Stephanie’s Cake Fascinator

My beeeeautiful friend, and bride-to-be, Stephanie requested that I make her a piece-of-cake fascinator for her upcoming birthday/bachelorette party.

I started with a cardboard form, iced it with white paint, threw on some pearls and then basically submerged the whole thing in glitter.

The only thing more fabulous than this fascinator is the little lady it was made for- Stephanie I’m so incredibly happy for you and I can’t wait to see you in your weddin’ dress!!  Tim is a lucky man…but I bet you tell him that all the time.    **MUAH!!**

Post-Nuptial Pity Party

Along with flowers and pollen Spring has brought us another of it’s joys, wedding season!  A lot of people hate having to go to weddings and loathe this time of year but I find I’m almost totally the opposite.  I love going to weddings.  I love seeing my friends all dolled up, making wedding presents, eating free food, gushing over the bride, judging seeing how everything is decorated and of course, the dance party. 

So why is it that this year while I’m seeing all of these adorable wedding ideas and blogs posts about weddings am I sad rather than eager to read all about them?  Why did I get bummed when I saw the cutest wedding aisle dance party on Offbeat Bride yesterday?   Why did I want to punch a bunny when I saw the backdrop of my dreams on GreenWeddingShoes?

I’ll tell you why, it’s because I’m suffering from a delayed case of PNDS: Post-Nuptial Depression Syndrome.  Basically, planning a wedding was the funnest thing I’ve ever done and I want to do it over and over again until I get it exactly right but I can’t.  My time has passed.  All of the awesome-ness and excitement over this one day is over and now I’m left with nothing but hilarious memories and a wonderful husband.  Life is so unfair.   

So I’m throwing myself a photographic pity party and you’re invited.  The dress is casual, the menu cake.  Photos provided by Meredith Mascola.  I’ll be not looking at wedding blogs if you need me.  

  

Sigh…

Thankfully my friend Annie- resident of Cake Town- is getting married this Summer.  Maybe she has an opening for a wedding day busy body so that I can get back in the game. 

…Annie?

Wedding Wednesday: Tchotchke Centerpiece/Favors

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…and with a little less than 5 hours left of this beautiful, rainy Wednesday I bring you:

 

                                                                                                              Picture by Kristen Mallory

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: 

TCHOTCHKE EDITION! 

For a full year before my wedding I collected tchotchkes from junk shops, second hand stores, garage sales and of course, Etsy to create my combination centerpiece/favors. 

There were a couple of rules for collecting these hollow treasures, they needed to be:

a. planters

b. under $7 (american currency) and

c. a little “off”….not exactly ugly, just “off”.

To make them into centerpieces was truly a family affair.  We (my 4 year old flowergirl, Sister and I) planted succulents in all of the tchotchkes, put them on wooden disks (cut especially for me by my loving Father), accompanied them with precious little terra cotta pots filled with small white flowers (put together by Lady, my Mom) added hand stamped signs (Made by Liz) that said, “take me home tonight!” and then they were all artfully arranged on each table by my BFF, Gina Marie.

Pictures by Meredith Mascola

The results were 100% unique, semi home-made, adorable little bits of precious that I could hardly stand to give away!!  These were SUCH a huge hit I was blown away!  People were hiding them from each other and stealing them off tables all night.  I personally saw the squirrel change hands at least 3 times, I’m still hearing stories about who the rightful owner should be.  And now the fun part is finding out where all of them went.  I love going to friend’s houses and seeing which planter everyone ended up with (aka who swiped what while no-one else was looking!) 

  

Wedding Wednesday: Penny Pendants

Amy & I made these adorable penny pendant necklaces as gifts for my bridesmaids.  I found the tutorial on one of my favorite craft blogs:JustSomethingIMade.  You can find the tutorial with great pictures and super easy to follow directions on her site.  Here’s the super dumbed-down version:

Cathe says to use decals for the necklaces but as I have not acheived the level of craftyhood she has, I didn’t have vintage decals lying around my house.  I do however have a solid collection of old calendars, scrap paper and wrapping paper.  Amy was nice enough to go through my scrap paper (above) and meticulously cut out tiny flowers and adorable designs (thanks Amy!) to put on the necklaces while I drilled holes in the pennies (below). 

We found that the softer the paper was, the easier it adhered to the penny.  Stiff paper tended to stay stiff and wouldn’t lay down properly.  Tissue paper worked the best and had a transparent quality that allowed a lot of the penny to show through which I really liked.  After selecting our design, we laid the paper on the penny, covered them with magic powder stuff (Cathe explains all of this in the tutorial) and popped ’em in the oven.  Note- she used a toaster oven, I don’t have one of those so I used my oven on a setting of 325 degrees for about 6 minutes.

And when they came out, they were necklaces!

Ok, maybe not exactly but with a couple of O rings and some adorable charms bought on Etsy (where else?) we were all set.  And my bridesmaids loved them! 

Have a great Wednesday!

Wedding Wednesday: Mini Harmonica Necklace

About a week before my wedding it dawned on me that I had yet to find gifts for my Ring Bearers.  The horror!  I was explaining this to my friend Bailie, who has no links to her name because she flies far below the radar and only exists in real life, who works at the Screamin’ Peach Waxing Studio (get it?  screamin’ peach…waxing…oh nevermind) in Fort Collins and, as luck would have it, she sells these ADORABLE little mini harmonica necklaces right there at the check out counter!

They were under $20, super noisy and mini- perfect for my own noisy little mini ring bearers.  And they loved them!!

The Screamin’ Peach is located at:

638 S College Ave

Fort Collins, CO 80524

Phone: (970) 224-2930

 

Thanks again times a million Bailie!!

Wedding Wednesday: Ruffle Curtain Tutorial

Pictures by Meredith Mascola (c)2011. 

As I have eluded to many times in the past, I got married this past May.  It was a magical DIY-filled day months in the making and I was maniacal about documenting every silly little project to someday share with you, the people of the internet.  Well, it seems that day is today…

Welcome to my first ever Wedding Wednesday Tutorial!

My plan is to feature a wedding themed project and tutorial from my very own wedding every Wednesday until I either, A) run out of projects or B) just kinda forget.  The first project I’m going to feature is a ruffle curtain made from recycled (aka old) sheets, curtains, tablecloths and pillowcases that hung behind CakeTown (above) during my reception.  I got so many compliments on it I thought I’d tell you all how I made it. 

Below (left) is the inspiration for this ruffle curtain- an adorable shower curtain from, where else, Anthroplogie.  It was so so cute and so so expensive but mostly, it was so so pink.  The picture on the Right is what I made  instead.  The entire cost of this project was about $20.  The total cost for the Anthropologie curtain was $250.  I think I’ve made my case.  

“How-to” after the jump…

For this project you’ll need the following supplies:

-Different colors, prints, patterns and textures of similar colored fabric
-A base piece of fabric (I used an old curtain)
-a few different trims- fringe, dingle balls, etc.
-sewing machine
-thread
-scissors
-hot glue (I put this on every list whether you need it or not)
-measuring tape

This is the fabric I’m using below.  I, well, Liz and I, went to a couple Goodwills to find the perfect mix of beiges, whites, textured materials and dingle balls!  The ruffles should coordinate and be cohesive but not match.  Matching is boring.  All together, this fabric cost me about $12.

I also found this 42″x84″ vintage (read: old) curtain that I’ll use as my base to add my ruffles to.  It was $3.99 from the textile bin at the Goodwill in Davis Square.

Next, I made a mark on the fabric at the height I felt each ruffle should be.  That height happened to be exactly 11″.  So, I measured and cut/ripped 11″ strips of fabric from each of my sheets.

After I had all of my strips cut, I laid them out on top of the base and experimented with a couple different layouts.  The most important part of the curtain was going to be right at eye level since that is what would show up in pictures of the cake cutting so I made sure to add extra details in that area.  I used a beautiful old lace tablecloth ($2.99) right at the 5′ mark and put one of my rows of dingle balls right underneath that. 

When I was satisfied with the layout, I sewed each layer on to the base layer using my sewing machine.  The great thing about this project is that nothing needs to be, or should be for that matter, perfect.  That helped make the sewing part a lot easier. 

At the end I attached some thick twine with my hot glue gun to both of the top corners for the curtain to hang from and Viola!  It’s done!  Here it is below being modeled by my front stoop. 

And below, in action at the wedding.  Let me know if you’re going to attempt this project or if you’ve made one of your own like it. I’d love to see it.