The "Cards" Box

     So I was thinking about the "cards box". You know...that thing people put out for guest who bring cards. I've seen stuff as out there and awesome as giant Lego blocks and as nature-y as bird cages and little trees with clips. I've also seen the boring old boxes with the word "cards" written on it and a slit in the top. So here's what I did....I found an awesome top-folding picnic basket at an estate sale for $5. 
     I used the lid from a Bed, Bath, and Beyond box (which I have LOTS of lately) and the last of my glittery copper spray paint (that I used most of on the wishing tree) to make a background for the card sign. After it dried, I fashioned some letters out of floral wire that I picked up from an estate sale and have used for many other things. The letters were wrapped in a rainbow ribbon that I picked up at Michael's just this morning, and hot-glued to the copper sign. Then I hot-glued on some left-over flower accents that I had. (Same ones from the butterfly cage and the archway centerpiece.) Finally, I used some fun-cutting scissors to make the edges of the sign pretty. Last, I attached a pin left over from making boutonnieres to the back of the sign, and pinned it into the lid of the picnic basket. I'm so glad it turned out so well! It's going to look great on the table under the wishing tree! :)

 

 

The Ceremony Archway

     When I began to picture our ceremony, a lot of things came to mind. Many of those things have evolved since I began planning this wedding. One thing, however, has remained constant...I have always wanted an archway. I looked at renting them from a place here in town, but the only style that I liked wouldn't work well outdoors (and I didn't care for the styles that would have worked outdoors). My brother is an excellent craftsman, so I asked him to build us an arch that could later be converted into a porch swing. (That way it would serve a function later...and so I would have something special from my wedding that my brother made.) Unfortunately, he wasn't able to find the time to make it for us. 

     Luckily, Matt's mom had a friend from work who had an arch that we were able to borrow. It is absolutely beautiful! It's a white arch with wide sides that is heavy enough to work well outdoors. On a wedding shopping trip a long time ago, we picked up some floral decorations for the future archway. These decorations were long chains of greenery with 5 of the 6 rainbow colors existing as Gerber daisies every so often along the chain. We bought a matching Gerber daisy bundle in the 6th color, and I had to go through and manually add/rearrange the flower garland to include the last color.
     For the center of the archway, I wanted something special. I thought about getting one big Gerber daisy and using spray dye to make it rainbow. But then I thought, "why spend more money? Surely I can come up with something....". And I did! Necessity really is the mother of invention...

     What I did was first free-hand an "M" (my future last name will be Morrow) on the back of a lid from a Bed, Bath, and Beyond box. (Those boxes have been used for many things because of their abundance as of late! :p) I used a box cutter to extract my M. Next, I wrapped the M in electrical tape. Then I began the task of hot-gluing on some paper flowers that I got from Michael's a while back. (I used these on the butterfly cage, if you recall.) Finally, I hot-glued on some black ribbon for tying the centerpiece I'd just created onto the arch itself. I was definitely pleased with the outcome. :)

Getting The Word Out--Part II

     Ok, so...I know I posted the prototype invite sheets a long time ago, BUT.....like all things, the invitations evolved before being sent out. :p First of all, I kept the paper mentioned before. (A seeded paper from Saveoncrafts.com.) I modified the wording using Microsoft Word, and printed them in color. 

Front of Invitations

Back of Invitations

     After printing, the pages were cut in half. (Two invitations per sheet of seeded paper.) The pages were then placed into ivory envelopes, sealed and stamped with an abstract tree rubber stamp using a beautiful copper ink. I really liked the design of the tree...I felt it was abstract enough to be elegant, yet real enough to fit the nature theme. Then a friend asked if it was supposed to be the white tree of Gondor....I laughed as I replied, "Not intentionally."....but now that he mentions it...I absolutely love that I went with it....even if it was a little unnecessary to stamp the back of each one. :)

Back of Envelope with Tree Stamp/Seal with Stamping Block

Hooray for Bridesmaids!: Part II (Dying Sashes)

     My bridesmaids will be wearing "conac" (copper) colored dresses as mentioned in a previous post. (See Hooray for Bridesmaids!) Each girl will have a different colored flower that they will be carrying down the aisle. To match the flowers, each will also have a sash in her color and they will be wearing black converse shoes with laces in their color. This post is about how I made the sashes. :)
     After playing around in fabric stores browsing various fabrics, I decided to go with a 10% polymesh fabric. It was awesome because it lays really well and doesn't have to be hemmed because no one will be able to tell anyway! I found a sash in the perfect blue and another in the perfect green shade. I found a baby pink (not what I wanted!) and white. And that...was...it! I searched high and low for yellow, orange, the right pink, and purple, but alas...none was to be found. Not online. Not in any of the fabric stores I picked through. (including a trip to the metroplex that yielded no properly colored polymesh!) 
       Then it hit me...and I'm not sure why it didn't hit me sooner...why not just dye them? My future mother-in-law and I headed back to Hancock Fabric and bought four 1/4ft pieces of white polymesh. Later on, I lost a bridesmaid, so I only ended up dying 3 of them. (Long story, but don't worry...no one's feelings were hurt! It was just a dress mix up that ended with being short a dress b/c David's Bridal stopped carrying the style/color.)

     So, after putting it off for awhile, I finally got motivated to dye the sashes. (Thanks Airicca!:p) To my dismay, the Rit dye required not just letting the sash sit in the dye, but also constant stirring...for 30-60 minutes!?!!!! So I naturally did what anyone would do...I hooked my laptop up in the kitchen and turned on a Harry Potter movie to pass the time. (The Chamber of Secrets for those wondering...) I worked pink first. After 45 minutes, the dye was setting anything brighter than a baby pink. I decreased the water and increased the dye. Still no luck after 15 more minutes. I decreased the water and added the last of the dye. I also heated the water over the stove to help. It got a little darker...but that was it. :( A little sad, I rinsed out the pot and the sash...to reveal a baby...like terrified of bright colors baby pink.

     Then I tried Plan B...which it turns out should have been Plan A. I used the same dye that was used to dye my wedding dress tie. (Blog post about that one coming soon!) Voila! Worked beautifully!...and in a quarter of the time! It's a spray dye, so I laid down some plastic trash bags and sprayed the mesh. I had to sort of "rub the color in" to make the color smooth and consistent. I hung the sash on some hangers to air dry while I dyed the other sashes. Once they dried, I heat set them in the dryer and life was good. :)

Toasting Glasses

     In my attempts to find decorations for Matt and myself for our toasting flutes, I found the cutest already-made-adorable wine glasses. They were adorned with hearts, rings, and the words "Mr. & Mrs.". To top it off...they were only $1 each! (Thank you Dollar Tree!) And with that, my search came to an end. But there's more to the story of toasting glasses than just ours...
     While at an estate sale at one point, I met a man that knew Matt and his family. The man gave me a box of glasses and jars for free on the promise that I would use them in the wedding. So, I picked out some of the glasses (mostly mis-matched) to give to our family members who would be sitting at the family table with us. After a good washing, I set about decorating these. I didn't want to spend any money on decorating them as doing such was not really necessary, but it sounded like a fun idea, so I didn't want to leave them plain. After some scrounging, I found some lettering and some foam stickers. The results can be seen below. The top photo shows our moms' glasses and the second shows our dads' glasses. The bottom two show our brothers' glasses along side their girlfriends' glasses.

Sundae Table

     Originally, I wanted to have a trail-mix table for people to make their own favors. So, I started collecting jars at garage sales and estate sales and we picked up some candy scoops and heart-shaped ladles. I even had the bags ordered. Unfortunately, as we got closer to the big day...that idea seemed too cumbersome in light of other preparations since we aren't going to be using a caterer. However, with the heat of the summer, why not have a make-your-own-sundae table??? I re-purposed my jars and created some tags using Microsoft Word. I affixed the tags using double-sided tape.

      For a little color, I used some yarn that I picked up at an estate sale that Aunt Sharon had a while back. I cut strips of yarn in each of the colors I wanted to use, then twisted them as tight as I could. Next, I wrapped the twisted yarn around the jars and double-knotted them. Finally, I cut away the excess and moved the knots to the opposite side from the tags so that they didn't show from the front. Brilliant! And they cost me next to nothing. Most of the jars were $1 or less. (I found the very same ones at Wal-mart ranging from $7-$15 EACH!!! The yarn was all in a big bag of stuff that I took to help clear out some of the left-overs from Aunt Sharon's estate sale. I made and cut out the tags myself...so really, these adorable vessels were dirt cheap! Yay! The stuff to go in them may cost a bit, but at least the jars weren't pricey. :)

 

      I also found some colorful soda-shop style straws at Micheal's of all places! They were $1/pack, so I got four packs...each a different color. I already had a neat straw-holder from an estate sale many moons ago, so that became wedding property. 

     And, just for funzies, here's a photo of some of the jars you've already seen taken from a different angle. I'm really pleased with how these turned out! :)

Throw-Away Bouquet

       To make my throw-away bouquet, I picked up some polka-dotted faux daisies from Michaels'.  I bent the stems a bit and cut them to an appropriate length to make a bouquet.  Then I wrapped the stems together with floral tape and covered it in copper ribbon ("Firefly" was the name of the color) from Wal-mart. I then cut some copper leaves from a bundle of my Michaels' Christmas clearance treasures and hot-glued them onto the outer edges of the arrangement. Then, I hot-glued some copper berries from the Michaels' Christmas clearance stuff to the centers of each of the flower heads. As a final touch, I added some ribbon of each of the wedding colors to the stem...it came out cuter than I had pictured!