Precap: Table Number DIY

We housed our table numbers in vintage looking, mismatched gold picture frames. Calling this project a DIY is kind of a stretch, but bear with me, this is an easy one:


Step 1: Go to Home Goods and TJ Maxx and immediately see large collections of gold frames.


Step 2: Estimate 20 tables. Find five differnet style frames you like, and buy multiples of each. (That's important! If you have 20 entirely different frames, it looks ghetto. If you have 4 of each of 5 kinds of frames, it looks cool and intentional).

Step 3: Buy frames. Get annoyed when you realize the 30 day return policy means you're stuck keeping all these after the wedding.


Step 4: Take shimmery cardstock and cut down to the size in the frames. Call calligrapher at last minute and feel relieved she only charges 30 cents to write a number on a piece of paper.


Step 5: Pop the numbers into the frames. Voila!

Extra Credit: Beg calligrapher to make signage for the bars as well:

(All frames were purchased at Home Goods and TJ Maxx. Cardstock was Opal Stardream from Cards and Pockets. Calligraphy was done by Carmela Mazzarulli).


(Also, my best friend and her cousin are using these for their weddings, so I feel better about spending $100 on picture frames).
What did you do for table numbers?

Precap: Menu DIY

Okay so before I get into the recaps, I want to finish my last DIY posts. My personal favorite DIY was the menus I created for our wedding:

Pic by Spark Photography

I used Microsoft Publisher to create this. I started with your standard 8.5 x 11 page, and split it into two columns. I copied and pasted our monograms off our invite proofs and placed that at the top. The text was all written in separate text boxes so that I could center it appropriately, and then I just copied and pasted from one column over to another. Very simple. I liked this because it allowed me to print two per page, which saved me about $80.


I had them printed on Opal Stardream cardstock from Cards and Pockets, like all my other DIYs.

Then, we had to cut down the middle of each page to separate them.

I used a corner rounder to round the corners, and then swiped the edges through a gold stamp pad.

Below, you can see how much that little edging added to the menus. (It also matched the gold edges on our invitation, though I cannot imagine a single person besides me would have realized that).

To make it easier, I ran stacks of about 20 menus at a time through the stamp pad. I had to do it twice to ensure everything got a bold enough gold color.


At the reception, we had these slipped into the fold in an ivory napkin. They looked beautiful and I felt this was a DIY well worth the effort.


Are you designing menus?

Program DIY, Part 2

So last week I showed you guys the inside of the programs, and recently my mom, FMIL, and MOH came over to help me complete them, an easy but time consuming task, made a lot more fun by their company.


I had designed and printed the covers a few months prior at, where else, my beloved Cards and Pockets. I had 6 x 12 inch booklets made and scored so I could fold them into 6 x 6 inch booklets. I printed them on the Opal Stardream cardstock I've used for all my wedding tasks so far, and designed a fairly simple cover:

Just our names, wedding date, and wedding location.

A heads up if you go this route, it's not exactly budget friendly. 225 covers cost me $186, and that is before the cost of resume paper, embellishments, and tools used.

To keep up with our lace and pearls theme, I purchased a beautiful lace from MJ Trim here in New York City. Unfortunately, there was no name or style  number printed on it, but here's what it looked like:

Yes that's right, I set out a Christmas tablecloth in July...didn't want to wreck my mom's table with glue!

I cut 225 strips that were about 6 and 1/4 inches- I wanted the lace to be longer than the program.

We formed an assembly line. My mom attached the covers and the insides using a long reach stapler, which I think is a great way to make booklets. The long reach stapler allows you to set the size so that you can staple papers up to 12 inches long, rather than using a conventional stapler, which wouldn't have reached the binding.

After stapling, she handed the programs off to the rest of us, who used Mod Podge and paintbrushes to apply the lace. We applied it to the front cover and folded it over the spine to hide the staples and leave a border near the spine on the back cover.

Since the lace strips were longer than the program, once the glue dried we just cut the extra edges off, which gave us a nice straight cut. That way, you don't have to worry about cutting the lace straight at the beginning.

The finished product (also displayed on a heinous tablecloth, sorry!)

I'm very pleased with how they came out. They're definitely of a more formal and less trend-forward rustic look, and they were a heck of a lot of work, but I'm glad we did them.

If you're going to attempt a similar project my only advice would be to literally start four months in advance. By the time I got all our text together (and verified by our officiants), designed everything in Word, and ordered sample programs, it was already mid April, and I'd started the project in January.

What are you doing for programs?

DIY Programs: The Inside

It's been a while since a DIY post, so today I'm going to share how I made our programs, in case anyone out there wants to copy a somewhat complicated, but very pretty, project.


I immersed myself in loads of inspiration photos, and ultimately decided I wanted a 6 x 6 square booklet, with lace details.

I started with the insides of the program, brainstorming content and page size. Based on our program cover size of 6x6, I wanted the inside pages to be 5.5 x 5.5 when folded, to leave a margin. That meant the two page spread would be 5.5 tall x 11 inches wide on the computer screen. I planned to print these at home on 8.5 x 11 paper, so I knew I would need to leave a large bottom margin that I would later cut off.

So I opened a Microsoft Word document, set my page to landscape, and set my margins to .3 on the left and right, .4 on top, and 2.5 on the bottom. I formatted the page to have two columns.


I wanted four pages in the program:
1. Order of ceremony
2. Wedding participants
3. Explanation of traditions (we are interfaith, so the explanation helps if anyone's unfamiliar with something)
4. Thanks/In remembrance


I scribbled a little mini booklet on a piece of paper and folded it to see where everything needed to lay when printed in order to fold correctly, and came up with this order.

Printing these was a breeze. I wanted to print double sided, so Mr. B loaded his printer up, printed 225 copies of the first page, turned everything upside down and backwards (you may want to do a few test prints to see how your printer works), and reprinted the with page 2 on the back. We used resume paper, as it is not see through, and gives the programs a nice heft.

Then, we had to cut off the extra big margin on the bottom. That took a cutting board, razor, and a little bit of time. (And a Sam Adams to keep from boredom).

When it was done, I used a bone folder to fold the programs in half, and we wound up with the finished insides: 

Open inside spread

Back page- thanking our parents and remembering deceased grandparents

When they were done, I stacked them up and placed one of my heaviest shower gifts on top of them to keep them nice and flat.

I plan to be assemble these this weekend, and will post the finished product then!

Gifts for the Girls, Part 2

A little while back, I brainstormed lots of bridesmaid gift ideas. 

Then I forgot about it for a while.


Then I realized my wedding is really soon, and I didn't have time to waste.

I started with the monogrammed robes, one for each girl. They were a bright aqua with white monogramming; I got one for myself as well, in the reverse color scheme.

They came from Etsy seller Oak Embroidery Loft, who I have to highly recommend. Holly was very sweet, responsive, and prompt, and even gave me a discount for ordering six (I think they wound up being like $20 each). The robes are a medium weight waffle knit cotton.


I also purchased matching Old Navy flip flops.


In keeping with the personalized theme, I also purchased monogrammed acrylic trays. The idea came from The Peak of Tres Chic, an interior design blog I like to read, and I scoured Etsy to find a cheaper alternative.


I found seller Lime Tree Gifts, who also was super sweet, prompt, and also gave me a bulk discount ($17 each), and ordered five engraved acrylic trays:

I was obsessed with these- I'm ordering five more as gifts for our readers and moms, and myself!

I'm using them to hold the bridesmaid's "Survival Kit," which contains:

• Shout wipes
• Tissues
• Cute heart shaped shoe cushions for painful high heels
• Mini hair spray
• Makeup remover wipes
• Fashion tape

My mom packaged up the survival kits for me with cellophane and aqua ribbon:

And then we combined that with the robes and flip flops, into a bigger version:

(We'll be adding a nice bow to it)

I will be making and handwriting thank you cards to each girl (I am so nervous to do that, I sometimes have a hard time putting sentimental things out there), and I am also paying for their hair.


So what do you think? Nice gift?  I keep feeling like it's not enough!

Our Favors

I know there's a lot of debate about favors. Some people think they're unnecessary, and some people (like me) can't fathom not having them. 

Actually, I have lots of opinions on favors. I'm easily grossed out by homemade jams and similar cooked-at-home-and-packaged stuff, and I also hate donations (Not that I think giving a donation is a bad idea, just that I like to keep that stuff more private, rather than shoving my good deed in everyone's face). 

Okay, so with all my pickiness out in the open, here's what I chose, feel free to have your own say about it:

 

Champagne glasses! I used the monogram from our invitations, and Mr. B painstakingly centered our names and wedding date around the monogram. 

We ordered the glasses from Discountmugs.com , and I was really happy with them. They offer 10% discounts frequently, so we wound up paying about $360 for 200 glasses. Their shipping was fast, with nothing broken in transit, and the glass quality was very good.

The favors will be set out on a table at the end of the wedding, and I opted for a little DIY to jazz them up:

First, I made "thank you" tags:

These were really simple:
1.  Create a 3 colum by 7 row landscape table in Microsoft Word, sizing each cell to be 1" tall and 3" long. I made the table borders a very light gray so that I had guidelines for cutting them out.
2. Type your text- we just put "Thank you! Tracy and Brad" on them, in our wedding fonts of Edwardian Script and Garamond.
3. We printed them on Opal Stardream cardstock from Cards and Pockets, and cut them out (with a razor and straight edge, not scissors).
4. Mr. B punched a hole in the tags and I used the best corner rounder ever to make a 1/4" rounded corner on each tag.
5. Finally, I ran the edges through a gold ink pad so they'd match the gold edges on our invite (not that ANYONE will notice).

I promise you can have the tags finished in like an hour and a half.  I popped open a Sam Adams, got into the swing of things, and they were done before I knew it.

We attached the thank you tags with a sheer gold ribbon from Nashville Wraps, and stuffed them with french vanilla tissue paper shred, also from Nashville Wraps.

In an aside, Nashville Wraps is another company I have to really recommend. I paid $2.85 cents for 25 yards of ribbon (yes, you're reading that right), which was more than enough for 200 glasses. I paid only $6.85 for one pound of shred, again, more than enough for this project.

So for less than $10 we really added to the favors and made them look really nice, rather than just having a collection of glasses on the table.

And if you don't need shred or ribbon, they sell a humongous amount of gift bags, boxes, tissue paper, or any kind of packaging you could imagine, in all different colors and patterns, at wholesale prices. And no, they're not paying me to say this, I just think it is a really great resource for all of us crazy DIY brides!

What are you guys doing for favors? And do you get really opinionated about them too?

(all pics are personal, and terrible, sorry)

Engagement Party Invites: Finished Product

So the other day I posted the computer design of my engagement party invites. Here’s how I finished them.

Step 1: Print the invites

You may have a printer at home that prints nicely on cardstock without making you want to throw it out a window. I do not possess such luxuries, so I turned to my local Staples. Honestly, the work there is a little haphazard, but it’s also cheap and easier than fighting my home printer. I set up my file with 2 invites per 8.5 x 11 page, and had Staples cut them down to my 4 x 6 size. They charge by the page and cut.

Personal Pic

Step 2: Mount invites on cardstock

DIY Engagement Party Invite Design

Mr. B’s parents love to have parties, and they’ve decided to throw one for our engagement. They’re hosting a backyard pool party for us at their house, so it’ll be a pretty relaxed and casual atmosphere (hope FMIL knows relaxed and casual means beer pong!) To reflect this, I decided to design some party invites with a vintage and fun feel. The look was heavily inspired by the menu at Brooklyn Bowl, a great bowling alley/bar in Williamsburg:

Source

My design, after the jump:

Classing Up The Envelopes

My younger brother was recently invited to two weddings, and while the invitations themselves were nice, the envelopes were a mess. One was sloppily handwritten in ballpoint (!!) pen, and the other was done in those semi-transparent computer labels, with mismatching fonts on the return address and guest address labels.  I realize lots of brides just don’t care about this, since the envelope usually gets tossed, but  I believe that for all the thought we put into invites, the envelopes should be a consideration as well- it’s the first thing people see when they get the invites!  My mom didn't care, but I was honestly scandalized when I saw them.

Doing guests’ addresses can be a pain, I get that. But at the very least, your return address can be nicer. Lots of companies and calligraphers offer custom return address stamps, so you can just stamp and emboss your address on envelopes. It’s perfect, as you can have a unifying, cohesive element on all envelopes from your STDs to your thank yous. It looks so good, there’s almost no excuse not to use it! (No, no one is paying me to promote this idea, even though I sound like it!)

I ordered a stamp from Etsy seller “Foryoo.” It shipped quickly, and I’m really happy with the final product. Plus, it was only $20. To me, not a lot to spend to make all my paper goods look a little better! (although when you factor in embossing supplies, if you don’t own them already, you can plan on spending another $25). (Still worth it to me!)

Here’s my stamp:

 

Personal photo with address not so covertly hidden by tissue paper

And here’s what it looked like on the back of an envelope. It would obviously look MUCH better if I didn’t  have to block out my address and last name! Kinda looks now like I don’t know how to emboss properly! Swear it looks awesome in person

And to give you a better idea, a pic from Etsy, in a different style font:

Source

Inexpensive way to add a little something extra to all the paper goods. Now I am just hoping we get a random engagement gift so I can put it to use on my thank yous!

Invitation Making Class

My mom and I love to find random things to do together. Sometimes we check out trendy restaurants in the city, to see if they’re as good as people say. Sometimes we go to wine tastings at local wineries, other times we spend hours in the Lenox outlet, ogling the china. (These activities make us sound a lot fancier than we actually are!) This particular weekend, we took the Wedding Suites class at Paper Source. It's a two hour class that goes through some of the basics of creating your own wedding invitations, and it was really fun. I'm not going to DIY my invites, but I do plan to maybe do some other elements, so I definitely felt like I learned how to add a little professionalism to whatever projects I do. The class was $30, which can add up when combined with all the stuff you’ll undoubtedly buy. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon together, could even be something cute to do with your bridesmaids!

 

Some class highlights:

We learned some basic envelope lining techniques, as well as some cute ideas to decorate the liner.

As you can see, I had a little trouble using that particular punch, but you get the idea.

Bridal Party Card Reveal

So here they are, the finished product! Unfortunately I'm not fantastic with a camera, but they did come out nice. Here's what they look like:

A slightly sharper closeup:

 

And the interior: 

 

Before I mail them, I'll be writing a little message inside, inviting them all to a bridesmaid's brunch at a later date. 

So there you have it! My first wedding DIY!

The supplies I used are:

4 Bar Folded Cards in Paper Bag, 20 for $5.50 at Paper Source

4 Bar Note Cards in Chocolate, 20 for $3.00 at Paper Source

Pink Patterned Paper, $4.95 for 20x29 sheet at Paper Source

Stamp: Inkadinkadoo 
Dotted Scallop Edger Punch, EK Success (I got it at Michael's)

Embossing powder, ink, and heat tool from Michael's.

Bridal Party Cards

Alright, so the next part of the bridal party cards was to actually make the cards. This was the inspiration I used for the cards:

 Source

Bridal Party Cards- The Envelopes

I want to DIY parts of my wedding, but am afraid to tackle the big stuff like invites, so I’m making cards to ask my girls to be bridesmaids. This way, I can satisfy my craft craving but still keep the project small and manageable.  (and by “manageable,” I mean it is near impossible to feed thick cardstock through a printer and actually I never want to do this again).

The first thing I worked on was the envelopes, using Mrs. Hamster’s lining tutorial. I pre-printed them with everyone’s addresses, which took a fair amount of trial and error to get set up correctly- it's amazing how something looks one way on a computer screen, yet prints unrecognizably. 

I created a liner template by tracing an envelope onto a piece of cardstock and cutting it out. I'm sure you could buy something like this, but that didn't occur to me. I cut about ½ inch off the perimeter of my template to get the size right- you want it to be smaller than the envelope, so you get the nice border around your liner.

I traced around my template onto a sheet of liner paper, and cut the liners out.

I pre-folded them before spraying with glue and lining up in the envelope. This part was a little tricky, since I used a really light paper prone to crinkling. But eventually, with a little patience I was successful:

 And here are the finished envelopes! Very pretty, if I do say so myself!  I love the hot pink:

Supplies:

A6 Envelopes in Fuchsia from Paper Source, $3.50 for a pack of 10

Gold on Cream Mums Paper from Paper Source, $4.95 for a 20 x 29 sheet