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Just a few days ago, Allie got married! As an animal lover herself, she gave her guests bird seed ornaments to hang outside. Ya know, it’s from the LOVEBIRDS. 
Here’s Allie’s tutorial to create these eco-friendly favors:
Supplies:
- Bird Seed
- Gelatin
- Water
- Silicon Molds
- Twine
- Wax Paper
- Mixing bowl
- Measuring Cup
- Tablespoons
- Cooking Spray
- Organza Bags (purchased here, at PaperMart)
Note: The following recipe was tripled from what was found online in order to fill 12 heart shaped molds. First, boil water.
Once at a boil, pour 1 1/2 cups of water into a mixing bowl with 3 tablespoons of gelatin. Mix to dissolve gelatin.
Pour 4 1/2 cups of birdseed into the bowl and mix. Note: the mixture will still be a little on the wet side at the bottom, but that’s ok. The water will be absorbed into the mixture after sitting.
Spray the molds with a cooking spray. (not sure if this positively needed, but figured it couldn’t hurt.)
Fill the mold halfway with the bird seed mixture. Place the ends of a cut piece of twine into the mold. This will be used to hang the ornament outside.
Continue to fill the other half of the mold, covering the twine. Allow to sit until it is fully hardened. The length of time may vary but I typically left them at least 4 hours. Typically I made 2 batches a day, one in the morning and one at night.
Once hardened, pop them out and lay on a piece of wax paper. After drying a few hours, stand them on their side so both the top and bottom dries. For wedding favor purposes, allow to dry at least a full 24 hours or more.
To complete for the wedding, slip into an organza bag and attach a tag message.
Tip: When making these ahead of time, and after fully dried, place in a clear tupperware container in the sunlight and not a dark cardboard box in your guest room turned wedding storage room to prevent mold. (learned the hard way on the first batch!)
Linked Parties:
Happy Hour Projects, Tatertots and Jello, One Artsy Mama, I Heart Naptime, The Southern Institute, The Kurtz Corner
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(supplies: Stickers: Jolee’s)
Yes I said more than one Bride!! As this post goes live, I’m actually down in Virginia taking part in Allie’s wedding as her maid of honor! Since she got engaged, I have been having fun wedding planning for hers and even more excited when we were able to start planning together!
In addition, I had been asked to be in my friend Aimee’s wedding ON THE SAME DATE! Unfortunately, I have not yet possessed the power of being in both Virgina and Wisconsin at the same time, so I will have to celebrate Aimee’s big day from afar. I am there in spirit!!!
Congrats again to Allie & Tim AND Aimee & Micah!
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Recently, I’ve attending and/or helped throw three bridal showers, all unique and geared towards the personality of each bride.
Fellow bride Vanessa will be married in late July with a modern vintage theme. Wanting to stay within this theme, her mom chose the Cosy Cupboard Tea Room for the location of Vanessa’s Bridal Shower.
The Cosy Cupboard puts together a great event with rounds of salad, soup, the finger sandwiches seen above, and a choice of teas to sample. At one point, we were also served one of two types of scones with a discussion on the proper way to eat said scone. (tearing it in two, not cut with a knife and topped with a sweet cream and jelly pairing).
To enhance the vintage tea room theme, fellow bridesmaid, Sherryl and her business partner, put together a gorgeous coordinated candy buffet from their company Sweet Little Nothings. I asked them to share a bit about their company for interested readers:
Sweet Little Nothings, started by Sherryl Andaya and Jacky Clay, is a unique Candy Buffet business, providing themed and color-coordinated candy display for special events in the Northern New Jersey and surrounding areas. While we specialize in “tea-themed” events, i.e., young ladies tea parties, bridal and wedding events, we are available to provide high-end quality candy buffets for every occasion including birthday parties, anniversaries and charity events. Most recently, Sweet Little Nothings has been engaged to provide a candy display for the Montclair Film Festival.
Sweet Little Nothings distinguishes itself by providing customized, unique and theme-based props that will create a “wow” effect for any party. In addition to candies, Sweet Little Nothings can provide cookies, cupcakes and other dessert items in its display, at the customer’s request. Prices start at $7.50 per person, plus $200 set up (for a party of up to 50 people), design and take down fee. For further information, please email info@sweetln.com.
After guests watched Vanessa open her gifts (to which I made the Ribbon Bouquet above), and we played a few games, we enjoyed a delicious cake dessert and more tea.
As a favor, guests walked away with a tin of tea from the tea room and a heart shaped tea infuser. I created the tea bag shaped tag which we attached to the cellophane bag. (edge punch shown is Open Scallop from EK Tools)
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It’s bridal shower season! In the last few months I’ve gone to 4, including 2 for weddings I’m in and I hear mine is on it’s way soon!
Instead of a paper plate hat, today I wanted to share a modern take and teach you how I make a ribbon bouquet. In theory, the bride uses this bouquet at her rehearsal the night before the big day as she practices walking down the aisle.
Supplies:
- Strong paper plate
- Scissors
- Tape
- Ribbons/Bows from the gifts received (not shown)
Before attending, cut several holes in the plate, with the biggest in the center. I’ve seen places online that say to make one hole in the center of the plate, but I find it’s actually easier if there are several places to thread the ribbons through.
As the bride opens her gifts, have the bridemaids hand you any ribbons or bows. For ribbons that don’t have a bow, make your own, then thread the loose ends through the holes in the plate. Use tape to attach any of the premade bows. Use thin ribbons along the edges and curl with your scissors by running the blade along the ribbon.
Continue to fill the bouquet with collected bows until the present reveal is complete! I promise this will not look like anything as you start, but will take shape as you continue making it.
Once you have collected all the bows, begin braiding those that are hanging through the holes. This braid will become the handle to carry the bouquet at the rehearsal.
In the end, the bride will be ready to use her ribbon bouquet at the rehearsal when she practices walking down the aisle for her big day!
Linking With:
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You may remember from this post, or this post, that my guest poster Allie loves owls. So when it came time to throw her bridal shower, we went with the themes of pink (an original color she wanted to use for the wedding) and owls!
Here’s a little snippet of her shower details:
Allie’s mom and bridesmaids alike made and bought delicious and colorful appetizers to munch on when guests arrived.
Guests sipped on bridemaid Karen’s delicious pink sherbert punch. Check back for a future post with the recipe!
One of the other crafty bridesmaids, Genny, found this post on Design Sponge on how to make fabric owls. She whipped up adorable paper versions, which we used as tags for the Martha Stewart Crafts favor bags filled with candy.
I altered my Halloween Owl Cupcakes with a more fitting color palette (using golden oreos and pink frosting). These funfetti filled cupcakes were display on a cupcake tower, mixed in with chocolate and nutella cupcakes. Allie’s mom, Karen, is not only a great cook but also a great baker. She made this moist, yummy cake which we topped with 2 more of Genny’s custom bride and groom owl cake toppers.
As a group gift, the 8 bridesmaids gave Allie and her husband the gift of time. She opened our group gift to find the above 12 wrapped gifts, each with a preplanned date for them to enjoy starting the month after their wedding. I’ll share the how to and details on each date once she starts to open them after her May wedding.
Mid way through opening the presents, we played a really fun bridal shower game, a purse scavenger hunt. Guests paired up, grabbed their purses and ran down the list, trying to check off each item. The best part came at the end when each team has to shown their nominated “strangest item” for the bonus 50 points. Allie chose a package of articulating paper used in dentistry! We also played wedding scattegories, where the answers all had to start with “K” for Allie’s new last name. As gifts, creative bridesmaid Carolyn, purchased and wrapped 4 gifts for guests to choose from: something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.
Link Parties:
Funky Giraffe, Thirty Handmade Days, Happy Hour Projects
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Trigger Tuesday is a week or two week challenge hosted by Cath Edvalson of Paper Crafts Magazine on their Moxie Fab World blog. It is meant to inspire creative artists in color palette, composition, texture and design by one photo alone.
This week Cath gave us this photo:
I’m sure with the blue gingham pattern and the white on white accents, most people probably think baby boy themes when looking at this photo. But since I’m in full on wedding mode, I definitely thought, something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue as in weddings!
As I have three showers to attend/help throw in the next few weeks, this was a very timely inspirational post to make a few bridal shower cards.
I used the white on white embossed looking design, the color palette and the criss cross tied bow as inspiration to make my two cards.
Thanks again for the inspiration, Cath!
(supplies: Die cut strips and cake sticker: Martha Stewart Crafts, patterned paper: EK Success)
Partying With:
Tatertots and Jello, The Southern Institute
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I recently received 2 interesting pieces of mail. While this is not a creative post on my behalf, I just had to share. Exhibit A:
These are hand written thank you notes from 2 customer service contacts over at WeddingPaperDivas.com.
For those of you who are not familiar with the site, they are the sister site to TinyPrints.com, known mostly for adorable baby related announcements, invites and shower items. Weddingpaperdivas.com has a really nice collection of wedding related products, such as shower invites, save the dates and wedding invitations.
Besides recommending them to 2 friends who have used them, I have personally ordered from this site twice now; once for my own save the dates and once for bridal shower invitations. First, I love that they often have coupon codes for free samples. Brides want to touch and feel and see the printing on the items they are going to send to all their friends and family. And being that I’m a bride, bridesmaid and maid of honor this year, after talking to their customer service department, they also were able to allow me to get samples for both my bridal wedding needs as well as my maid of honor duties.
Can I just tell you, THEY HAVE THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE! I love that they have a chat feature, and it’s available at great hours! I have always found friendly contacts to talk to on there. I’ve asked many “I’m-a-bride-who-has-a-design-degree-but-doesn’t-want-to-create-her-own-invitations-so-can-you-make-these-changes” requests and suggestions and they have obliged whenever possible.
Their design staff is great at checking the submitted items and even made a suggestion to alter my save the date visually to make the wording look better. I’ve always received my orders ahead of the estimated schedule (though I secretly think they bump that estimate out so when they deliver early it makes them look good! haha) and I would highly recommend them to a friend. I plan to use them for my invitations in the next few months!
But beyond all that… their customer service department sends hand written thank you notes for using their services. How sweet is that?
(disclaimer: I’m not being paid to provide these opinions on this company. This was my personal post based on my recent interaction with their services)
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When I started this blog, I knew it wasn’t going to be a personal blog with personal photos of me or my friends/family. While I do mention them occassionally, or they guest posts for me, I try my best to make the focus about the creative things we make and do!
So it feels weird to me to not really share one of the biggest crafting hobbies I have: scrapbooking! Sure, you see lots of my cards on this blog, but I also spend time in my craft room scrapping away to document all the photos I take all year. I’m working to put together a future post of scrapbook pages that I can share, but in the meantime I have a challenge for you!
If you spend the time to scrapbook a beautiful page, why not use the scraps, no matter how small they are, to create a beautiful matching card?
Exihibit A:
This is a scrapbook layout I made talking about the night we got engaged. It doesn’t have a photo of our faces (as I was in PJS, hair in a bun and my glasses on!), but it still documents the memorable occassion.
Exhibit B:
This is the Valentine’s Day card I made for D using scraps from this layout! I used even the tiniest pieces of the paper borders in a stacked fashion to create a simple card.
TIPS:
I do not like to use whole sheets of my pretty patterned papers to make handmade cards. I always use scraps!
Here’s a great tip to get decent sized scraps for cards: If you have a really cute patterned paper that you like, and you know you’re going to cover a large chunk of it for your layout, cut out a hole behind where you know your photos and journaling will cover. I did this on the above layout in order to get that large scrap to use for the card. It’s a cheap way to still obtain a piece of that pretty pattern and allow you to use it on something else, like a card!
(supplies: Stickers- Jolee’s Boutique, Punches – Martha Stewart Crafts, Letter Stickers – EK Success, Patterned Paper – Peebles)
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In just a few short months, I will be Maid of Honor at my good friend Allie’s wedding!! A few weekends ago I attended a shower for her that was thrown by her soon to be in-laws. As we the bridesmaids and I will be hosting another shower in upcoming weeks, I didn’t want to bring a huge gift, but also didn’t want to go empty handed. I made this gift almost 6 months ago waiting to give it to her and thought this first shower was the perfect place.
If you remember, Allie loves owls! I had this adorable owl couple stamp from Hero Arts, I knew I had to use it for a thank you card set for her using a heat emboss technique.
I stamped the images with silver Pigment ink, sprinkled in clear embossing powder and heat set it.
Here’s a close up on the heat embossing in action (only the top right side is set while the other part is not yet set. see the glistening goodness?)
You may remember from my first Handmade with Love series where Holly made a fun embossed effect around the outside of her card. I loved that and have kept in the back of my mind to try out. Well here I am adding the embossing effect on these cards using my Martha Stewart Scoring Board.
Here is the finished result. Simple, yet what a Thank You card should be!
(Supplies: patterned paper – K&Company, Punches & Tools - EK Success & Martha Stewart Crafts, Stamp – Hero Arts)
Linking Up With:
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Back in November I mentioned on this post that after 9 years of dating, D and I got engaged! Our wedding is planned for September and, as I had also warned, so will begin some of the wedding crafting related posts! First up: The bridal party invites!
Of course this is only pertaining to my bridesmaids, as what guy wants to get a card from another dude (well maybe they would if they saw these interactive ones!) Simply pull to reveal the message:
I made three of these fun cards based on this waterfall design from the very talented Becky C!
I was anxious to see whether they would read the pull part and do the action but I’m happy to report all three did (and they all said yes after reading it!).
Make one for someone you know who will love the interactive part!
Linking Up With:
Tatertots and Jello, Somewhat Simple, Southern Lovely, One Artsy Mama, The Southern Institute
