Wedding Wednesday

I’m so excited about this Wednesday entry! I had so much fun coming up with this project, and I’m really excited to get going on the next ones!

Today’s Wedding Wednesday is about place settings. Sounds boring, huh? They don’t have to be! Place settings are one way to make the guests tables look full and unique. Making the place settings match the rest of the decor means that you don’t have to have a huge centre piece, the place settings will look like they are part of it!

                            

For this type of setting, I started off with three little sprigs of faux fern, a 12″ piece of ribbon, a funky paper napkin and the cutlery.

• The fern I got from Michael’s comes in a much bigger sprig. From this main piece, I cut these three little pieces. Each large fern will give you enough little sprigs for two settings.
• I picked up the ribbon from WalMart, in a sale bin. If you’re getting married, always keep your colors in mind when you go shopping. You never know when you’ll find great sales bins!
• I got the napkins from Extra Foods (kinda like Super Store) for two bucks. There was at least 50 napkins in one package. Like I said above, keeping your colors in mind, grab great deals when you see them!

                         

Instructions for Place Setting #1:

1. Take the three sprigs of fern and tie the ribbon around them.

                        

                        

2. Fold the napkin in half and place the cutlery on top.

3. Set the finished fern piece on top of the cutlery.

                        

This place setting is easy as pie and super cheap, just make sure to remember to be continually on the look out for good deals! When you see a coupon for an item you want, clip it out and make sure you use it.

                    

There’s a couple more options for this style of place setting. You can buy little envelopes at your local stationary store to place the cutlery inside.

                    

Fold the napkin in thirds, and place it in the envelope, making sure it sticks out a couple inches (depending on what you think looks best). Place the fern sprigs on top and voila!

                           

Here’s a couple other styles I tried:

                           

                           

With the option above, I sealed a regular white envelope and cut a couple inches off the top. I made the napkin into a fan, put it into the envelope and placed the cutlery in between the creases. I then tied a ribbon around the envelope.

                           

                           

You could also stamp the envelope, either leaving the ribbon off or still including it. In the picture below I just bunched a normal paper napkin, pinching it in the middle and smoothing it in half. 

Paper napkin might be a good option instead of renting cloth napkins or buying more expensive paper ones.

                           

Or you could use a couple of ribbons to funk it up a bit, like I did below. I really like the look of the napkin folded nicely into the envelope here. I cut off the top of it, to get rid of the perferated look.

                                 

If you need to cut down on the price here’s some options:

• Use only one or two fern sprigs per setting
• Cut the ribbons shorter
• Or use a stamp you already own

Remember: Deals Deals Deals!!! Where ever you go, look for the sales bins first before you look at the fully priced item. You might just find what you’re looking for at a really good discount! Use coupons whenever you can, little purchases add up so coupons really can help cut the costs. Also, ask for discounts. This can be a bit intimidating for some people, but just try it! What have you got to lose? A lot of stores have sympathy for brides and will be more than willing to give you a deal. If they say no, don’t be humiliated! Store clerks have so many customers come through their tills, it’s likely they won’t even remember who you are next time you shop there!

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Don’t Forget!

Tomorrow is Wednesday…know what that means? It means I’ll be posting my first Wedding Wednesday entry! Make sure you check in to learn about one way to decorate your wedding reception!

Wedding Ideas

                           

                           Photo courtesy of Design*Sponge

 

So I’m in the wedding planning mood. It might be because I just got my toes wet at the last wedding I was at (spur of the moment decorating) or maybe because I co-worker has invited me to see her decoration goodies. Either way, I’m wanting to do something super freakin funky.

Wouldn’t these lanternsbe amazing? They’d be super cheap to make and would fill the space of a table really well. The best part is, they suit any style! Just pick out your colors and go with it! You could have a few of the lanterns, different sizes (maybe even different colors) in the centre of the table, with shallow bowls around them holding t-lights. Or instead of the t-lights, fill the bowls with candy for favors.

                            

To decorate the table a bit more you could use these envelopes to hold the cutlery and a funky colored napkin. Either secure the envelope shut and cut an inch or so off the top, or find a great colored envelope the opens vertically.

                            

To bring the lanterns into the overall theme a bit more, you could hang Chinese Lanterns from the ceiling. You can get all types of colors, this fresh white lantern is on sale right now and would look amazing along side a chocolate brown one!

If you’re wanting any ideas for your special day, let me know what your colors are and I’ll come up with some affordable and fun ways to decorate.

Traveling Adventures

                         

Well, I’m back! Not that you missed me much since I was posting while I was gone out of town (:

Our trip to Yellow Knife, North West Territories was great! I’ve never been that far north, it was pretty exciting to see everything that I’ve been told about the area and to have that bit of adventure. The drive up was the most interesting part of the trip, we were surrounded by the biggest bolts of lightening at one point. I remember praying “Lord, please keep us safe. And if you decide not to, help us to live through a lightening strike because that’d be pretty awesome”.

I had heard tons of horror stories about the amount of bugs in the north and so I wasn’t surprised when we would park the car and be bombarded by a herd (yes, a HERD) of mosquitoes and flies. We decided to sleep in the car the first night and had brought mesh to tape over the window so we could leave it open. Somehow the tape slipped off during the night and we woke up to several (ha, that’s a slight understatement!) bugs eating us. You could hear the swarm of mosquitoes at the window even though our heads were at the opposite end of the car. Awake at 3:30, we couldn’t get back to sleep and decided to continue driving.

Probably the biggest excitment on the way up was the siting of a young black bear (not unusal but still pretty cool) and herds wild buffalo. I’ve seen buffalo before, although the ones in our area aren’t wild, but these ones were much much bigger than I’d ever seen.

We were going to Yellow Knife for a friends wedding and so the weekend was stuffed full of wedding prep and family visiting. Decorating the wedding ceremony and reception hall was something else. The bride had said she had been overwhelmed by the planning, but I looked around and couldn’t understand what she had done. There were no decorations at the ceremony, like…none…and if it hadn’t been for her new mom-in-law there would have been no table clothes at the reception hall. Matter of fact, the only thing that decorated the reception hall was the centre pieces which consisted of three roses and some babies-breath per table.

The new sister-in-law and I decided to take charge and help this bride out. We pulled several fake trees from the rest of the church into the ceremony hall, covered big baskets and old milk urns with white flowing fabric and put ivy in them, flowing down the sides. Then we went to Wal-Mart and bought some cheap fabric that matched the napkin colors (the napkins were bought days before by the new mom-in-law, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any at all), cut the fabric into 1.5 meter pieces and tied them around the back of the bridal parties chairs.

The flowers were another story. I knew I should have gone with the guys to the florist, I just had this feeling they were going to be screwed over and I was so right. The groom ended up paying $800.00 for 9 table centre pieces (like I said above, each with three roses and a bit of babies-breath), the main table centre piece, two bouquets and 5 boutonnieres. I couldn’t believe it. I wish I had lived closer to the bride so I could have helped her out some more…I could have even just given her more ideas on decorating. To make the price of the flowers even more shocking, the florist hadn’t even started on the flowers until the night before and the groom had to pick them up at 8 in the morning…even though the pictures started at 9am. If I had known the flowers were going to cost this much and cosist of so little, I would have offered to go to Safeway, buy some roses, and do all of them up for the bride at a quarter of the price.

On that note: If anyone is getting married, I’d love to hear about it! If you’re looking for fun, money saving ideas, let me know in the comments and I’ll see what I can come up with. First come, first served!

Now I’m back in town, exhausted and getting ready to go to the Farmers Market this weekend. I can’t wait, even though I’m going to need the sleep, it’s going to be worth it!

Invitations and Snow

I decided to use Tricia’s engagement (the new sister-in-law-to-be) as an excuse to buy some new colorful paper, a stamp and ribbon, to design some wedding invitations. They’re simple enough, nothing too fancy, and so much fun to make! I made some while I watched A Midsummer Night’s Dream last night. Maybe we’ll make one of these options for Tricia’s wedding, maybe not, either way it doesn’t matter, I just love working with paper!

It’s snowing again. When will this winter end?!

Guest Blogger

I just blogged another guest blog on TransCanada Etsy Team blog. Take a look and leave your comments!

There was a blog post on one of my favorite blogs, This Eclectic Life, about Blog Rolls and who really reads them.

I am one of those bloggers who reads my Roll frequently, always updating myself on who’s posted and what’s new with my blogger friends. I love commenting on their blogs since I find it such a joy (simple things make me happy!) to receive comments. I’m always surprised at how fast my Blog Roll is growing. Just a few weeks ago, Make It was at the top of my list and now it’s closer to the bottom.

I don’t put blogs on the Roll lightly. They are always blogs that I love and read constantly and comment on. I will need to clean it out every now and then as there are always bloggers that quit or I will (maybe!) lose interest in. But for now, they are all, honestly, blogs I read daily.

Lately I’ve been on a wedding blog kick. Since I’ve been asked to do a couple weddings for the summer and fall, I’ve been trying to find inspiration and unique ideas. Take a look at Snippet & Ink, Enjoy, An Excited Bride and i heart peonies.

Another Wedding!

My new sister-in-law-to-be has asked me to be in charge of her wedding decorations (Yay! Another one!) and I’ve been brainstorming for ideas. Her colors are Chocolate Brown and Voilet. I have yet to find out if this is a deep color or light so mostly I’ve been concentrating on the brown and coming up with original favor ideas. Here’s what I’ve come up with for the favors:

Personalized Jones Bottles
Personalized M&M’s

I know, I know, it’s not that original. But I’m just getting started (:

Then for table centerpieces I’d like to go with the picture below as well as walnuts and t-lights. The table itself would be mostly browns and then I’d like the chair covers to be white or ivory with a violet bow.

We’ll have ivory tooling from the ceiling to make a tent-like atmosphere, perhaps some violet colored Chinese lanterns here and there to bring in the color more.

More ideas to come!

I just saw this movie in Etsy, in the Storque’s Wedding Series and thought it was hilarious!!! So true though!

If you’ve been visiting this blog, this creative vent, you’ll have noticed that it’s been evolving. It’s grown from an ever changing ad for my favorite Etsy stores, to one of quick blips on life and tiny things I found interesting, to this, a (hopefully) deeper place filled with longer posts with deeper meaning (with some humor mixed in).

My Note Book will always be changing, hopefully for the better, but I like the place it’s becoming now. I like writing longer posts, challenging my writing skills and sharing a bit more about me. I’ll still be posting the odd link to my favorite Etsy store or YouTube clip, but I’m going to try to make this space something meaningful.

By the way, check out my Scared Silly story down below! It’s an entry in the writing contest by Shelly at This Eclectic Life. Post your own entry to this contest and let Shelly know!

Also, remember to check out the DYI Wedding Series in the Storque on Etsy. This is just one of the articles they’ve posted, but it’s great! Oh, and then come to my Etsy store, purchase of one of my Wedding Planning Packages and I’ll help you make your wedding a unique and affordable event. What, I have a slick sales-man smile on my face? Nooooo…