PigPog

St Patrick’s Day weekend is upon us, a magical time when Irish eyes are smilin’ and people celebrate their connection to the Emerald Isle, whether they’re a citizen of Ireland, a relative of a citizen of Ireland, or just really fond of Guinness.

Here are some links to help you get your St. Patrick’s Day celebrations off to a fine start.

• Fabric Shamrock
• Luck o’the Irish Shamrock Cap
• St Patrick’s Day Cookie Pops
• How to throw a Green Fun St Patrick’s Day Party
• More Craft Ideas…

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Michael and I watched the cult blues movie Crossroads last night, and the classic guitar duel scene got me thinking it was time to focus the ol’ GuitarPr0n squee radar on “Little Stevie Vai”, since he’s such a nice boy…

About Steve

Here’s a little piece about Steve from his entry on Wikipedia

When growing up, the young Vai became interested in rock giants such as Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Queen, Cream and Led Zeppelin, which influenced his early guitar career. He first picked up a guitar when he was invited by a friend to join him for a lesson, thus splitting the $10 fee. Vai went out and bought a cheap acoustic guitar and took it to the lesson with his friend’s teacher (Joe Satriani). Prior to attending Berklee College of Music, Steve frequently jammed with his teacher Joe Satriani and played in numerous local bands. He has acknowledged the influence of many guitarists, including Jeff Beck and fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth.

Squee for Steve

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Steve Vai takes guitar playing beyond mere musicianship and turns it into a magical form of performance art. Sometimes it’s hard to squee over the man, because you’re too busy staring agog at the way he plays his signature Ibanez JEM. But, he’s got everything he needs to qualify as a squee-worthy Man With Guitar, so let us squee…

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Passion and Warfare… that’s where Steve’s at his best in my opinion. Specifically, on the classic track For The Love of God, an epic masterpiece of an instrumental which closes with the line “Walking the fine line between Pagan and Christian”. For that track alone he deserves his place on the Rock Walk of fame – he was inducted into the Rock Walk in 1999.

To truly appreciate Steve at his best, you need to see him play. I haven’t seen him play live, but I have seen some of his best gigs on DVD. Check these two out to see the virtuoso do his thing:

Steve Vai Live at the Astoria

Steve’s solo performance from 2001, which features the classic “For The Love of God”, a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” and the utterly mind-bending “Bad Horsie”.

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk

G3 Live in Denver

Steve joins his former tutor Joe Satriani and the incomparable Yngwie Malmsteen for this amazing performance. Joe, Steve and Yngwie all have solo performances at the start – during which Steve demonstrates his prowess on a triple-neck – followed by a magnificent 3-way jam session… now that’s guitarpr0n!

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk

More Steve

Find out more about Steve at these fine sites:

• Vai.com – Steve’s official site.
• Ibanez JEM20TH – The 20th Anniversary special edition of Steve’s signature JEM guitar.
• Steve Vai on RockWalk – Steve’s entry on the RockWalk of fame.
• Steve Vai on Wikipedia

UPDATE – A re-organisation of the page and a link to a how-to on making your own fascinators (hair accessories).

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Getting married this year? Congratulations! I know from experience that planning the big day can be a headache at times, but with a bit of creative thinking, it can be fun. Here are some handy links to craft projects to add the personal and creative touch to your special day, and potentially save a load of money too. Also, we share a few crafty tips from our own wedding.

Craft Links

• Fascinator Tutorial – a step by step guide to make your own elaborate hair adornments. Via Craftzine
• Monica’s Wedding Cards – nice cards to add to place settings.
• Five Cent Wedding Band – how to make a wedding ring from a coin, using a Dremel.
• Bridal Veil and Headpiece – from the D I Y Network – which has a large list of wedding projects ranging from thank you notes to a hatpin for the bride’s mother.
• Wedcrafts – a directory of all kinds of wedding crafts, including how to make your own garter.
• Michaels Wedding Themes – Nicely named site with projects for a themed wedding.
• The Frugal Bride – Wedding crafts, tips and checklists. Check out the Bride’s Planner and compare it with the Groom’s Planner. Says it all really, doesn’t it girls? .
• Carnmeal Craft and Wedding Accessories – All you need to make your own wedding accessories, plus ready-made tiaras and bouquets just in case your own attempts don’t quite work out.

Our Wedding

When we got married in April 2006, we added a few creative touches to the proceedings. Well, we would…

Gift Pack

We wanted to do something fun and unique for our guests that sums up who we are and what we do. I’m not going to reveal much more now, but here’s a handy way of creating a cute looking wedding favour using card, ribbon and glue. Find some card and ribbon that matches your colour scheme – ours is black and red, so we went for black card and red ribbon. Place your gift in the middle of the card and fold as though you were folding up a letter. Seal with a glue dot and tie with a piece of ribbon. Decorate with a place card, or if you’re handy with calligraphy, write the bride and groom’s name on each pack. They look very sweet – pictures to follow after the wedding.

Top Hats

I couldn’t resist getting some of these cute little black top hats for the table. To match the colour scheme I decorated them all with the same red ribbon I used on the packs. I ordered these from Carnmeal Craft and Wedding Accessories, and can recommend them – the prices were good, the service was excellent and the order arrived within a few days. More about Carnmeal in the links section.

Soundtrack CD

Decided to put together a soundtrack CD when we received our specially composed wedding music, made a mix CD with other relevant tracks (yes, yes, including November Rain) and packaged them using the CD package template found here.

Placecards etc

We designed a template for our placecards, image for the CD, and decoration for the gift pack using Photoshop. Michael came up with the pattern and I added small photos of ourselves. One important thing to remember when doing anything to print in image editing software is you have to do it on a larger scale for quality prints. JPGs don’t work well to print at all, it’s better to work with TIFF files if possible. More on printing to come soon.

Okay. Here I was right in the middle of my nice shiny new relatively squeeless serious Jimmy series and then…WHAM! He goes and does this to me…

Jimmy, honey – PLEASE! You can’t just go and spring yourself on us poor Page victims like this! Advance warning of your impending sexiness and total yumminess is required!

How am I supposed to concentrate on my series now? How am I supposed to function at all with this much man on my screen? He’s impossible. He just can’t turn down his colossal hotness so I can finish one thing without collapsing into a Jimmy induced meltdown. You win Pagey Doll…I am a broken woman….someone call a doctor. I’ll be on the floor at home drowning in my own drool.

Oh by the way, Sam found these on the Gibson site. They have recreated his doubleneck, a vintage one, and an aged one. I think they are going for $20,000 or something if you want one. But I can’t remember exactly. I’d post a link for you, but I forgot how. I also forgot my name, age, telephone number, adddress, and all other vital information. And I don’t care. All I can see is the steam coming off my computer from those pics, and the Jimmy quake warning light that is flashing in my head….

WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! THAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN ON EARTH! You might buy his guitar, but forget about looking anything like as gorgeous as him playing it.

In loving memory of one of the loveliest, furriest, purriest cats ever to have existed.

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Thank you, Lucy. We’ll always love you.