Know When You Can’t DIY, Part 1: THE DRESS

The majority of people who create a DIY wedding don’t do everything by themselves. There were a few things I decided right away that I couldn’t do myself and a few things I considered doing myself, but I soon realized that I couldn’t do it or that it would take too much time and effort when effort needed to be focused on other things.

THE DRESS

The thing I knew right off the bat was, that even though I can sew a bit (like easy skirts and pillow cases) that I was in no way going to make my own wedding dress. But I did like the idea of a homemade wedding dress. I just didn’t know anyone that skilled to make a wedding dress. So it took a while first to figure out what kind of dress I wanted, like many brides. I watched all the bridal shows on TLC like “Say Yes to the Dress” and “I Found the Gown”. I would go to the library often and check out a bunch of bridal magazines. But I really couldn’t find a dress that I wanted, a dress that was me. All the dresses looked the same, there was nothing original after awhile. Finally I started looking for wedding dresses on the website Etsy. These independent crafters and artisans had more one-of-a-kind of dresses that I was looking for. I wanted a tea length (hits near the mid or lower calf) and a retro/vintage vibe. I wanted it to be a bit whimsical while still being semi-formal. I wanted lace, and lace that looked like it had been antiqued. So the dress I finally found was by an artisan whose store on Etsy is called Pixie Pocket.
Here is an example of one of their dresses. I can't show my dress obviously. It has to be a surprise.

1950s 'Lucille' Rockabilly Style Wedding Dress-
 
They make other non-wedding retro inspired dresses also. So even though I was not able to make my dress I was glad it was made by a person rather than a large company. It is unique. And since it was made in New Zealand I'm pretty sure I’m not going to see many womyn in the US wearing the same dress. The cherry on top of that is the dress was custom made with my personal measurements and it costs a lot less that most wedding dresses!

Here are some other wedding dresses that I like from etsy. Many can be custom made:

bridalblissdesigns

 

 

Michelle Tan



Ellana Couture- they have many retro inspired wedding dresses that I think are beautiful. (Note that they only make dresses up to size 14).

 

I do advise people to read the small print because some etsy stores will not make plus sizes. I needed a plus size dress. And even if I was not a plus I would like to support places that are open to making plus sizes. And I am aware that since plus sizes take more fabric to make it might cost more. And I am willing to pay that little bit more. 

 

But perhaps I should get discounts in fabric in general because I'm short- just a thought.

Crafting a Bridal Shower

Te Bridal Shower is not supposed to be the Bride's responsibility because friends and family often help, or better yet plan the entire party. I have a friend, sister and mother who have been helping with securing the venue, taking care of some RSVPs buying food and bringing flowers for decoration to the event. I have been in charge of the invites and favors. The invitations I found were on Minted.com which offers some adorable cards designed by different independent designers. Alethea and Ruth were the designers of my card. Here is an example of the card I sent:

I originally had the idea of having a theme based shower. Since the wedding is literary themed I had thought of choosing a particular book, and even a particular scene from the book. It was Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. I have always liked that scene because I feel like it promoted creativity and the acceptance of difference and diversity. I even had the idea of having guests have the option to donate to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness in lieu of giving a gift because we were dealing lightly with the idea of "madness", but I wanted to bring awareness to real mental illness since it is an issue close to my heart from working with people in my life and career who have severe mental illnesses. And I was surprised there were so many great ideas for using Alice in Wonderland in General as a theme for an adult or children's party. I am not going to have this theme after all because the people throwing the party would not have the time to even begin such an endeavor and I am out of town busy with all kinds of other wedding stuff, but I wanted to put the idea out there. I am going with a "generic" tea party theme though. (See the bottom of this blog entry for more about Alice in Wonderland themed parties).

Generic Summer Tea Party
- Bright colors
-Lots of random flowers for décor
-Food ideas I have shared that might happen like little sandwiches, cupcakes and miniature cupcakes, mini quiche, colorful food, and tea (hot or cold based upon the season). Some tea parties can be British themed and some can be Asian, while mine has no national/cultural theme.

Favors
-Tea bags are a cheap and easy favor, but you have to use individually wrapped tea bags so I can't use my favorite tea Celestial Seasonings.
-Tea strainer which I got from Party City (not everything is DIY)

-Bookmarks are great for summer reading and are a tie in for the literary wedding.

-Dish clothes- I am also making dish cloth favors for the wedding, but these fun summer colors were more fun to make than the wedding ones that had to fit in with the grey and black wedding colors.

-Then I bought Summery Bags (10 for $1 at the Dollar Store) and colorful duct tape. I had never bought decorative duct tape before. There are so many fun designs now! I bought a decorative punch at the craft store to make the name tags that will come in handy for many future projects.

A note to people not invited-
I have been planning this wedding all alone and don't know all the wedding etiquette. I apologize for that. With that in mind I didn't invite every woman who is invited to the wedding. Since I am having the Shower in my home town I have decided to invite those friends who live there in town and family, whom most live out of town and probably won't be able to make it. I didn't do this to exclude anyone. I love you all!

I wrote the above before the Bridal Shower. Now the Bridal Shower has come and gone. I just want to thank my friends and family who helped to throw it!

Alice in Wonderland and Mad Hater Tea themed party crafty stuff
 check out these from etsy:

LePriss- Silver Teapot Charm                        


pinkflamingo61- rubber stamp Alice in Wonderland rabbit on Victorian bicycle


PaintedByRenee- ALICE in WONDERLAND Whimsical notecards


daisyleedesign- Mad Hatter Burgundy and Gold Mini Top Hat with Peacock Feather


ifiwerecards- Alice In Wonderland Mad Hatter Vintage Teapot Tags


And as far as Bridal Shower invitations here is an example from etsy:
PeacockPrinting

Here is an example from the website Zazzle which has many kinds of cards of varied themes:

 

                           

Crocheted Flowers and Flower Girl Baskets

One of the first projects I started on was making flower girl baskets since I had recently taught myself how to make non-handled baskets for our bedroom and bathroom that I store small bathroom supplies and little odds and ends in.

           
I thought it would be easy enough to add handles. It was. And I still come back to wishing I could explain how to make crocheted baskets. I believe in having an open and communicative crafting community that shares patterns and ideas. Since I often don't use patterns perhaps I can only share ideas and concepts.

There will be three adorable flower girls. One under four and the other two will have just turned two. Each basket is a bit different.

Flowers- even though I couldn't crochet flowers for an entire wedding I wanted to make some. So the flowers the girls will be throwing will be various colors of small crocheted flowers.

Bookmark Favors

For a book themed wedding favors Bookmarks were a no-brainer. Anyone who knows me knows that I have made quite a few bookmarks in my life using scrapbook paper, newspapers, magazines, glue, tape, ribbon, and all kinds of other art supplies.

 

 

These are simple Bookmarks I made for the wedding with colors that will be featured in the wedding. After finding a font I was fond of I made labels that I put our names and wedding date on card stock and cut and glued them to our decorative book marks, then I wrapped then in packing tape. I used jute with beads for the top part of the bookmark. Some of the beads are beads I have made in the past from polymer clay.

 

 

Guest Book Take 2: A Vintage Library-Chic Guest Book

If you look at my previous post you see the first guest book I made. After making that I had this feeling that it wasn't "the" guest book for our wedding. We are going with some shabby chic images for our wedding, but I felt like I wanted to make the book a bit more chic on the outside, while the inside remains plenty shabby.

So eventually I came up with the new and improved guest book. Is it perfect? No. But I do like it more.

I used a strong corrugated cardboard, which I wrapped in a grey cotton fabric. For the band around the left side I used a fabric ribbon that has script words, that happen to be written in French and surrounded that by a black ribbon.

I put it together with the same rings I used in my previous guest book and then tied a shiny silver ribbon around the rings. On the ivory silk flower I have added a few gems as I have on the band, and  then added a jute center. The "Guest Book" tag is tea dyed to give it a vintage feel. Refer to my post Literary Love Confetti about tea dyed confetti hearts for more about tea dying.

 

Open up the guest book and you can see the library theme of the wedding in full bloom. These are library cards and pockets from a local school supply store. You can also get these on etsy, amazon, or other places online. I tea dyed these cards, but on places like etsy you buy library cards that already have a vintage look.
 

After guests open this guest book
they will take a card out & sign
their name, address, and anything
else they would like. This also
minimizes the line to sign the guest
book because people can spread
out and sign a different card at the
same time.

Before I made my cards I considered buying from few shops on Etsy which I have listed at the bottom of this page.

 Besides buying library cards on etsy I also considered buying a guest book on Etsy. While you can get a wedding guest book almost any place these days Etsy has many unique and personal ones. See below for examples.

 

 

 

Shops on Etsy for library cards:

ClipAndPin

ExLibrisJournals

Modern Tape

 

Library Themed Wedding Guest Book:

bingingbee (this shop has lots of fun books to look at)

 

Custom made Vintage Guest Books:

ShabbyWeddingBooks

LazyLightningArt

trusted 

Guest Book

I looked at many guest books and came up with my own idea because I couldn't find the one I wanted. At crafts stores and other stores wedding guest books can be from $10-$50. I am proud that this one only costs a few bucks to make. I made it with two clip boards from the dollar store.

I never used a drill before, but got to use our drill on this project which was kind of fun. For this project I just drilled three holes that would fit together on right side of each clip board.

Then I turned one of the clip boards so that the holes fit together. The metal clips on the clip boards should be on opposite sides.

 

 

I added rings, and then paper that I punched holes in.

Look at the first picture to see how I decorated the book. Since we are having a literary theme I went with Scrabble pieces to spell out the word "guests". If you are observant you have probably noticed that they are not real scrabble pieces because there are no number points to score the letters in the right hand corner. I bought these wooden letters at Michaels, but I once found them on a website that had various wooden miniatures.
I also used a crocheted flower with various small gems glued on, damask fabric, jute, and paper.

Other possibilities would be silk flowers, ribbon, various stickers, lace, or decorative scrapbook paper.

To make the clip board have a vintage feel I rubbed a little brown ink from a stamp pad around the edges.

Because we are having literary theme and love libraries I bought library return cards with pockets. Each guest, couple, or family will be able to write their name address and phone number on a library card. There will probably be room to write other information if they feel inspired. We do rather like to inspire people.

Ring Bearer Pillow

I splurged and bought a 5 dollar pillow for this project. But to save money you can make your own. I have seen these ring bearer decorated pillows for 20-30 dollars so even though I didn't make the pillow it was quite cheap and fun. I used satin fabric, lace, and a decorative burlap ribbon. Then I added two crochet flowers and a flower shaped plastic jewel. Since I will use all of the materials for other projects the little bit that I used on this project didn't cost much at all.



Even though I sewed the pillow I glued the ridbbon, lace, flowers and jewel on which made the project really quick and easy.

 

 

You may not be able to see from the picture, but I have added a touch of tulle which the rings will be tied to.

Decorative Favor Boxes

These are great to put candy (wrapped) or other favors in.



I used the antiqued hearts I made in the previous blog to decorate these.

One day I was visiting a friend when I was living near my home town. It was a blizard so I should have gone home. But I was close and liked visiting her because she runs a great local pottery shop. I would add a link to her website, but she has no online presence. Her shop is called Dots Pots and it is in Moline, IL

Scapbook paper is great to use. There are so many designs and colors available at your local craft store. Make sure to use cardstock paper for sturdy boxes.

 So while the blizard was burying my car outside I lingered in her shop parusing her beautiful and functional artistic pottery. Since I wasn't in a rush to hurry out she showed me how to make two craft projects. To this day I remember one of the projects and forgot the other.

The project I forgot how to make was making small gift bags from wrapping paper which would have come in handy if I could remember how to do it. Gift bags are so expensive and the bags she taught me how to make didn't take much wrapping paper and therefore were going to be very cheap.

The other project she showed me how to make was small boxes using any old paper. So I decided that for my wedding I would make these cute favor boxes for everyone. I wish I could tell people how to make them, but they would have to watch me. I would advise looking up websites about folding paper or oragami boxes. These are cute, fun, and will save money. They can be decorated with ribbon, jute as I have above (buy jute at the hardware store because it is so much less expensive there), stamps, stickers and much more.

After looking I did find directions on making a box that looks like mine here:
http://rubberstamping.about.com/od/techniquesandtutorials/ss/Box.htm

Literary Love Confetti

After looking for hours for ideas to go with our literary themed wedding I saw large confetti hearts somewhere online made from old books. So I took that idea and ran with it I bought two heart shaped paper punches; one about an inch and a half and the other 2.5 inches. Here is an example of what a paper punch would look like: http://www.save-on-crafts.com/paperpunch.html although I got mine at a 50% off sale at Michaels. You can cut out hearts by hand, but if you plan on making a large number of hearts buying a heart shaped punch will make it so much easier. And you can use it in the future for various projects. I made my hearts using a self help book my mom kept trying to push on me because she didn’t want it, some of a 300 page story I wrote as a teenager, and the majority of an Oscar Wilde play book. Since my fiancé had bought me Oscar Wilde’s (one of my favourite authors) entire works for my last birthday I didn’t need to hold onto the really old falling part book that cost me 10 cents at some book sale. Then I made black tea and eventually soaked all of the hearts in them for at least 24 hours and let them dry to give them a vintage look. The hearts from the Oscar Wilde book looked even older since it was a very old book.

How I tea died paper:

-Pour about a cup or so of boiling water into a 9x9 clear baking pan and let two bags of black tea seep. If you don’t already have black tea, and don’t even like it, just buy the cheap kind. You can also use coffee, which I did but it seemed messier.

-Put in the refrigerator to let it cool
-Put about two layers of hearts in the tea and let sit 24-73 hours and then spread a towel on your table and let them dry. You will have to do this process many times.
-Only a good project if you have time.
-You can also tea die other paper projects and projects you have made with yarn. I have not tried this with fabric, but I’m sure you can.

- These have been very loose directions. You don't have to use a 9x9 baking pan, it doesn't have to be clear, or glass as mine was. And you can tea dye it for a shorter or longer amount of time. But it does help to use older books.

I haven't even figured out everything I am going to do with these little hearts, but here are two ideas so far.

The hearts can be scattered amongst a centerpiece setup

The hearts can be used to decorate favor boxes or anything else.

 

Look for my favor box project in the next blog.

Save the Date Cards