The Gifting

Sounds like a movie title about aliens taking over your mind, eh?

But rather, let's talk about wedding party/family gifts. Note:  I am a terrible blogger when it comes to this post as the only pictures that I have are from the bridesmaids' gifts.  Sorry.

For our parents, we wanted to do something sentimental and also something that they could use.
1. For my mom/step-dad, we gave them tickets to the local Discovery Center (they've been wanting to go together) and also a plate that I wrote on with Sharpie and baked in the oven.  A picture would be great here, but it said:

"For all you've done,

For all you've been.

For all you are,

Thank you"

 

It also had some parenting words written on the edges like love, guidance, caring, etc. and then had

our names and the wedding date at the bottom.  My parents have several plates on display in their house similar to this.  When my brother and I were both born, they ordered some with our birth information on it and they also received one as a wedding gift when they got married.

 

2.  For my dad/step-mom, we got them an Omaha Steaks gift certificate and a picture frame.  The frame had three 4x6 openings so I put a picture of my dad and I when I was little in the first one, a poem about Dads in the second one and drew a picture of stick people in the third one saying, "Lindsy-Dad wedding picture goes here." My parents divorced when I was three, so I imagine that Dad doesn't have a whole lot of pictures of me from when I was little. He really seemed to like it and mentioned how long it had been since he had even seen that picture.

 

3. For Adam's mom, we also made a plate for her and then got her a gift certificiate for a massage.  We struggled with what to get her, but it seemed to go over well.

 

4.  For Adam's Dad, we also had a rough time.  Adam's dad doesn't have the greatest living situation, so chances are, to get him something nice, he either doesn't have a place to put it or it will get lost and broken. There is one wall where he hangs all of his pictures and things so we wanted to give him something that could be put up there.  We went to hobby lobby and bought a wood slab.  We then found a Dad poem that was more fitting for a son and wrote it on there/decorated it with a fine-tipped sharpie.  We bought some mounting hardware and slapped that on the back.  We also got him a book because he loves to read (Game of Thrones, of course!).

 

For the groomsmen and ushers

Adam and I went to Wal-mart and bought large beer mugs.  Adam tried to engrave the mugs with etching cream, but he's not as OCD as me and didn't want to take the time to do them like I did for the Will you be my bridesmaid gifts.  He did etch their first initial into the bottom of the glass free-hand.  We then went to the liquor store and bought a variety of mini bottles of alcohol and then filled the mugs with tissue paper and liquor. 

For my 17-year-old brother, however, we got him a bottle of sweet tea and attached three $10 Chipotle gift cards to it.  He wasn't disappointed.

 

And for the bridesmaids (finally, pictures!)

I bought 5 tote bags off Amazon for about $5 each (with shipping).  I wanted to make them a goody bag with some different supplies for the wedding. 

 

I bought some iron-on transfer paper and made a design that I wanted to add to the front.  I decided to use their first initial and use a variety of shades of blue so that each girl had a slightly different color.

I did have to reverse the image so that it would iron on correctly!

 

I followed the instructions on the iron-on paper (melting the tote bag a little!), and we sucessfully had 4 bridesmaids tote bags:

I filled their bags with flip-flops from David's Bridal that matched their dresses, a make-up bag with deodorant, lotion and chapstick, their bracelets and necklaces that I made them for the wedding day, some granola bars and chocolate to help cure their hunger for the day and a couple mini-bottles of alcohol as well (just in case!). I also told the girls that I would pay for their hair updo's or or any other salon service of equal price (since only two bridesmaids did get their hair done) as the rest of my gift to them.

 

So there are our gifts!  I am so glad that we only had 4 bridesmaids/groomsmen because they can certainly add up!  Having a few extra sets of parents didn't help either, but by making some of the gifts ourselves, it made them more personal but also helped us save some money!

 

What did you do for wedding party gifts?  Any cool ideas for me to regret missing out on?



DIY: Will You Be My Bridesmaid?

Here is the much awaited (since I announced it yesterday) tutorial for my Will You Be My Bridesmaid? Wine Bottle and Goblet Project

The "Will You Be My Bridesmaid?" Wine Bottle and Goblet Project:
Materials:
Wine glasses - I purchased 4 from Dollar Tree.  They are a bit on the large size!
Contact paper - I also purchased this at Dollar Tree.  You don't need that much so I would recommend purchasing the smallest amount necessary
Etching cream - Hobby Lobby
Foam Brush
Scissors
Cutting surface
Craft knife

Wine of your choice - something that has a removable label will make your life easier
Martha Stewart Labels - I purchased a pack of 6 removable labels that were 3.75 x 5.2
Computer and Printer

Steps:
1.  Find a font that you want to use and print off several different sizes to see what will cover up the wine glass the best.  I chose to use the font Fashion Victim that can be found at dafont.com.

2.  Trace the letters onto the contact paper.  Make sure that you trace on the plastic side rather than the paper side or else you will cut your letter out backwards.  True story.

  

3.  Cut the inside of the letters out with a craft knife and position on the wine glass.  Press down well and remove any bubbles around the edge of the letters.  It won't matter if there are bubbles on the outside edges of the contact paper, but it needs to be smooth where the letter is.

The top left corner looks like a bubble, but I actually just cut the contact paper and overlapped those edges because there previously was a bubble that I couldn't smooth out.

4.  Apply a layer of etching cream to the exposed areas of the glass where the letter has been cut out.

  

5.  After the etching cream has set for 5 min, rinse the wine glass completely.  There are warnings against getting the etching cream on your skin so be careful!  I removed the contact paper, did a little drying/polishing and then your glass is set!

Now onto Part 2!

1.  The Martha Stewart labels are made by Avery which means that in Microsoft Word there is already a template for the dimensions of the label. So it starts out looking like this...and then I worked on the design.

#1

#2

2.  I ultimately decided on Style #2, trying to match the color of the blue to the border on the labels (the borders on the labels came blue and green - three of each).  Since there were only three of each color and I have 4 girls, I used a green border for my MOH's label.

3.  I printed off the labels using a regular inkjet printer.  I did have some issues with printing!  I don't know if the labels were slippery, but my printer kept printing too high up on the labels and then they were off-center.  Since I didn't want to go out a buy more, I just ended up cutting the labels so that they were symmetrical. (No picture, so sorry!)

4.  Remove old wine label.  My new labels were smaller than the original labels on the wine bottle, so the old one had to go.  Thankfully, Relax Riesling uses a clear plastic label, so it came off really easily.  I did wipe the bottle down to get rid of any remaining residue with a warm, damp cloth. 

5.  Add the new labels on and smooth!  I worked in an X shape to smooth down the labels so that there weren't any bubbles.  These labels are actually removable, so if you mess up, you can peel it up and start over.

6. Combine with the personalized wine glass and you have yourself one classy set!

7.  To finish if off, I wrapped the wine glasses in tissue paper and then put both items into paper gift bags that I bought at Dollar Tree.  I also wrote each girl a letter, printed off an envelope with their name on it and added it to the bag.

I wrote each girl's name on the front of the bags with a silver sharpie.   I kind of wish that I would have put more effort into decorating the bags, but I didn't!  In hindsight, I would probably stencil their initial onto the front and maybe throw some glitter in there!

8. Now they're all ready to be sent out into the world!

Price Breakdown:

Wine glasses - $4

Contact Paper $1

Etching cream - on hand (but it had a $7.99 sticker - take a 40% off coupon with you!)

Gift bags $2

Wine $40

Labels $3                 

Total = $50 ($12.50 per bridesmaid!)

So what do you think?  Is there anything that you would have done differently?  How would you have decorated the gift bags?  Have you done any similar projects?

Won't you be my bridesmaid?

I really wanted to do something special to ask the girls to be my bridesmaids.  I realize that simply asking would suffice, but I thought going above and beyond would not only be nice, but it would show them how much it means to me to have them be a part of my wedding.

Thus, it was decided.

I had several options in mind that I had seen on Pinterest or Wedding Bee...

the card (source)

the necklace (source)

the ring pop (source)

...but none of them really spoke to me.  

Something that has been pretty popular these days is making your own wine labels as table numbers/wedding favors for the reception. 

(source)

So, I decided to branch off that and make Will You Be My Bridesmaid bottles of wine and personalized goblets. I put the bottles and goblets into a gift bag with a note for each of the girls.  I basically handed them all the bags, let them peek and told them they couldn't read my note until I had left (because I'm awkward).

All the girls seemed to really like them, which made all of the work completely worth it!  

How did you ask your bridesmaids?  I'm absolutely terrible about asking people for help, so I felt super vulnerable!  After they read their letters, everyone was really excited and emotional which made me feel dumb for feeling so insecure.  These are people that I have spent years of my life getting to know, but I was still so worried!

I'll post a DIY for this, but it was all pretty simple and self-explanatory.  Hope you like it! Share your Will You Be My Bridesmaid stories!

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!!!