Stay Tuned For These Up and Coming DIY Projects!

With Spring Break quickly approaching, I have an entire week to dedicate to DIY projects for the wedding. I will be uploading my templates and/or directions for all those interested in pursuing of these projects themselves! Here is my list of DIY for Spring Break starting March 8:

• Water Bottle Labels
• Thank You Parasol
• Hand-Painted Logo on a Table Runner (Thanks for the awesome idea, Ashley aka Bride on a Budget!)
• Belly Bands for Pocketfold Invites
• Centerpiece Mock-Up

Stay tuned!

Seeking Ideas!

Hello DIY brides! I recently purchased a Women's Short-Sleeve Fleece Zip Hoodie from Old Navy in white with the intention of possibly putting something on the back of it or left-pocket area for the wedding. IT WAS ONLY $10! Here is what I bought:

Any suggestions as to what I should have put on it? Or I could put nothing on it. Let me know what you think!

Possibilities So Far:

• Mrs. Dudley Est. 2010
• Future Mrs. Dudley
• Soon To Be Mrs. Dudley
• Bride (on the back or on the left-pocket area)
• Nothing!

Also if you're interested in purchasing one of these hoodies for yourself for your wedding day Click here! Again it was only $10 so hurry up and order one if you're interested!

Invitation Inserts - Check!

So I've finally marked off another DIY on my To-Do list, and this one has been a major pain! It has mostly been a pain because of me and my obsessive-compulsive nature, as well as my indecisiveness. But after messing around with these for about 3 or 4 months now, I've finally figured out how I want to have them look! Since our wedding colors are hot pink and tangerine, I wanted to incorporate both colors into our invites, and so far I had only used hot pink. So, why not use the tangerine in the inserts?! Here they are:

I wanted them to have a layered look, as well as incorporate our tangerine color, and I think I pulled it off! Another thing that I found to be so difficult was the design/look of the inserts. I LOVE my Upsy Daisy stamp design and I wanted to incorporate it somehow. However, the stamp is rather large and the inserts are smaller. So I was able to use my embossing ink from my embossing project, and produce a watermark on my inserts like so..

I love how they turned out! No more stressing over these! Well at least at far as design =) I didn't put a watermark on my directions insert since it has such a large map on it already. I'm really proud of this map too. I worked quite a few hours on it, and it came out great. Here is how I made the map..

Directions on Making a Map:

1. Using Google Map, type in the location of your wedding location(s). Zoom in.
2. Press the "Print Scrn" button on your keyboard to copy your image.
3. Open Microsoft Powerpoint, and paste your image on to a slide.
4. Insert lines, images etc., and outline the streets, landmarks, rivers and locations of significance that will help your guests find your location. I included a river, a park, and a landmark on mine to help. 
5. Label accordingly. Maybe even make a Key.
6. Now with your outlines, labels and images in place, click on the pasted Google map, and delete it. You'll be left with your map.

Table Numbers - Check!

I'm so proud of these! They came out really well and now they're ready for their close-up!

 

I made them on Microsoft Publisher and printed them on photo paper. 

Escort Cards - Check!

I knew I wanted to do something different than the traditional tent-shaped escort cards and being a DIY girl, I was going to make that happen! I found some mini envelopes on a website recently and then it clicked! I decided that I wanted my escort cards to be credit-card sized envelopes and the table number would be printed on a card on the inside. I thought about buying the mini envelopes on the website, but then I caught myself.. I decided to make them myself! So I took to Google and searched, "Free mini envelope templates." A TON of things popped up, and different shapes, but I eventually found what I was looking for. This is the template that I used: Template I printed it on cardstock, cut it out and voila! I had my template.

Here is my template, after it had been folded:

 

So here is what I did..
Materials Needed:

• Template
• Cardstock
• Bone folder
• Adhesive (I used mounting squares, but you can use pretty much anything)
• Scissors

1. I traced the template onto my large sheets of cardstock.

      2. After you have traced the amount of envelopes that you need, cut them all out.

      3. Using your bone folder, fold in the side and the bottom flaps.

   

       4. If you're using the mounting square, take your scissors and cut each square that you're using in half.

       5. Place the now-cut mounted squares onto the sides of the bottom flap so that it will adhere to the side    flaps.

       6. Fold the bottom flap and press it into the side flaps.

        7. Using the bone folder, fold down the top flap to complete the look of your envelope.

 

After I was all done make the envelope itself, I wanted to added a little something extra to it, so I bought a daisy-shape paper cutter and made my own daisies to add to the front of the envelopes! Check it out below!

I love them!

I would like to introduce my partner-in-crime for this whole DIY madness, I want to introduce to you.. The Big Mistake!

I hope you enjoy making these as much as I did!

New DIY in the Works

I haven't officially started on this next DIY, but my fiance and I have decided to try and take on the task of baking and decorating our own wedding cake. My fiance is a baker and we have been talking for months now about trying to tackle decorating cakes. So starting tomorrow, we are heading to Hobby Lobby and picking up the materials needed to do a miniature cake mock-up. I'M SO EXCITED!! We have a baker booked right now, but we never signed a contract with her, so if we were to cancel it wouldn't be an issue. We wouldn't have thought about doing this, but our baker called yesterday and invited us to come to the Bridal Expo in my hometown that I had no idea was going on today. She said she airbrushed daisies onto a white cake for us to come look at and see if we liked the look of it. Here is what we want our cake to look like..

 

We want her to use fondant for the flowers, but she insisted that we come look at her "stenciled" work. Her stenciled work consisted of her taking a flower cookie cutter, holding it up to the cake and airbrushing inside the cutter on the cake. To be honest, it looked awful. She could tell we weren't happy with it. It looked splotchy and runny. So I told her we want fondant instead. I asked if she was going to use the same flower cookie cutter for that too and she said yes. We weren't crazy about the cookie cutter at all. It looked like a wavy funky flower stolen from the 1960's, and not modern at all, like we want. So chances are if things go well with our mock-up, we are going to cancel our baker and do it ourselves. I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as we finish our mini mock-up! Wish us luck!

Not A DIY.. But Wanted To Share!

My fiance and I decided to walk around our mall today since we were both pretty bored. While in Macy's, we ended up finding my earrings for the wedding! They were regularly $300, and I got them for $135!

Emboss Invites - Check!

Hello! With having MLK Day off from school and work, I decided to try my hand at another DIY project. My invites are without a doubt my biggest DIY because I have so much I want to do with them. I printed them all and cut them all with my brand new paper cutter (which rocks btw!), and now wanted to emboss them with a stamp design. I looked and looked online for months for potential ideas of what to add to our invites to dress them up a little, but since they're hot pink, we didn't have a lot of options. That was until, I learned about embossing. To be honest, I was pretty nervous to attempt it, but after a few months of trial and error, I was finally ready to tackle our invites. Now I want to share with you how to heat emboss!

Materials Needed:

• Paper/Cardstock
• Embossing powder
• Embossing ink pad
• Heat gun
• Rubber stamp
• Embossing buddy (optional)
• Stamp-A-Ma-Jig (optional)
• Miniature paint brush/duster
  

1. Getting started, you want to start out with your cardstock on a flat surface.

2. Optional Step: With your embossing buddy, rub the area where you place to emboss. I found the embossing buddy to be very beneficial because its purpose is to keep the embossing powder from sticking anywhere else other than on the embossing ink.

3. Collect your stamp and your embossing ink. Tip: The embossing ink will work best if left upside down when not in use.

4. Apply the embossing ink to the stamp.

5. Optional Step: Using your Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, line the cardstock/paper up and place the stamp inside the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig. I found this tool to be very helpful since I was able to line up the stamp perfectly each time.

6. Press the stamp on the cardstock/paper.

7. Pour the embossing powder onto your image.

8. Spread the powder out with your finger to cover the entire image.

9. Shake off any excess powder into a container.

10.  Optional Step: To remove any left-over powder and to clean up your image, use a small paintbrush or duster to remove any powder not wanted. Once removed, blow off any powder.

11.  Once you have your image the way you want, turn on your heat gun and heat the stamped image. Once the heat gun is fully warmed up, the powder will begin melting and rising.

12. All done! Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

Embossing is such a great additive to add a little extra flavor to any paper project that you are working on. Just make sure to practice with your stamp and the technique plenty before jumping into embossing any invites, programs etc.

WARNING: Your working area may look like this while working. Big mess!

Centerpieces.. Changed my mind!

So I know I blogged earlier about how I want my centerpieces to look, but I have changed my mind and made my final decision! I want to incorporate my tissue paper flowers that I've been making for pomanders a lot more, so here is what I've decided to do:

These will be my escort card table's centerpieces..

Now these vases are a tad bit taller than what I plan on using, and I bought similar looking strings of beads like this black one except I bought them in my colors. This is also another way that I can incorporate my tissue paper flowers. I can't wait to show everyone how they turn out!

Now, for my reception centerpieces. All I've know for sure is that I want to incorporate fruit and gerber daisies, but I've googled and searched until my face turned blue.. and all I can say is that.. I FOUND IT! I've found exactly what I want to do and here is it:

I found these bubble bowl vases (8 inches) at Hobby Lobby. They were $5.99/each, but they were 50% off! So I was able to buy 15 of these for $3.00/each. WOO HOO! Now for how I plan to incorporate my tissue paper flowers.. another thing I've been doing is researching wholesale flowers online for months and I've found my daisies, but now I need to find mums like the green ones shown in the photo. Well after some thought, I realized that I can make these myself out of tissue paper and they will look just to same. If you've seen my tissue paper pomander tutorial, then you've seen how large the flowers turn out. I plan to cut the size in half for the centerpieces. You'll see what I mean when I do my first trial! Which will be VERY SOON! STAY TUNED!

Envelope Liners - Check!

I'm so excited to share this DIY with everyone! As you previously saw in one of my posts, I wanted to line our invitation envelopes with one of our engagement pictures and here is how they turned out!

I absolutely love the way that they turned out. I inserted the photo into Microsoft Word and enlarged it to the width of the template that I made. This photo that I took of it certainly doesn't do it any justice! It looks much better in person!

Now for my instructions for making these!

Materials Needed:

• A heavy piece of cardstock, plastic, cardboard 
• One of your envelopes
• Glue stick (or some kind of adhesive)
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Scissors
  

Instructions:

1. You'll need a heavy piece of cardstock, plastic, cardboard etc. to make your template since you will be tracing around it many times in the future. I chose to use 110 lb. cardstock. You'll also need one of your envelopes to begin your template. 

 

2.  I began by lining up my envelopes with the piece of cardstock in one of it's corners (less cutting!). 

   

      3.  Trace the envelope onto the piece of cardstock.

       4.  Next, you'll want to measure how wide the adhesive portion of your envelope flap is. You want to do this to determine how much to cut off your template, otherwise you'll overlap the adhesive on the envelope flap and won't be able to seal your envelopes once finished. For me, it measured 1 cm.

         5.   From your now traced line on your cardstock, measure that width inward on your template and mark it with your pencil. Continue to do this along the sides. I did about three marks on each side.

(You can kind of see my marks here.)

      

         6.  Place your envelope on top of your cardstock at the marks that you just made and trace the envelope flap again.

 

          7.   Cut out your template. Cut on your SECOND traced line.

         8.   At this point when I tried to put the template into the envelope itself, it wouldn't on the side very well, so I decided to cut off 1 cm on each side of the template.

          9.  Insert your newly made template into your envelope to see how it measure up and make any adjustments as needed. For me, I decided to fold my template in half vertically to make sure they lined up evenly. There were a few places where I decided to cut to little more off to make sure the sides were even.

VOILA!