Friday Favorites: Butterflies (and lemonade)

Back in September, two crazy kids had the most fabulous New York wedding. Before their nuptials, the happy couple asked Mr. Moggie to make lemonade to serve during the garden wedding.  We knew a few things about the wedding: the ceremony would be held in an East Village community garden, there would be butterflies and bowties, and the colors would be warm. But we also knew some things about the couple to guide us in the lemonade project: they care deeply about the earth and treating it well, they are thoughtful about the food they eat and where it comes from, they appreciate tasty food and drinks, and plain just doesn't describe them.
 
A few weeks later, Mr. Moggie scoured the local farmers' markets and our herb garden to come up with possible lemonade flavors. We gathered up some tiny jars, lots of sugar, a juicer, and many, many lemons. Hours later we had 12 different kinds of simple syrup: plain, raspberry, spearmint, chocolate mint, basil, rosemary, peach, blueberry, cantaloupe, yellow watermelon, plum, and jalapeno. We had a delicious taste testing session and discovered that jalapeno lemonade is remarkably refreshing. Then, we packaged samples of each of the syrups for the bride and groom, along with a scoresheet, so that they could make their own lemonade and choose their favorite flavors.

For my part, I found some eco-friendly disposable cups. They were made of a (otherwise destroyed) byproduct of sugar refining and were biodegradable. I used a butterfly cutout, some biodegradable lotka paper, and wheatstarch to decorate the cups to match the wedding's theme. On the big day, we filled the earth friendly cups with plain lemonade for guests who prefer the traditional, rosemary lemonade for those with discerning taste, and jalapeno lemonade for those who were truly adventurous. The wedding was beautiful, the lemonade stand was a hit, and butterflies were everywhere!

And they continue to infiltrate my days. Somehow, I've collected all of this butterfly paper and butterfly project material. That paper in the background is the serenity paper I mentioned a few posts back. The 12'x12' sheets, the chipboard butterflies, and the pink felt butterflies were from recent scrapbook kits (maybe moshposh, maybe the sadly extinct cupcake scrapshop). I picked up the orange monarchs at Paper Source this summer; they're made of feathers and I wore one in my hair at the wedding.

I used some of my butterfly supplies to scrap a page for my song lyric mini-book. From the Ben Kweller song In Other Words, I pulled the line: "The butterflies are passive agressive and put their problems on the shelf but they're beautiful." Also, I noticed that even Pottery Barn has butterfly tree ornaments this year, but I'm really into cut paper right now so let me suggest this etsy shop instead.