With the wedding date closing in, I’m beginning to realize that instead of just buying supplies and PLANNING my DIY projects, I need to actually start completing them.  One of the first photos I had seen that that kind of set the tone for what I wanted our wedding style to be, were moss-covered monograms (strange, I know).  They’ve since become more popular, and after reading an couple of tutorials for ideas, I bought some supplies to get started.  One thing I’m starting to realize with DIY, is that it’s always smart to price your supplies BEFORE buying/starting anything.  Oddly enough, even though sometimes you can make something yourself, it’s cheaper just to buy one pre-made.  The monograms  on ETSY start anywhere from $25 each, and skyrocket from there.  Obviously, in this case the DIY was a huge savings.

Please excuse the crude photography that follows…

I had originally planned to sketch & cut my letters out of styrofoam, and then cover them with loose moss.  After reading a couple of tutorials, I decided to use moss mat by SuperMoss at Hobby Lobby (I ended up using about half of a package).  It’s so much easier to work with because it’s already fixed to a sheet that you can cut and work with, as opposed to trying to even out the clumpy moss that comes in bags.  In looking around at Hobby Lobby, I also decided to go with premade letters, as they were $1.99 each, which was less than the styrofoam I would have needed, not to mention much less trouble.

First, I took out my moss sheets, and traced around my letters on the moss backing with a Sharpie.  It may seem like common sense, but be sure to consider what side of your letter you’re covering, and trace accordingly, as you could end up with backwards letters.  I then carefully cut my moss on the pilot lines with scissors, making the pretty letters.

Next it was time for some careful hot gluing.  To avoid my glue hardening or becoming messy before I pressed the moss on, I chose to carefully move section-by-section, which seemed to work well.  I found it important to keep the rest of the letter/cut in perspective too, so that all parts of the letter line up, and nothing becomes stretched or “lumpy” looking.

Lastly, I tied a nice ribbon to hang the monograms by (it looks burgundy in the terrible photos, but is actually chocolate brown).  I ended up making both an “E” and “C” to hang on the front doors of the Barn.  Eric & I will have the same initials after we’re married, so I thought this looked better than a three letter monogram with two E’s.  I also liked the fact that I can find a place for these to hang after our wedding.  For once, this project actually WAS as easy as it sounds!  My cost for the two letters and moss was about $7.

I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out. What do you think?

So, the invitations have been one of the biggest DIY’s I’ve tackled, and I’ll be happy once every single one is sent out. Each step was more time consuming than I ever thought, and since I’m somewhat of a perfectionist, having people help kind of made me nervous. Of course it’s very much appreciated and I couldn’t have done it without the help of my family! Thanks Mom! Total invite’s made: 110. Now I’m off to the Post office to mail them out across the world.

We ordered all the black cardstock from a craft supplier, and cut each piece to size. Each invite then had to be scored down the centre and assembled.

We bought ivory pearlized paper and hand embossed each piece.

We had personalized faux wax seals made for the envelopes.All images were taken by me.

Hello hello! I have been so busy over the holidays trying to take advantage of the time off by getting as much wedding stuff done as possible. My wedding is in 3 short months, you know! I’ve been creating invites, taking engagements photos, dealing with a venue change (yeah, that’s a biggie), making and buying gifts and much more! All of this I will share with you, but today I wanted to talk about my table cloths.

As you all know, my wedding theme is vintage and whimsical. I wanted to find a way to reflect this with my tables in a CHEAP way. When you go to a wedding reception, the first thing that is noticeable is the tables. There are so many of them and they usually match, so they make a statement. I looked into just renting table cloths, but they were all around $8 each and so cheap and flimsy looking. That is NOT OK! I’m too much of a tight wad to spend that much money for something ugly.

Luckily for me, my grandmother is a fabulous seamstress. She has an entire basement full of fabric. I thought I would get crafty and see if she had anything I could use. Well as fate would have it, the day I go to visit, she just got back from Habitat For Humanity and had picked up 2 rolls of silk-like fabric in two of my wedding colors (pink and orange). She had no idea what my wedding colors were and didn’t know what she would use the fabric for, but she couldn’t pass it up because it was less than $15. Thank you dear baby Jesus! This could not have worked out better. We cut the fabric into big squares and she sewed on some rope to the edges just to make it look a little more finished. We laid it out on a big table to get an idea and….I didn’t like it! It was way too shiny and bright. So my solution for that was to take a giant pile of old lace she had and cut it into squares to match and lay it on top of the shininess. These were definitely what I had in mind! The color pops just enough and the lace gives it that vintage feel.

I could have cut these into circles to match the circular tables, but I really don’t think its necessary. I’m just going to stagger the corners of the shiny cloth and the lace.

We ended up not having enough lace and not all of it was the same color. I called all the ladies in my family and had them find all their old lace table cloths and curtains. Once I got about 16 of the 20 table clothes I needed, I tea stained them so that they would all be the same vintage color. I will detail how to tea stain in another post – it was super easy! So I still needed about 4 or so table cloths, but really did not want to buy more lace, so I took one table cloth and cut it into 4ths and made table runners for 4 of the tables. I figure that these will be the reserved tables for the bridal party. They match all the others, but they will stand out just a little. SCORE! What do you think?

It is getting so close to wedding day (less than 20 days away now) and I had one last DIY project before I hung up my scissors. I decided to make our wedding programs!

Remember when I took on the giant task of making our save the dates?

As much as I loved the project, I knew I wanted something less time consuming, but still equally “us”. So I turned to my old buddy Martha (Stewart for you non-DIYers) for inspiration. On her website I found TONS of programs that I loved and knew I could ealily make. I picked the bow programs because I could use my wedding colors and print them myself.

Honestly the most difficult part was formatting and lining up the four columns. After printing them out…

I cut them in half.

Then I took the middle part of my bow…

wrapped it around my program and taped it up.

Easy peasy! I literally made all 200 of them in two nights.

Since this is all about budget-savvy-ness… all of these programs cost me a whopping $15. I got my packs of paper on sale and I had a TON of leftovers which I will for sure use for scrapbooking and making thank you cards. I would definitely urge anyone who has the patience to make your own programs because I really felt like it was a nice relaxing project before the final stretch to the big day.

Taylor

Okay, I have a confession to make. Even though my background is in interior design, and I’ve been all rah-rah cheerleader-esque excited about DIY decorating projects for my wedding…secretly, I am TERRIFIED of them! The number of things I have to do in the next 2 months is daunting, and I’ve been experiencing that awful fear of failure that’s keeping me from even starting any of the projects on my to-do list! (Does anyone else feel me on this?) Thankfully, after confessing this to my wonderful (and very handy) fiance and asking for his help, we were able to set aside a Saturday together to get started on a few of the projects that have been nagging at my brain for the past few weeks.

One of the bigger projects that we finally started on was the photobooth! (Perhaps you remember me raving about how much I love them ? Or tweeting about my excitement when we went to get supplies to build ours?) Nate and I hopped in the pickup truck, grabbed some lumber and spray paint, and spent an afternoon in the garage getting to work. After laying down two 4′x8′ sheets of plywood, I arranged the picture frames where I wanted the cutouts to be. Nate built a simple framework for the whole shebang so it would stand up, and then routed out the openings.

While my handsome man-panion was doing impressive sounding things with power tools in the garage, I headed out to the lawn with my big pile of thrifted picture frames (I think I’ve spent a whopping $25 on all of them, and I have many more than shown in the picture!) and a few cans of black, white, and grey spray paint. Picture frames have become part of our wedding decor (and I even used them on the invitations ) so I’ve been hunting for interesting looking frames that would look neat on the photobooth wall, and also suspended from the ceiling or hung on the walls of the church on the big day.

Now that the basic structure of the photobooth is made, we have to cover the whole thing in damask wallpaper (which I’m still on the hunt for!); hang the large empty frames over the openings; and fill in the rest of the wall space with smaller frames (filled with pictures of us and our families). Even though I’d like to get it done sooner, we’re going to wait until we can actually transport the giant wooden behemoth to the church at the end of December before we put these finishing touches on. (Otherwise, our labor of love will likely be dinged up or destroyed in transit. Sad face.)

I’ve gotta say, it’s been a huge weight off my shoulders to have gotten some big projects started and to have made a plan to tackle other ones in the coming weeks. I don’t know how many brides-to-be out there are overwhelmed with DIY projects like this, but I’m guessing it’s a lot! If I can offer one word of encouragement, it’s this – don’t be shy to ask for help! It’s called Do it Yourself, not Do it ALL Yourself! There’s a misconception that we have to be superbrides and take care of everything on our own, and that’s just not true. Share your needs with your fiance, friends, and family, and you’ll likely have an army of awesome people supporting you in your efforts. Good luck, you wonderfully crafty wedding warriors!