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DIY Project Contest Entry #6
July 30th, 2007 @ 4:03 pm by Contests
Our next contestant in the DIY project contest is Tricia, with seven different entries! Check out all of her submissions below and then vote for your favorite.
Table arrangements: The tables have DIY arrangements (which we made with just sunflowers for the sake of simplicity) in a vase with river rocks, and the table signs we designed, printed, and mounted. Probably silly, but one of my favorite things is the grapevine/wicker ball that holds our signs. We glued the balls to grapevine napkin rings (to make the bottom flat) and then used kitchen shears to cut a slit in the top and nestle the signs in (it’s a snug fit!) and voila!
Save-the-dates
Programs - The Programs are 11 x 17 movie posters. The bottom credits are everyone who is involved and a little note of whats to come. The program posters were inspired by our save the dates - which read like a movie script since my fiance used to work in film…and left it and LA to move to Chicago with me. The movie posters also have a tree - which we’ll be married under, a dog - that my fiance used to draw on all the letters he wrote to me (we fell in love through letters since I was in Europe the first month + we were together)…thus the mailbox, and the bird is in memory of
my grandmother.
Invitations: I designed all of the invitation components and had them printed by a local printer friend. The paper is all PaperSource, including the pocket folder. We went through about a thousand designs for the front of the invite, but ultimately settled on the favor tags embellished with an eyelet, with corners rounded by my dear fiance.
Escort Cards: Perhaps not the most original, but (still handy) votive escort card. Probably the one thing I wonder exactly WHAT I was thinking about!
Cupcake tree: My Fiance worked in model making for movie in LA - so he loves to make all sorts of crazy models. For our cakes we’re having my signature pumpkin spice cake made into cupcakes - the “Cupcake Tree” is the holder for all the yummy delights. The finished piece will be sanded and stained a nice cherry color. Believe it or not that puppy holds more than 120 big ol’ cupcakes. There is also a little dog and a mailbox for the bottom left (like the posters) and another tray for the cake we’ll cut.
Favors: We have CD soundtracks - CD favor pictured, sparklers with matches, and little bags of taffy with thank you quotes at each setting - sad these aren’t here - but everyone gets a different quote.
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If you’d like to submit a DIY project, please send it to guest@weddingbee.com. See full contest details here.
31 Responses to “DIY Project Contest Entry #6”
How did you clear the copyrights for the CD favors?
The CD’s have a legal note in italics at the end “For personal use only. Not for distribution, duplication, or sale without express prior consent or artists or their representation”. My laywer friend wrote it for me…looks like the movie stuff too…
Dude, too hard to choose. I love the poster. And the STD, and the tree. Crap.
What an unbelievably fantastic job on everything!
I generally find cupcake trees kind of ‘meh,’ but I LOVE this one! Very original.
dude, that tree is freaking awesome!
You have done such a wonderful job of unifying everything under a film/media and tree theme, Tricia! Everything is so beautiful, it was hard to choose just one! The poster got my vote; so original and creative!
She needs to win the whole darn contest. Martha who?!
Would love to know what fonts you used on the bottom of the movie poster and generally how you did it!
I love you votive escort cards! Can you please post instructions on how to make them? Thanks!
I love the cupcake tree! It’s so original, and goes so well with your theme!
Haha…I just had the wedding weekend from near-hell so you guys are awesome - thanks! Ok - the poster was done in Illustrator but I used all free fonts (where I could) - the general stuff is Mrs. Eaves but the poster bottom is Ultra Condensed Sans Serif from dafont.com. Almost all the illustrations are compilations and manipulations (and a few of my own) from istockphoto.com (on the poster the tree, the leaves, the bird, the dog, the letter, and the mailbox are all different elements I just put together into one image).
For the poster we used some movie-inspired titles some not. So, I just referenced stuff I could find and some people, say my mom’s friend who is coming from Australia to help got called “Production Assistant” but others like “Best Man” just stayed that way.
If you really wanted you could probably design the poster in something like PowerPoint with text boxes.
There are lots of places that mention how to do the votive holders but, of course, I devised my own method. I traced the outside of the votive onto a page to get the form - cut the form out of a heavy piece of cardboard and then used the cardboard as a guide. I printed 3 per page (on vellum), cut them out with the guide, then tried a few ways of attaching - I tried a sticker maker (Xyron machine) but it looked awful - so in the end the best way was just a piece of double sided tape where the ends come together in the back. Finally I put double sided tape on a piece of ribbon and wrapped it around the bottom to finish the bottom - there are 4 ribbon colors to indicate meal choices for the wait staff. Although I used Illustrator you could easily do it in Word or PowerPoint, or any other program like that.
Good luck DIY-ing!
Do you have any pictures of the cupcake tree in action with cupcakes? I bet that looks amazing in use.
awesome job on all the projects btw tricia! i love how you kept the same motifs throughout. 
so this is what happened: oooh, that poster looks great…those invites are pretty, i like those the best…wait, a cupcake tree?! AWESOME!
so i voted for the tree. seriously. i want that.
Loving the movie poster idea…. Super cute.
the cupcake tree is seriously beautiful, and so our your innovative invites. really fresh thinking there.
i was wondering with the cd favors– the holder/sleeve– did you print directly onto it or attach a label? they came out great! can you tell me where you got the sleeves?
The CD sleeve is a Paper Source enclosure (diagonal folder in luxe cream) - and the front is a stamp - a big stamp. We got it from addictedtorubberstamps.com - granted since it’s so big you have to kinda smash a regular stamp pad all over it to get the ink right, but, once you get going it’s pretty fast! I was just excited they had a tree with birds in it and it solved any label problems. We might use it for our thanks you cards too if we run out of the ones we have.
How cool are the tree and poster?? Kudos to both of you!
ummm . . . good job! I’d feel lucky to be invited to a wedding with such fantastic care and detail.
My question to you . . . where did you buy your little vine balls? I’ve been trying to source them myself, with only limited luck!
Wicker balls = Michaels (beliver it or not!) and the napkin rings are there too - although we got them at save-on-crafts.com
Thanks for the instructions!
thanks for the info tricia! EVERYTHING is beautiful!
I’m mostly a lurker but I just had to post when I saw your DIY projects and say how awesome they are! Everything is beautiful but since I had to choose I chose the poster program. (I might just have to steal the idea for my invites. ^^) Great job Tricia!
tricia-
still have questions about your movie poster. how did you present them to people at your wedding? did someone hand them out like a flyer or placed flat on chairs or were they tied with ribbon as a scroll?
curious minds would love to know 
i can’t get enough of this idea!
Well…we haven’t presented them quite yet (I’ll let you know in a month!). Originally I planned on having them rolled up like a scroll with a ribbon and in a basket on the table with tissues, fans, etc. but, as it turned out the friend who printed them put them on a heavy stock - too heavy for rolling or folding. So, the plan now if that my 2 cousins that are helping out will hand them to people as they enter my grandfather’s back yard, then direct them to where they can go pick up a glass of champagne and proceed to the ceremony site.
The bottom part says, in a box, like a traditional movie poster, “Soundtrack available at the reception” (vs. “Soundtrack available on XYZ CD”). Thus the CDs.
We also had 3 large versions made - 24″ x 36″ - one we are having all the attendants sign and putting up so people can read it larger (on an easel) and we are keeping, the other 2 we are giving to our parents as gifts at the rehersal. We got these printed archival quality. The smaller ones are 11″ x 17″ and not archival printing (not acid free inks).
Our ceremony is very short - 10 minutes, so there are no chairs, but I like the idea of placing them there. As it stands now they are being handed out like you would have at a press event. But, you never know - in a month I may tell you we threw them off the roof and hoped people caught them!
I have been looking for a cupcake tree and I love the one you have!! Our theme has been trees and we are doing cupcakes too. I haven’t been able to find a tree quite as great as yours! Any possible way I could get my hands on one too?
Hi Mandy - I’m afraid to say the tree is one-of-a-kind. BUT, we have been talking about getting a laser-cut version of the tree for others since so many people seem to want one…
Another bride said she was going to ask a carpenter friend to make one for her. I know, cost wise, wood alone (no labor) and the staining was about $150 - so that might get you started price-wise…
If you want to go the DIY route we started but cutting out mock-ups in foam-core and fitting them together, then, once everything was right went to wood - it is a laborious process and though it probably only took 2 weeks all told it took a year of nagging to get it done.
Keep your eye-out though - Pottery barn and West Elm have been doing some cool tree inspired stuff lately!
Best of luck!
Thank you so much! All very helpful information, I really love everything that you put together, it’s so beautiful!
[…] me, I am one of the first to view Tricia’s (One of the DIY contest entries) cupcake tree in action! Hopefully there will be more pics I can […]
@Tricia:
Hey, Tricia! I know you wrote this a long time ago but I was wondering if you would consider sharing a pdf file of your program? Email me at gomeagan@aol.com it you want to share it.
Thanks! -Meg
