Well, here’s our first diy project.  I say ours, but Lotus Dude did most of the work.  I photographed, which counts as work too!  We decided to use modified French memory boards to display the escort cards.

The needed materials were canvas in the desired size, cotton batting, fabric in your wedding colors, ribbon, staples and a staple gun, scissors, and decorative tacks.  We chose to use a small canvas and scrap fabric for the first one just to make sure we knew what we were doing and not wasting good fabric.

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My favourite projects lately have been making soap.  I’m no expert, but I have figured out an easy process that can be done in a quick evening at home.

Soap for Party/Wedding Favours:

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Enter to win a DIY kit to make custom wedding program fans for your ceremony!

From custom-programs.com

More details on the Contest page.

Save-the-Dates…check

Invitations…check

Oh the wonderful feeling of checking off items on your To Do list!!  Last night I was able to finish our RSVP cards.  It was actually easier than I thought it would be since Dandelion Dude and I decided on leaving some space on them for friends and family to write us little notes.  Since this is an destination wedding for some, I know everyone will have a little something to say. Here they are…super simple and to the point.

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My supervisor bought cork board for her home office, but then ended up not using it. Because she couldn’t return it and knowing I love DIY projects, she brought it to work and gave me several 12×12 cork boards… I accepted them with delight, but was unsure of how I could use them…

Then, with a little inspiration from Pansy Bud’s awesome DIY flower monogram project, I had an idea. When you enter our venue, there is a short hallway leading to double doors before you get to the main room, so I decided to create something to decorate the double doors. Here a close up on the finished project:

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Whew! It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for me. In addition to a month solid of booked weekends, my work life has become much bigger. Thank you Mr. Recession.

While I visited my sister last weekend, we completed a few DIY projects, which I will post separately. First up were the Organza flowers. 

Personal Photo

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I will probably do my own wedding day make-up as a DIY project, since I enjoy doing my own make-up and it’s an easy way to save money. I usually wear my everyday make-up to look natural and I was happy with the way my DIY make-up turned out in my engagement pictures.

By Sargent Photoworks

To perfect my wedding day look, I plan on practicing over the next 5 months and taking pictures inside and outside to see what looks best. I also plan on writing down step-by-step what I am doing on these practice runs so that I know exactly how to recreate my perfect look, when I find it.

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Taken by me!

Envelope liners are a simple way to add a pop of color to your mailings. I made these to go with my DIY thank you cards. They’re so simple, I bet a kindergartner could make them!
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When we started wedding planning, I had grand plans about all the DIY projects that I was going to contribute to the wedding.  Sadly, none of them have worked out yet.  Well, to be honest, I haven’t even tried any of them yet.  I have to be honest and say I’m not the craftiest person in the world.  I know that some of the projects would have taken me a while to get right.  And before I began working on them, I found other solutions that were not too expensive and definitely time savers.

For example, I want to incorporate pattern into the reception decor.  I thought votive candle holders wrapped in a patterned vellum would be a good way to do this.  I started researching printing on vellum, various free patterns, and making templates of the right size to wrap around the votive holders.  Before I finished even reading about what I had to do, I found a seller on Etsy, Damask Diva, who sold the perfect votive holder wraps.  I talked to her about color and size, and they arrived pre-printed and sized.  All we have to do is wrap them around the votive holders and secure with double sided tape.

Another thing I thought about making was a card box.  I loved the look of the decorated boxes stacked on top of each other to look like a pile of gifts.  But again, just when I had begun to research what I needed to do I found a just-married bride who was selling the card box she had made for her wedding.  It happened to match my wedding colors, and it was made of photo frames.  It will be a great way to display some of our engagement photographs.

From theperfectcardbox.com

I had also thought about making the ring bearer pillow and flower girl basket as I hadn’t really found anything for sale that I liked.  I even went so far as going with my aunt to buy the fabric.  But then she offered to make them for me.  And I could tell that it would really make her happy to be able to do that for me.  Plus, she is much craftier than I am.  How could I say no to that?  And they have turned out amazingly beautiful.  Better than if I had made them by myself.

I have to say, at first, I felt kind of badly about myself that I wasn’t making all these wonderful projects like I see all over the bridal communities.  But I’ve come to realize that we all have to do what works best for us.  So to my fellow not-so-crafty brides, I would like to recommend keeping an eye out for sites like Etsy, communities (wedding and otherwise) where people may be selling slightly used wedding items, and friends and family who would be happy to help you.  And of course this doesn’t mean that I won’t eventually get around to making things for my wedding.  I’ve just realized that I don’t need to do everything when there are so many other (reasonably priced) resources out there!

If I could give any piece of advice for couples getting married, it would be to get the digital files/negatives for the photos on your wedding day. That’s all our package included really. If you have any basic editing skills or knowledge with a basic editing software, you can certainly save some money by converting pictures to different tones or touching up some puffy eyes a bit.*

One way we saved during this economic crunch was to create our own album.  Our photographer’s albums ran upwards of $1500.  While I’m sure they are absolutely gorgeous, Honeysuckle Dude and I don’t have that kind of dinero.  We also wanted to have a few albums and prints to give to family and friends, so putting together an album needed to be less expensive.

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