awesome diorama to use as the backdrop for her annual Christmas card.  I couldn't share it until now because it would have blown the surprise!  (ok, technically I could have posted it anytime after Christmas but I was procrastinating busy.)  It came out so cute.  I was thrilled when I saw the finished product in my mailbox!

Above is a picture of the card in the diorama.  Pretty advanced stuff, I know.

To make it we covered a box (stolen from my cats) with pictures we cut from magazines.  Blues for the sky, some glaciers for the backdrop, greenery in front and one cup of coffee as a mountain in the front. 

Then we filled it with gnomes, forrest creatures, a peppermint disc tree (made by Kristen), mini twinkle lights & some moss and Kristen took pictures of it.  (It's amazing what a good photographer can do.)  

 

Ok, that was my last Christmas post of the season.  Honest.  No more.  Scouts honor.  I'm done.

xoxo, ~mandee rae

Wedding Wednesday: Tchotchke Centerpiece/Favors

...and with a little less than 5 hours left of this beautiful, rainy Wednesday I bring you:

 

                                                                                                              Picture by Kristen Mallory

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: 

TCHOTCHKE EDITION! 

For a full year before my wedding I collected tchotchkes from junk shops, second hand stores, garage sales and of course, Etsy to create my combination centerpiece/favors. 

There were a couple of rules for collecting these hollow treasures, they needed to be:

a. planters

b. under $7 (american currency) and

c. a little "off"....not exactly ugly, just "off".

To make them into centerpieces was truly a family affair.  We (my 4 year old flowergirl, Sister and I) planted succulents in all of the tchotchkes, put them on wooden disks (cut especially for me by my loving Father), accompanied them with precious little terra cotta pots filled with small white flowers (put together by Lady, my Mom) added hand stamped signs (Made by Liz) that said, "take me home tonight!" and then they were all artfully arranged on each table by my BFF, Gina Marie.

Pictures by Meredith Mascola

The results were 100% unique, semi home-made, adorable little bits of precious that I could hardly stand to give away!!  These were SUCH a huge hit I was blown away!  People were hiding them from each other and stealing them off tables all night.  I personally saw the squirrel change hands at least 3 times, I'm still hearing stories about who the rightful owner should be.  And now the fun part is finding out where all of them went.  I love going to friend's houses and seeing which planter everyone ended up with (aka who swiped what while no-one else was looking!)