I was working on a tissue paper pomander (pictures to come) – just kind of messing around with the first one. It was pretty ok, but I had some problems cutting the paper the right size the first go around, so I had to trim some spots. Either way, I was checking it over in a back room of the house when my dad walked by. He stopped and took a look and I told him what it was and that we might use it for the ceremony or even reception decor. Now, if I had showed it to the females in the family I’m sure it would have been “oh that’s nice BUT change the ribbon/make it bigger/make it smaller/it should be real flowers/WHATEVER isn’t quite right.”

My dad’s response?

“Hey! That’s pretty good! I like it!”

And that’s it. Yep, dad’s my go-to guy for feedback now.

This is the one totally completed wedding project I have done so far. I picked it because it was fairly easy to do, plus I had a $100 target gift card that I was lucky enough to receive so it helped defray the costs a lot. I think the idea is cute and simple, and is one of those small extra touches we can do for our guests. Plus, it didn’t require crazy artistic talents to pull off.

These are all my ribbons and some tiny little flowers I picked up at various sales at Michael’s. I’ve realized that any concerns I have about matching purples have gone out the window. Just as long as it’s not lavender we’re good!

I got these baskets for $1 each at Michael’s, which I’m totally proud of. Also, please enjoy the view of the all the boxes of junk I’m saving up to move once we get an apartment. My first step was to cut some ribbon and glue it to the baskets. I put a few dabs of hot glue as I went along so it wouldn’t slide.

Next, I measured the width and length and cut some paper for making signs on each one. I got a sweet little paper cutter that makes those rounded corners, because lord knows I’m not that neat!

I have to say, my printer really impressed me with this one. The cardstock I had was too big to put in as is,so I cut these pieces out first and then ran it through. If you play with the paper sizing options and margins, you can get it to work. These are only 2 inches high and it still printed!

Next up, I made it all floofy pretty with flowers and a butterfly paper punch. Whee!

The finished basket for the ladies.

The finished basket for the fellas.

Overall, I’m guessing these cost around $35 each to put together, counting all the coupons and gift card cash I used. I don’t have a step by step tutorial because I just kind of did what felt right. Neither is busting at the seams with stuff, but it’s enough for all of the typical emergencies you’d face on a night out. They’re safely tucked away for now, and I hope our guests make good use of them!

Have you done any easy projects for your wedding? Are you doing them well in advance of the wedding or waiting until the last minute?

I’m not a huge fan of the traditional guest book. Everyone signs it, maybe they write something nice, and then you read it and…. put it on a shelf? Stick it in the attic? Never see it again? Boo to that. The mister and I were discussing the guest book a while back and I remembered something I saw at a wedding a couple of years ago.

Our friends Ashley and Gerry had one of their engagement photos set out next to the place cards at their reception. The glass was taken out of the frame, and the extra wide matting was open for all of their guests to sign with cute gel pens in their wedding colors! I loved the idea of having everyone help decorate our new home, so I decided to make the idea mine.

We ordered an 8 x 10 of one of our pictures, and then I got to work looking for a frame. They had ready made frames for this purpose online, but most of them were $60+. Yikes! My next option was our dear friend Michaels. They do custom framing, so I thought maybe that would be the answer. However, some research online showed me that their custom framing prices can be insane, which is how they always manage to offer a 60% off custom framing coupon. 60% off $300 is still a load of cash.

Despite all of this, I headed up to Michaels to see what I could find. Maybe I could build it myself. I had picked up some matting and was walking around to check out the frames when I saw it:

This is from Michael’s Portrait Collection, and retails for $30. Waaaay better. And guess what else! This week it was on sale for $15. SWEET! I grabbed it up right away, and when I got home it was simple to open – I centered our engagement photo in the frame and taped it in place. All I need to do is buy a couple of Sharpies and we’re set:

I left the corner covers on to hopefully avoid any damage to the frame while I store it and move to to the venue in the fall. One quick tip – the stickers on the glass left a big mess. You can see it a little bit in the upper right corner of the picture above. You won’t need the glass for the wedding day, but why not clean it now while you’re thinking of it? I highly recommend:

YEAH! Like the label says, Goo Gone is full of CITRUS POWER! My frame is done and the glass is all clear. Let’s do the cost breakdown:

Frame: $15 on sale

Engagement Photo: $25 from our photographer

Total: $40

Not too bad for a piece of art we’ll get to hang up after the wedding. It literally took me less than 15 minutes to put together, so I think even the most DIY challenged brides can handle it! Are you doing a non-traditional guest book? Was it a lot of work or simple to do?

Ahhh, Boscov’s. If you’ve lived in NEPA, you’re undoubtedly familiar with it. The Wilkes-Barre Boscov’s is the most beat up of all the stores, and is often a dumping ground for unwanted merchandise from the rest of the chain. And, apparently, it’s also good for wedding planning. Yes,I said wedding planning and Boscov’s in the same sentence!

Reader Aly B. left me a comment last week about her recent Boscov’s discovery:

On a side note, have you been to Boscov’s basement? They have so many inexpensive vases and knick-knacks. I bought about 20 glass bar pitchers that I can use as table vases. At $1 a piece, they are awesome!

Wow! Who woulda thunk it?

But it makes perfect sense – a lot of the stuff being brought in to our Boscov’s is being marked down to sell, so it’s a perfect place to go to look for deals on vases and glassware. I’m going to try and get down there in the next couple of weeks to see if I can finish off my candy buffet glassware collection. Thank you Aly!

Has anyone else found wedding wares in unexpected places around NEPA? Share your finds here!

We all have our guilty pleasures. I probably have more than most when it comes to wedding planning. My Google Reader is bursting with RSS wedding goodies, and I have a basket in my room filled with wedding magazines. I’ve been trying to wean myself off the magazines because after the early stages of planning, I think they get less helpful and more confusing. You see a new happy pretty and start to doubt the vision you and your groom have already agreed on. To avoid the stress, I’ve stopped buying them. I even threw a couple out last weekend. I was doing good, until I saw this:

Sigh. SIGH. Oh Martha, how you tempt me. The crafts and pictures in her magazine are just so PRETTY. This is one vice I’m not ready to give up yet. I wonder if I can get away with buying Martha Stewart Weddings after I get married? For the pictures….

Do you have any wedding ‘vices’? What are yours?

So I seem to spend more time lately swooning over pictures of butterfly wedding supplies online than I do actually buying them and doing crafts for my own wedding. But with 2010 almost here, I’m trying to get myself back in gear and start doing and not just dreaming.

BUT, before that happens, I found a TON of really great butterfly wedding favors on the site Daisy-Days.com and I wanted to share some of my favorite pieces of inspiration!

If you want a less DIY approach, I like this whole Butterfly Dreams Wedding collection. They have four popular colors and you can get all the accessories like the ring bearer pillow, flower girl basket, etc. If it gets down to the wire and I’m still missing some of these things, or haven’t found anything I really want to make, I might pop back over and pick some of these up.

Next up are some fantastic jewels you can use to dress up your bouquet. I’ve seen other brides do the little crystals in the flowers, but what about crystal butterflies? I love the idea of that extra sparkle in my flowers, and it will tie my look in with the rest of the theme.

I’m not going to do individual place cards on each table (just place cards at the door with their table number, not assigned seats), but if I was I would use these butterfly name cards. They are so freaking cute. The little pieces of glitter they have in the sample pictures on the site just add to the overall adorableness of that table!

Finally, the creme de la creme: butterfly candy favor bags. DREAMY SIGH. The candy buffet is happening, but I still need bags for people to take the candy home in (or I could just tell everyone on the invitations that pockets are required… lol). We could do them in our colors, with our names. Look how hot these are:

I can’t even handle it any more. I need to go lay down and recover, ha!

Has anyone else ever gone into wedding inspiration overload? How do you not end up buying/making every cute idea you see?

I’m a big fan of beach weddings. I know, I’m not having anything that even remotely resembles a beach wedding, but I adore them anyway. NEPA BIL and his wife were married a year and a half ago on the beach in North Carolina and it was a simple, yet breath-taking ceremony.

As per usual, I was browsing around for all things wedding and i came upon QualityShells.com. The best way I can describe them is a ready to go beach wedding in a box!  From bulk shells for decorating (think – filling a large hurricane vase with them as a base for a candle) or even large shells that could serve as the focal point of each centerpiece.

If my family could travel easily, I’d probably blow off a lot of this wedding stuff and just have everyone gather at the beach during sunset for a quick ceremony. Then we could sit at tables draped with seashells and candles and enjoy the night. As much as we all probably love combing the beach for shells, it would get pretty exhausting to gather enough shells for 20 or so tables.

What kind of ideas have you had for a beach-themed wedding? If you could just run off to the ocean and get married, would you?

Oh. My. God. I love Polyvore.

Everyone seems to rely on their inspiration boards when conveying the style and feel of their wedding. They make them in photoshop or some other nonsensical program that I can’t use. I tried making one using another site, but after an hour of finding pictures and putting them into it’s uploader thinger, one slip of the mouse on the back button and all my hard work was gone.

I had seen Polyvore before but forgot to bookmark it. Finally, after some searching I opened an account this week and started throwing all my pictures and ideas into a board. The nice thing about Polyvore is that it’s free and very simple to use. The system will try to crop around the item in your picture so that you can overlay them in more interesting ways. It doesn’t always work (take the wedding dress in my board, for example) but you can turn it off if it mucks up the picture.

So without further ado, here’s my first stab at an inspiration board (click on it for an enlarged version):