DIY Failure and DIY Success Stories

I had marvelous plans for making sugar cookies decorated with royal icing as thank you gifts for attendees of my bridal shower.

In my mind, I had imagined them to look like the picture on the left, but, instead, they were a bit of a tasty disaster.

I spent about four hours making the cookies and was not at all pleased with my results.

Here are my reasons why I think I failed:

1. I do not own a rolling pin, so instead I used a can wrapped in saran wrap.
2. I do not own a sifter or a measuring scoop, resulting in my royal icing being a clumping mess.
3. I had never worked with actual tips and piping bags before.
4. There was no room in my fridge to cool my cookie dough so my cookies did not retain their form very well.

I will perfect you one day, Royal Icing. You just wait and see!

But at least my little tags came out adorable! Flower art found from here.
I couldn't let my guests go home without sweets, so I made brownie balls dipped in chocolate instead. I forgot to take a picture of them, but they look similar to the ones on the right, except I drizzled with pink icing so that they would match my tags.

Use this recipe if you want to make them yourself (makes 48):

Ingredients: 13x9 cooled brownie sheet, half a can of chocolate frosting, one bag of chocolate chips, icing (or caramel) for drizzling

Procedure: Crumble brownies into a large bowl. Eat the yummy crispy edges because they won't crumble finely enough. Mix in half a can of frosting. Roll mixture into 1-inch balls and place onto wax paper. Melt chocolate chips over a double broiler. Dip the brownie balls into the chocolate to coat completely. Place coated balls onto wax paper. Refrigerate until completely cool.

The following project when much more smoothly and was pain absolutely pain free. I am going to have water and snacks available for the bridesmaids(man) and groomsmen when they get to the Nixon Library the day of the wedding.

I made personalized water bottle labels by using this template and this bird image.

Materials: water bottles, paper, ruler, razor, tape roller

Cost: $2.50 for 12 bottles of water at Target

Procedure:
1. Design your labels using PowerPoint and print onto regular printer paper. You can print them on waterproof paper, but it is unnecessary unless you are going to chill them in ice.

2. Cut labels using razor and ruler to get straight lines.

3. Remove original label.

4. Put adhesive on one end of the label.

5. Wrap and secure onto bottle.

Brandon and I went on a candle shopping spree at Ikea the last time he was home. We left with a lot of goodies, including red candle holders that were on clearance for 29 cents compared to 99 cents a piece.

I put them all in a box and moved them from one corner of my room to another and cringed when I heard these red beauties clanking together. My solution for this involved digging in a trash can next to the pear station in the grocery store.

The same packaging used to prevent bruising on pears can be used to protect glass objects from breaking.

Cost: $0

Dumpster diving for your wedding? That's dedication there, yo!

Invitation Suite: The Breakdown

Here is the breakdown of the costs for our invitations:

Envelopes:

70 envelopes from Paper Source: $22.63

Wraparound labels: $3.63

Stamps: $18.91

Liner: $10.00

Glue stick: $1.79

Total: $56.96

Belly Band:

Card stock from Big Lots: $1.00

Ribbon: $0.69

Doily edge punch $14.99

Tape runner: $1.00

Total: $17.68

Invitations:

RSVP stamp: $8.25

Paper when calculated by per piece: $6.30

Total: $14.55

Total cost: $89.19

Total invites: 55

Cost per invite: $1.62

Compare to this invitation from Wedding Paper Divas that costs $185.90 for just plain white envelopes, the invitation cards, and response cards alone.

Take that, ridiculously expensive wedding industry!

Invitation Suite: The Little Details

All of the little details put together is what makes our invitation work. These things might be overlooked by others, but they are things that I would notice if I saw them myself.

Traditional and more formal invitations house all of the contents with an inner envelope and maybe some tissue paper to prevent smearing. I decided to use a belly band to hold it all together instead. I made these using heavy cardstock (a pack for $1), a Martha Stewart doily edge punch ($7.50 after coupon), chocolate brown ribbon ($0.69 for a roll), and a tape runner ($1). Unfortunately, the edge punch broke less than halfway through so some people received straight edged belly bands

Guests are supposed to mail back both the RSVP card and a comment card in a pre-addressed envelope by December 1st so that I can have an accurate guest count for the caterer.
I intenionally created the RSVP card to be in a similar format as the save the date by stamping the letters "RSVP" in gold ink. I made sure to note how many seats were saved for each guest in order to limit numbers.There was no room to ask about entree choices or to give more information so I made a separate card. On it, I asked guests to give us songs they like to dance to and asked if they have any dietary concerns we should know about in order to "make the night as merry as possible."

I also gave guests the option to save a stamp and RSVP through our website our through my email account.

I also wrote a reference code on the back of each card in case guests forgot to write their names so that I could still identify them. The code "B8" means the eighth guest on the bride's list.

Invitation Suite: The Big Reveal

The invitations made it safely to their destinations and guests are already beginning to RSVP through our website, meaning I can finally show them to my readers.

I turned this red peony set from Target into our beautiful invitations. They were on clearance from $34.99 per box to only $6.70. I bought three boxes right away. Have I mentioned how much I love Target?

The contents of the 50 invitation kit were already fantastic alone, but just needed a little customization.

Since I had enough invitation sets to make 150 invitations when I only needed to make about 55, I was able to make mistakes and use sheets for multiple parts of the invite. For example, the cards meant for the RSVPs were also used for our save the dates. The extra sheets for the actual invitations were cut in half and used for the comment card.

Here was the result. I used the same fonts we used for all the stationary projects to maintain some uniformity. The envelope for the RSVP cards were embossed with a peony stamp.

Here is the actual invitation close up. Brandon's input in this was the "general merriment immediately following" part. I also included the address for our wedding website so that guests can have access to directions to the Nixon Library, our registries, RSVP, learn more about us and sign our online guest book.

Can you now see why I have been so proud of myself?

Invitation Suite: The Envelopes

Brandon and I finally mailed out the invitations yesterday so check your mail boxes frequently.

We were able to get the postman to hand cancel the stamps in order to keep the envelopes as close to its original condition as possible when they arrive.

He was really understanding about it, but then he just threw them in a box and it made my heart sink.

I hope that our guests handle them with a lot of TLC.

This is what you will find in your mail. We bought these nice red envelopes at Paper Source ($3.00 for 10 envelopes). The envelopes from the invite kit felt cheap.

Instead of having someone hand address the envelopes, I made a template of envelope wraps on Word and printed them on full-size label sheets. I cut them and trimmed the edge with my doily edge punch. This site has a lot of pretty templates that you can download.

Here is the inside of the envelopes. While they are pretty on their own, I wanted to line them with colored paper. I followed templates similar to this one by Martha.

Materials: envelopes, scissors, ruler, pencil, adhesive, heavy paper to make your template on, paper you want to line with. We chose a solid chocolate colored roll wrap from Paper Source ($10 for two rolls)

Step 1: Make a template by first tracing the envelope with its flap open on the heavy paper. Subtract 1/4 inch from each side and cut.

Step 2 (shown above): Trace your template on the liner paper and cut. Slip this into the envelope. Make a fold where the flap folds.

Step 3: Spread adhesive to just the flap. It is not necessary to add any adhesive anywhere else. Debbie figured out that it is best to use old magazine pages under the flap so that you can glue all the way to the edge and protect the envelope.

Step 4: Rub the flap down and make sure it sticks.

Please be careful when you open the envelope as you may accidently peel the liner away from the envelope itself.

And a big shout out to all of my readers out there. It turns out that this blog is more popular than I had thought.

Another Completely Unnecessary Detail

Edit: View final results here

(I craft when I'm stressed.)

When I was researching wedding cupcakes I came across numerous adorable flag toppers. They were too cute and cheap to resist making on my own.

Step 1: Format your flags on the computer and print. I found that PowerPoint was the easiest program to use. Include cutting guidelines in a light gray color.

Step 2: Cut and fold

Step 3: Glue halves together. Use the toothpick to spread the glue around so that it's nice and smooth. This also makes sure that the flag sticks onto the toothpick.

Step 4: If desired, make snips on the ends.
And voila! You have little flags to decorate your cupcakes...as if cupcakes on their own aren't already cute enough.

I'm going to have the caterers stick them in the cupcakes when they're served to the guests.

You've Got Mail

Well, almost. I've been done with the actual invitations since July, but I had to wait to compile all the addresses and to label the envelopes. It's still a tad early to send these babies out. A tad equals one week in this case.

I have slaved over these 55 invitations over the span of the past six months. So when you see these Stardream Red beauties in the mailbox I expect you to jump and scream in delight. Seriously.

(Invitations for both Bush and Obama as we aren't allowed to show political bias in the Army, hooah?)

And here I am teasing you with this low-quality picture. Trust me, they look better in person. And if you don't think so, then lie to me. Flat out lie.

Is it possible to be in love with paper?

A Pocket Guide

WeddingBee is one of the wedding blogs that I follow daily. One bride blogger, Mrs. Apple Cider, is insanely crafty, and her wedding themes and colors are remarkably similiar to mine. I had already decided on love birds, dark red and brown colors, and fonts before she started blogging so imagine my surprise when I found out that she was using the same combination of ideas.

Instead of having a Bridezilla "She-Stole-My-Ideas" moment, I happily followed her posts because she has given me some great ideas. I shamelessly copied her pocket guide for her bridal party. Here are my results:


This is the cover of the "guide," which is tied up with Martha Stewart ribbon I got for a buck at Big Lots. The guide includes important phone numbers, the wedding day schedule, and the address and map to the Nixon Library.

I will hand these out to the bridal party and family members during the rehearsal the day before the wedding.

Done Before 10am

A $12 glass apothecary jar from Marshall's + some brown ribbon + a little tag + pink crepe paper roses Add a sign with directions inside a 50 cent frame from Big Lots

Plus a basket filled with red wish cards and pens

Equals a wish jar station for our guests

Here is our bird cage from Target which will be used to hold cards from guests. I had better pictures of it, but I decided that it was time for Bella to make another appearance.

Next projects: wedding bubble tags, cupcake flags, cupcake tree/stands

Sweet Stickers

As I mentioned before, our candy bar is going to be provided by our caterer, meaning I will have very little control of it. I am, however, able to decide what kind of container our guests can take their sweets in. They will have clear cellophane bags available, but Brandon requested Chinese carry out boxes. They have more character, is a salute to my Chinese culture, and I can get them for super cheap ($0.08 per box) from Paper Mart.

Since I can never leave well enough alone, I spent the afternoon designing sticker labels to attach to the boxes. I ended up with nine different labels, and I can't decide which ones to choose, so help me pick!


Please leave a comment with the number of your favorite(s). The sixth option will include part of a peony stamp, as pictured below. Thanks!

Microsoft PowerPoint has become my new favorite document design program.

P.S. This is my 50th blog post. Thanks for sticking it through!