DIY Personalized Bridal Hangers

I've been waiting to reveal my DIY bridal dress hangers, not merely to keep you all in unbearable suspense, but rather because I had several "difficulties."

My original inspiration came from the tons of wedding blogs and etsy stores that now sell these cool, but completely unnecessary wedding details. Like this:

Source

So after seeing lots of tutorials online, being the thrifty person that I am, I decided to embark on the personalized wedding dress hanger journey.

The Personalized Wedding Dress Hanger Journey

1.  I bought/rounded-up all of my supplies:

- Wooden hangers
- Aluminum wire (12 gauge and 16
     gauge) - You can get it in the jewelry
     section of a craft store or at a
     hardware store
- Needle-nosed pliers
- Template for "guiding" - I downloaded
     and used the font Little Days from
     dafont and typed out my name in
     Microsoft Word
- Ruler
- Drill
- Drillbits
- Hot glue
- Flower

2.  I measured 1/2 inch in from the edge of the hanger and marked where to drill with a sharpie.

3.  I drilled.  You don't need to go too far, just enough to fit the wire in with some hot glue.

4.  I tested the hole with the aluminum wire.  The first drill bit that I used was actually too small, so I went up a size.

 I broke the drill bit.  Not suggested.

5. With all of the holes drilled, I was ready to get started with the wire. I practiced...

...and practiced...

...and practiced.

I actually went through an entire package of aluminum wire. 

To be honest, I wasn't planning on spending so much time practicing.  I was trying to make the hanger fo' real each time, but kept messing up.  I messed up a lot.  I'm also a perfectionist so if I got a tiny part wrong or plier teeth marks in the wire, I would stop and start over.

6.  I started to question whether or not I would be willing to complete this project.

7.  Since I had used the entire roll of 12 gauge wire, I decided to give the 16 gauge a try. 16 gauge is smaller and weaker so it's easier to manipulate, but also more likely to get messed up later.

8. Success! I bent the wire so that it would line up with the holes and added in a drop of hot glue, followed by the wire. I had some leftover stickers from Jessica's bridal shower gift, so I added our wedding date to the top. 

  

9. Lastly, I hot glued a flower to the hanger.  I used a generous amount.

So there you have it.  I didn't know if it was possible after so many mistakes, but I am happy with how it turned out. I plan on making these for my bridesmaids too, I just have to pick bridesmaids first.  Hobby Lobby has the 16 gauge wire on sale for 50% off this week, so I grabbed another two packages for .98 each so that I can make 4 more when I get my butt into gear and make some decisions.

Most difficult part? - the letters A and C (sooooo painful!)

Easiest part? - everything except A and C

Price breakdown

Hangers - $5.00 Walmart

Wire (12 gauge) - $3.50 JoAnn (after 40% off coupon)

Needle nose plies - $2.00 Walmart

Tiny Needle-nose pliers - $4.50 Hobby Lobby (after 40% off coupon)

Flower - .99 Hobby Lobby

Stickers - on hand, but $1.49 at Hobby Lobby.

Currently, the hanger cost me $16, but if I end up making 5 of these, the total for them would come to just about $4.00 each or $20 total with the cost of the extra wire.  Not too bad considering you can pay over $20 just for one!

What do you think?  Are you planning on ordering/DIYing a bridal hanger?  What is your unnecessary wedding detail?

Bridal Shower Gifting

It seems like either you are getting married or you know someone that is getting married.  A lot of times, it is actually both.  I have a bridal shower today to go to for a friend Jessica.  She is super crafty and so I wanted to give her something special in addition to the items that I bought off the registry.  I debated doing it for awhile, just because some people don't want gifts that aren't on their registry, but I decided to forge ahead with my idea.

It's a picture frame with their wedding date and names (and my reflection).  I didn't want it to be too big, as I imagine Jessica saying in my mind/with my voice, "where the hell am I going to put this?" Hopefully this 5x7 frame is small enough that she can find a place for it somewhere!

I went to Hobby Lobby and bought the letter stickers for their names and the paper. I found the frame at Wal-mart.  I went home and went to the website Spell with Flickr where you can type anything you want and it will bring up images from Flickr for you to use.

Once you type in your letters, you can click on each one individually and it will replace it with a different image of it, so you can choose the style and color of the numbers and letters that you like.

In this case, I copied and pasted the numbers into a word document, made the images gray-scaled, and printed them off on photo paper (you can also use this website to embed the images onto a blog or webpage).

I assembled everything together with Elmer's glue - which I would not suggest because it didn't turn out as smooth as I would have liked (I couldn't find my glue dot runner and that makes me very sad).

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  You can't really tell, but the blue paper has a white and blue marble effect. I chose that color because it (hopefully...) matches one of Jessica's wedding colors.  The white paper is linen paper, so it helps to class it up a bit.

My only two regrets are:
     1.  Not having my glue dot runner
     2.  Not having a paper cutter to cut straight lines...it was very painful to go without one.

Total cost:
Don't look Jessica!!!

Banding Together

Adam and I purchased our wedding bands this past weekend!  Mine was ready to go on Saturday because I have normal lady-sized fingers.  However, we had to leave Adam's to get resized and I got to pick it up today from the jeweler.  They are now safely home in their resting place for the next year.

I find it funny that we bought our wedding bands to have them sit around for a year, but there was a sale!  I originally wanted to wait until this summer, just because it was something we could get out of the way early on, but G. Thomas Jewelers had everything for 30% off from May 1-12.  Adam got my engagement ring from there and he really liked the service and the local feel to it.  So, we decided to go wedding band shopping, without any real intention (I think...) of actually buying anything.

I had an idea of what I was looking for, but I knew that I wanted to see it with my engagement ring before I really decided. I had my selections narrowed down to:

a plain white gold band / Kay Jewelers

a white gold band with a row of diamonds / Kay Jewelers

and I just absolutely love this one / Kay Jewelers

We decided that the plain band just didn't look good with my ring.  We tried on several bands with rows of diamonds and found one that we both liked.  Because I am completely unwilling to commit to something without checking the prices at several other places first, we decided to go around the mall and compare prices and styles.

After running around the mall for an hour, we realized that I was just comparing all the rings to the one I liked at G. Thomas.  The one at G. Thomas was more expensive, even with the sale, but we decided that their service was worth the extra money and that the diamonds are better quality too.

Without further ado, I present to you my wedding band.  You might notice my fancy leather ring box is a step up from the matchbook box! I also hope that you don't notice my wrinkly old lady fingers!

What really surprised me (that I liked) about this ring is that the diamonds on the band are a smaller size than the ones on the engagement ring.  We found a band at the mall that was practically identical in stone size, but I felt like it took away from the engagement ring.  This band is a little more dainty, not really enough to notice, but it does leave the focus on the "big rock".

Okay, so enough about me...Adam did get a ring too.  See his matching box up above? It just makes me smile!

Adam picked out a palladium band.  I had never heard of palladium before, but it has more weight to it than white gold, but mimics the appearance of it.  Adam and I both decided that we liked the lighter color rings instead of the dark tungstens that are rather popular now.  I think that white gold just looks very clean and classic.

(I think blogging is going to force me to buy a new camera.)

Source

The cool thing about this metal also is that we could choose to have the satin brushed finish or the high-polish finish.  Adam chose the satin finish on the edges and then the high-polish for the ring around the middle.

And the best part of it, besides the fact that we saved 30%?  The jeweler telling Adam he had lady fingers.  The sample sizes that he tried on were size 10 and they were just huge on him.  They got him measured and he was a 7.  The jeweler got such a kick out of his ring size that she actually grabbed a woman's ring and stuck it on his finger.  He ended up getting it cut down to a 7.25 just to allow for fluctuation and it is still a little too big!  When I went to pick his ring up today, she said, "tell Adam he has lady fingers for me."  Gotta love a smart-ass jeweler while we're spending our savings!

So now, I just want to wear our wedding bands around.  That might be the hardest part of buying them so early, just thinking about them sitting all lonely waiting around for our wedding. Hah!

So what do you think?  How did you decide on your wedding bands? 

The Mash-up Post

As I was browsing Wedding Bee this morning, I came across an awesome idea that I am here to share.

Source

Table mock-ups!  Now, this seems kind of like a no-brainer to me, but what really got me is how to take this idea and make it even more functional.  The "poster"/"postee"??? suggested taking a picture of the desired set-up and then putting all of those items in a box with the picture on the outside.  This way, when the items get taken to the church/reception hall, they are already together and someone can simply set it up.

What a great idea huh?  Considering that I am doing a lot of DIY and we have no designated wedding coordinator, I have been thinking about how everything is going to get set up in a timely manner.  I really didn't want to put all of that pressure on my mom, so if I have everything already organized, I can put our many friends and family members to work. With the pictures, they can resurrect my ideas without having to specifically ask for what I want (and I'm a terribly picky, but nice, perfectionist).  I just know how stressed I get with Prom when I have a lot of hands that want to help, but it takes time to explain to each group what needs to be done (leaving lots of other groups standing around not doing anything).  Problem solved.


In other news, I bought my supplies today to make bridal party dress hangers.

Source (I love the flower on this one)

This is something that I don't feel is necessary whatsoever but I think they're cute.  I spent $5 on 5 wooden hangers and $2.50 on wire after a 40% off coupon.  So if it turns out to be disastrous, then there's no harm.  And seriously, $7.50 for 5 hangers (instead of $20ish) is an awesome deal.

I went ahead and found a font that I liked (called Little Days from Dafont) to create a template for the wire.  I probably won't "trace" the template necessarily, but rather use it to help guide the shaping of the letters.  I love the all-lowercase letter look.

I haven't picked bridesmaids yet...so I'm starting with my own.  Wish me luck!

The Ring Box

As you may remember, when Adam proposed, he didn't use the ring box.  Well, rather, you may remember it being on the pickle ornament.  Shortly afterward, I remember asking Adam for the ring box.  I really wanted to take a picture of my ring sitting in the box, as I have yet to take a good picture of my ring (and I thought having the box might help).

Well, initially Adam said he would look for it.  Sounded very convincing.

Then awhile later, I asked him again.  At this point he told me that he had already given it to me.  Whaaa?

I proceeded to tell him that, no, he never gave me the ring box.  And what does he do? Starts criticizing jokingly about how I had lost the ring box and responsibility...yeah yeah yeah.  I just remember cracking up laughing saying, "seriously, where is the ring box?"

Adam was so convinced that he had already given it to me that I started to doubt myself.  Adam is stubborn.  He would not even consider that he had lost the box before giving it to me.  I even started to feel bad that I could have potentially lost the ring box, but I still had my reservations.

Well blog, over 4 months later, I found the ring box.  I was looking for my pair of my craft scissors.  You know the ones that cut funky designs.  I had just seen them recently and knew that they weren't too far away, so I started searching everywhere possible.  In the midst of my search, I found the ring box - in the drawer of the coffee table with the remotes.  In the very back corner.  We have two drawers in the coffee table.  One with a bunch of junk, scissors, tape, playing cards, etc.  The second one has...remotes.  Adam's extensive collection of remotes that serves me no purpose whatsoever.

So tell me, if Adam had given me the ring box, why would I have put it in the back corner of the remote drawer? EXACTLY.

I stop my scissor search momentarily and take out the ring box.  I open the lid from the outer cardboard box...and I see this.

Something tells me I would have remembered this.  Now, I'm not judging, well yes I am, but this wasn't exactly the ring box I would have pictured.  I mean, if it were 1993...maybe.

I was expecting a box more like this. You know, like you get from every jewelry store out there?

Source

So yes, here is my ring box.  I absolutely love it.  It just cracks me up each time I see it.  I just wonder what the jeweler was thinking as they were putting my beautiful, half-the-cost-of-our-home* diamond ring into a matchbook.

Without further ado, I now present you my ring in its official ring box.  My 7 megapixel camera doesn't quite do it justice, but at least it has been properly reunited with its box.

After finding the box the other evening, I mentioned it to Adam after he got home.  I told him where I had found it and his response was, "well why did you put it there?"  Hah.

So what do you think of the box?  I do run like 1-2 years behind when it comes to fashion, so am I failing to catch the vision?

*Adam and I own a 40-year-old mobile home.  I'm totally not bragging when I say my ring costs half the cost of our trailer. We find it rather amusing.  To give you perspective...my car cost over 3 times the price of our house...hah :)

Wedding Checklist - Part 1

There are only 4 more weeks of work!  With that being said, I have accomplished nothing wedding-like lately.  However, this post is dedicated to all the things that I am going to do this summer that I can keep you all filled in on. 

Adam got a full-time internship for this summer.  Normally, he would work a couple of days per week and then we could hang out the rest of the time.  Well, this summer is going to be quite different as I will be all by my lonesome Monday through Friday.  Now, I'm not so completely dependent on Adam that I don't have friends to go and hang out with, but this summer will be a little different in the fact that he will be gone every day (you know, like normal working people).

So, with all this extra time on my hands, I plan on getting my wedding wheels turning and getting some things checked off my list (while probably adding some more that I find on Pinterest also).

I have seen lots of posts about how people stay organized during the wedding-planning process.  I am very particular in the way that things are arranged, so using a template is kind of a difficult thing for me to do.  I have found a GoogleDocs spreadsheet that has helped me figure out our budget, but for our checklist, I am going with my standard of Evernote.

What I like about Evernote is that it syncs with other devices that use it, so you can take your lists, pictures, links, etc with you wherever you have internet access.  For me, not being a part of the smartphone generation, it is not as useful on the go, but I still really like it. If you're familiar with Evernote, I have a whole notebook reserved just for wedding stuff. 

So here is the summertime wedding checklist close-up:

You'll notice the first section is Feb-May.  You also notice that nothing is checked off.  Shame shame.  Although, I have been working on getting into shape (down 3 pounds), and I have been envisioning the wedding (extensively).  

Did anyone out there get insurance for their rings?  I have been putting it off, but where did you buy it from?  Any other suggestions for wedding things I should do with my time off that took longer than you expected?

Since I've Been Gone...

Dear Blog,
It's been awhile, but I am back.  I've been putting in 12-14 hour days these past few weeks with Prom. By the time I make the 40 minute drive back into town and force myself to go exercise, I have about a 30 minute gap to eat some dinner and take a shower before it is time for bed.  Needless to say, there wasn't a whole lot of time to blog, and really nothing to blog about other than Prom as it was the center of my life.

But Prom is over and I can resume our regularly scheduled broadcasting blogging.

But for today, some pictures from Prom.  I was really happy with how it turned out this year.  We had a TON of very large decorations to put together and they didn't fall over during the dance so I consider that a success.  We had the dance in the school, so we really try to transform it so that it doesn't even feel like it, and I think we did so effectively.

Entrance

The Prom 2012 columns we actually placed outside so they could take pictures.  

Worked out great in my opinion.

Main theme/decorations - Party in Pandora

I kind of decapitated some of the students in the picture, you know, to protect the rights of the innocent and all.  

Check out those trees yo...16 feet tall.

Waterfall with pond area.

This was hiding behind the arches. Spike plants light up also.

Close-up to arches, trees, mushrooms, etc.

What craftsmanship!

Ceiling that fiancé Adam set up.  

I love the ceiling this year as it kind of feels like a tree canopy.

The kids complained about too many lights last year so we just strung two strands into the ceiling this year.

Punch/Snacks and DJ tables with no punch, snacks or DJs.

The kids picked out all the music and we used Spotify (love love love) to play it.  I went ahead and bought Spotify Premium ($10/month) so that I could listen to it offline (aka in my car on my drive to work) to make sure it was all school appropriate.  

So there you have it!  Prom 2012 is officially over.  There were a couple of things that I didn't get photographed, but this is the first year that I have actually remembered to take pictures out of the last four, so I am quite pleased with myself.

Things that I didn't get photographed that I wish I had:

1.  The Flowers:  bright orange asiatic lilies...they looked awesome in contrast with the room.

2.  The DJ/punch table all set up.

3.  Balloons:  We blew up balloons with helium and put mini glow sticks in them.  They got tied onto the different theme items like the arches and trees.

4.  The Voting Table:  We had table at the end of the entrance/hallway that had the crowns, tiaras, sashes and voting ballots all set up.

5.  Everything with the lights off and all lit up.

Now, for today, we have clean-up to do.  I am giving the kids a little time to sleep in, but that will be the last item on my GIANT 6 page to-do list.

So what do you think?  This is completely not wedding-related, but it does prove that I have been doing something these past few weeks that I have been missing.  Do you remember what your Prom looked like (I don't!) or have any fond Prom memories?