Wedding DIY

Hey Guys! Sorry for the quietness, I won’t bore you reasons why…let’s just crack on!

One piece of excitement though, my brother’s getting married in May!! EEEK!!

Weddings can be a costly business so I thought I’d do a little post, inspired by my “Sis-In-Law-To-Be” aka SILTB on simple things you can do yourself to cut a few of these costs or just to add unique personal touches, to make it extra special.

As I’m here in London and the Wedding was going to be at home, I wanted my friends here to have plenty of notice, so I made our Save the Date cards. I wanted something personalised and vintagey looking but I couldn’t afford the price tags for what suited my needs, so I headed to The Works (yes, I love this shop…ask Sarah!). I bought a couple of packets of pocket sized glossy cards. I also bought some photo paper from Poundland and a child’s dress up wedding veil. I then got hubby to don a white shirt and a top hat borrowed from a fancy dress kit, I wore a white dress and the dress up veil, and my sis took some black and white pics of us. I printed the photos off and assembled the cards as shown. Inside the cards had full details of the wedding and reception venue. To make things easier on those unfamiliar with the area, I also included a list of local cab numbers from the airport and the hotel, directions via bus, train and car, and a list of other hotels in the area should they choose to stay there.

Now the Hen Do!

Invites; I wanted a Burlesque themed hen and as we couldn’t find the right type of invites, my sister made them up. She bought a pack of plain cards from The Works and I drew the silhouette of a burlesque dancer on each. Sarah then decorated each with a fluffy feather and some glitter. This cost less than a £5.

T-Shirts; We were going away for two nights, and I wanted us all to have Hen t-shirts made. I would wear white, the girls black. I bought all the tops from Peacocks for £3 each and I found some really great iron-on diamante transfers on Ebay. The prices varied on what you wanted but all in all the tops didn’t cost any more than £8 each. Each t-shirt was personalised to suit whom was wearing it so I got exactly what I wanted. (I should also point out, all the girls paid for their own tops…poor Bridey has a wedding to pay for so every contribution helped 😉 ) Obviously you will find all sorts of great t-shirts on Ebay too so don’t be shy…get googling!

The Big Day!! The theme of which was Irish, English and family.

Wow there’s so much you can do.

Ok so, I didn’t want the standard big ribbon on the end of each pew so Peacocks had a sale on at the time and I bought 30 white rose hair clips for £15, which my florist arranged into bunches of three and hung on the first 5 pews at the top of the aisle. (I also bought the ribbon you see there on Ebay!)

My bestest bud made my Mass booklets for me, as she is a computer genius! She sourced some lovely thick cream card locally and printed them all off, saving me a fortune. I can’t remember how much this cost but I think she made about 30 booklets using the cream card as a cover and ordinary printer paper inside….God love her she even stapled them all together for me.

I got this fab personalised cake topper from Just Toppers for £40 and it now stands looking out at me from my glass case. I love it. I picked up the “LOVE” sign in a shop in Gillingham for £3 and I bought the letters from Ebay, they’re about £1.80 each. I then painted them a pearly silver colour.Excuse the poor pic but the feathers and diamante pins in my wedding bouquet were also a bargain from Ebay.

Our tables were named after each of our immediate family members…brothers, sisters, parents, I think we had 20 tables, so I bought 20 vintage looking frames from Poundland and for each table, had a picture of myself and hubby with said family member on it. These were then given to each person as a little gift afterwords.

I made my own favours…well I say I made them, I got booted out of the kitchen for being a stress head and the girls and Ma made them. I bought Shamrock and Rose chocolate moulds, from Ebay of course, and Ash supplied endless bars of dairy milk chocolate (on offer at the time for huuuuuge bars). So each guest’s plate had a chocolate Rose & Shamrock favour sitting on it. I also bought some personalised Rose & Shamrock confetti to sprinkle on the tables, along with pink and purple diamantes from…….EBAAAAAAY!!! Hee hee hee. Mine were foil similar to these but you can now get some lovely little, personalised paper hearts, which if you have patience you can easily hand make. Also don’t be afraid to use a fun shaped hole punch to make confetti, a lot of Pound shops or craft shops will do these.

Now these next bits, I did not make for my own wedding but for others. I went through 3 pairs of shoes on my wedding day…varying in height down to flats. 😀 (Also this has nothing to do with crafting but, I really wish I’d purchased some of those heel protectors I’d seen popping up every time I looked at wedding shoes. My £200 (a gift btw!) pair of gorgeous sparkly, fluffy peeptoes have now got grass stained heels, as most of our pics were taken on the lawns, so do please invest in some.) I wish I’d thought of this at the time, I blinged up these Converse for a friend.                                    

I actually didn’t do the toes on these ones, she bought them like that, but I have done before. This was fairly cheap to do too.

The garter I made for my Mother In Law, cost me about £6 to make. There’s a penny with the year her and her Hubby to Be met sewn in the back. As she likes a bit of bling I used an earring to make it more sparkly!

So there you go…there’s a few ideas for ya. Don’t be afraid to make things yourself, you’ll feel so proud when you see it on the day and it will be personal to you. Don’t let people put you off by saying you need to spend lots, remember, it’s just one day and really it’s not about how it all looked, it’s about two people tying the knot! Remember to scour local pound shops, even charity shops and Ebay is your friend. Check out Pinterest for some great inspirational ideas too.

Woooooooo….ooooh this day 8mths ’twill be the night before the nuptials!!

<3 DIY Baby Keepsakes <3

Well I did say my blog was fairly random! 🙂 Just recently it seems like everybody I know is either having a baby or just had one, so I’ve decided to share some of the little keepsakes I “diy’d” myself. I’m a sentimental auld sod you see.

Pre-Baby:

I kept a little diary of sorts for Small Monkey to read when he is older. I say it’s a diary, but I’ve tried to put in little pearls of wisdom, life lessons and my hopes for him too. I picked a cute little notebook (which happened to be blue) and away I went. I always referred to him as Baby or Jigglepuff as we didn’t find out his sex, but I think I always knew he was a boy. I kept it up ’til I gave birth and got my Ma to write about his entry into the world, that was it up to a few months ago when I wrote him a little about himself now. Obviously you put in what you want….here’s a little excerpt from mine…

Baby’s here!

I have got a proper baby record book but, as I keep almost everything, I needed a scrapbook too. I bought the biggest scrapbook I could find and then made it into a “hardback” cover using a  thick cardboard box and glueing it to the real cover. To jazz it up and make use of all my favourite “It’s a Boy” cards I kinda decoupaged it using my favourite bits. I kept a balloon my Ma bought on his arrival and used it to cover the back.

This next project took place over a year and if I have my way will continue for a while yet….well we’ll see how space goes but the next print maybe when he’s 5. I bought some square canvas’ from The Works (lovvve that place, my sister dreads when i head in there!) and some blue non toxic poster paint. It’s best to have another person to help you with this one, as it’s easier for somebody else to hold baby. Oh, and have your baby wipes and the bath ready. So your helper holds baby, you paint baby’s foot and gently press it down on the canvas, give each toe an extra little press. Don’t paint the paint on to thickly though or you wouldn’t get any detail. Do the same with the hand…et viola! Don’t worry if the prints aren’t perfect, babies wiggle and squirm, it just adds to the print. I named and dated and aged mine. Now, run, quick to the bath!

For the next couple of keepsakes you’ll be using those favourite little tees (or dresses…vests…whatever) you can’t bear to part with. Ok,  I lovvve this little Prince Charming tee so I took it out with me and found a photo frame big enough to hold it, popped it in the frame and done! Again, I couldn’t bear to part with Mummy’s Little Soldier so I took it out and slipped it over a few canvas’ to find the canvas that filled it best. Once the tee was on the canvas, I pulled it tight onto the canvas, wrapping it around the edges to the back of the canvas. I used thumb tacks to pin it to the back of the canvas (I’d no staple gun) and then cut off the bulky back piece that I didn’t need. Done! Another fab piece of wall art for the nursery.

If you’re interested in the other pieces you see above, the Ark print is from a gorgeous site called Marnie Makes. The personalised canvas is from Canvas Art UK and the personalised Baby plaque is from Pretty Prints. For this last piece I kept these adorable Next t-shirts and made cushions out of them. Really easy, you have to be a super sewer either. I simply turned the t-shirts inside out and stitched the arms and neck closed. For the bottom you can do the same about the halfway across, then stuff the t-shirts, make sure you fill out the arms. I don’t know what the name of the next stitch is but you will have to be a bit neater as these stitches will be seen on the outside. All sewed up? Fantastic…look at what you’ve made!

You can make really lovely gifts for grandparents using some of these ideas and it doesn’t even matter if they’re not super douper perfect ‘cos they’re homemade by you!

I hope you like this post, please drop me a comment or a pic of some of your creations,

love Donna x