Cake Topper

A lot has happened that I've skipped posting about. I've been wanting to keep some pieces of information to myself, as I'm afraid if I spill all the beans on here, there will be no fun surprises at the wedding for those who attend. But today's progress with wedding planning was too fun to keep to myself.

Nick (my handsome fiance) spends a lot of time at this place called Noisebridge in San Francisco. It's known to be a bit of a "hacker hangout." He finally took me there about a week ago to show me this place that he's so crazy about.

On what I thought was an unrelated note... I have been searching the internet trying to find a cake topper that inspired me. I found some cute wood cut-out style toppers on Etsy that someone would make for us and base the images on a photo we provided them with. I thought that was cool, but how odd to have a cartoon character version of ourselves drawn by someone else. I then emailed and asked the gal if she would make a cut-out based on an image that I drew and she said she would, but that she'd charge me more. Then all of a sudden, I remembered hanging out with my friend Lisa when she showed me a wood cut-out project that she was working on. AND I remembered seeing a woodshop at Noisebridge when Nick had given me a tour there.

So today, Lisa and I made plans to hang out at the Noisebridge woodshop together today. I somewhat spontaneously came up with an illustration after we arrived and painstakingly sketched it out directly onto a piece of woodscrap that was there. I would recommend sketching it on paper first for future reference, as brushing eraser crumbs off of wood left me with a couple of splinters. But in the end, with *much* needed coaching from Lisa, I was able to cut out a final draft of the illustration.

I'm planning to paint it and probably sand it down a little better. But I'm pretty psyched by my first draft, especially considering this was my first time using a band saw. And I left Noisebridge with all of my fingers intact! Yay!