Bohemian Mermaid Palace

I thought it would be handy to have a list of all my free crochet patterns and craft tutorials in one place. So here you go!  These projects and patterns are the original designs of Bohemian Mermaid and are in all ways FREE. Go ahead and make them for sale, print and share, do whatever you like. Just please give credit to Bohemian Mermaid and link back to this blog. Enjoy!   ~Crochet Patterns~    Crochet Basics: A Handy Reference Basic Hat Beer Can Hat Erica's Tweed Cloche Easy Slippers ~Craft Tutorials~    Beer Can Hat   Making the Daphne Book   Outdoor Dog Bed Quick Recycled Notebook Painted Organza Flower (in progress) RockStar Can Tiara (in progress) ~Wedding Geekout~ Wedding Geekout  The Ring and Theme The Invitations The Clothing   The Jewels

Oooooh I had some fun with these! Here is my lovely wedding jewelry, made of all sterling silver, natural mother of pearl, freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystals. In keeping with my beach theme, I love how these worked out. I think the crystals look like little water drops on the shells. Love it! I used sterling wire and headpins to wrap the beads into links and dangles. It's a little hard to tell (actually if you click on the pics they get much bigger), but the idea was to wrap extra wire around the top to make a sort of bead cap for each one. I think in the future I will do a post on how to wire wrap beads... I bought bulk sterling chain and attached it to a fancy wave clasp in the front, and I love the look of it! I did the same for my two best ladies, but with fewer dangles and a smaller clasp. They also got simple crystal earrings to match. I made a matching headband at the last minute, after looking at some online. For this, I used silver colored beading wire I

Ok, on to the fun part. You know, it took me a while to come up with a wedding dress design. Getting married is just not something I've ever thought about. I know it's typical to have at least passing fantasies about your wedding or dress sometime over the years... but I never did. I never planned on getting married, never wanted to ever before. Funny. So when I finally considered the fact that we might indeed marry at some point, I did some doodling and came up with a plan. In the end, the outfit looked almost exactly like this doodle.  The basic plan was a pseudo-Victorian-ish outfit made up of 3 layered parts - a ruffly jacket, a short dress and a long underskirt. Using the tan and brown as 'beach' parts, and blue as the watery part to fit my Ocean Wave theme. I decided Stu and I (and my sweet little niece Daphne, the ring bearer) would be the only ones to wear blue.  I made a Wave stamp and printed the design around the hem of my overdress, and added a

I made our wedding invitations as simple and cheapo as possible. Like I said, some things I just didn't care that much about. I looked online and folks seriously get into their diy invitations... I didn't have the time or the inclination to get off on them that much. Still, I am happy with the end result. Perfectly acceptable. We also decided to send out an evite, using Purple Trail . This way we were sure to cover everyone... most of my friends are online, most of Stu's are not. For some folks we had emails but no street address or vice versa. So, we just sent both types to everyone. I decided the cheapest way to do the printed invitations, was to format them so they would fit into a standard envelope. I chose the parchment card stock and blue paper to go with my wedding colors and theme. The parchment looks kinda sandy and I liked that. I just cut two rectangles and glue-sticked them together (if I were to do it again, I would use rubber cement for a better stick job)

When we got engaged, I pretty much demanded a ring. Ha. Our engagement was completely unceremonious... over drinks in the kitchen one night, I suggested we throw onto the table  our pros and cons about getting married. We'd been not talking about it for about a year and I could stand it no longer. We discussed it while Stu cooked dinner, and agreed the pros outweighed the cons. I suggested a year from then would be a good time, he agreed. I said,"And I want a ring. Nothing outrageous, just something I can flash around for the next year and say I'm getting married." He said that was reasonable... especially since we'd been together for 7 years and I'd been hinting (not at all tactfully) for some kind of ring or Something for the past couple.  We both know I'm not a gold and diamond kind of girl. I don't need to own shiny things as a general rule... but a sweet sparkly thing from a cute boy is nice to have. So I designed this ring and had it made. I

It's finally done. I'm married now... and months of planning payed off with a kickass wedding.  Man, it's been a busy year! Now that the wedding is done and the shows have finished up for the most part, it's time to switch gears. I'm going to get back to posting projects here and I can't help but start with wedding stuff. I had a blast with the crafty parts of the wedding... but I was mostly interested in the clothing and jewelry. Some other parts I did cheap and simple, some parts my friends took over. In the end our wedding cost very little, and not only did we  cover all of it with gifts, donations and barter, we actually came out ahead! We're planning a trip to Hawaii next month. Ha. Anyway, since I have all these fun details in my head and it worked out so well... I thought it would be fun to post some projects and info on how we pulled it together. Our cheap, fun and crafty wedding.