Escape into the secret garden

That sounds like a fun trip - right?

Well fun is relative. I'm just saying.

I'm feeling a constant level of agonizing stress right now. Push me into a place mentally that I have not been in many many years. Some of it is self inflicted (the result of bad decisions). Some of it is economic (I am employed in the construction industry). Some of it is due to all this wedding prep (which really should be a joyous thing to celebrate).

Too many things on my little plate right now. 

Oh well ----- the secret garden ----- aka getting away for some much needed time to just "BE". is not going to happen anytime soon. 

So we just keep plugging away at those wedding details. 

Over the last several days - and for a trackable 22 hours and 46 minutes over the weekend (Friday included), I have been creating flowers. 

The process included marking 100's of graduated circles on fabrics of synthetic materials. These were assorted white and blue fabrics.

Then hours of cutting --- going round and round. And making piles of these circles.

Leaving piles of scrap bits (the significance of those scraps will become evident in a few)

Then candle lit romance (not even).

Expose those fabric circles to heat ------ over and over and over.

Resulting in things that look like this......Blue flowers.

Stack five graduated ruffled "petals"  and sew on a button or some beads.

The amazing part was that the different fabrics reacted entirely different to the heat, giving me different plant varieties. All beautiful -- just very unpredictable.

Real flower petals are not allowed on the gorgeous wood floors of the wedding venue. The reason being that walking on them and crushing them can cause stains on those floors. So -- being the creative soul that I am (actually BEING COMPLETELY NUTS) --- after I melted all those flower pieces, I attacked the pile of scraps.

Trimmed and melted a gallon ziploc bag full of fake flower petals that match the colors of the wedding.

Cool?? Crazy?? You tell me.

Now on a simply beautiful moment frozen in time ---- if you hook up with me on facebook you have already seen this.

I took a picture of the white ones - not sew together - simply stacked and waiting.

Look how delicate this is. How fragile it looks.

That's how I feel. Delicate and quite a bit fragile right now. But as you handle these and stitch them together, you realize there is so much strength in them ---

Hopefully I have that much strength in me, because today I feel like I may come apart at the seams.

Love -- Olympic sized love.