our save the dates

so mikey didnt even know what save the dates were. and i have never received a save the date for a wedding before. but i still wanted to do them. especially when i saw my inspiration from knottie ireeder

who got her inspiration from Martha Stewart

the back of the tag says our day is fast approaching we can hardly wait wed love for you to be there so be sure to save the date then our names and wedding webiste address and password then formal invitation to follow. people RAVED about them. i was very proud.

i used my cricut and the sweathearts cartridge to do the "save the date" and the "tying the knot" and the numbers, hearts and "we're" came from the plantin schoolbook cartridge. i hole punched where the ribbon was going to string through, then used a large eyed needle.

the project was pretty tedious, my advice for this project, be super organized and have lots of supplies.

more pictures and exact details of the sizes and supplies will be coming soon.

what happens when you fold a cricut mat to try to get the pieces to pop up a bit for easier removal 

Aqua Gems, Thrift Stores, and Compromise

walking through Joann's one day i came across Aqua Gems Liquid Marbles and fell in love.

the tiny package of little dry beads hydrates into a gallon of these cool gems. $5 a bag (but my wonderful MOH is buying one per day with 40% off coupon because she works next door making them $3) , and they have different colors, blue, clear and orange just for me. (and some other colors for other people i suppose)

they also sell pre-hydrated bottles of the Gems but its the same price for 1/4 of the amount as the dry beads. the dry ones will take up less space in the meantime also.

i did find some off brand ones from Dollar tree but the quantity (and likely quality) is better with the dry Aqua Gems.

i had gotten some short wine glasses with a wide openeing (not sure the official name) instead of candle holders, because when i was shopping for candle holders, these were $0.25-$0.50 at my favorite thrift store because they were older than 2 months on the shelf. i liked that there were a lot of them, many of them matching. and i like the charity that the money goes to Humaine Society. unlike Goodwill or other second hand shops, the money is local, some of the employees are volunteers and the prices are actually fair. So many second hand stores over price, sometimes the same or more than buying brand new.

i will take a small moment to inject my 2 cents about thrift stores, i love them for the non impact on the environment. buying new products adds new waste in the world in the way of actual product, packaging, shipping from factories. buying used also prevents items from being pushed out of the industry into landfills. not to mention that the money stays local and if you find a good deal, saves money too.

so far i got 24 of the wine glasses for about $9 and another dozen actual candle holders for another few dollars.

any way back on subject, i plan to tie little ribbons around the stem of the glasses, fill the top with the aqua gems and insert a floating candle.

to save money, i am going to make floating candles using this tuturial i plan to use some different candles that i found on sale at Michaels and some i already have on hand. i may have to supplement with some extra wax though, we will see after some test runs.

marriage is about compromise and my darling fiance doesnt like candles, so although they wont be completely banished from the house, i wont be needing all the candles that i have. this will also help declutter, as i have a huge box full of candles just sitting there..

Personalized Hangers?

ok so if i hadnt seen pictures and super easy tutourials, i would have thought that personalized dress hangers for my girls would be just silly, unnessasary and a waste of money.

but i stumbled across this blingy tuturial from Miss Frog at Weddingbee.com

she got inspiration from this sharpie tuturial from Mrs. Gloss

who go her inspiration from mrspaetz on this board post.

I love love love how brides get inspiration from eachother.

Well I bought some iron on letters to make "bridesmaid" t-shirts for my ladies. i'm thinking if i end up with the right extra letters to do monograms i might use the extras for this project. my letters are smaller, and 2 of my bms have the same first initial, so i'll see if i can do all 3 initials.

oooh i just got the idea that when i give them the t-shirts i can gift them on the hangers! good idea self.

Cupcake Tree

so i decided early on that i wanted to do cupcakes instead of a traditional wedding cake.

i wasnt sure how to display them, i found lots of great pics on theknot.com but having such a large guestlist, i needed something big. (and cheap)

i found lots of instructions on how to make a cupcake stand similar to this one at Cake Journal

i remembered when we cleared out the storage i found some huge long heavy duty cardboard tubing that we can cut into the risers and then either cut cardboard or buy cake rounds.

so i bought cake circles from michaels to save the work of cutting perfect circles out of cardboard. i got as many as i thought for just about $24.

then i stumbled upon http://www.cupcaketree.com/

and this bad boy. Size: 21" high - 34" wide, 4" between discs (they do offer smaller as well as square trees also)

he holds up to 150-300 cupcakes. so i found the receipt to michaels and took back the cardboard circles and ordered him.

He came in the mail in just a few days and was very easy to assemble (and disassemble, for now) originally i thought spray painting would be easiest, but the slots would show up if i painted it, also the edges were raw, cut cardboard, and the bottom couple levels were folded in half for shipping. so i am currently looking for decorative paper, i'm thinking wrapping paper would work well and be large enough.

$39.95 + $10 shipping. costing more than the materials if i would have DIYed it, but the fun part of the DIY is decorating, not building, so this was a perfect compromise for me.

the wrapping paper idea made me think, we can easily repurpose this as a treat stand at Christmas, (2 months after the wedding) we can remove the bottom level or 2 and use a green paper and add mini ornaments and bows, make it look like a Christmas tree.

bouquets initial bling

somewhere, i saw bouquets similar to these from krishnaswami08

and i loved having the initials on them.

i figured if i could find key chains or broaches or something similar for around $1 each or less it would be worth it.

Then,

on our preweddingmoon in Las Vegas i found some of these type slide on initial charms for 0.50 each (+ stupid sales tax). i got one for each bridesmaid (and one for my bridesman's bout) and a star one for myself.

then i found this picture, look closely they used the same kind of charm on their bouquet. i plan to use a darker colored ribbon to slide the charm onto so that it stands out better than this.

i might get a keychain attatchment or a bracelet base for them so after the wedding the ladies can slide the charm onto it as a keepsake. maybe. we'll see.

mostly inspiration

so i havent done much of the wedding stuff yet, GASP. unless you count collecting ideas and inspiration from knotties and bees.





i am going to start this blog by highlighting some great ideas i have found so far.





in no particular order by the way.




i think every blog post should have a picture so here is my bridal canvas, i wish i could remember what website i used to create this.

please comment if you know of any good sites for making these, it was really fun.