DIY Bouquets

My hopes of having a peony bouquet died when I received my fake flowers in the mail from Afloral.com. The entire shipment was a disappointment and I had to start all over again.

Everything was too sparse and unacceptable for a bridal bouquet. They actually look better in the pictures than in person. It would have worked fine if I ordered another bouquet of peonies, but they ran out. What are the chances, right?

My sister and I hunted for better fake flowers at Michael's and found white hydrangea stems ($4.60 each after coupon) that were a good size for the bridesmaids. They needed a little bit of color so we grabbed a few light purple flowers ($1.09 each bunch).

I got the glass vases from Dollar Tree, by the way.

For my bouquet, we used two stems to make it fuller and added red accents.

The bottom of the stems were first padded with napkins to make the handles thicker and easier to hold. They were then wrapped tediously with brown satin ribbon. I also sewed on the monogram charms that I shared with you before.

Cost of bouquets if I had purchased them from the florist: $330

Cost of flowers from Afloral.com (which I'm going to return): $50.30

Comparison of Afloral vs. Michael's flowers

Final cost of flowers from Michael's: $32.95
Amount saved: $297.05

With This Ring

Brandon is going to be marrying a cheapo wife. I didn't want to invest in a lot of money for his wedding band because of the nature of his job. He crawls in mud, climbs ropes, does pull ups and push ups, carries ruffles and other hooah stuff.

In comes titanium rings, which are lightweight, durable, hypoallergenc, affordable and comfortable. I ordered his from Etsy seller titaniumknights for $45. They made it and shipped it within five days.

Brandon asked for something classically simple and thin.
My rings came out for another photo shoot, too. I placed them on one of the bridesmaid's bouquets. My Christmas gift three years ago was a promise ring with round diamonds on the band. It will serve as the ring Brandon places on my finger at the altar. The ring has too much sentimental value for me to stick in a box somewhere.
Let's hope everything fits when Brandon gets home on the 18th.

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!