Making my dress my own

So as of my last post, it looks like most of you are leaning toward covering the wedding lovefest first. Before I can get to that, it's only right that I share with you the details of how Mama Frog and I were able to personalize my dress for the big day (and by Mama Frog and I, I mean Mama Frog - she's got skillz).

From here on out, I hand over the reigns and let her take you through the steps of how to make a silk sash and chiffon ribbon flower...go for it, Mom!

Hello hive - I'm thrilled to be here! I hope you enjoy the tutorial as much as I enjoyed creating it for you.

To Make the Silk Sash:

You will need 1/3 yard of silk shantung. Make sure that you have a straight edge when they cut the fabric at the store.

Cut (3) - three inch strips across the width of the silk fabric (If you don’t have good, sharp sewing shears, Michael's has shears by Martha Stewart for about $20.00).

Fray the edge on each side of the fabric strip by separating a thread and pulling it across (gently). I find it easiest to fray by holding the center of the strip while standing and letting the ends hang down. Carefully separate a single strand (of thread) and pull it out away from the strip. It should easily pull away to each end. Continue fraying until you have about a ¼ inch on each side of the strip. You will need to cut off the extra thread at each end.

I used a French seam to join the 3 strips together. To make a French seam –

1. Cut ½” off of the ends of each strip, making sure to cut a straight line.

2. Determine which side of the fabric is the right side (the side that you want to show). It should have more sheen to it.

3. Pin 2 wrong sides together (see photo below) and sew a ¼” seam. Trim the seam to 1/8”.

4. Fold the right sides together along the seam line and pin together.

5. Sew a ½” seam.

6. Press the seam to one side, pin and stitch in place near the outside edge - you will need to remove the pins as you sew this seam to prevent puckering.

Note – You can skip the last step and just press the seam to one side, if this is too difficult and you will still have a finished look.

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To Make the Chiffon Ribbon Flower:

You’ll need-

40” of 3” chiffon ribbon (without wire)

1” square of netting (for backing)

6 rhinestones for the center of the flower (sew or glue on)

Fabric glue for rhinestones (unless you are sewing on)

½” flat button to glue the rhinestones to (optional)

1. Lay out your ribbon and divide the ribbon into 4 equal sections. Place a mark at each section.

2. Starting at one end, sew a basting stitch (by hand) leaving 12” of thread at the beginning point for pulling later. Sew down the end, round the corner and sew across the bottom until you get to the end of your first section mark.

3. Continue basting back up to the top of the ribbon and then immediately back down again. Continue this process across the ribbon – ending with the basting going to the top of the end side (leave 12” of thread at this end also).

4. You should end of up with 4 sections.

5. Grab hold of the thread at each end and (very gently) pull, gathering the ribbon as you pull. It will start to take on the shape of 4 flower petals. Get your gathering as even as possible and gently shape the flower with your hands. When you are happy with it, tie off the thread ends together.

6. Take your 1” piece of netting and sew it onto the center of the back of the flower by hand.

7. Now you need to finish the center of the right side of the flower. You can sew rhinestones on or you can glue them on using fabric glue. It also works to use a flat button and sew the button onto the center of the flower and then glue the rhinestones to the button. (Make sure that you lay out the rhinestones on the button first to make sure that the button will be covered.

8. Now you can sew the chiffon flower onto the silk sash or attach a pin clasp to the back of the flower and pin it to the sash.

Ta-da!

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And there you have it my dear hive! Thanks Mom for the step-by-step tutorial, I have no idea how your sewing skills skipped a generation but I sure am glad that I was able to benefit from all of your hard work. :) Oh and get this, she actually made me a second sash for the reception which I'll show you later...it's very blingy. I keep telling her she should go into business, maybe this will be a fun jumping off point?

Also, can I just say...it was one of the most special parts of the wedding to be able to wear a piece that my Mom made for me. I will always treasure it - not only did it make my dress 100% unique, it was a symbol of the love and support she has given me throughout my life.

Are you planning to wear something that was handmade for you? Anyone planning to use the Frog tutorial to create your own sash or flower?

Let's play the waiting game

Since I’m obsessively checking every 5 minutes waiting patiently for my pro pics, this is a great time to revisit some of the last minute projects I tackled just days before the wedding…and in some cases, literally at the eleventh hour.

Thanks to the genius that is Mrs. Lemon, I discovered iRave and knew I had to add it to my never-ending list of projects. In the early morning hours before our flight to Seattle, I quickly laid out the little photo cards in Photoshop. Because I’m extremely creative (read: brain dead from lack of sleep and too many last minute wedding projects), I blatantly copied Mrs. Lemon’s fab little directions for using the site. I tried my best to create a design the tied to our theme, it’s sad, but it was the best I could manage on 3 hours of sleep. :)

I also decided in my sleep deprived state that creating cute little Mr. and Mrs. signs for our chairs would be a nice touch…luckily those were very simple to do:

In my fit of Photoshop projects, I also realized that I had yet to create the sign for our “guestbook” – the fantastic wine bottle that we got from Frogger’s family antique shop (did I mention that we had access to as many cool antiques as we wanted? Yeah, it was awe.some). Below is the sign we created – you’ll have to wait to see the bottle in all its glory.

And of course, after seeing Mrs. Cola’s post about crafts, I realized I hadn’t created a sign for our guest shuttle bus…add that to the list! I’m sure I could have gone on and on (and well, I did create the welcome letter for our out-of-town bags and a sticker for the bags but they were scraped after I reached my zen state of “nobody will ever know the difference” – this became a mantra for me as the wedding grew closer and projects loomed, just being real here).

Did you fall victim to crazy-must-add-more-projects-to-the-list bridal insanity and tackle craft projects at the last minute? Did “nobody will ever know the difference” become a mantra for you at all during the wedding planning process? Tell me I’m not alone…

For the kiddies

We don’t have a lot of kids coming to the wedding but it was important to us to recognize our pint-sized family members in at least a small way.

A while back I came across a posting on Martha Stewart Weddings where they had created a version of I Spy as a conversation starter for a wedding. I just loved the idea so I decided to create my own version for the kids.

Martha’s version

Since I basically went into Photoshop, came up with fun photo opps and then used fun fonts, there’s not much of a DIY here. I used the same design as our invitation suite and some of the other paper elements for the wedding. Wanna see?

We came up with a very simple rhyme for the introduction and we will be supplying each child with their own disposable camera. We’re excited to see what shots they come up with and I’m particularly interested in the angle since they are a good 2-3 feet shorter than most of our guests. :)

Did you do anything fun for the little ones at your wedding?

Easy as pie

Way back when, I shared our dirty, little secret – we don’t like cake. After going through all of our options, the most logical choice was pies made fresh with all of the local berries and fruit that are available in Washington in the summer. We found this adorable little bakery called, get this, Sure To Rise – how cute is that?

We settled on 3 large pies and 80 mini pies in varying flavors (blueberry, strawberry rhubarb, apple, peach and triple berry). Because I wanted the pies to be displayed sporadically on the pie table, I knew I needed a way to identify the flavors for our guests. Enter pie flags.

Pie chart…ha, get it?! I’m funny.

Since we are using a large pie for our “cake cutting” I needed some sort of topper for people to recognize that this pie was significant. For the record, we’re going with blueberry – lord help me if I get it down the front of my dress. To match the mini flags, I made larger versions that I’m planning to group together to create a topper for our pie:

Front

Back

Although they were a tiny bit labor intensive, overall they were pretty easy to put together. I loved coming up with different ways to design them and in the end, I think they will be really helpful for our guests come dessert time.

What are you doing for your dessert?

I hope we have a lot of criers

Okay let me break it down for you. I’m a crier. In general, I’m a big emotional pile of mush and when I go to a wedding, forget it. And well…I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world to have a few criers in the audience. Okay I’m totally lying – I want to see tears. I want people watching our ceremony to get all balled up inside and squeeze out a few in our honor. I have issues, I know.

In the hope that we have a few tears, I made some very easy tissue packets for the ceremony. There are quite a few different versions out there that I’ve come across so I decided to make some of my own.

front and back…or back and front – depending on how you look at it…I’ve clearly lost my Type A edge

This was honestly really easy. All it took was a little time, so Frogger and I hunkered down after dinner and cranked these puppies out while watching The Office. Here’s my super simple DIY tears of joy packets:

First I gathered all of the supplies I could possibly need.

Then I grabbed some old return address labels and designed them in Word according to the template size.

Then I began to assemble, first mini vellum envelopes. And for the record, I find that a glass of wine makes DIY projects that much better…scientifically speaking.

Luckily I had help from Frogger, he was nice enough to measure out my baker’s twine. And of course he had to have his Seahawks towel in the background.

And here Frogger is modeling the correct way to stuff the tissue into the tiny envelope…oooh….aaahh. Is it crazy that I happen to love seeing him stuff tiny tissues into tiny envelopes?

After trying ribbon (which was in my supplies photo above) I quickly saw that it wasn’t creating the look I wanted so I tried baker’s twine and found it was a much better fit for what I envisioned. I laid the twine on the table, placed the envelope (flap side down) over the twine and then crossed the twine to create a cross.

I then flipped the envelope over and tied the twine into a bow.

I flipped it over and placed the label over the crossed twine on the other side and ta da! You now have a tissue packet to entice your friends and family to get all teary eyed on your big day.

Repeat and eventually you have a nice little stack!

I know they look a little simple right now since they are low on color but I’m planning to place them in a basket of some sort with some purple fabric to help them pop. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out…especially considering how little time, effort and money went into them.

Hopefully this will give our guests a little push toward some tears. Is that wrong? :)

Did you have any DIY projects that turned out to be much easier and cheaper than you expected?

DIY...or not

A while back I bought a a little something with grand plans for wedding DIY projects. After feeling the pressure to perform, I finally gave in, opened the box and decided it was time to at least give it a shot. Can I tell you that I was a bit frightened with the prospect of tackling this project? For months now I’ve found reasons to avoid it.

(source) The ever elusive bottle cutter

Yes folks, it’s the bottle cutter. I talked a big game back when I bought it and now I’m here to tell the good, the bad and the ugly about this larger than life project I decided to take on.

First I read through the directions and researched the crap out of it online. Then I made a list of additional stuff I would need (WD-40, extra newspapers, candle, ice cubes) and created a little workspace out on the patio in our backyard.

Before I could really get to the adventure, I had quite a bit of prep to do. After drinking large quantities a bottle or two of wine, I needed to clean them out thoroughly and get the labels off. This sounds simple enough and eventually I got the hang of it but it does take time…and I’m not the most patient. The best system I found was:

Fill a large bowl with hot tap water and a few drops of dish soap. Fill the clean wine bottle about half way with hot water (to keep it from floating). Place the wine bottle label-side down in the water and soak for 15-25 minutes. And if you could have multiple empty bottles in the background that would be great for my self esteem.

Meanwhile, set-up a towel nearby with a bottle of rubbing alcohol (anything with a high amount of isopropyl alcohol), a scrap rag – preferably a dirty looking one like mine and a razor blade.

Scrape off as much of the label as possible. The longer the bottle soaks, the easier it will be to remove the label. I may or may not have learned this the hard way…

Once you reach the point of label stick-grossness, use the scrap rag to dab with rubbing alcohol and rub over the areas with label. You shouldn’t have to scrub very hard, I found it to be fairly easy. After you have everything off, make sure you wash with soap to remove any residue from the rubbing alcohol and you are set to go.

Now position your bottle cutter on the edge of the table and place the etching tool at the height you want on the bottle. Do your best to not give up and go lay in the hammock.

Take a blurry picture of your etching in action. And as a note, the directions say that it needs very little pressure…they are dirty liars. I pushed pretty hard and it still proved to be difficult to get a proper etch. Once you have made your way around the entire bottle, you are ready to move onto the next phase – a little hot and cold. Light a candle and hold the bottle over the flame rotating slowly to heat the etch. Once you feel like the etch is pretty hot, grab an ice cube and rub along the etch line to shock the bottle into submission. You will most likely need to do this cycle multiple times – it was 2-3 for me. But then…

Pretend that this is the same bottle I’ve been showing the whole time, kthanks. And let me just say, the bottle will literally just separate over the flame – you will be amazed. After you have your glass, you need to sand down the edges so it’s not sharp for when you drink out of it. I didn’t have any carbide polishing powder (which is recommended) so I just used sandpaper (which the kit came with) and it worked well enough:

Technically you should use something a bit more sturdy than a flimsy little plastic paint tray but that’s all I had…anyway, fill the bottom of the tray with about 1/8 inch of water to slightly wet the sand paper. Place the glass on top of the sand paper and rotate in circles to smooth the edges. It helps if your fiance volunteers for this part – loved that.

After just a minute or so of sanding, we have nice smooth edges.

After all is said and done, I would definitely try this again…however, it’s much more complicated and time consuming than I had ever thought it would be. At one point I had thought this could be a fun element for our favors or as gifts for bridal party members but I now realize that I would have had to have started this project a year ago to have the time to perfect it (being the admitted type A that I am).

So for now I’ll just toss this project up to the DIY Gods and hopefully find time in the future to work on it and perhaps I’ll figure it out in time for the holidays. That’s right, friends and family, you know what you’re getting in your stockings this year. If they are ugly as all get out, prepare your fake smiles.

Do you have any DIY projects that turned out to be a lot more work than you had anticipated? Any DIYs that you decided weren’t going to be a fit for the wedding after all?

DIY for my maids

Since I had the materials on hand (thanks to my killer Michael’s trip…yes, I just referred to a shopping experience at Michael’s as killer – I know you understand), I dove right into my first project.

At this point, dear bridesmaids - read no further! These are little treats for you and I'd like them to be a surprise. Mmkay?

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I had become completely inspired when I saw these sweet DIY hangers – thanks Mrs. Gloss and MrsPaetz!)

(source) My inspiration shot

First off, I needed to find a font that I liked. I knew I had to turn to my favorite font site – Fonts for Peas! If you haven’t been to that site, prepare for cuteness overload. Ultimately I decided on Pea Stacy.

And let the DIY begin!

I started by printing out each letter – to determine the right size, I just printed multiple sizes on one sheet and cut out the one that fit best.

Then I turned the letter over and shaded it with a pencil.

Here you can see better how I shaded the back side…and please take note that our laundry is on standby – it will make me feel better if you also avoid housekeeping duties while working on DIY projects. Thanks.

I taped the sheet with the shaded side against the hanger. I used a regular pen to go over the letter a la elementary school style.

And voila!

I used the pencil marks as a guide to create the bling. BLING!

Once I got the hang of it, things moved along pretty quickly and before I knew it…I was done!

Ta-da! I did one for each of my bridesmaids and one for me in blue. I can’t tell you how much I adore these – it was such a fun and easy project. I know the girls will love them!

What do you think? Have you discovered any DIY projects that reinforced your confidence in crafting?