Projects lately: bows

 Since all of my paint/creating stuff is packed, I must find an outlet for creating in the sewing machine. So I have been making some hair accessories. Nothing fancy. Just using up some leftover fabric.

 I made this cute little guy out of the leftover fabric we used for the tshirt quilt border.

This one, I made out of old tshirts. I'm a fan. Also, notice my hubby's handsome haircut. I did it myself.

Projects lately: Kindle case

My lovely hubby and his parents got me a kindle for my birthday. I LOVE it. I am a huge fan of actual books, but having dozens of reading options on hand is so great, especially on long trips or during months of time where all your books are packed and you feel so sad without them.

Anyway, I needed a case, and I didn't want to pay some outrageous price for one. So the hubster and I decided to make one. Here it is:

 Yep, we used an old book. Don't worry, it's an abridged version. Who wants those? Anyway, we found Anne of Green Gables for less than $3.00 at Half Price Books. It was a perfect size! Holler!

 The hubster cut out most of the pages to fit around my kindle.  He left it on creepy crying Anne. He thinks it's funny.

 We made sure the bottom was left open for the volume, charger, etc. Then, I used homemade modge-podge and "painted" the inside and outside pages three times. It worked really well!

Then, Nick drilled holes in the right side of the back part of the case. He tied knots in the ends of a piece of elastic, and inserted the ends into the holes. When the case is open, the elastic is on the back cover.  When I am done reading, I can pull the elastic over the cover to hold the top in place, as you can see in the first picture. Hooray!

SO, this Kindle case cost less than $5.00. SCORE.

Projects lately: a clutch

Last night, the hubster was flipping between The Italian Job and a coin show... Someone please help me stage an intervention. He told me that he dreamed about coins last night.

Anyway, around 11:30, I had this irresistible urge to sew. So, I went to the sewing room, cut out some fabric, and sewed myself a clutch!

Now, I am no seamstress. My sewing machine experience does not go much farther than a couple of quilts, seven bow ties for our wedding, and a few headbands/bows. I didn't measure anything, I just cut the fabric out. I am incapable of sewing in a straight line. If I did it again, I would do it a little differently, but overall, it turned out well, considering how sporadic this was.. I just love the old fabric and wanted to make something out of it. I had no idea what I would use it for while I was making it. But after, Nick suggested that I use it to store my Kindle when I want something small and soft, instead of my case.

Isn't the fabric just lovely?

yellow.

I made this headband a while ago. My dearest, darlingest Lacey told me how to make them. And now I shall tell you. It's super easy. Take an old t-shirt and cut off the bottom hem. Then, tie a knot in the very middle, so you have two similar sized circles with a knot in the middle. And then, put it on your head.

I got a new wallet yesterday. I love it. It's thin and yellow. And yes I keep my Baylor ID in front of my driver's license. Maybe I have a little trouble moving on. The best part is that it was $4.99 from Target! holler!

The wedding: Accessories

Nick and I made pretty much every accessory involved in the wedding.  Not only was it cheaper for us to do so, it added personality! Plus, I love creating things!

A quick note: We didn't use any real flowers in the wedding. I think flowers, especially used during weddings, are beautiful. But they are also very expensive. And then they die.  I wanted to do something unique without using real flowers since they die after a couple of days. And I also didn't want to use fake flowers, just because I don't like how that looks.

Bouquets:

 A lot of internet browsing led me to the idea of button bouquets. I tossed around the idea of doing just orange and pink, since those were my wedding colors. I also entertained the idea of using felt to create bigger flowers and leaves. But after a lot of research, I decided to stick with an assortment of different colored buttons. Nick and I spent a few hours stacking the buttons, inserting the flower wire, and wrapping the wire tight around its stem. We probably had over 200 button flowers. I wrapped each bouquet together with the green bouquet tape.  Then, for mine, I wrapped the stems with material left over from my mom's wedding dress. For my bridesmaids, I wrapped and glued either orange or pink fabric around each set of stems. I wish the bouquets could have been bigger. I really didn't want my bridesmaids to feel silly carrying such a small bouquet. But crafting together each one took so much effort, and I still had a lot of other things to take care of, so there had to be fewer flowers.

For the tossing bouquet, I had to think of something different. Obviously I couldn't toss a bouquet of buttons, that would totally take someone's eye out! So, I crafted a bouquet out of yarn ball flowers. I used these same flowers for decoration (another post for another day). I just made a ton of little yarn balls, and stuck the flower wire in them with a little hot glue. And then I glued the yarn balls together at the top and wrapped some of the leftover tulle from my dress around the stems. I was nervous about it falling apart during the toss. It did, a little bit, but I think it was okay overall. Abbey caught it, which was pretty exciting. She had said she planned to catch it much earlier when I had shown it to her and my other roomies.

Boutonnieres:

For the boutonnieres, I used the same button flowers I used for the bouquets. From Michaels, I bought a bouquet of fake flowers that had nice big leaves. I cut off the leaves and attached three button flowers, or six for Nick, using flower tape. I had to use wire cutters to cut the stems a little shorter. I glued the backs of the buttons to the leaves to keep them from getting floppy, and then attached safety pins to the backs.

Corsages:

It took me a while to figure out how to do flowerless corsages for my house party.  I ended up making fabric flowers and gluing ribbon and buttons to them, and then a safety pin to each back. Of course, they were orange and pink.

Headware:

For each girl in my wedding party, I made a flower headband. Actually, Kaitlyn helped me make them. She is splendid like that. They alternated orange and pink. I don't think any of my wedding party will wear them again, the colors are very bright, but I wanted to make sure I had something that tied all of them together since their dresses weren't the same.

Bow ties:

Nick and his groomsmen wore pink or orange bow ties that we made a couple of weeks before the wedding.  We used the same material I used to make the headbands and wrap the bouquets. Nick actually designed the bow ties, our friend Josiah ironed on the adhesive to make the fabric thicker, and I sewed them. They turned out pretty cute... I want to wear Nick's as a bow for my hair. I made sure each groomsman's tie color matched the headband and bouquet of the bridesmaid he was paired with for the ceremony.

So, I think that is all. Overall we saved hundreds of dollars by not using real flowers. And now I can have my bouquet sitting on my coffee table, looking the same as it did when we got married.

The wedding: Paper

To start, I figured it would be appropriate to begin with the save the dates, invitations, programs, etc. We made a very conscious effort to make these things simple and personal. And also cheap.

Save The Dates

My roommate, Rachel, gave me her secret for save the dates, and I am so so grateful. We used vistaprint.com to create our save the date post cards. Vistaprint always has sales going on. And when I say always, I mean always. We got 200 postcards for free. All we had to pay was shipping! While I had always really liked the idea of magnet save the dates, I did not like the price. Not only were these free but still of good quality, but sending them out was cheaper too, since we only needed to buy post card stamps. I highly recommend this to any bride who is looking for a bargain. 

Wedding Invitations

 Invitations took a little more work. I had something envisioned, but was having trouble making it a reality. At first, I really wanted square invitations, but I decided against it, since it costs more to send square envelopes. I also really wanted these to be personal, not generic. I looked for packaged invitations, but never fell in love with any. So we decided to make our own.

My baby brother is an artist. He does lovely work, but is not too keen on drawing by request. So it took some bribing. He now has my iPod touch. But he did a lovely job. I created the invitation on Word, and then my lovely hubby to be printed them out on a cream/tan colored resume paper. And then we cropped. 

We decided to RSVP through email for a couple of reasons. First, it saves paper. Second, it saves money. 

I found some lovely envelopes at an office supply store that happened to be discounted. Oh my, was there much rejoicing that day. So finally we stuffed, sealed, stamped, and sent those suckers out. 

Bridesmaid Brunch Invitations

I asked my other little brother to create an invitation that I could send out to my wedding party for our Friday morning get together. He is talented, too. 

Rehearsal Coffee Invitations

I asked the same little brother to do a rehearsal invitation, as well. These were also printed onto cream resume paper and then cropped. (Personal addresses have been blurred... it didn't actually look like that. ha)

 Programs

Personally, I find programs to be a waste of paper. Most people don't save them, so hundreds of papers get thrown out after the wedding. So, I decided to do something different. Instead of handing out programs, we made a slideshow. Everyone involved, including musicians and photographers were included. I put their full names, how we knew them, their role in the wedding, and then a couple of pictures.  The slideshow ran on a loop for thirty minutes before the wedding actually began. I never saw it while it was going, but I heard it served its purpose. 

Well, I think that just about covers everything in this category. I wish we had kept all of the prices we spent on everything so I could know exactly, but we didn't. But for all paper products of this nature, I would say that we spent less than $200. Which isn't half bad.