Weddingbee Blog

I’ve seen some pretty amazing invitations in the bridal blogsphere and each time I bookmarked them for a detail here and there that I LOVED and had to have. Details like a real life balloon attached to paper to make the most inventive save the date I’ve ever seen. Details like Mrs Thimble’s heart punched Moo card and baker’s twine tied invitations suite. Details like Mrs Gloss’ vellum envelopes lovingly wrapped and sealed with wax. Details like a custom wax seal with adorable seersucker details.

I tried three or four different variations on our final invitations to figure out how to incorporate mini Moo cards with a heart shaped hole punch into our suite. I have a twice used heart shaped hole punch just hanging out at the bottom of a craft box in the living room…

Once I thoroughly gave up on the mini Moos, I mooved on to figuring out other ways to bind my babies together.

I really liked the vellum envelope with baker’s twine and a wax seal, but I couldn’t find any seals that we could agree on. I was open to anything wedding-y like rings or hearts or our new last initial, the Baconator, however was looking for something more personalized. And he hates hearts.

After what seemed like forever and a bazillion Google searches of “cheap custom wax seal” and “DIY wax seal” I stumbled on a site with straight forward step by step instructions on making our own wax seal out of a dowel rod and some wood stain. Hooray! Those custom seals with our name and date and no hearts was gonna cost an arm and a leg, so this plan was way more budget friendly.

Image and crafty excellence via Ragehaus

So, I wandered down to the craft store with a coupon and a list in hand and bought all the things I’d need, including the illusive wood burning tool. I put off the project for a few days and eventually borrowed a hand saw to trim the dowel down to manageable sizes and set to work. OMG this business is much harder than you’d think.

Maybe it’s because I have never used a wood burning tool before, or maybe because I’m impatient, or maybe because I simply don’t have a steady hand, but boy, oh boy, were my attempts ugly. I tried lips and mustaches, our wedding date and our initials, but I just couldn’t get the imprints smooth enough to work. I’m sure I could have taken a few more stabs at it, but I was going nowhere fast and it would have taken me another year and a half to get anywhere decent. Don’t believe me? Take a look.

Ahh! So UGLY. It doesn’t help that I didn’t let the wood seal dry completely before trying it out, too.

So after a number of hours and a now useless wood burning tool, I threw in the dowel. It totally blows that I gave up, but I am super excited that I took on the challenge. In the end, we bought a G in a cool font from a seller on Etsy for a fraction of the cost of my “inexpensive DIY” materials and the invitations turned out almost exactly as I imagined. Sometimes, it’s OK to accept that we can’t all be Martha, right?

Do you have any projects that didn’t go as planned? How did you cope?