Another DIY "check!"

Card box, card box, CAAAArd box! Is DONEEEEE. Yippee! And I absolutely ADORE it.

Ain't she a beaut?

Mister was very helpful on this project. He helped paint, glued the whole thing together, cut the slit in the top for the cards to go through, did all the gluing of the thin ribbon around the bases of the tiers and the gluing of the rhinestone embellishment up top. Whew, he worked hard on this project, which I am truly grateful for.

For this project I bought round paper mache boxes from "Consumer Crafts" in sizes 8/9/10 for 5.43 (20% off their regular price of 6.97 because of a promotion 4th of July weekend). I then went to Home Depot and purchased an 8oz Behr paint sample in the color "Chocolate Sprinkle" (I especially liked the name!) and 2 foam paint brushes for .69 each. Then we started by painting each box. I think it took like 3 or 4 coats to cover everything evenly. No biggie, about half the 8oz sample is left.

Next Mister cut the slit in the top for the cards to be placed into and cut out some of the tops and/or bottoms of the boxes so the cards would drop to the bottom. He then glued the tops of the boxes to the bodies of them and finally altogether in the tower. Be sure to leave one top unglued though so you can easily get into it after the wedding without ripping apart all your hard work.

I measured around the bases of the boxes to see how much ribbon we would need to wrap around them and then cut the respective sizes. I also cut to size the rhinestone embellishment I bought 50% off at Joann's for 3.19. Mister then glued all of these pieces onto the boxes.

This next part was the most tedious. Running the thick red ribbon from the top of the box to the bottom. It was heck trying to keep it in a straight line while I glued it to the boxes. To attach the ribbon end inside the slit on the top I used glue dots then reinforced it with regular Scotch tape. On the bottom of the box the end of the ribbon is hot glued. Finally I tied a bow in the ribbon, hot glued it behind the cut on top and let the sides of it hang down the sides. I decided I wanted to "scrunch" the sides of the ribbon in line with the tiers of the boxes and right now the "scrunches" are secured to the box with double sided tape and I'm debating making it more permanent with either glue dots of a small amount of hot glue.

But anyway, that's the basic overview of the project. It took a good few hours over the course of a few days, but bit by bit it was completed and now it's finally done! I think I'm going to use my mom's cricut and attach die cut letters for the word "CARDS" but I'm not 100% sure I have someplace to put those, so they may end up in a frame next to the box. I'll leave you with a couple more pictures and until next time:

**All gluing done with hot glue unless otherwise noted.**

Long Weekend, the 4th

*phew*

First off, I'd like to start by saying I suck at keeping up in the blog-o-world. :( I truly apologize for this clear lapse of updates. It will hopefully never happen again (as I quietly snicker to myself as I'm sure it will, in at least some form or another, happen again). Now, on to bigger and better....

The 4th of July weekend was AMAZING. So much fun. The 4th is quickly becoming one of, if not already, my favorite holiday. It's great to hang out with friends, eat food, listen to music, play with the kids, catch up, talk, be outside and carefree, and then finish the evening with lovely fireworks displays. It's great to get to do that, and it was a blast. We had 4 days filled with fireworks and all of the other elements written above. The kids had a great time hanging out together, Mister and I had a great time hanging out with family and friends and also watching our children enjoy the time. It really is something to sit back and watch the kids take life in. Hmmm....

Anyway, now the holiday is over and it's back to work. Only a little over 2 months before the wedding and I have GOT to get my butt in gear! Right now we're working on pew decor (which is all but done just need a couple more teeny-tiny pieces to finish up), cardbox has been started as in has 2 or 3 coats of paint on it already, whoo! But the next BIGGGG project that is looming over my head and has been for some time now is invites. Those puppies need to be IN THE MAIL by July 23. Two weeks. And I STILL don't have all the pieces to them! *Oh lord help me* Give me the strength to not stress, take deep breaths, and complete these blasted invites!!!

What's the element of planning worrying you the most right now?

Budget Breakdown: Ring Bearer Pillow

So we all love cost analysis, right? Since this wedding is primarily about staying on budget (and as small a budget as possible if I can) the $20 that ring bearer pillow's run at Michael's or Joann's is just OUTRAGEOUS. Outrageous to me I guess. I'm sure some people don't have any issue forking over the money, but for me $20 for a very plain pillow with no personal touches wasn't what I wanted.

My sister did the actual project with my Grandma and since I wasn't there I didn't get pictures :( but I can share with you all. I based it off a tutorial on Weddingbee which you can find here <-- clicky. I "tweaked" it a little but stayed pretty true to the actual idea.

Our wedding colors are red and brown and the flower girl baskets are white and red, so I wanted to coordinate them. I opted for a red taffeta that most closely matches the red satin ribbon I'm using for the baskets and other aspects (invites, centerpieces, etc). She took the fabric and cut it into two 9x9 pieces and sewed them together to make the pillow. I found the lace I liked best to run along either side of the center of the pillow, then a wide brown ribbon to run at the center to hide where the two sides of lace meet, so it looks like one big piece rather than 3 separate pieces. We took apart 2 of the flowers from the bunch and took some of the petals from each and rearranged them so the flower was more open and full for the purpose of the project. She sewed the petals together and then sewed the rhinestone to the center of the flower. Then we took the thin brown ribbon and hot glued it to the bottom of the flower, that is what will tie the "rings" to the pillow to keep them safe. She was originally going to sew the flower to the pillow too but it wouldn't go through all the layers, so last thing she did was hot glue the flower to the pillow. Viola!

*Now....cost analysis budget breakdown.

Red taffeta: 1.50
Flowers: .47
Lace: 1.49
Thick ribbon: .99
Thin ribbon: .24
Rhinestone: .70
TOTAL: $5.39

Remember: I took the price of everything divided by 2 because we have leftover materials for EVERYTHING we purchased, easily can make one mmmmmmmaybe two, but at least one and some of the items I will be able to use for other projects so I didn't think it was really fair to include the whole upfront cost of the items. Pretty darn good if you ask me, a custom pillow could cost you anywhere from $20-$50 easily, and this is a beautiful custom pillow for less than $10. It feels good.

What have you been able to save money on here and there?

Ring Bearer Pillow?

CHECK!

Yay! Finished another DIY project...or a DIS project (Do It Sister). More on that later.

Shifting gears....

I'd like to think I'm pretty crafty, I can envision and glue and paper create to my hearts content, but there are "crafty" things I'm afraid of. Like deathly afraid of. I tried to make my three year old a princess costume for Halloween and um...kind of....got my...uh...finger caught in the sewing machine. *hangs head in shame* I'm too scared to "get back on the horse" so this ring bearer pillow was going to be a project I would delegate. So my sister came back from college abroad and we went SHOPPING for supplies.

Went to Joann's and Walmart and got:

Lace: 2.99 w/ 40% off coupon for 2 yards
Ribbon: 1.99 for 1 yard
Red Taffeta fabric: 3.00 w/ 40% off coupon for half a yard
Bunch of red fabric flowers: .94
Pack of 3 Rhinestone buttons: 1.96
Thin brown ribbon: .47

My sister already had the "stuffing" for the pillow so I didn't have to purchase that. We have extra left of everything so I'm going to divide everything by 2 to get an actual cost analysis for this in a final "budget breakdown." For now, here's my wonderful sister's final product:

I'm in LOVE with it! I don't think it could be any more perfect! And it feels good to have a "check" next to the pillow now. :)

What are some recent wedding "checks" you've completed?

Working on a new project!

Whoo! More news to report to my bloggers! It's been a few days and we've fared well over her. Nothing really wedding related, just life things. The babies and mister and I went to the local farmers market today, spent FAR too much on free range chicken and homemade pies. Yum! (pic of the scrumptious pies to follow later today) Mister couldn't decide if he wanted cherry or apple pie, and his solution to the problem? Purchase BOTH. And I do NOT eat pie. I just don't like it, for whatever reason. So he bought two entire pies for himself. *sigh* Then we drove around looking for garage sales. Nothing really struck us so we went to a consignment store. There we got a couple toys for the kids. Then we came back home. I stuck a turkey in the oven and now we're just lounging.

Now...on to the wedding related goodies that keeps you all here and interested (well, hopefully interested ;) ) I've begun work on my bridesmaids jewelry! I'm excited about it! The best part is that when it's all said and done each girl will have cost me *drumroll please* dumdumdumdumdum $8.00 for necklace and earrings. Hopefully I'll finish up a pair tonight and include pictures after the little ones are in bed.

Inspiration Board

So, everyone has these cute little inspiration boards full of the wonderful ideas they've seen elsewhere and want to incorporate into their wedding. Where do they get them? Do they make them? Is there a template? Freehand it? What is this all about!?!? These are the questions that have plagued me. Until a kind Knottie told me they googled theirs. Haha. I felt so stupid. So I turned to good ole' Dr. Google. And came up with.....squat. There is nothing with my exact colors. Back to square one. Has no one really had a mocha brown, apple red, orange and yellow wedding!?

But, oh trusty followers, fear not! I just made my own.

Okay okay, so it's not completely cohesive. The color scheme is off on a few photos and whatnot, but you get the general idea...yes? Oh...no? Well ya know...just change the peonies to sunflowers and the ribbon at the bottom to orange. And the colors on the cake will be red flowers and brown ribbon. Making more sense now? No still? Well I promise it will all come together in the end. Don't you worry. All ideas are safely stored (inside my head which is actually a very scary thought) in a safe place.

Pictures! Of the flower girl baskets!

Yay! I stayed up far too late and finished all 4 of them. They're cute as can be and super-duper easy to complete! I know everyone's been on pins and needles waiting for this moment. It's okay, I would be too, it's such an exciting moment, such an accomplishment such....oh sigh I realize it's not THAT big of a deal, but it feels good to finally have one COMPLETE project out of the way. :) And without further ado, presenting, our beautiful baskets!

All done! Picture without the flash, kinda orangeish? Stupid lighting. More pictures...

Ack! Hands! I told ya this was a messy messy project! You WILL get dirty. All in good fun...
Various stages of done...or undone. Left one is completely painted, just waiting for ribbon, middle two are complete, and left one needed a LOT more coats of paint.

GRAND FINALE!

Today's "Small" Project

Flower girl baskets! We have four flower girls in our ceremony. I know what you're thinking, ONE small child is hard enough to get in order let alone THREE more on top. While I may be certifiable, I felt it was necessary. One flower girl is Mister and I's 3 year old. It was a given to include her. Then Mister has 2 sister's, one older and younger. I get along far better with the younger one than the older one (and I don't think she'd be too keen on purchasing a dress and parading around for the night anyway) so I didn't ask the older one to be in the wedding party. I felt though that as a nice touch I'd include her 4 kids in the wedding. So it was born that Mister's 3 nieces would also be flower girls. They are older than our little one, the oldest will be 8 at the time of the wedding and the other two will be 4, almost 5. They'll walk down the aisle 2 by 2 as to not take too long.

Back to the point of this post! The DIY project. I went to Joann's around Easter and they were having 60% off of all baskets. I grabbed 4 small ones, about 4in x 3in and promptly purchased them. They were 2.99 BEFORE the 60% off. After the discount they were 1.19 a piece. They are a natural wood color so Mister and I went to Walmart and bought 2 large cans of white gloss spray paint for $4 each. Lastly, I had purchased a roll of bright red ribbon from Michaels to make belly bands for invitations and line the bottom of the centerpiece vases (coming in a later posts) so since I had it I used that ribbon to weave through the slats 2 of the baskets. Mister was so kind as to run the ribbon through and hot glue it on the inside so it will stay in place. The other 2 baskets were already woven together, much tighter than the previous two. Here shines MY creativity. ;) Are you ready now? Can you handle this? Imma 'bout to blow your mind. Here goes. I wrapped the ribbon around (about 15" per basket) and hot glued it in place. I then made bows and hot glued those vertically over the part where the ribbon stopped, not only masking the seam of the ribbon but making a cute decorative feature.

The only disadvantage of doing it this way is that it takes MULTIPLE coats of spray paint to saturate the wood. It's VERY thirsty and soaks up the paint really fast, so if you plan on going this route lay it on and lay it on THICK. Don't be afraid to get a little messy. ;)

As far as numbers goes, here's the breakdown. Now I'm going to mention that I'm only taking into account the amount actually USED during the project. If I have leftover ribbon I can use it somewhere else and it wouldn't be fair to include the entire cost of that product in this budget breakdown. Numbers...GO:

$5.08 for 4 baskets
$1.28 (15" per basket, additional 6" per bows on 2 baskets 2yrs used of 4yrd ribbon roll)
$6.45 for spray paint (have at least half a can left, can use it for something else maybe?)
hot glue on hand
GRAND TOTAL: $12.81 or $3.21 each

Not too shabby :)

September 17th, 2011

That's the date my followers. The day that defines the rest of my life. Where my best friend and I become one. Squee....I'm SO excited! And scared! And nervous! And still excited! All at the same time. :)

So more about the date. Originally Mister wanted an outdoor wedding. Since I'm Catholic though, that was out of the question from the beginning. He settled for a church ceremony. Then I wanted to help appease him and have an outdoor reception, however, I don't want a summer wedding. June's too popular, July's too HOT, and August is our 2nd child's birthday month and I didn't want to take anything away from him. Welp, that killed most of the possibilities. Then September came to mind. It's beautiful. It's not too cold, but not too hot. The colors are GORGEOUS. The smells are wonderful. It seemed like a no-brainer. We didn't want to do it Labor Day weekend for fear that no one would show because they had already made plans, so we had decided on the second Saturday of September. After deciding on that we started looking around for venues and vendors and learned that the date then is 9.10.11 and EVERYTHING was booked! So we changed it AGAIN to our official date of September 17th and haven't looked back, full steam ahead. :) :)

Since booking I've learned that September is actually the most popular month for weddings, whodathunk?

It's official!

We set a date! Actually a while ago Mister and I decided, but I'm just now blogging about it. I have a lot of "big" things completed already, we have a venue, florist, cake maker, bridesmaids dresses, tuxes, a DJ, my dress and a few accessories. BUT there are a LOAD of projects still to complete.

Up next is:
-Cake Toppers
-Bridesmaids jewelry
-My jewelry
-invitations
-centerpiece mock up

Be on the lookout for these posts!