Flower Arranging: New found hobby

After my wedding, the thing I missed the most is ..... the flowers.. learning about various types of flowers, looking through various flower arrangement. So in the end I sign up for a Flower Arrangement workshop by Celadon & Celery. They are based in New York but they had flower arrangement classes back in November in LA. I immediately signed up and a friend also joined me yay...

Here is a picture of the LA Flower market:

And pictures of some of my arrangements:

Love me some David Austin Juliet

The red flowers (the not long and slender one) is called straw flowers and it feels like straw and feels fake.. very strange!

The dahlias are yellow in the center but pink on the outsides (But it is dying after 4 days) no like!

DIY Menu Canvas board

Okay first see this post where I talk about my love for chalk boards but I have no money or the intention to create a chalk board.

Next see some inspiration pictures:

and then of course don't forget my invitation which also has made it into the menu board:

And... the final result.. ta da..........

It takes me about 3 hours to do or maybe 2.5 hours.

First i have an old canvas, big enough for the menu, I paint it all black... Let it dry for a couple days...

Second, I start to write the Menu on it using pencil.. That might be hard if you're not as good on keeping the writing straight so use rulers and stuff

Third, I decided to go with white paint (instead of grey which is my color) to make it contrast more and start writing over my pencil. and then add those pink flowers (inspired from my invitation) into it..

Fourth, I haven't done it but I am hoping to erase the pencil writings.. either by an eraser (gosh I hope it works) or just painting black over it.. The beauty of oil paint is you can just paint over it if it's wrong.. i heard acrylic dry faster but I like the look of oil for colors better...

Good luck trying!! What do you think of my menu canvas board?

DIY envelope liner

this is my first of a couple DIY.... eventhough i hate diy.. really i do... it all started when i was a kid... i was wrapping gifts... i think it was for christmas presents.. my brother (who is 8 years younger than me .. who is probably 8 years old at the time) and I were wrapping christmas presents.. I started gift wrapping my box... it was okay... i thought... and then my lil brother saw it and was like.. it doesnt' look good... and then he went on and wrap his gift.. and it does look way better.... i'm not detailed oriented so i dont care if some of the corners look messy while the others dont...

anyway i digress... DIY envelope liner.. I ordered my envelopes from www.cardsandpockets.com and they just have to a different envelope flap (longer than the other envelopes); so i actually have to create my own envelope liner ugh... but if you have a normal A7 envelope, this envelope liner template should work well for you.. just click on the link , print and cut..

Next up i was lucky that my work has paper cutter lying around that I could *borrow* on the weekend... i can't imagine if I have to cut the envelope liner one by one.. DIE... i actually cut about 10 or so liners each time and I just have to round up the top rounded corner.... Afterwards I just put the liner to the envelopes and glue it... At first I used the regular glue stick, which works fine but it's a lil bumpy, so I read that glue dots will work well... I went to staples and bought this while it works pretty good.. it doesn't have a lot of glue on it so after prob 50 envelopes I ran out of 2 of this glue roll on and went back to glue sticks...

Pictures will follow once I send the envelopes..

DIY idea: paint by number