Adventures in DIY

Floral Letters

2009-01-23T20:47:00.000-08:00

So I saw a couple of other brides who had DIY their own floral letters and I thought they turned out really nice. Thus, I thought that I couldn't mess this up too bad. So here's there materials I used.

-Approximately 150 small (1" or less) fake flowers. I chose mini rose bunches - the cheapo ones that were 50% off at Michael's - and I pulled all the flower heads off (also good for aggression)
-Wooden letters of your choice. We chose the initials of our first names, S for Sarah and J for Joel. But I've also seen them with last name initials.
-Ribbon
-Glue

So like I said, first I de-headed all my flowers. Then for ease and flatness of gluing, I pulled off the weird little green thing that supports the petals. This DOES make the petals more likely to fall off so I did that as needed.

Then I just glued the flower heads onto the letters. Now I learned two tricks to this part.

1. Start with the edges and then fill in the middle second.
2. Make sure you are looking at the letters from the angle they will be viewed from.

i.e. if you are gluing on a table, like I was, make sure you are looking straight down at the letters. Or what I did was held them up every so often. Otherwise it can look full from one angle but not-so-full from another

And although the pictures don't reflect the last step because they are drying as we speak, I will glue the gold ribbon to the back so I can hang the letters from the doorknob of our ceremony location door. I am going to hang them at different heights so you can see them both.

DIY Cupcake Top

2009-01-11T19:34:00.000-08:00

So the first DIY project I knew I wanted to do were cupcake toppers. I saw some in the magazine at the cake shop and I liked the uniformity they gave to the cakes.

I went out and purchased everything I thought I needed to make about 225 - 4" cupcake toppers and then I realized that those would be insanely huge. So I returned everything and bought everything I needed for 2 3/4" toppers - and that gear includes:

-36 12x12 sheets of patterned card stock

-10 12x12 sheets of plain white card stock

-Circular paper cutters

-Stamp and ink pad

-20 Dowels (not sure what size - I let Joel pick them out)

-Glue and scissors

Then I cut out 225 - 2 3/4" circles of the patterned card stock and 225 - 2" circles of white card stock. I glued the white circles onto the patterned circles. I let them dry and then stamped the middle. That's as far as I got tonight, see the attached (above) pictures for my process.

. . . also, if you know how to post pictures at the BOTTOM of the entry leave me a comment . . .

Taking the Plunge

2009-01-11T19:20:00.000-08:00

We've been engaged for almost 10 months and I have FINALLY started to attempt some of the DIY projects I've scouted out for the wedding. I figured someone in the universe might find it helpful to see the progress and mistakes that I've made when they are taking the DIY plunge.

I am somewhat crafty. I like to knit and have made a half-hearted attempt at a scrapbook or two. But I usually stick to what I know so I'm sure there will be a spectacular fail or two for everyone to enjoy.

Also feel free to visit my wedding planning website at mrstaddei.weebly.com if you want to see the rest of the story.