Will you be my...

I've been collecting little things for my Bridesmaid Boxes for some time now and finally got around to actually making them today.

My daughter has been asking lately who I've picked for the Maid Of Honor and I told her that it was between Robyn and Julie.  She has no idea that I'm going to ask her to be my MOH!  I'm pretty excited.  Her and I hang out more than anyone else I know, so I really couldn't imagine having anyone else stand in that place when Lance and I get married.  

The last couple of days I've had to keep everyone out of my craft room, so I posted a little sign which piqued Bailey's curiosity that much more.  

"What are you doing in there?"

"Just crafts"

"Then why can't I come in?"

"Because they're secret crafts."

Then she'd purposefully walk loudly down the hall so I would think that she was going to try and come in.  I had stuff everywhere!!!  Cut up bits of card, crepe paper, glue, glasses... It was like Frank's Red Hot Sauce... I had that shit everywhere!  

After two days of cutting, gluing, etching, writing and organizing, I had my boxes all prettied up and ready to be dispensed.  

Aren't they the prettiest?  I made each girl a chipboard book with lots of info in them.  

Page 1) Will you be my MOH/Bridesmaid?

Page 2) A personal letter to each girl begging them to say yes.

Page 3) The Bridal Party.  I wrote down who's who, including the Grooms party.

Page 4) So is it a yes?  A little note stating how freaking excited I am that we get to go dress shopping!

Page 5) A color scheme and a note about the dresses.  As long as the color is right, I don't care what style they pick!

Page 6) Your Role - I explained on Bailey's one that her job is a big one and that she can ask the Bridesmaids and my Mum for help, then on the Bridesmaid ones I explained that Bailey will need help and for them to keep her motivated. 

Page 7) The plan.  What is going down the night before, the day of and the day after!  

I added some cute little gems to the front of these books afterwards! 

Each box has a bottle of Champagne with a "Will you be my MOH/Bridesmaid?" label that I'd ordered from a guy on eBay long before I realized that I could easily make them myself.  An etched mason jar with a handle.  Each one has the girls name on and an etched picture of a dress on the other side.  These were fiddly and I didn't really enjoy making them, but I'm sure I'll get better at them with practice. Some cosy fluffy socks, facecloths and a nail file.  A candleholder and candle and a bunch of candy and other little filler things like hand sanitizer, tissues, notebooks, etc. 

  

I really hope that bridemaids will be as excited opening them as I was putting them together. #needstogetalife

Here's hoping that no one says no!  

DIY Invitations

They are finally mailed... Mostly.  I still have a couple more that need to go out, but what a labour of love that was!!!

I wanted beautiful invitations, but no matter where I looked, they were pricey.  I have always loved the idea of pocketfold invitations, but couldn't justify the $400+  that they'd cost to have made, so I set my mind to making them myself.

A quick trip to Michaels with their 50% off coupon, (Score!!!  I usually always miss that coupon and have to settle for the 40% one) and I had this beautiful silver shimmer paper!

I got all my other supplies and got to work!  

1 package silver shimmer cardstock : $10 after coupon

1 package 100 pieces black cardstock (for the pocketfolds) : $3.33 on sale

2 packages of 50 A2 envelopes:  $4.50 each

3 rolls of purple ribbon : 3/$1 on sale

3 rolls of teal ribbon : 3/$1 on sale

Double sided tape : $1.50 at Dollarama

Glue dots : $1.50 at Dollarama

Plastic buckles that don't look tacky : 100/$2.00 on eBay

1 cheap bone folder from Dollarama. $1.25

2 packs of shipping labels : $10/each from Staples

Total : $50!!!  

I scoured Google for a template that would fit the envelopes but couldn't find one, so I made my own.  It was fairly easy as I was able to use the templates I found online as inspiration.  I then cut my template out of card and traced around the other 99 pieces of black cardstock.  The first few took forever to cut out, but then I found my niche and the rest were cut out fairly quickly.  I used a bone folder to make the creases in each envelope, and attached the "wings" with double sided tape.  I added two pieces of ribbon to the pocket piece before gluing it.  You can see that in another picture further down.  

This was the inspiration for my pocketfolds.  

I used a program called PrintMaster to design the inserts for inside.  It took a bit of playing around before I was happy with them, but they turned out awesomely!  I  printed these out on my beautiful shimmery paper, then got to cutting.

The first mistake that I made was those bloody corners.  ARGH!  If I could go back in time, I would have made them so that the edges were 90 degree angles, and I would have used a decorative angled punch to save me about 432749324 hours!  

Something like that would have looked AMAZING!  Bah!

Anyways, I eventually got them all cut out so that I could glue the invitation part and stack the inserts.  Here's a picture of how they looked inside!  

See the pretty ribbon, and how it gives it a nice pop of color!!!  

I wrapped a band with our names and wedding date around the front with two pieces of ribbon and a buckle, then they were ready for mailing...

But wait... There's more.  ;)

I couldn't shove these beautiful invitations into a boring envelope, and the prices for professionally addressed envelopes are ridiculous... So back to PrintMaster I go!  

And this is what I created!

They looked amazing all stacked up and ready to go!  I've received so many compliments on them that even though I said I'd never do it again because they took so long... I totally would!  ;)

The only thing that I'd do differently is to find smaller buckles.  Unfortunately the buckle made them just that tiny bit too thick to go as normal mail, so they cost almost double to mail... We ended up hand-delivering a lot of them though, which was nice and made it a bit more personal!  Oh, and the corners...Damn those corners!

:D

***Edit:  I forgot to explain what the return mailing labels were for!!!  One package of them had our address on it for the RSVP Madlibs, and the other package were stuck on the back of the "Getting Around" insert and had a map of activities in Hope, BC for before, after and inbetween the wedding!"

Will You Be My Flower Girl?

Omg, I had way too much fun making this craft!  We wanted our friends baby girl to be our flower girl.  She'll be a whopping "1" next month, so she's pretty young, but she's such a pretty girl, with gorgeous eyelashes...And she'll be 1.5 by the time we get married, so it should all work out.  I started with a boring old dollar store unfinished box, then I turned it in  to something beautiful that will hopefully be a keepsake.

I really need to start stocking up on these beauties.  I love that it has a little magnet clasp.  I painted the entire thing pink, then created a picture on my computer, printed it out and Mod Podged it to the top.

I also bedazzled the crap out of it!  Aleene's Jewel-It glue is amazing stuff!!!

I then created the inside poem'y thing that I Mod Podged inside.  Not quite so many jewels, but it gets the point across.  ;)

I then made the foam base and covered it with a black felt.  The bracelet took a quarter of the time the box took, but it's still pretty!

It looks so pretty with a Lei as a cushion!

Did I mention that I made a pinwheel too?  I <3 <3 <3 pinwheels!!!

Needless to say, she was about as happy as a one year old girl can be.  Mum seemed a little more thrilled, and that was pretty much the point!  :D

I simply can't wait to get married!!!!!

We've chosen a photographer!!!

We decided to pick a photographer that hasn't been in the game for too long.  She's been a hobby photographer for years, but recently delved into the awesome world of wedding photography.  We both love her work and can't wait to meet up with her for the engagement shoot and contract signing!

We have also chosen Cookies Grill to cater for us.  They have a chocolate fountain.   A freaking chocolate fountain!!!  Can you say best caterers ever?

Also, my Dad is going to help me make a photobooth.  I've found the software, now it's just a matter of building the casing for it and making it look amazing.

The next 10 months are going to seriously fly by!!!

It's all starting to happen...

I have booked the church (yes, I said church!).  We have decided to have a traditional church wedding at the Grace Baptist Church, with our reception at the Legion Hall in Hope, BC!  I've even gone so far as to get a couple of quotes from caterers and photographers.  I guess those will be the next things that I'll have to book, but they're so bloody expensive.  I got one quote for catering that was in excess of $10,000.  For that price, they should have people actually spoon feed us on little silver spoons whilst giving us foot rubs!

So now that we've actually secured our date, we need to start planning our engagement party!  It'll just be a more intimate gathering of our families (so that they can all meet!), and our closest friends... But seeing as how my crazy parents bought us each a flying lesson in a Cessna for Christmas, we figured that would be an awesome day to get everyone together, and to get some amazing engagement pics (why not throw that in there too!  Haha).  So hopefully around June, we'll have some great pics and a few good laughs with our families.  I can't say that I'm not nervous about getting in a plane though.  Heights terrify me!!!

Oh, here's something else.  I went through all of the pictures that I'd pinned on Pinterest and deleted the ones that are definitely not happening.  It's funny what a year can do.  I had posted so many chalkboard/mason jar/lace/burlappy ideas on there, but it's all so overdone that I had to giggle a bit about even posting them in the first place.  Now all my ideas are being kept on my super secret facebook group that only my wedding party is privy to... I'll post the odd tidbit here though.  ;)

A Girls Gotta Have Somewhere To Hang Her Dress!

I've been seeing a lot of the wire-wrapped coathangers that spell out "Mrs" or "Bride" or something close to that effect, and now that they're super popular, I needed to "make it my own" so... I grabbed me some ribbon, and a coathanger, and some beads and got to work!  It's not done yet as I want to add the wedding date and some pearls to the wood, but I love it so far!

 I love how my fairy figurine looks like she's giving it a bit of a kick!

The picture doesn't actually do it justice, but at least it's a bit different than all the wire-bending hangers out there!  

Bottle Cap Wine Charms

Meet my little wine charm prototypes!

I want to make personalized wine charms for each guest at our wedding so I set out on the Google and found a few tutorials on how to make these little beauties.  These ones are crappy and only made with spray adhesive and Mod Podge, but I wanted to see how they'd look when they were finished and I pretty much love them.

The trickiest bit was finding a way to create the names so that they'd print out the right size, but the Avery website was my best friend again with all of their sticker templates.  I played around for a little while and came up with the purple/turquiose tags.  The most wonderful thing about the Avery website is that you can customize everything on the stickers from the colors to individual text on each label.  It's so easy to do!!!

Now all I need to do is order a few hundred epoxy stickers, flattened bottle caps and a bunch of wine charm rings and our guests will each have something personalized to use for the evening and take home with them.  I'm thinking about using these as decorations on the fronts of each cracker, that way they'll double as name cards!  Win-Win!!!