Monday, September 28, 2015

Wedding DIY: Cake/Pie Bunting

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find cake or pie bunting for our wedding pie… yeah, there are some on Etsy for a pretty penny, but nothing that would get here in a reasonable amount of time before our wedding. So I spent an hour (literally) figuring out how to make this bunting and putting it together.
Note – we had a wedding pie. No, it’s not the popular thing to do (yet) but we aren’t huge cake people. So we chose some yummy pie from a local farm: Lyman Orchards! This is also why we chose bunting… because, well, a cake topper would have just sunk. And that would not be good symbolism for a wedding.

Bridget & Joe-555 

What you will need:
Fat burlap ribbon (wired)
Black paint pen (white did not stand out enough)
Twine
Two chopsticks or sticks for photobooth props
Craft glue
The Usual Suspects: scissors, sewing machine, thread

1. Start by cutting approximately 2inch wide triangles from your ribbon, with the wire at the base of the triangle. Cut enough triangles to spell out your desired phrase… mine was “Just Married”.
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2. Cut 2x 3ft pieces of twine – we’re being generous here, you can always trim off the excess later. If you only have one line, you only need on piece of twine.
3. Pin your triangles in a row on the twine. Using the serger or zigzag setting on your sewing machine, sew down your triangles to your twine. Repeat for your second line.

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4. Draw on your letters with your paint pen, making sure to do this over a newpaper or something you don’t care about ruining. Don’t use a sharpie – it will bleed!
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5. Tie your bunting onto your chopsticks or other sticks (sticks from the backyard would be CUTE… but might not be food safe.). Add a dab of glue to your stick where you are tying your bunting… this will keep it from untying or moving.

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6. Tidy up—straighten everything and bend your triangles to where you want them (remember—they have wire at the top!).
7. Stick at an angle into your pie or cake.Admittedly, bunting works best in cake because it is dense, but ours held up ok in our pie too. Totally recommend testing in some pie first (also a great excuse to buy and eat some pie).

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Also, our bunting was kinda big for our pie… use chopsticks instead – we used sticks that you could make photo props with and they were not the best.

Bridget & Joe-562
PPS. Big shout-out to For Such a Time Designs for the amazing vintage silver server… find her here on Etsy!

I hope you’re enjoying these wedding DIY posts!
Thanks for joining me!
Cheers!
Bridget
XOXO

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Wedding DIY: Distressed Window Seating Chart

Bridget & Joe-556
Cutting a few corners, without cutting style and vision, was the key to making my wedding day everything I wanted it to be. I’m a nurse- I’m one of the most practical people you will ever meet, but I do love my style. As I show you some of the DIYs I tackled for my big day you will see what I mean – I didn’t see any sense in unnecessaries, but I also had a vision of a rustic barn wedding that I wasn’t going to let go of either.
One of my favorite pieces of the day was my seating chart. Escort cards or reception cards averaged between $100 - $150, even at the lower price scale. I though maybe I could make my own, but I wouldn’t be saving a whole lot more… and would be buying myself a lot more time consumption. On random Monday whilst browsing at ReStore for inspiration for new projects, I stumbled upon a bunch of old windows and paned doors – with the price written on the panes in chalk.  LIGHTBULB. I found a window (actually it’s an old half of a French door set) with enough windows to fit 120 names… and I bought it for $35. Actually, I bought two because I wasn’t sure how much writing space I would need. See Instagram:
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I went to Amazon.com and bought some liquid chalk pens in white and started doodling. I was lucky because my window was pretty distressed already, I didn’t need to do much to it. BUT if you find a window that needs a little loving, take some sandpaper and rough it up a little. I didn’t use the big orange door – but I had big plans to paint and distress it if the smaller window didn’t make the cut. In fact… I may use it as a door to my dining room….
I digress.
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Things to note:
- Wash the window/door thoroughly before writing
- Get more than one chalk pen – you WILL run out as soon as you almost finish
- Make sure your window will not be up against a light background – it will be hard to read
- Have a wet paper towel ready for when you mess up, it will save you some frustration
- TAPE A PEN TO THE BACK. Please… save yourself a headache on your wedding day… if for some reason something rubs off, a pen will be right there to fill it back in. We had no issues with rubbing or smudging, but ward off the evil spirits and attach a pen. From one bride to another, you don’t want to think about things like this on your wedding day.
This window WILL get reused – I’m thinking of putting pictures in each window pane and hanging it in my craft room… oh, the possibilities are endless! sigh.

Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers,
Bridget
xoxo

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

CraftyBridge is back!



Hello September! What an awesome, whirlwind Summer – I got married at the start of August, went on an amazing honeymoon to St. Lucia for two weeks, and have successful depleted all bank accounts and maxed all credit cards. I’m on a role. But it has all be so worth it. My incredible husband will attest (although very biased) that we had the wedding of our dreams – we were surrounded by love, joy, and lots of laughter and we couldn’t have asked for more. Our family and framily is the best part of our lives and the love was palpable on our wedding day. We are blessed beyond measure.
This all being said, I can FINALLY blog about some of the DIYs of my big day – some incredibly simple, others a little more involved. But none of them costing very much money (which was the key). I found that if I DIYed everything, I would have spent even more money than buying some stuff, as well as creating more stress and pressure. So I picked and chose what to DIY and it turned out great.

Tutorials to come:

Pie/cake Bunting
No-flower Centerpieces
Distressed Window Seating Chart
Flower Crowns
 
I can’t wait to get back to blogging and sharing all of these awesome tutorials with you – and Fall is right around the corner!
Thanks for hanging in there with me during this exciting, busy time!
 
Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers,
Bridget