Wedding Place Cards

Ahh. Wedding place cards. I don't know what it is about them, but I'm in love. It seems silly to care about such a small thing when you think about the fact that people will only use them to find their seat, and they will be thrown away at the end of the night. At any rate, the are one of my favorite details in weddings. When they are all lined up in alphabetical order, it is just simply beautiful. Call me crazy, but I love it.

When my best friend asked me to make her place cards for her, I was so excited! And when she told my what she was thinking she wanted, I was jumping for joy (in my head of course, that would be too weird to actually jump for joy over place cards, right?)

As I'm sure you guessed, her colors were navy blue and yellow, not what you would expect from an MSU grad, but it sure was beautiful. 

In order to make these, you will need:

ribbon, card stock, regular hole punch, large fancy hole punch (from any craft store), wine corks, exacto knife, glue stick, and a printer.

Something that cuts straight is also very helpful.

Once I bought all the supplies, I spent about three afternoons at my best friends house. Her mom, aunt, and I worked until our fingers bled to get these done (kidding of course)

First, we cut the navy blue card stock 2.5 inches by 3 inches. 

Then, we cut the ribbon into 8 inch long pieces. 

Using a regular hole puncher, we punched to holes into the top, it doesn't really matter where, as long as they are somewhat near the center. Once we added the ribbon, you couldn't really see the holes anyways. 

The fun part was the wine corks. Holy cow, I swear my hands ached for days after cutting all 125+ corks. 

To get the corks to lay nicely, I cut each cork in half and cut a slit all the way across the top, rounded spot on each half. Each cork makes 2 place card stands.

The last part was the easiest, but it had to be done at the last minute, once every response card was returned and the seating arrangements were finalized. I simply typed up all the table assignments on my computer, printed them out and used my large, fancy hole punch to punch out each one. Then we used glue sticks to adhere them to the cardstock. 

**While you might not think the glue sticks will hold well, I promise they will. I tried using rubber cement, but it will make your pretty white paper look very dark due to the wetness of the glue on the navy cardstock.

Once they were all put together, we slid them into the wine corks and alphabetized them so they were ready to go. The whole process probably only took about 9 hours to make 250 place cards. We split it up into three afternoons, and it really was manageable. 

And look at the beautiful final product:

Totally worth it!

And I'm not kidding when I say I need someone else to get married now! Wedding crafts took over my life for a year and a half during my wedding planning days. I got a small taste of that again while making these place cards, and I'm ready for more. 

Apparently I should just drop out of school and be a wedding planner... a girl can dream right? 

Happy Friday!

Wedding Wednesday: Programs

So you know how I told you in my last post about how I was no longer blogging about the wedding and I was starting to focus on other things? Well, scratch that, I lied! There are still just a few wedding projects I want to still show you guys!

My wedding programs were probably the most time consuming of all the projects I decided to DIY, but with that being said, I think they were also my favorite. 

To make this project, you will need:

a lot of scrapbook paper and plain cardstock, ribbon, wallet size pictures, glue sticks, and a few extra helping hands. 

Our programs were four pages long:

Page One: Cover

This page was made of cardstock and measured 5 inches long and 4 inches wide. We put a wallet-sized engagement picture, our names, and wedding date on the cover page. 

Page Two: Special Thanks

This page was made with scrapbook paper, measuring 5 1/2 inches long and 4 inches wide. We added cardstock as the border, and it also seemed to make the page a bit more sturdy.

On this page, we thanked everyone for being a part of our special day and traveling to be with us, as well as our parents for all the love and support they have given us throughout our lives.

Page Three: Wedding Party

This is where we listed our Wedding Party and their relationship to us, including maid of honor, best man, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and flower girl.

The page measured 6 inches in length and 4 inches wide. Once again, we used a cardstock border to make the pages sturdy.

Page Four: Ceremony

We used this page to list the order of our mass, as well as the readings we had chosen for the mass.

And in case you haven't pick up on the pattern yet, this page is 6 1/2 inches long and 4 inches wide.

One thing we needed to pay special attention to while making these was the space at the top and the bottom. At the the top, we needed to leave enough room to punch holes and tie the ribbon. At the bottom, we didn't want any of the purple border to show when looking at the cover. 

We used a glue stick to adhere everything except the picture. For the picture, we used rubber cement. When everything was glued down, we put one of each page together and punched two holes at the top. We used 12 inch long black ribbon to tie the bows.

And this was the final product:

On our wedding day, we had them sitting on the front table of the church. I also had some of my cousins pass them out as they greeted our guests coming in. 

At the church:

and here are some of my fantastic cousins passing them out...

it looks like some of our guests enjoyed them as well...

Well there you have it, our Handmade Wedding Programs!
I would love to hear about how yours turn out if you decide to try this!

Popcorn Wedding Favors

Although the wedding is over, I still have a lot of details I would like to share with you, starting with the favors. We originally wanted to bring in a popcorn popper so everyone could have fresh popcorn, but our reception site was not going to let that happen. Instead, we settled for microwave popcorn as our favors, but of course, if you know me, you know I had to make them look cute and fit in with our theme. Here is what I came up with:

Adam designed the logo that said "Thanks for popping in!" while I did all the cutting. 

We cut and tied ribbon to make the bows.

Then the gluing began....

When all the gluing was FINALLY finished, we wrapped the paper around each bag of popcorn, and voila!

Popcorn Wedding Favors!!

I love the way they turned out!! We alternated them by seat at the reception, and it turned out great. It added a little color to the tables, and was more unique than the typical chocolates or mints. We had cake and a dessert bar at the reception, so no one really needed any more sweets anyways. And at the end of the night, all the college students were collecting the extras to take back to school with them. 

Did anyone else have a unique wedding favor for their guests? 

I would love to hear about it!

Tutorial: Card Box Complete!

I had very little homework to do this weekend, so I put my time to good use elsewhere... wedding details of course! I have had all the supplies to make my card box for a while now, but I just finally got around to making it. And boy am I ever glad I did. This is probably my favorite wedding project so far. I absolutely loveeee the way it turned out! See for yourself:

In case any of you are looking for how to make your own DIY cardbox, here is a tutorial on how I made it. It was very simple. simple = fun.

Supplies:

Two circular storage bins of varying sizes

(I found mine at hobby lobby and used 40% off coupons)

Ribbon

Small Frame

16 gauge jewelry wire

Hot Glue Gun

Utility Knife

Directions:

Cut

Now comes the fun part! Carefully cut the boxes with your utility knife. There is a total of 3 holes you will need to make for your two-tiered card box: 1.) top of large bin 2.) bottom of small bin 3.) top of small bin.

Your first cut should be rather large, on the top of the largest bin (or your bottom tier). The size you cut will depend on how big your bins are, but make sure that the hole is small enough that the top bin will cover it. 

For the second cut, you will use the same size hole as you did for the first cut, but this cut will be in the bottom of your smaller bin.

And your last cut will be a slot in the top of your smaller bin for people to insert their cards. Make sure this slot is large enough that any size card will fit in it.

Glue

Using your hot glue gun, start gluing the pieces together! To make things easier, I would suggest gluing the top of the larger bin and the bottom of the smaller bin together first. I did not do this, but wished that I had once I was trying to get them together.

Next, glue the top and bottom of the larger bin together.

I glued the top of the smaller bin to the rest of the card box once I finished decorating it, but you can choose to do this whenever. I found it easier to add the ribbon in the slot when I was able to access the underside of the top.

Decorate

I started with hot gluing my purple ribbon along the bottom edges of both tiers. Then, I added the ribbon around the opening slot. (Once that is done, you can glue the top on)

I decided to use my leftover ribbon to make flowers for a little extra something.

And then came my big idea, and my absolute favorite part of this whole thing. The frame saying "Cards" was kind of an after thought, and I am so glad I decided to do it!

Card Frame

First, I formed the word "Cards" with wire, then used ribbon as the background and stuck them both in a black frame. 

I hot glued the frame on top for the finishing touch!

Can you tell by my vast amount of pictures how much I love it?

This project inspired a few more DIY details, so check back for more wedding day fun!

Happy Tuesday!

Tutorial: The Letter M

I decided I needed a little something else to go with the wedding vow canvas we made a while back. So I made an "M" for our initial to place next to it at the reception.

Supplies:

Paper Mache Letter

Paint

Scrapbook Paper

Mod Podge

Ribbon

Directions:

First, I spray painted my paper-mache "M" with black spray paint. 

When the paint was dry, I traced out my letter and then had to decided where I wanted each pattern to be (this was a little tricky because everything is opposite of what you trace). Also, I made sure my paper was a little smaller than the letter so it would seal off properly. Another thing to note, the papers should all be the exact same width so they match up perfectly. This part took me a long time to make things perfect.

Next, I got out the mod podge and went to town. I used the mod podge like glue first. I spread it out all over the letter and placed/glued the paper to the letter. Then, I spread another layer of mod podge over the paper.

Once everything dried, I added a piece of ribbon to finish it off. 

I love the way it looks with the wedding vow canvas! It will match our wedding decor perfectly :)