The Gravy Train

martha, can you hear me?

Above: the breakfast table at my friend Melanie's bridal shower

I'm really excited to finally share with you a project I've had in the works for a few months now.  My dear friend Melanie is getting married this coming April in Louisiana, and last year, right after she got engaged, she asked me to be her matron of honor.  (It actually pains me a little to call myself a "matron."  I feel like I should be wearing my hair in a tight bun and shushing people.)

Anyway, last weekend I went to New York City without the Gravy Baby and the hubby to celebrate one of Melanie's last weekends of singlehood.  I chose the theme of our weekend, "A Heartthrob Weekend" based on a long-standing interest that Melanie and I share: celebrity crushes.  No, I'm not kidding.  Ever since college, Melanie and I have crushed on everyone from Joshua Jackson to Freddie Prinze , Jr. to our latest, Ryan Gosling.  There's a meme on the internet where people will take smoldering images of Ryan Gosling and impose them with the phrase "Hey Girl" followed by some utterly hilarious, sensitive-type slogans. 

First, I worked with the excellent design team at Mac & Murphy, a local paper store here in Charleston, to help design a girly yet tongue-in-cheek invitation that would set the tone of the weekend.  They came up with the invitation, and then I took it from there, incorporating Melanie's wedding colors of yellow, aqua and gold.

Top left: the buffet table set up with homemade granola; top right: my jalapeno pimento cheese dip; bottom left: lace doily cupcake liners hold red velvet cupcakes from the bride's favorite bakery, Buttercup Bakeshop; bottom right: these little tissue pom poms are trickier than they look

It's not easy to host a shower at the bride's apartment when I don't live anywhere near New York, but I took all of the decorations for the event in my carry-on suitcase, and roasted some homemade granola that traveled easily and, when paired with Greek yogurt and raspberries, could become an easy brunch dish. 

The hardest part of getting everything ready, as it turned out, was fluffing the tissue paper pom-poms.  Popularized by party hostess and craftmaker extraordinaire Martha Stewart , I have to admit that I took shortcuts -- I ordered mine premade from Etsy.  I figured that if someone helped me with actually putting them together, I could fluff them in minutes and set them up for a beautiful big splash of color in Melanie and her fiance's apartment.

Paper straws with flags that say "Yay, Melanie!" and "Hey Girl!" on the other side

Not so.  Making tissue pom-poms look fancy and perfectly round is tougher than it looks, and I spent more minutes than I'd lik to admit quietly stressing over tissue pom poms.  Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous this sounds now, but you have to understand that in the moment it seemed so mission critical.   Thanks to the Youtube ingenuity of another Asian-American bride, we found a helpful video that guided us to better pom-poms.  

Top: Melanie's Ryan Gosling postcards; bottom: the Gocco'ed second line hankies hanging to dry

If you've followed my blog over the past few years, you know that no wedding I'm involved in can pass without my Gocco printing machine being involved.  This time, I found Melanie a gocco'ed Ryan Gosling postcard to write her a congratulatory wedding message.  After the shower, we spent the afternoon Gocco'ing handkerchiefs for the second line parade that will happen after Melanie and Troy's reception.   After Melanie and I finalized the design, I made three screens to print the design in gold ink onto 22 dozen handkerchiefs.  That may sound like a daunting task, but it was actually one of the easiest Gocco projects I've ever tackled (bear in mind, I printed an entire wedding invitation suite while sweating and eight months pregnant in Malaysia).

We ended our night at Peel's NYC, a restaurant where Ryan Gosling was once photographed eating alone.  Melanie wore her hearthrob lockets (yes, she owns two, and no, they were not made for this particular occasion), and the ten of us dined on some out-of-this-world Southern comfort food.

By the end of the night, I could tell that Melanie was having a great time, and I was so happy that all of the planning from the past few months had resulted in a really fun weekend.  

And you know, I've almost recovered from the trauma that was those tissue pom-poms.  Almost.

Seriously, how does Martha do it?!

gravy baby, the cotton rabbit

 

 The Gravy Baby proudly wears his cottontail; this will probably be the only year he "lets" me get away with doing something like this

Happy Easter!  I hope your holiday was as good as ours.  Actually, scratch that.  We've discovered that the Gravy Baby's biggest fear to date is Easter.  Every part of it.  The eggs.  The running.  The scavenging for candy.  It's so ... uncivilized.

In a last-minute effort to get the Gravy Three into the spirit of things, I made the Gravy Baby's cottontail (pictured above) courtesy of my dear Martha.  Instead of producing a napkin ring, however, I wrapped the floral wire around a thick ribbon wide enough to cover the Gravy Baby's "Pampers" logo.  Because we're an ad-free family like that.

For more information on how to make tissue pom poms, click here.

labeling our travel

We're heading off again soon, and I'm frantically in the midst of packing and organizing us, along with other less exciting activities like finishing up our taxes.  Yes, we have to pay them, even though we're outside the U.S., and even though we technically get an extension until June 15, but I don't like things hanging over my head.

One thing I do like: crafty gadgets.  Recently the hubby came home to a quiet humming coming from our home office, and he walked in to find me hunched over my newest acquisition: a desktop laminator.  It's not like, a can opener, in terms of everyday usefulness, and I'm still having trouble justifying it to myself, even, despite my love of labeling and making things durable.

Nevertheless, I found two good uses for our laminator already: luggage tags and a helpful "travel cheat sheet" that lists all of our flights, confirmation numbers, and contact information of the people and places we'll be visiting.  The luggage tags have become more necessary as our number of pieces of luggage have grown to accommodate our little traveler and all of his gear, and I made the cheat sheet so that we'd have all of our travel logistics in one handy place.  Too often on our trips this information is printed on several pieces of paper scattered throughout my purse, and by the end of our trip it's a crumpled mess at the bottom of our bag.  

I printed our information on our printer (just our e-mail address, Skype name and an internet-based phone number, for security reasons) and backed the luggage tags with some pretty Japanese washi paper (you can buy some here).  For the travel cheat sheet, I just printed it up on the computer and cut it down to the size of one of my new laminating pouches.  The whole project took less than an hour, and we were super-styling on our last trip to Sri Lanka.  And we knew exactly where we needed to be and when, thanks to my trusty little travel cheat sheet.

So that makes my laminator totally useful, right?  Good purchase, right?  (Help me justify it, please.)

gravy on the up and up

My earlier post on Thanksgiving centerpieces was featured on the IKEA Hacker website!  Check it out here. 

making thanksgiving bright

Thanksgiving centerpieces made easy from IKEA supplies

We're preparing for multiple Thanksgivings here at Gravy Central.  Back in the U.S., I'd be busily assembling all of my supplies to brine a turkey and make all the fixings necessary for a big, traditional meal.  This year, I'm going on my second year of not roasting or hosting a turkey dinner, after my grandmother insisted that I make her a prime rib last year.  Since we've been invited to a few dinners here this year, we've decided to wait to make our Festivus meal when my sisters and brother-in-law trek over to KL next month.  

Instead, I'm busily in the process of assembling and making decorations for the American Association Thanksgiving, including these easy-peasy centerpieces I made from IKEA supplies.  

how to overdo it in 3 easy steps

Last weekend we hosted an open house for the Gravy Baby's full-month party.  It's a Chinese tradition where the parents celebrate the first month of the baby's life.  Having never been to a full month party, though, I came up with some ideas of my own on how we might pull off this little shindig.