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This is the story of how I designed my own bridal shower invitations.
Because I live three hours away from where the bridal shower will be held it didn’t really make sense for everyone to keep it a surprise from me. And because my mom is doing most of the planning she has been using me a sounding board for ideas. I helped her pick the location, the favors and, well, the invitations.
At first we ordered a few samples from Wedding Paper Divas. Our favorite was this little number:
Check out these great projects hive members have uploaded to Weddingbee’s DIY section! Click on the title of each project for tutorials.
If your project is featured in DIY Friday, you’re eligible for a special Weddingbee badge for your blog or website! See instructions on how to grab the badge here!
Binder Clip Escort Cards by Nikki414
We recently turned my mother’s guest room into an invitation factory. The process was long, but so worth it!
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| We started with a textured, sparkly paper that I got from Michaels on sale. / personal photo |
A long, long time ago I showed you the plan for my escort cards and table numbers, which, to refresh your memory you can see below:
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
I’ve always enjoyed playing around on the computer with graphics and fonts. Most days during wedding planning, I wish I had the educational background of a graphic designer so that I could effortlessly whip out graphics in a matter of minutes. But alas, my training is in psychology, so the best I can do is to try and talk myself down after spending countless hours of unsuccessfully trying to craft graphics of my own.
But, I still have managed to have some success and fun with it. How? GIMP. Don’t get me wrong. Photoshop is the best; it has so many features and actions you can use that it’s hard to top. But at hundreds of dollars, it wasn’t in my budget (only the 30-day free trial was), and by the time my trial was over, I had done enough researching and playing around that I could transfer a bunch of what I knew to GIMP. GIMP is completely free, and while it certainly doesn’t have all that Photoshop does, it has enough to play around with. Today, I’m going to give you an easy demonstration of my wedding frame sign.
There are tons of free image sites out there. My personal favorite is sxu.hu, and I’ve been using that one for years. I found my labels for this particular project by searching for “free vector images” and then searching for “labels” on each of the websites. I downloaded a free PDF of images that looks like this:
All you need to do is search for an image that is the same shape as the one you want. I was searching for weeks for one like this one, and was glad to find it.
So for this project, you’ll need your free GIMP program and an image of your choice.
Once you have downloaded your image, you want to open it up with GIMP.
Deciding to have a cookie bar at the wedding was a no-brainer for us. Mr. Woodpecker loves cookies, and my family loves to bake! My mom was always baking throughout my childhood, so I knew having her and my other family members contribute to a cookie-bar favor would be perfect for us.
A few weeks ago, I got the wooden tongs for our cookie bar in the mail. As I ripped them open and jumped up and down to show Mr. Woodpecker, he gave me the “crazy” look. “You’re really excited about this cookie thing, aren’t you?” he asked.
Of course, I’m excited…they’re cookies! I am also excited, however, to finally have a project done. I finally gathered all of the supplies for our cookie bar and decided to create a mock-up so that I could put this project to rest until right before the wedding, when I would put everything together and make all of the labels.
It, of course, did not come our exactly as planned, but I am happy with my final results:
Personal image
I had initially purchased paper to do a wrap-around label on the bottom of the inside of the jar. After scouring several craft stores, however, I could not find any patterned paper to match our colors, so I decided to try ribbon. I think I like this idea better—it’s simpler. And I like simplicity. I am going for a similar look to this for our cookie bar:
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
So, currently we have less than 70 days to go until “the big show,” and I am starting to feel the time crunch. After hearing over and over again not to put off projects until the last minute, I am starting to take that a bit too seriously because I can see the “last minutes” coming closer and closer.
This weekend, for example, Mr. Aardvark went out on a bike ride (outside in Wisconsin!) because it was so nice out! I could have joined him, but instead I finished the flower girl/ring bearer gifts. Chances are I would have gotten them done if I had ridden, but I REALLY wanted to check them off of my ever-growing craft list. (Post on those to come.)
On Sunday, as we were getting ready to watch a Packer-less Super Bowl (AKA a few hours of great ads), I was working on boutonnieres, but what I really wanted to do was make soft pretzels. Why? Because I have convinced myself that if I don’t do it NOW, it won’t happen.
Since my thoughts for the wedding have been coming together, I’ve been trying to spend a little less time on the wedding/events board of Pinterest. It’s so hard, though, because there are just sooo many amazing ideas. I’d say about 50% of my wedding-planning designs originated from this site. It. is. incredible.
Recently, I’ve been trying to pick out a guestbook idea. Simple enough, right? Not with Pinterest. There are so many ideas! I really want the guestbook to be something that we can display and reflect upon in our home far after the wedding, so I’m putting a good deal of thought into this. Some ideas:
A fabulous new idea is the guestbook puzzle, where you have guests sign their names/ write well wishes on something that you can have fun doing with your new love for the rest of your life!! This is just so sweet.
Image via Etsy by Bella Puzzles Too
A little while ago I showed you the results of my hair trial, and I discussed possible hair accessories to add a little umphh to the style. I was trying to decide between a rhinestone bow or some sort of floral accessory, and in the end I decided on the bow. It’s kind of funny, because I am not really a “bling” sort of girl, but I just love bows so much!!! I stalked Etsy for quite some time, and ultimately decided on an adorable comb by seller DanaCastle. Unfortunately, it became clear to me almost immediately after receiving my cute little bow that my thin hair was way too limp to hold it up. I didn’t want to give up wearing the bow, so I decided to take it apart and try another strategy. (Personal photos ahead)
After scouring Weddingbee, The Knot, and Pinterest for months, I was super excited to get started on my first DIY project:
Personal photo
Monogrammed cocktail napkins!
After taking a little bit of time off to refuel my wedding fire, I am back with a few major projects checked off my list!
A long time ago I decided I would buy canvas tote bags from cheaptotes.com (99 cents each!) to use for out of town bags. They cost about the same as typical gift bags that I have seen used, but are reusable which I really appreciate. I bought about 50 bags a few months ago, and have had them sitting in my living room since then, waiting to be made special. The problem was I couldn’t decide what to put on them.
My original thoughts were to put a design that did not overwhelmingly scream Mr and Mrs Elks wedding, so guests could potentially reuse them if they wanted without our names and wedding date screaming at the world. Since I love bows, that was the first idea that really suck with me, and I found this adorable tote as inspiration:
Lauren Moshi Taylor Bow Canvas Tote
Check out these great projects hive members have uploaded to Weddingbee’s DIY section! Click on the title of each project for tutorials.
If your project is featured in DIY Friday, you’re eligible for a special Weddingbee badge for your blog or website! See instructions on how to grab the badge here!
DIY Pink Cake Table by littleprettyliz
Do you remember the boutonnieres I made for our ring bearers, which I shared a few weeks ago? I stacked rosettes made out of ribbon and added a little puppy figurine to make them a little less stuffy than the traditional boutonnieres that the groomsmen will be wearing. Junior Mink, my golden retriever, is our constant companion (so constant that people seem surprised if they see us downtown without him!), and I thought it’d be fun to have a few references to him at our wedding.
Photo by Miss Mink
In addition to our four ring bearers, Mr. Mink’s niece is going to serve as our flower girl. I have a feeling Mini Mink is going to love her role. I wanted to give her something along the lines of the boutonnieres that would fit in with her position. I decided to make her a fabric-flower corsage.
Are you tired of me talking about cake toppers yet? It’s okay, I’m tired of thinking about them. Luckily, this is the final cake topper post. In my last post I showed you the potential winner. Although most of you agreed with me that it was perfect, I had a call to action from Miss Woodpecker and Future Army Wife. They both told me that I should just try and make one.
I don’t know why I had not thought of that before, but it was worth a shot. I started my Google search on “how to paint shabby chic.” Many different tutorials came up, but they all seemed a little too technical and confusing. A few seemed a little weird, such as applying Vaseline on the project before painting. I’m sure it works great, but I wasn’t up for trying that. I needed something easy.
I decided to just go with it and figure out my own way of doing things. These were a few supplies I bought to start the project.
So wayyyyy back when I first got it in my head that we I wanted to DIY our invitations, I figured it would be cheaper than buying them. I knew it would take LOTS of man-hours but I figured the end result would be pretty inexpensive. Well, I was wrong. I was also right. You see, we ended up spending WAY more than I thought but significantly less than we would have for similar purchased invitations.
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