Cheap centerpiece vase DIY project

The bonding glue

A completed wedding arrangement vase

Having been to many weddings where the bride decides on an arrangement that's too tall to talk over, I knew I wanted something that was shorter, but still elegant. Also, my fear was that a tall arrangement would be quite expensive.

Another way for me to cut costs, (while still being able to give my guests the arrangements) was to do the bases myself.

Welcome bags

The wedding is 2 weeks away and I am at the end of my budget. If you're a bride in the same position, but still want your guests to feel taken care of, DIY Welcome bags might be a good option for you.

What's Involved in a Welcome bag?

A good welcome bag should alieve a few questions and problems that guests might run into while attending your event. If people are staying over, it's always a good idea to give them some of the basics to get them through their stay.  A welcome bag can have as many or as few things below as you want to include.  Below are some common things a welcome bag does:

• It gives guests a little welcome note from the Bride & Groom
• It provides guests with important phone numbers.
• It gives an itenerary of what's going on, where and when.
• It tells guests where they can go to do things in the area
• It provides snacks so they don't have to pay for anything from their fridge
• It helps fix pre & post event trama (hangovers, cuts, headaches, stomachaches)

Some brides know all guests are staying over and have their welcome bags go double duty and work as favors as well.  This is a nice thing to give, however I wanted this to be a separate thing for people staying over. Think of your bag as being ingredients to bake a cake.  What do you want that's special to you or matches your wedding theme that would work in the welcome bag?

My Nautical Themed Welcome / Out-of-Town bag Ingredients:

• Paper lunch bags (yep, just the plain old brown ones you get in a grocery store)
• A Printer
• labels (optional)
• A Welcome brochure - custom made by yours truly.
• cheddar goldfish
• swedish fish
• lifesavers
• treat bags
• treat bag toppers
• Water bottles
• water bottle labels
• Green Tea
• Green Tea packages
• Hot Cocoa packets
• Hot Cocoa packet sleeves
• Ribbon

Instructions:

I designed my own Monogram logo already and created a new file in Adobe Illustrator with the logo, a pretty font that says "Welcome" above the logo and our wedding date under the logo.  I created the artboard size to be the dimensions of a paper bag (I think around 5.25in x 9in).  Modify your working area to match your bag.

Do a test print.  If you printer refuses to take the paper bag and just eats it, move on to printing onto labels and just stick them on the outside of the bag.

Either purchase your own monogramed labels from a company that prints customized products or use printable labels and print them directly from your computer.  Remove the current labels on the bottle and stick these on your water bottles.

I will soon add a teabag template to this site so you can make your own teabag cases.  You could also simply purchase customized teabags to your bags.

Cocoa packet templates will also be available soon.  These are perfect for the fall or chilly winter months.  These can be purchased customized for your wedding as well.

I got my treat bags at Target.  You can get yours here if you need some.  These are little plastic bags perfect for fillings will candy, cookies and other treats.  I filled each bag with either cheddar goldfish, lifesavers or swedish fish.  I made little paper toppers to close up the bags with the title to match the ingredients.  The life savers said "Lifesavers.  Open in case of emergency"  The swedish fish said " Fresh caught Swedish Fish" and the Goldfish said "Goldfish Fish Bait".  You can attach with clear tape or staple the toppers to the bags.

I added my welcome brochure to the bags.  I had custom made these and included important phone numbers (hotel, taxi, hospitals, etc.), great local spots, a link to upload photos, a welcome message for guests and a Hangover helper guide for people recovering from a night of too much fun.  Check out my brochure here

Once you've got all your "ingredients" together, start assembling the bags with your goodies.  Each one of my bags has a welcome brochure, snacks, water, tea & cocoa.  You can also add things like local maps and a postcard.  Fold over the top of your bag and punch a hole.  Tie your ribbon through the hole.  Deliver your box to the hotel front desk and ask that your wedding guests receive their bags during check in.

 Really want guests to feel appreciated.  Provide some food for breakfast the next day or pamper them with a post-wedding bruch at a local restaurant.

Welcome letters for Guest Out-of-Town bags

When looking for the perfect venue, my fiance and I decided that an optimal thing to have would be hotel rooms for our guests.  We had a few people from out of state and we knew we wanted an all night open bar.  This way if we had a location with hotel rooms, guests had no excuse 1. to drive home drunk and 2. mooch off of relatives by crashing at their house.

Many brides are now opting to make the experience of their guests extra-special by providing a mini-concerge package for guests staying overnight.  It's a really nice and thoughtful way to provide for those people that had to trek a long way to your wedding.

What's an Out-of-town bag (a.k.a.  OOT bag) and what's included in it?

An out of town bag can be geared towards one goal or cover all your bases.  Some brides want the basics;  water bottles and snacks.  With the basic option, guests don't have to raid the mini fridge and get charged $10 for a bag of peanuts and a water.  Brides sometimes include relevant location items for guests convenience.  So if you were having a beach wedding, you could include sunblock, aloe, local maps & postcards of the area.  Another popular option is a Hangover kit.  Some brides provide things like asprin, tums, eye masks and ice packs.  You can pick and choose special things you and your fiance share to be included and a special note is always nice.

What's in your OOT bag?  Thanks for asking.  My OOT bag will include:

- water (with my custom DIY labels)

- snacks (nautical themed foods)

- local maps & discounts

- a welcome letter with our favorite restaurants, cool things to do, important phone numbers & photo information.

- Our wedding party will recieve a hangover helper kit in addition to the above.

Design a Perfect Bridal Shower Playlist + Free CD Label and Case Template

 Recently I hosted a lovely Bridal Shower for my good friend.  One of the most important things I created to create a mood and set the tone for the party was to create a playlist.  This is a simple but very important thing that most people would overlook while planning.  It's essential to know your crowd and choose songs accordingly.

In my case we had no budget for a professional DJ and it was hosted at the Bride-to-be's Grandmother's house, which didn't allow for a DJ and probably would've been a bit overkill for such a small crowd.

Things to keep in mind while building your playlist:
- Know your crowd.  Is everyone invited young, old or a mix or ages?
- Is this a female only crowd or a jack and jill?

 We had a big mix in age and the group was all female.  We chose two games.  The first was a guessing game for the bride to see how much she knows about the groom.  The second was the toilet paper dress game where the 4 bridesmaids broke up into teams of guests and the guests in their team then dressed the BM's up in toilet paper.  The BM's then did a runway show for the bride (to I'm too sexy) and the bride then choose which dress she liked best.  The team that won each got a bottle of wine.

How I built my list:
I tried to start with happy low key music and build to very girly and fun music in the middle of the cd (I want candy, etc.) For when the bride opened up her gifts.  The CD slowly descends into mellower music (with exception for the last song).  I positioned the last song to be the "runway music" to easily find the song we were looking for.  You could bump a song like this to the top as well.


My Playlist
Abba - Take a Chance on Me
Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole lotta shaking going on
Going to the Chapel
We're having a party
Ain't too proud to beg
Uptight (everything's alright)
Mama loves mambo
Kool & the Gang - ladies night
Lollipop
Bangles - I want candy
Cindi Lauper - Girls just wanna have fun
Queen - Crazy little thing called love
You can't hurry love
Sugar, Sugar
Neil Young - Cherry, Cherry
Robert Palmer - Addicted to Love
Grease - You're the one that I want
Twisting the night away
Sam Cook - Cupid
Madonna - Crazy for you
Stop! in the name of love
Righteous Brothers - You've lost that loving feeling
Monkey's - Daydream believer
Right Said Fred - I'm too sexy (last song for runway show)



To finish off your wonderful playlist, you could make a copy for all the guests and give it as a favor or just take the 1 copy you made and give it to the Bride.  If you so choose to do either, it's nice to make your CD more presentable by decorating the Jewel Case, the CD label or both!

You can find a wonderful template here for the CD labels. It covers most any CD you may have on hand.

DIY personalized tealight holders

Want to spruce up basic tealight holders or personalize them for your next event? Here's a quick little how-to video on just that.   This is also a very budget friendly project and something for beginning DIY crafters!

What you'll need:

• tealight holders
• ribbon
• glue dots, double sided tape or a glue gun
• buttons, jewelry findings or your monogram

Directions:

• Make sure your tealight holder is prepped and clean.
• Wrap your desired ribbon around the tealight and mark off the diameter.  Cut subsequent ribbons the same length.
• To attach either use glue dots or double sided tape.  For a permanent hold use super glue or a glue gun.
• You will have seams after wrapping the ribbon around.  To hide these either add some cute detail like buttons, jewelry findings or a paper monogram.  I printed a sheet of monograms I created and attached with double sided tape.

A lovely Bridal Shower for a lovely Bride-to-Be

 The perfect Bridal Shower starts with the loving care and planning from a wonderful Family and a great set of Bridesmaids!

This pretty little blue and gold themed shower couldn't have gone any better.  We had a happy and surprised guest of honor and a great group of guests that really got into the games.

With fun games and lots of little treats and details, it made for a fabulous day with a lovely Bride-to-Be.






All In the Details...

Our Decorations were minimal. From tissue paper flowers, to the "Best Wishes" sign, the details were ruffled fun and girly.  For food we had brunch options like quiches, tomato mozzarella basil bites, turnovers, Caesar salad, fruit salad and mimosas.

The cake...

To keep with the ruffle theme the cake was decorated with a pretty ruffle frosting and topped with ranuculas that I had picked from my garden and placed in blue water two days before the shower.  They picked up the blue color nicely.

It was a two tiered chocolate cake with raspberry white chocolate cream cheese frosting. Yum!

Recipe coming soon.

The Favors...

Pretty little Clear and Gold Swans were filled with chocolate and candy and placed on a little table in the entryway with some flowers.

A lovely little setup to greet you as you came in and left the party.













The Games...
We had a game where the bride had to guess answers correctly about the groom as well as a toilet paper dress game, which was by far the most fun.

The ladies at the party got really into dressing up the bridesmaids and the bride-to-be got to pick the winning dress.










The Prizes...
Every game had a prize, lovely little labeled bottles of wine. The labels had the name of the Bride-to-be as well as the date of the Bridal Shower. A wonderful way to remember the day!

All the Bridesmaids having a good time!

Our lovely Bride-to-Be with some of the Girls!

Paper flower tutorial

If you read my last post about being crazy for paper flowers, you'd know that I had promised you a tutorial on how I'm doing it. Well, here it is! I'm using coffee filters. Why? Well, mainly because they're cheap and easy to work with. The one's Martha Stewart recommends are a bit more expensive (I think the #2 filters?).

I'm just using plain old traditional coffee filters that you can buy in bulk. I've dyed mine several different shades of pink and ivory to give them a more romantic / aged look.

The Ingredients:
- Coffee filters
- water
- tea bags
- food coloring (i used the neon colors)
- a few small bowls
- lots of drying space
- floral wire
- floral tape (or regular clear tape)
- scissors
- martha stewart pattern

Instructions:

1. Separate your coffee filters into groups.  For example: Dark, medium, light.  Or Pink, Purple, white.  However you want your colors to go.
2. Put out your bowls of water.  In my case I did two bowls.  One with 1 drop of pink food coloring and another with a tea bag.  You can obviously tailor this to however you want your colors to look, even mixing tea with dye.
3. Full Color: Dip your groups of coffee filters how you want them to look.  You can dunk all of the "dark" group into the dye all at once and let it soak up the dye.  Separate each filter to let dry out.
4. Tips or Edging: In my case I only wanted the "edges" of the petals to be colored darker so I made sure to only dip the tips in the colored water.  You can also do double dips on some of your filters to get even more variation to your colors.
5. Make sure you let all filters dry completely.



Step 6A.  Fold your dried filter in half



Step 6B. Fold coffee filter in half again so you get a fan shape.

6. As you can tell I did not use the #2 filters she she shows.  I took a regular round filter and did the following.

Step 7. I sort of mishmashed patterns together to make petals.

7. Now you're ready to start drawing your pattern out. I did not use every petal shape in the martha pattern. I ended up using a mix of petal 2, petal 4 and petal 7.  In most cases I just winged it.  As you can see in the photo below, this is how I arranged the petals to be cut out on the filters.

8. Start cutting.  I find it easier to cut out petals from several filters first, so you don't stop attaching to cut more.

9. Grab your wire and take the smallest petals you have and wrap them around the tip of the wire.  Attach to the wire with floral tape or clear tape.

10. Take the next size up in petals and wrap around, taping as you go.  Repeat this with larger and larger petals as you go around.
11.  Another tip to mix and match your petals for the closest look to real flowers is put the sharpest edge petals in the center and put the softest on the outside.  You don't have to do it this way at all or do all soft and all sharp petal flowers.

So what can you use these lovely flowers for other than decorations?  How about centerpieces, favor box decoration, corsages, and more!

A completed paper rose!  Don't you love the variation in color?