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.