My baker friend Mollie got married this year, too (the one who made my after wedding brunch treats!) and she asked me to host a paper flower bouquet workshop for her and her brides ladies to prep for the big day. The honor was all mine! Mollie made a bouquet of paper flowers in hues of blue; her ladies made giant crepe paper blooms. There were also delicious snacks and a curious kitten! The lovelies with their lovelies: Congratulations Mollie and Ben!
My Crafty Lady Crew is the best and with their powers combined they created beautiful things for our wedding, including all of the reception floral decor. Dreamy… Before the wedding I met with our lead florist – our friend Kristin. (She also sets up the best magazine-worthy meal spreads.) When we were looking at flowers, we discovered we had the same taste, or should I say smell, for flowers. We both like the flowers that either smell like nothing or are on the sweeter side. Anything too fragrant, like roses, and lilies (especially lilies!) smell like death to us. Long story short, I knew I would be happy with Kristin’s floral selection because they wouldn’t smell like anything! Visually, I wanted whites, greens, and soft pinks in our centerpieces. Kristin shopped around for some stems at local farmers markets, but she also gathered some lovelies from her garden! We used Ball mason jars plus old mini yogurt glassware with offwhite ribbon and handmade-by-Kristin ceramic hearts on cord. And just look at how these beauties turned out. They completed my tablescape dreams. …
Or was it a bird? All the bridesladies received a handmade something so we wanted the groomspeeps to have a handmade something, too. We decided on bow ties. I found a step by step tutorial on Tie a Tie which I mostly followed. The template was most useful, but it did require a few adjustments. I ended up adding half an inch to each bow tie for a better fit. Also, the suggested interfacing was too firm and thick for bow tie purposes; I purchased a much thinner interfacing after one tough attempt at inverting the first bow tie. After a few hours of cutting, ironing, and sewing, we had a set of bows for the entire groomsbunch. The groomspeeps each wore a blush pink bow and my groom wore a dark blue with white dot bow, chosen because “it looks like sparkles.” Now I can make custom bow ties for Hubs to match all the outfits! Have you tried your hand at creating your own accessories? Share below!
My one requirement for our wedding: it needed to be outdoors! We decided on a park wedding and we were in the market to rent some benches for the ceremony. Unfortunately, all the seating we saw was not so good looking or expensive (or both!). So, the now Hubs decided we should build our own benches. And build he did! We found a tutorial on Homemade by Carmona and used it as a guide for our benches. He sawed, sand papered, wood burned, stained, painted, sealed, nailed… I ate hot dogs. Oh, and this was the perfect reason to start building our power tool collection. (Insert tool drool here.) Talk about middle school woodshop skills put to good use. (Thanks Bonita Vista Middle School!) Hubs made six benches to accommodate 24 guests. Some of our guests loved them so much they even asked if they could have them as their wedding souvenir. Photo by Ngoc M. Nguyen I love me some power tools. What should our next project be? Matching farm table? Share your woodworking stories below!
You may have spotted another heat embossing craft in my last wedding post but in case you missed it here it is in all its glory: our wedding place setting name cards! I found the stamp during our Seattle trip. I didn’t know what I was going to use it for when I purchased it, but I knew I would think of a way to incorporate it into our wedding crafts. It worked out perfectly for our name cards. To match our wedding invitations I mixed gold and copper embossing powder and stamped on the same blush paper. I used my handy brush pen to write our guests’ names. I am particularly fond of how these two cards came out: Easy peasy and fancy shmancy at the same time! All together now! And in the wilds! A snap of our name card on our wedding tablescape. Photo by Ngoc M. Nguyen I’m pretty sure I need to make more of these soon. Can someone please throw a sit down meal party so I can volunteer my name card …
Any reason to buy double sided scrapbook paper in pretty colors and prints is a good reason. Our wedding guest book was my favorite craft to put together because it involved just that. It also involved brush markers and a typewriter. Eep! Studio Calico decided to make the most awesome scrapbook album I’ve seen to date: 9in x 12in, which fits nicely on a standard shelf and/or won’t take up too much space on your coffee table. #scrapbooknerdreadytoreport And the inserts are just as baller: 3in x 3in, 3in x 4in, and 4in x 6in slots. I cut paper down to size and had guests type up love notes. Watching my guests learn or relearn the typewriter was really fun. My nephew (age 12) even started to trouble shoot for the grown ups. The pretties!! We loved reading all of our guests’ notes and we can’t wait to fill our album with wedding photo memories! All the things: Album: Studio Calico Paper: Scrapbook.com (by My Mind’s Eye, Pinkfresh Studio, The Project Girl) Typewriter: Alameda Antique Fair Typewriter maintenance …
A spring wedding calls for extra floral decor! I purchased cardboard letters from Consumer Crafts and felt from Benzie Design (my fave shop for felt!). I lured friends over with food and we made flowers. So. Many. Flowers. We cut open the cardboard letters so that the flowers could sit inside the letter and have a bit more of a contained border. Each letter had cardboard inside for structure; we repositioned these so that some of the flowers could have more height. I was more than happy with the result! JUST MARRIED! We wanted to make these letters for a group photo prop. Here’s a preview from our photographer! The letters didn’t pop out as I was hoping, but I ended up loving how the sign blended into the photo. Also, daaaang, look at this good looking color-coordinated group. 😉 What phrase would you make out of felt floral letters? Share below!
Call me hippy dippy but I didn’t want to litter the park with confetti, biodegradable or not. Actually, I toyed with the idea of gathering fallen leaves from the park, punching them into confetti shapes, and having guests toss them at the end of the ceremony. I think we’ll save that craft for another time. Instead, we decided on lace tambourines! We love music. The Hubs plays the guitar, I love singing back up, and I could really get into a karaoke song when I’ve got one of those light up tambourines. These lace tambourines seemed quite fitting for our park celebration. The how to: Gather your craft crew, a cat, and all the supplies – embroidery hoops, fabric of choice, bells, thread, sewing needles, and scissors. Fit the fabric onto the hoop, trim, then sew on bells to your heart’s desire. Many crafty hours later: a collection of tambourines ready for ringing in the new Mr. & Mrs. Share a favorite confetti alternative below!
In today’s special Mother’s Day post I’m sharing a DIY that my beautiful Mama taught me how to make: boutonnieres and corsages! Growing up, I used to watch her make these for all her special events — club galas, church celebrations, birthdays…. So for my wedding, I wanted to make all the wearable flowers with my sister and our queen lady. I gathered flowers from the Temescal Farmers Market in Oakland and eucalyptus from Berkeley Bowl (my favorite market place!). Aren’t these ranunculi gorgeous? And check out my Mama’s flower hand modeling skills below. Materials and supplies were basic. We used floral tape, ribbons of choice (blush and ivory to match my wedding colors), and scissors. We made a boutonniere/corsage for each wedding guest. For the gents we made boutonnieres in shades of pink with eucalyptus leaf accents and blush ribbon. For the ladies we made larger corsages with white flowers and accent flowers, and longer strands of ribbon. How to: Position your flowers and accent leaves. Wrap with floral tape leaving some stem showing at the bottom. You can …
