Lesson 140- Another For the Collection

I originally made this wreath a couple of years ago (in my pre-marriage, pre-blogging days) so I don't have a picture of the process or what it used to look like.  But it's a simple concept.  Take a plan wreath and hot glue ornaments, evenly spaced.  It was nice looking, but too simple.  So this year, I took some red ribbon (the same I used for this wreath) and wrapped it around the wreath in the spaces between each ball.  Now I think it looks so much better.

Lesson 136- Those Wire Hangers Are Actually Useful

You know those wire hangers that are pretty miserable that the dry cleaners always return your clothes on?  I've finally found a great use for them...

...a Christmas wreath.  I used my very strong (and very handsome) Husband to undo the hanger to was just a straight piece of wire.  Then I started putting gold and silver ornaments on the wire.  I needed about 48 regular sized balls and 36 tiny balls to use as fillers.
Before putting the ornaments on the wire, I used hot glue to glue the tops on to the ornaments.  You don't want them falling off when you're opening or closing the door.
Once all my balls were on the wire molded it into a circular shape and had the Husband wrap the wire around itself at the top to close it.  To make it a little more secure I hot glued the sides of the balls to each other.

I used red ribbon to make a hanger at the top.  I recommend stocking up on ornaments at Hobby Lobby when they are 50% off.  This way you're paying for only half the ornaments you need.

Lesson 126- Making Napkin Rings

Here is one of the Halloween projects I did last year.  

A combination of wanting some Halloween decorations and not having a lot of money to spend on them I decided on making my own Halloween napkin rings.

Supplies:
*cardstock
*scissors/paper cutter
*ruler
*hot glue gun with extra glue sticks
*ribbon in 3 different colors (I used purple, spider web print, and green)

Directions:
1. Cut card stock into 2inch strips
2. With a hot glue gun, glue strips into rings about 2 inches in diameter
3. With first ribbon color, glue one end of ribbon on inside of napkin ring
4. Wrap in and out ring vertically with ribbon, gluing as you go.
5. Glue other end of ribbon on the inside of ring, once outside surface is completely covered.
6. With second ribbon color, wrap once around outside of ring (horizontally), gluing both ends.
7. Repeat step 6 with third ribbon color.

Sorry I don't have pictures of the process or better instructions--this post was kind of an after thought! But here's the final product. Hope you enjoy!

Lesson 106- Wedding Week IV

My parents gave me a fairly small budget (compared to the *average* wedding) for our wedding.  And although they did give me some wiggle room, I had to be creative on how the money was spent.  My two biggest expenses were the venue+food and drink and the photographer.  Looking back I have no qualms about the money spent on either.  This week I’m going through some of the projects I competed to stay on budget.

My (at-the-time) three year old nephew was a our Ringbearer.  And basically he and our Flower girl stole the show, but Husband and I were ok with that.  And while I love my nephew dearly, giving him our ‘real’ wedding bands just was never an option.  He is a non-stop whirlwind of activity.  So I purchased a ‘ready-made’ ring pillow from Michael’s with a 40% coupon so it cost a little over $5.  It was with with pearl embellishments on the top and two silver bands securely tied in the middle.  I love pearls (it has to do with my Audrey Hepburn fascination).  It was beautiful, but about a week before the wedding I decided it just wasn’t beautiful enough.  Using some ribbon that I had left over from this wedding project, I criss-crossed the two colors in between the pearls, now making the pillow match our wedding colors perfectly as well as making it ‘ours’ as opposed to just something purchased at a craft store.  It now sits in our craft room.  I’m not sure what to do with it, but I’m not ready to part with it yet, either.

 

*****

During the ceremony we wanted to do something special, but a little more unique than the traditional unity candle, and considering our ceremony was outside a candle didn’t seem too practical anyways.  Online I found several kits I could purchase starting around $40 plus shipping and handling.  I went the DIY route.  At Hobby Lobby I purchased one large vase, four smaller vases, white sand, pink sand, and black sand.  It cost less than $20.  Take that internet kit!

    

 

White sand was poured in to two of the small vases.  This was to represent that God is our creator and our foundation.  At the beginning of the ceremony our mom’s poured the white sand into the big vase. 

  

After Husband and I said our vows and exchanged rings, we then poured sand together in to the vase.  I poured pink, he poured black to symbolize our individual lives coming together.  After the ceremony we sealed the sand with wax.

  

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little budget-friendly wedding projects.  I know there was nothing too unique or extraordinary about it, but it worked for us.  And more importantly we loved our wedding and the opportunity to share the day with our family and friends.

Come back the rest of this week for more wedding DIY projects!

Wedding Stationary

Card Box

Guest Book and Centerpieces 

Lesson 104- Wedding Week II

  My parents gave me a fairly small budget (compared to the *average* wedding) for our wedding.  And although they did give me some wiggle room, I had to be creative on how the money was spent.  My two biggest expenses were the venue+food and drink and the photographer.  Looking back I have no qualms about the money spent on either.  This week I’m going through some of the projects I competed to stay on budget.

Right after we got engaged, we attended my cousin’s wedding in TX.  She had an elaborate and very glamorous wedding—and a much larger budget.  But she had a box on the gift table that looked like a tiered wedding cake for people who just had cards to place in to keep them in one secure spot.

 This inspired me to create my own.  Sorry I don’t have more pics from the process, but this entry was obviously an after-thought!

Supplies:

·      Hat boxes in descending sizes

·      Exacto knife

·      Gorilla glue

·      Any decorations you choose to cover the boxes (I used a combination of scrapbook paper, wrapping paper, and paint to cover the boxes)

·      Any embellishments you choose to decorate (I chose a flower, which was a scrapbooking embellishment, our monogram made from balsa wood, letters to spell out 'cards',  and ribbon)

1.     I started by tracing the bottom of the smallest box on the lids of the larger ones that would be below.  In the lid of the top box I cut a slit for the cards to be placed in.

2.     Next I decorated each piece.  I also decorated the inside of the top box, since you could still see the cardboard color from the opening in the top.

3.     Now that each piece is all pretty, I stacked them in their order and started gluing—first the lids to the boxes and then the boxes on top of each other.  Since I was using super glue but I needed some way to open the box to get the cards out after the wedding, I first chose which layer we would break it at (I chose the bottom layer).  On the bottom layer I only put 4 dots of glue on, enough that it would stay, but also be fairly easy to break open.

4.     I let the glue set for 24 hours.  Once I felt things were dry enough, I began placing my embellishments where I though they looked best.  I secured them in place with my glue gun.

And there was my card/cake box.  It was kind of sad ripping it apart afterwards, but the lovely cards inside more than made up for it.  It was kind of like a wedding piñata hahaha!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little budget-friendly wedding projects.  I know there was nothing too unique or extraordinary about it, but it worked for us.  And more importantly we loved our wedding and the opportunity to share the day with our family and friends.

  Come back the rest of this week for more wedding DIY projects!
Wedding Stationary 


 

Lesson 97-His Wreath

I decided that since football is so important to the hubs, that he could have some of his own football themed decorations.  With the beginning of the 2010 season this week its time to share the wreath I created for Husband.

Supplies

• 2 rolls of green ribbon (1.5 in wide)
• 1 roll white ribbon (1/2 in wide)
• Styrofoam wreath
• 2 packages of football buttons
• football Christmas ornaments (you know you've seen 'em in stores since July!)
• hot glue gun w/ extra glue
• kitchen knife
• scissors
• Scotch tape
• Gorilla glue

Step 1:  Wrap green ribbon around entire wreath.  I just used scotch tape to keep the ends in place.

Step 2:  I wrapped pieces of the white ribbon around the wreath.  I visually broke the wreath into 16ths (apparently geometry actually did do me some good).  These are the yard lines.  Used hot glue this time to keep the ends in place.

Step 3:  I arranged the buttons where I wanted on the wreath.  I then placed straight pins there to mark the spot.  With the kitchen knife I stabbed a hole through the ribbon into the wreath form.  I took a button, put Gorilla glue on the back and stuck it on the wreath.  I had to hold it firm for a while while the glue set.

Step 4:  Now it was time to attach the ornaments.  One was a cooler with a helmet laying next to it.  I decided that one dangle in the middle.  It is held in place with just a straight pin.  So far that's working fairly nicely.

 

I then added some ribbon at the top for hanging purposes.  The only football ribbon I found was too thin, so I just glued it to some thicker ribbon and then glued both to the back of the wreath.  Here it is hanging on our door.  

 

I think Husband was excited to finally get to hang it.  At least I hope he was!  But I wasn't going to make it team specific.  I don't want to make him feel bad because my team is superior to his ;-)

Lesson 86- This Craft Brought to You By...

...The Letter 'M'

Remember I shared my summer wreath with you a few weeks ago?

Well, I decided I didn't like it that much after all.  Apparently Husband agreed (but he said it in the nicest way possible).  It needed something else.  But what?  I had no clue.

I brought out my glue gun, scissors, the left over seashells, the left over twine, and left over ribbon from this project.  I tried wrapping the ribbon in between in the sea shells.  Nope.  That wasn't the 'something' the wreath needed.  What if I randomly zig-zag the ribbon in the middle?  I like random.  I held the zig-zags in place with straight pins...just in case I didn't like the results nothing was permanent.

Ok the random ribbon in the middle didn't look so bad.  What else can I add?  Enter the letter 'm'.  (Does this remind anyone else of Sesame Street?  Such a classic!)

It was left over from a failed wedding project.  Clearly it didn't match the theme of the wreath, so I wrapped twine around it to make it feel a little more included.

Then I hung that from the middle of the wreath with the random ribbon as a background.

Lastly I used the last bit of green ribbon to make a loop to hang the wreath from.  Oh wait.  I still seashells left over.  So I glued the rest on, wherever they would fit.  And voila!  We now had this:

And it looks so much better!  Even better, it cost me no more dollars!  I was fairly pleased, considering I had no plan of action and just pulled it our of my...er...back pocket!


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Lesson 69-A Cool Glue Gun Project

This cute little basket was purchased to hold Montana's toys.



However, as Montana grew so did the size of her toys. When I first began the process of re-doing the Bachelor Pad I decided that Montana deserved a toy basket that could actually hold her toys. And so this little basket was relegated to the top of the toilet to hold some glamorous bathroom necessities. When we started updating our bathroom, I decided to update the basket as well. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it and just made it up as I went along. I first used an exacto-knife to remove the trim and handles.



And then I covered the outside in...you guessed it! BURLAP! I know, big shocker, considering this post and this post.



Once it was covered in burlap it needed just a little something else. With a little Google image search, I found a starfish and seahorse that I printed out on cardstock, then cute the images out, creating a stencil. Using acrylic craft paint and a sponge brush, I stenciled the starfish in the center and the seahorses in two of the corners.



Ahhh, perfection. Well on the outside at least. And don't we always say that it's what's on the inside that matters the most. Well, the inside was slightly less than perfection. So, off the Hobby Lobby we ventured. After touring the fabric section, we decided on this fabric.


(The color came out a little funky in this shot)

I love it and would cover the whole house in it...if that was practical, and not crazy. Using my trusty glue gun, I made a liner to go inside the basket. Now I had perfection on both the inside and outside! Husband even commented he preferred the inside to the outside.

Here's the final product


And here it is with all those glamorous bathroom accessories it now holds


And here's a breakdown on the price:
* basket- already owned
* burlap- left over from other projects
* sea creature stencils- free thanks to Google and my printer
* paint- left over from other projects
* paisley fabric- about $1.75 for a quarter of a yard at Hobby Lobby (I think it was
on sale that weekend)
* glamorous bathroom necessities- already owned

Grand total:
$1.75ish. Yup, that's right. Less than two-hundred pennies! How awesome is that?!




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