Our Handmade Life

Tis Better to Give...

 

   One thing I know for sure is that everybody likes a present! Being new to the world of traditional weddings when I began planning mine, I was shocked to learn that it is a tradition to give each of one's guests a little take-home memento of the day. I was even more shocked when I looked up the commercially available wedding guests gifts selections, and learned that they range in average cost from $2 to $10 EACH, and the $2 gifts are so lame they practically scream out "put me in the landfill as soon as you get home!" With over 100 guests coming and a diminishing budget to keep in mind, I had to immediately cross the over priced baubles off my list.

    Still, I really love giving gifts in general. I like whole idea behind it, the give and take nature of the universe being reflected in gift exchange, the spirit of sharing and bounty that gift giving implies, and I enjoy the act of handing out something that makes the receiver smile. Also, I did ask a lot of my guests, from making them hike all over a hilly park, to making them sit on the ground in their pretty clothes, to asking some of them to bring food as well as a wedding gift (all facets that everyone loved, but that might feel a little tiring overall), so I felt extra attached to making sure that when they left for home at the end of the day, they departed feeling as full of energy and cool stuff as they had when they showed up that morning. My obvious solution? Hand made take-home gifts, of course!

    For our large body of attending friends and family, I came up with a guest-grab-bag that was filled with a delightful collection of lasting and useful memorabilia that reflected the day itself and the ideals Josh and I share for the kind of world we want to live in. It was sort of a "green" wedding gift for our "green" wedding, though I found that purchasing things with that particular buzz word attached can cost you even more cash, which makes no sense at all to me. I even managed to package them up in such a way that they were adorable to look at, tempting to grab extras on the way out, and even served as added decoration at the reception by virtue of their multitude and cuteness!

    Because I had a crew of about 20 friends and family members who really did contribute heavily to making the day happen, mostly with their time and muscle power for set-up on the day of the event, and with their afore-mentioned food donations, I made 20 extra special gift bags for them. While the regular guest bags were small paper creations with tiny birdhouses and other gifts inside, the upgraded versions for the work crew were large hand-made muslin bags to be re-used later for shopping, and were filled with larger versions of their smaller cousins-- giant birdhouses and more verbose cards, for example.

    These two projects took a little time, but overall they weren't too hard, were fun to make and assemble, and were a big hit at the party! Not only did my friends love them (I still see their birdhouses displayed and even inhabited when I visit), the whole sha-bang cost me about $200 rather than the $500 I could have spent, and out-cooled anything I could have purchased from a store by THIS much-- (I'm holding my arms apart as wide as they will go here). Ready to make some fabulous take-home wedding gifts for your awesome and deserving guests? Let's do it!

DIY Gift Bags for Guests Who've Been Naughty or Nice

Step 1: First, do a little shopping at your favorite dollar bins, whether those are found in a craft shop, a Dollar General, or a fabric store. Find some item that costs a dollar but manages not to look cheap, and that also reflects you as a couple or some theme of your event. Our wedding was in the spring, so I considered cute little garden trowels, pre-seeded tiny plant pots, etc. But I've seen plenty of items in these bins that I think would fit the bill nicely depending on you and your scene-- slinky's, picture frames, travel games, etc... I went with these tiny wooden birdhouses that were so adorable and detailed I felt like I was ripping off the store buying out their entire inventory. I also found some small wind chimes at only .50 cents a piece, so I bought 100 of those to go with my 100 birdhouses. I should add here that while I had closer to 200 guests, many of them were couples or families, so I estimated that 100 was plenty to send home one per household, and that worked out fine with a couple of left over bags I got to keep myself at the end. I later mailed these to people who wanted to come but couldn't, so the number was perfect. Buying your main gift before you start the rest of your project is important since it would really be a bummer to make a bunch of beautiful gift bags and then discover that what you want to give won't fit inside them!

Step 2: Now that you have your primary gifts rounded up, it's time to do the real work. Go to your nearest seller of brown paper bags, the kind your mom (if she was anything like mine) put your lunch in when you were a kid and you wished she'd just give you money for the hot lunch like all the other kids. I found mine at Target, but I'm hoping they're easily available at any grocery store, since they're so handy for so many things. Buy a pack that supplies as many as you need. I bought a pack of 100, which cost me one whole dollar.

Next, round up:

a bottle of white acrylic paint, an additional accent paint color of your choice, and a paintbrush

a big bundle of sticks from the nearest tree

a hot glue gun

a black Sharpie marker

a few different patterned rolls of wired ribbon

a hole punch

and a bunch of tiny stickers picturing flowers or bugs or some such cute thing.

Phew! Got it all? Actually you should have almost all of this sitting around from our previous projects, so the list shouldn't be as daunting as it first sounds!

Step 3: Time to get dirty! You will need a large uncluttered space for this first step that can sit uninterrupted by pets or kids or really handsy adults for a good hour or two. First, lay out each of your paper bags flat in a line or large square, until all your bags are displayed with their face up, and folded bag bottom behind. With a cup full of white paint and a nice wide paint brush, begin painting your bags. You are simply making a white rectangle in the bottom half or third of your bag, and the edges don't even need to be neat or well defined, so try to go through this part quickly so you can move on to the fun stuff. I actually had my art class of 10 year olds do this part for me, if that tells you how much you don't need to be a perfectionist here. When all your white rectangles are in place, pull out your accent paint color put in in a cup and add a little water (just enough to make it slightly less thick and easier to fling). Dip your big paint brush into the accent color, and with a fully loaded brush, starting flinging the paint across your field of paper bags, giving each bag a nice LIGHT splattering of color.

Step 4: While you're waiting for your paint to dry, cut your ribbon into lengths of about a foot a piece, and set aside.

Step 5: Your paint is probably still wet, so go ahead and chop up those sticks you collected earlier. They will serve as a little picture frame for your white rectangle, so they need to be cut into stacks of two equal lengths, one longer for the long sides of the rectangle, and one shorter for the shorter sides. Pick a  uniform length for the long and short sides to be, something close to the average rectangle size you've painted, and start cutting your sticks with a pair of old scissors. Again, this process doesn't have to be perfect, some of your sticks will be fat, some skinny, some of your stick frames will be smaller than your white rectangle, and some bigger. This only adds to the charm at the end, so don't worry about it, just chop up your pile of uniform long and short sticks, and think about how pretty you'll look in your dress.

Step 6: When your paint is fully dry, grab your Sharpie marker and start writing. I wrote "Thank You!" on each of my bags in the center of the white paint rectangle, but you can certainly print out anything you want to say to your guests here, as long as you keep it brief! Something like "True Love," of "Happily Ever After" would be great.

Step 7: Make those stick frames! This is the most tedious part of the job, as hot glue guns make annoying stringy things that muck up your process, but it's still a fun and easy job, so just enjoy the process! With your long and short stick-stacks and your heated up hot glue gun, begin gluing the rectangle stick frames down around each white triangle, until all your bags are framed. A little time consuming, but so worth it when you're done-- this is the most memorable part of your decorated bag!

Step 8: Slap on your stickers! This part is so gratifying, because all the hard stuff is now over, and the stickers are nothing but cute, easy, and fun! I used little honey bees for my sticker choice, so i also used my black Sharpie to draw in little buzz-y flying lines behind their little bee butts.

Step 9: It's bag filling time. Definitely my favorite part because I felt like a rich and benevolent gift giver plunging birdhouses and wind chimes into 100 lovely paper pic nic bags. I should note here that I also included a few tiny extras into my packages, which added interest and fun to their opening with pretty much no extra cost to me. I found little brown paper packages (about 4x4 inches) at Hobby Lobby, 100 for $2. I stamped each one of them with a rubber stamp and ink pad I had laying around that said "Love Grows," filled them with a tablespoon each of wild flower seeds, and stapled them shut. I also cut out strips of paper, folded them over, stamped them with another rubber stamp of a flying bee that said "Bee Well," and signed them inside with love from Mr. and Mrs. Stone. So when I stuffed my pic nic bags, each one ended up holding 1 birdhouse, 1 wind chime, 1 stamped seed packet, and 1 card.

Step 10: Almost done! Now that your bags are looking fat and frisky, fold each one over on top with the fold toward the back, and use your hole punch to punch two holes, about an inch apart, into the middle of the fold. Using the ribbon you cut earlier, thread a piece from front to back through one hole, then from back to front through the other. Tie your ribbon into a pretty bow and reapeat on each paper bag.

Now take a breath and step back to survey your fabulousity! Your guests are about to have the best time ever and you are the one making it happen! Yay for inexpensive extra fun gift bags!

Handmade Invitation Love, Part II

    I know. There's so much you can do with paper. I never get tired of it either! In Handmade Invitation Love Part II, we'll be finishing up the big invitation project we started in part I, but now we've moved on from the big tedious work, and we get to do the just plain fun part!

    Besides the invitation itself, a lot more information needs to go into an invitation package. An RSVP card is practically worth its weight in gold for planning your event (which leads me to this much needed apology: SORRY to all you party people who came before me, to whom I NEVER bothered to RSVP because I assumed my presence or absence was a given, I get how important this is now and I apologize for any mucking up of your plans I may have caused!). A map is also a nice touch, not always necessary (though it was in our case), but helpful and fun. And why not throw in as much handmade artwork and creativity into your package as possible?! It's not like you get to invite people to a giant celebration of you without looking like a self absorbed jerk every day! I also tossed in an added slip of paper just stating how much we value our friends and family, our coming ritual, and our blessed life in general. It was something I felt the need to convey, and yes, I could have squeezed it onto the invitation card, but that would have left less room for my cartoon bride and groom drawing, so I think you see how an additional printed paper was my only real option.

    Alright, have I justified the need for more crafty paper fun enough to get you on board? Great! Then let the cutting and gluing begin!

Best RSVP Cards Ever

That's right, I said EVER.

Step 1: Again with the trips to Hobby Lobby, I picked up 4 packs of small (about 4x6 inches) white  envelopes, 25 to a pack. I think with the sale (wait for the sales there, they rotate every week) it cost me less than $10 for the whole sha-bang. I got another stack of textured card stock while I was there (regular 8x10 size). Paper and envelopes in hand, I went home and got together with my increasingly irritable fiance and our trusty digital camera.

Step 2: You are now going to do that thing that teenage girls on social networking sites are so fond of-- meaning you will be holding the camera out in front of you and your partner and taking a bunch of pictures until you get two you really like. Toss on the clothes you'll want in the picture, put yourself in front of a nice backdrop, apply a little lip gloss, and start clicking away. What you're wanting here is one picture of the two of you looking ecstatically happy like you just won the lottery PLUS a free trip to the moon. The other picture will be you looking extraordinarily sad, like you just lost your puppy, and your job, and you just can no longer fathom what life is all about.

At this point in the invitation process, Josh and I were both so tired of paper and eachother that we could barely stand to be in the same room, but we faked our way through the picture taking just swimmingly and loved the end result, so I know that if needed, you can do this too!

Step 3: Once you have the pictures you like, load them onto your computer, shrink your best happy version and your best sad version down to a size that is small enough to fit side by side on a paper the width of your envelope. When they are sized to your satisfaction, print them up, cut them out, and set them aside.

Step 4: Using a light pencil stroke, trace one of your envelopes onto a piece of paper, and cut it out so that you have a piece of paper just small enough to slip inside the envelope when it is cut down to size. Now take your two adorable pictures and glue stick them side by side to the top half of your paper slip. Using a black Sharpie marker, draw a little frame around each one, much like you did on your original invitation. Now, using a thin tip black Sharpie, print neatly across the bottom spaces for your guest to fill in his or her name, and the number of people in their party. In the space in between, draw a small box under each picture for your guest to check, and under that, write out the box/pictures description. Under the happy picture, write something like "YES! We can't wait to come to the best wedding ever! We will be there with bells on!". Under the sad picture, write something along the lines of "So sorry and broken hearted that we will not be able to attend the best wedding ever."

Step 5: With your prototype now in hand, color copy it as many times as needed to fill up one 8x10 sheet of paper. I think I got 4 cards to a sheet. When you have your four copies, cut them out, lay them face down in your copy tray with a blank piece of white paper behind them, and start copying. Be sure to print your RSVP's onto the textured card stock you brought home, it makes a lovely little card when you're all done.

Step 6: Cut out your cards, pair them with your stamped and addressed envelopes, and stuff them into your invitation package. These RSVP's were perhaps the biggest hit of our pre-wedding hype, and many people refused to give them back at all, calling to confirm instead and informing us that the pictures were too cute to take off the fridge. We even got a few back that were black and white copies of the color ones we'd sent out, letting us know that the sender had found a way to keep the card they wanted, but still reply in a civilized manner. So really, the biggest problem with your RSVP cards is that they might turn out so awesome that you won't get them back!

A Dreamy Map to a Dreamy Day

Step 1: It's all easy from here, I swear! to make your event map, simply divide another 8x10 piece of white paper into four parts, cut one out, and grab that trusty pencil to start sketching. Find nearby central location to start giving directions from (a well known building, park, or intersection), and draw a little path from there to your event. Be sure to label each street as you go, and provide a little compass somewhere in the picture so people know your north from your south.

Step 2: Once your technical information is in place, have a little fun decorating the designated path! I doodled in little flowers and butterflies along the way since our event was in a park, and I also drew in some exaggerated large doodles of landmarks along the way to help readers know they were on the right track. I'd meant to make it look like a really cool pirate map, but it ended up looking like everything I ever drew in the margins of my high school notebooks. No matter, it was going to be cute in the end no matter what by virtue of it's hand-made-ness, so don't be afraid to let your inner artist have fun with this one. Just remember to leave plenty of blank space in your map overall, so that your guests can still see the forrest for the trees, or in this case, the map beneath the butterflies.

Step 3: When you are happy with your doodles, trace your pencil lines with your now familiar fine tipped black Sharpie, and erase any pencil marks left behind.

Step 4: Just like your RSVPS, this map will be copied again and again until you have 4 identical prototypes. Once you have these, lay them face down in your copy tray with a blank piece of paper behind them. Put your map paper into the copy tray and copy as many maps as needed for your invitations.

Step 5: An added note here, you can use any paper for the map, and I recommend a pale colored paper just for some fun variety. I found a particularly fun paper at the craft shop, which is transparent, strong like card stock, and comes in a variety of colors. I printed my maps on these in many different colors, and then cut them out with decorative scissors that cut a pattern into the border and gave the maps an extra whimsical air. I recommend both the funky paper and the crazy scissors for this project!

Extra Quote Inserts for the Overly Verbose

 It's true, we're going a little overboard here and you can totally stop with the above project or even the one before that if you like. But if you like a great package filled to the brim with wondrous lovelies as much as I do, then we have one more tiny project to go! 

Step 1: If you already have more you wanted to say, quotes you wanted to share, or information you still want to include, this is the place to do it. Pick your phrase, info, or famous person's stolen line, and type it into a document on your computer. Go ahead and find yourself a great font, and feel free to write in bold and use a bigger font size if you like.

Step 2: Once you've typed out what you want to say (and for goodness sake, at this point let's keep it relatively brief), copy and paste your phrase as many times as needed for your invitation total. Be sure to leave two spaces between each one to ensure plenty of cutting room when you're done.

Step 3: Load your chosen paper into the printing tray (I used the see through- colored fun stuff for this project as well), hit print and watch the miracle of technology do most of your work for you. When everything is printed, grab your scissors (I again recommend the pattern-cutting scissors for this), cut out your last words, stuff them into your envelopes, and... THAT'S IT! You're done! Now go take a hot bath and a day off!

In Love with Handmade Invitations

    At the outset of our wedding preparations, I must admit I was a little star struck by all the glitzy options available to me. Also, having never been one of those girls who was referred to as "princess" by her parents, or dressed up in pink (my mother gave me a boy's name so I wouldn't be discriminated against for goodness sake...), I had a bit of a left over yen for a little pampered girlie action, and I thought I might satisfy it by allowing a little splurge spending on fancy printed wedding invites. After all, you just get married the one time, and when besides this will you get to walk into one of those fancy paper stores and get your own information printed up all sparkl-ey and scroll-ey like?

    So, I set out one blustery morning to explore the paper shops and create the fairy-tale invitations of my dreams, that would practically be delivered by singing bluebirds if anyone happened to offer that service. Turns out, that service is not available. In fact, every store I went to was less creative and interesting than the last, and the visions I'd had in my head were quickly met with a harsh reality. First, every option available to me was already exemplified in the store's sample books, meaning hundreds of brides before me had sent out the very same thing, no matter what I went with. Second, none of them were terribly interesting or artful, consisting mostly of cliched silhouettes and lame clip-art, coupled with laser printed catch phrases around the couple's added-in names, making every invitation look like an impersonal fill-in-the-blank form that was cranked out of a computer like a million before it. And that is just what those invitations were.

    Second, and perhaps more insulting, was that the starting price for 100 of these depressing invitations was $400, and going steeply up from there! I balked at the price, I yawned out of sheer boredom, and I left each store increasingly disapointed and mentioning to the shop girls that perhaps I'd just make my own invitations afterall. This statement was, without exception, met with derisive laughter and the snotty proclimaton that I'd be back, and begging them to get my expensive crap printed on time. I disagreed.

    With my wedding invitations (not to mention my pride) on the line, I headed back yet again to Hobby Lobby. I skipped the wedding section, where things are, as usual, overpriced and not that interesting, and scooted over instead to the blank stationary department (located I believe intentionally on the opposite side of the store so as not to give any brides too many less costly ideas).

    There I found these FABULOUS stacks of speckeled brown paper card sets, reminiscent of the brown paper bags our groceries once came in, and the perfect price tag informed me that they were 25 for $10, envalopes included, and that they were additionally on sale for 40% off! I grabbed four packs and some glue sticks, and headed home.

    In the end, my invitations were so fun that I'm still proud of them a year later, and my friends kept them as memento's rather than throwing them away. They've even generated some paper craft making work for me on the side, as my friends showed them to their friends who called me up to help with their own weddings! And rather than spending hundreds of dollars on forgettable paper, I spent $100 total for my 100 invitations, which are still the talk of the town! Though to be fair, it's not a very happening town :)...

DIY Wedding Invitations

Step 1: Get ready. This is a labor intensive job and is not for the faint of heart if you're making as many as I did. I recommend that you get together a group of girls for a work frolic to crank these out, or expect to spend a week of evenings on the floor with your partner getting increasingly annoyed at each other as you work your way through this project, which is the path I chose. Still, totally worth it in the end!

Step 2: Ok, now that you've enlisted your helpers, time to get to work! For my invitations, I started out with pre-made blank card packages which included matching envelopes. Not pricey at all, and definitely worth saving the effort of folding raw paper yourself. With your cards selected, your next step is to go through your pictures and find the one of you and your partner or something you both love to grace the front of your card. Once you have this, shrink it down on your computer to a small but clear size (mine was about 3 by 4 inches), copy and paste it as many times as needed onto one document, and color print it out. I used the library printers for my pictures, netting me a cost of $1 for the four sheets I needed of 100 small pictures.

Step 3: Cut the printed pictures out individually, which shouldn't take long since you can just cut them out in strips on your printed pages. Now glue each one to the front center of your cards, or off to one side if you prefer a little a-symmetry.

Step 4: Using a paint pen, draw a little picture frame around your picture. It doesn't have to be perfect, the idea is that it look sweet and hand drawn, while serving the double purpose of anchoring your picture to the card, so that it doesn't look like a simple glued on kindergarten project. You are now done with the front of your card!

Step 5: On the inside of your card you will be printing up all the information needed for your guests to actually get to your event, coupled with whatever flowery language you want to include in the presentation. Spend a little time Googling the available phrasing for wedding invites, pull what you like, and write up what you want to say, being sure to include, your names (correctly spelled unlike my first draft), and the date, location, and time.

Step 6: Now that you have your script, cut white piece of paper to the size you'd like your information printed on, that will be glued to the inside of your card. Be sure to leave room for a border around  this white paper. With your paper sized and cut to your liking, lightly pencil in your words so that they look pretty and are easily legible, then pen them in over your pencil lines with a fine tipped black Sharpie pen. These really are the best pens for the job, so no need for fancy art pens. If you'd like to include your own stick people illustrations here as I did on mine, pencil and then pen those in as well!

Step 7: Erase your pencil lines and photocopy your impressive piece of art until you have enough copies to cut out and fill one regular sized piece of printer paper. Then lay the copies face down on the copier, insert a stack of nice textured white card stock into your printer bin, and copy as many of these as needed. I got four to a sheet, and so had to make 25 black and white copies, a total of $2.50 at the library. If you are having a work party, be sure to get all this printed and ready to cut before your guests arrive, to keep the work quick and easy.

Step 8: Cut out your stack of newly printed paper!

Step 9: Working with a stack of scrapbook paper, use your glue stick to paste your white printed paper down against a pretty piece of patterned paper (I just pulled from a book of mixed scrapbook paper, so all the patterns I used were different, which was fun). Cut out the craft paper around the white card stock, creating a pretty framed border of and inch or less of background pattern.

Step 10: Now, here's where I got fancy. You can skip this step if you like since it's a little time consuming, but I really recommend it-- it's what really set my invitations apart and it's the extra bling and creative touch I was looking for that the stores could not provide for me. Head back to that sketchy bridal department at Hobby Lobby. Ignoring everything else you see there, find the little wedding favor section. There you will find these adorable little metal medallions with sweet little sayings on them like "love" or "Mr. and Mrs.". I went with the ones that say "Happily Ever After." See? I worked in the fairy tale after all. They are $5 for 25, so I spent $20 for the lot of them, which in the end felt like a great bargain.

Step 11: Using a big embroidery needle and colored embroidery floss, poke your needle down through your framed piece of card stock at whatever spot you choose (I did the left bottom corner), and back up through the paper about an inch away from your first hole. Leave about 6 inches of thread coming out of each hole, and repeat this action on each of your framed card stock pieces.

Step 12: Slip the thread through the hole in your medallion and tie the thread in a pretty and secure bow. Now repeat on each piece of paper, until each one has a lovely bow-tie hugging a stamped medallion.

Step 13: Using your trusty glue stick again, apply a liberal amount to the back of your framed medallioned card stock, and press it firmly onto the center of the inside of each of your cards. Voila! Your invitations are made, they are creative and fun to open, and they didn't cost you the equivalent of two car payments!

*Stay tuned for the next two installments, making your wedding maps and making your RSVP's!*

The Great Frame Up-- DIY's for Your Walls!

    With fluttery flags, garlands, and paper circle wheels, the overhead level of your par-tay is now as festive as anything needs to be. On to eye level! As I said before, we did a lot of decorating for a sunny afternoon event that was simple, practically free, and does not require instructions. All of our flowers were stolen from the roadsides, with a lot of tall grass and weeds as filler, which ended up looking so pretty I just can't believe that the flower industry can even exist during the summer months. (And by the way, had it been fall with less floral roadside array to choose from, I think fall leaves, bare sticks, apples, and pumpkins would have made an equally lovely and easy to gather look). We gave the flowers a nice drink of water in our collection of old mason jars, and tied a pretty ribbon around each one. A time investment of pretty much nothing, since stealing ditch flowers and tying pretty bows is the kind of work we around her put the children to :). We also covered all the tables in lengths of muslin which we just cut straight off the bolt, so again, easy-peasy, so simple and pretty, and muslin is a dollar a yard if you buy a whole bolt with a trusty half-off store coupon.

    So the only other eye candies we created for the middle of the space, the eye-level decorations, if you will, were both simple projects that put to use the old frames we had laying around the house looking for work. One was a series of picture frames displaying Josh and I as children (perhaps a cliche wedding tradition at this point, but his GIGANTIC childhood cheeks were just begging to be put on display, plus, I like a good story, so I think it's always good to see where people have come from), and the other is our Thumb-print Tree sign-in project, which we ultimately slapped into one of those old frames, and love passing every day in our entry way! So much better than a dusty old guest book we'll never look at again!

    Ready for more almost free projects that make your day memorable for the fun and not the bills? Let's get crafting!

DIY PICTURE FRAME CLOTHES LINE

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love anything involving clothespins! They just make me think of fresh laundry on the line and breezy sunny days, so they always make me happy! Also, I'd seen other weddings with slide shows (a little over the top for our style), or bulletin boards (a little under the top for our scene), and I just knew I could find a more visually fun way to accomplish the same idea. Enter the picture frame clothesline, which came to me in a flash on one of my long sleepless pre-wedding nights!

Step 1: Find a few old picture frames that convey the look you're trying to achieve, whether that's rustic, shabby chic, funky, or what have you. If you don't have them already laying around your house (I'm a painter so people tend to donate frames to me), just hit up your local thrift store, where you are likely to find a nice sized pile of orphaned frames just waiting to go home with you for very little money. You'll want them to be plenty big to accommodate your clothesline (Mine were about a foot and a half by two and a half feet).

Step 2: Spend some time going through old pictures of the both of you, finding the ones that best represent your own history, or that are most embarrassing :). Remember to get an equal amount of pictures of both of you, so that you don't end up looking self-absorbed or obsequious! Once you have your final stacks, either photo copy them so as not to damage the originals, or make sure you have permission from their owners to stick some tape on the backs.

Step 3: Find the left over scraps of craft paper from the paper wheel project, and use them to frame up your photographs. Simply place a small piece of two-sided tape on each of the four corners of a picture, press the picture onto a piece of craft paper, then cut the paper out around the picture, leaving about a half-inch border of paper around the photo. When you do this with each of your pictures, you'll have them prettily framed for the project, and you'll ensure that they won't curl up at the ends while hanging out at your party!

Step 4: With all your pictures ready to go, it's time to hang the clothes line. Using a stapler and a ball of thin twine or cotton kite string, staple one end of the twine to the upper right hand corner of the back of your frame. Taking the string in a diagonal direction, down about 4 inches to the left side of the frame, pull the string taught and staple it to the back of the frame again. Repeat this action going back and forth down the frame (you can go a little wider between spaces if your photos are bigger), until the whole length of the frame has string zig-zagging it's way from top to bottom.

Step 5: Now for the fun part! Order your prints however you'd like them to be displayed (I did one frame for me, one for Josh, and one for pictures of the both of us), grab a fist-full of clothes pins, and start hanging your pictures up along your lines. Feel free to overlap a little, or to leave plenty of space depending on how much you have to work with, either way gives its own fun look. Now set them aside and go eat some chocolate, your framed wedding pictures are ready to go!

Thumb Print Wedding Tree

Despite the fact that we had a bit of an outlaw audience at our wedding, we decided to make a tree made of our guests fingerprints (and crossed our fingers that this wouldn't make anyone nervous!). This was one of our favorite projects, because it's the one we get to keep and look at all the time, it's so pretty and fun hanging up in our entryway, and we still enjoy glancing at all the prints of people we love who we got to share the day with. Also it's a great conversation piece that people often comment on when they walk in, and it's a really good way to rub in how much fun your wedding was, for visitors who made the mistake of missing out...

Step 1: Find a large, acid free piece of paper or craft board, big enough to accommodate a whole tree full of your guests thumbprints (we had almost 200 people, so we needed some big paper!). Gather up a Sharpie fine point black pen, a pencil and eraser, and three different colored ink pads, as well.

Step 2: Start drawing! With your pencil and eraser, making very light lines, begin to sketch out the basic shape of your tree, putting down the roots, trunk, and big branches first, then filling in the smaller sticks and branches once you're happy with your main proportions. Be sure to leave a wide margin of blank space between the tree branches and the edge of your paper, as this space will be filled up with "leaves" by your guests. Don't be intimidated if you don't spend a lot of your free time drawing trees! Google image will provide you with page after page of tree silhouettes, and from there you can copy a shape with more ease than you think. Just dive in and give it a try-- you can do it, I believe in you! And if you really really can't, you can buy one of my hand-drawn trees at my etsy shop (username: jessblissamber) :)...

Step 3: With your tree all penciled in just the way you like it, grab that trusty Sharpie and commit it forever to your paper. Again, don't let the pen intimidate you, this is your art, it doesn't have to be perfect, and it will look like a tree when you're done no matter what, because trees are an organic shape, so it's hard to draw them "wrong." Once your tree is outlined, feel free to fill in the trunk and branches with whatever scriblley pen lines you like. I used a spiraled continuous line in my tree, which you are welcome to copy. I also penned in a little carved tree heart with Josh's name and mine, which I also recommend for a little added visual interest.

Step 4: You did it! You made a tree! Now make a little sign to go next to it on a folded piece of card stock, so your guests will know what to do with your new-fangled sign in art. In your clearest handwriting, post on your sign "Please "leaf" a fingerprint and your name!". Then, because people aren't always the greatest at reading instructions, put 3 of your own fingerprints below on your sign, and sign a fake name to each one, illustrating just what it is you want your guests to do. This worked just great for us, and our tree filled up quickly with multicolored "leaves" and signatures. Plus, everyone walked around with a matching green finger for the rest of the day, which just made me smile :).

DIY Mobiles and Streamers-- A Piece of Paper Has Never Looked So Good...

    Tired of those weird party streamers that tear and dangle halfway through the event and never looked that festive to begin with? Wondering why they are both strangely depressing and yet ubiquitous at every party? It's because they're super inexpensive and cover a lot of space with a little effort, and while they're great for a 5 year olds' birthday, the lack of cost and effort shows. If you're willing to put in the extra effort at hardly any more monetary cost, the fate of tired decorations does not have to befall you, and a room full of flutter handmade paper loveliness can be yours for the taking.

First let's talk streamers, crafted by your own industrious little hands, and personalized for your event-- a sure-fire way to make all your guests feel cozy and great, without their even knowing exactly why!

Personalized Party Streamers

Step 1: Rather than grabbing the aforementioned giant rolls of gauzy paper for $2 a roll, stroll right past those bad boys and on to a nice roll of real ribbon, or (if you're budgeting and looking for super cheap supplies), a big spool of that skinny ribbed plastic-y ribbon that you use on Christmas gifts and curl up at the ends with scissors. Now you can walk away from the party supply section altogether, and pick up a nice cheap pack of large index cards-- I believe the plain old white ones are best. Grab a few bottles of paint to match your color scheme, and make sure one of them is black or a dark color for printing. Make sure you have a stapler while you're at it, and head on home, if you're not there with all these supplies already!

Step 2: Now is the time to figure out what personalized messages you'd like to emblazon on your streamers for your guests to see when they enter your space for the first time. Since I was making streamers for my wedding, I wrote things like "Josh loves Jesse," "Jesse loves Josh," "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," and "Happily Ever After." Find a nice long table or stretch of floor, and lay out enough index cards, blank side up, to spell your message. Be sure to include an extra index card for the space between each word, to make your streamers easier to read when they're dangling in the air.

Step 3: It's painting time! Get out a paint brush and your darkest color of paint (again, I like black for plain block printing). Paint one letter of your message per card, leaving the blank space cards in between. Your lettering could be clean, big, and clear, but does not need to be fancy, in fact the simpler it is, the easier it is to see and read, which really, is sort of your whole goal here.

Step 4: Are your letters all painted and looking grand? Now let's address those left over blank space cards between words. You can leave them blank, but I like to put just a little something on them to spice up the overall appearance. For my own streamers, I painted a simple red or yellow flower on each blank card, outlined in black, and smaller than the letters. I also left two extra blank cards on the outside of my phrases, one at the front end and one on the back, and painted a little red heart on these, also outlined in black. Super simple, and the painting section of this project took me about half an hour altogether.

Step 5: With all your awesome painted cards sitting in neat rows looking like the bees knees, it's time to strap them to a ribbon and hang them on a wall! Take your spool of ribbon (I used the inexpensive ribbed kind) and lay it out over the top of your cards. Remember to allow about 6 feet of extra ribbon on each side for easy hang-up on the day of your event, this way they can fit into any space without having to pre-plan which banner will hang where. With your trusty stapler, attach each card, one by one, to the ribbon, keeping about 6 inches or so between each card. Only use one phrase per cut of ribbon, so if you have 5 phrases painted out, you should end up with 5 separate streamers ready to pretty-up even the most plain of spaces (remember I was decorating a rusted metal park roof, and even that looked great with I was done)!

And that's it, you're done. In about an hour's time, you have some fabulous personalized streamers that you and your guests will love, and it should have cost you no more than 5 bucks... yea, sometimes an extra special handmade life is just that easy!

Paper Mobiles that Your Guests Will Try to Steal and Take Home

(I just went ahead and granted permission for this, in order to cut down on the theft)...

Step 1: You'll need the afore mentioned ribbed ribbon and stapler for this project, along with a hole punch, a stack of craft paper (I prefer the thick kind that comes in a pad, though the thinner kind works too and is a little easier to bend), and a stack of embroidery hoops in the size you want your mobile to be. I picked a variety of sizes from medium to large to give more diversity to my mobiles.

Step 2: Just a little note here to say that you do not have to use embroidery hoops for your mobiles, as the metal screw on half of the hoop does make it slightly more challenging to balance while hanging, but while trying to find a round shape for this craft and working on a budget, I quickly found that every hoop available to me cost around $10 a piece, and with $2,000 to spend and 20 hoops to make, that was just not a workable figure. Then one day while embroidering my famous dirty dishtowels (see my Etsy shop at username jessblissamber), it came to me like light streaming out from the heavens with that faint angel song in the background: embroidery hoops are round, cost 88 cents a piece at the craft store, and come with TWO hoops to work with in every purchase. Total cost for 20 hoops? Ten bucks!

Ok, back to Step 2: Select a set of craft paper from which to work. I did not pay any attention to color or pattern at all here, as I felt the random nature of the prints were part of the fun, but you may want to be more match-y than me, so pick your papers and set them in front of you. They should start out square in shape, so if they are currently rectangles, just chop off the bottom half so that you're starting out with squares-- it doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to be square-ish. Now fold your first piece of paper into a fan, stapling it together on one end so that it makes the traditional fan shape-- rounded on one side, flat on the other.

Step 3: Repeat this process with your next piece of paper, so that you now have two pretty fans sitting in front of you. Now take the flat ends of each fan, put them together so that both pretty sides are facing the same direction, and staple the flat ends together. Now you have one giant corrugated circle of prettiness to hang from your new mobile. Assuming you need about 5 circles per mobile, calculate how many mobiles you plan to make and multiply that number by 5-- this is how many paper circles you'll need for this project. Now you just put in a good movie, and spend the next few hours repeating steps 2 and 3, until you have all the circles you need!

I also mixed it up by making some circles big, like the ones you're now making, and some small. To make the small ones, I just used one piece of paper instead of two, folded my fan in half in the middle (as if I were making a paper bow-tie), and stapled the flat ends together on both sides.

Step 4: Phew! All your circles are ready to go! I know that was a little time consuming, but this is the kind of thing you invite your girlfriends over for, so that it goes quickly and everyone has fun in the process! Now grab that hole punch, and knock out a nice little hole in every one of your circles. After so much folding and stapling, this task is satisfying in it's slightly destructive nature.

Step 5: You're on the home stretch. Using the ribbon from your last project, cut it in the lengths that you'd like it to hang from your hoop (I gave about a foot-and-a-half of space for mine), with a little extra length for tying at both ends. Tie the ribbon to the paper circle on one end, and to the hoop at the other. Every circle does not have to hang at a uniform length from the hoop, just remember that in the end you'll have to scooch them around a little to make sure they balance right with their different lengths or sizes, so that the hoop hangs evenly. Again, I used 5 per hoop, but the number you use is up to you!

Step 6: Last one, I promise! This is a longer project, I know, but so worth it! I still see my mobiles hanging from friends porches when I stop by to visit, and it makes me smile every time :). With all your mobiles all strung up and ready to go, all you need now is some extra ribbon on top to give them something to hang from. Grab that trusty roll of ribbon one more time (and yes, the spool should have plenty still left, these things go on forever-- I used one roll for both these projects and I still have half of it sitting in my laundry room waiting to be utilized). Cutting out lengths of about 2 yards each, take 5 lengths for each hoop, and get to work. Folding a length of the ribbon in half (so it's now about 1 yard long), tie the middle in a knot to your hoop. Repeat this with 4 more lengths of ribbon, spacing them evenly so that your hoop will hang flat as it sways in the breeze of your bouncing guests. When all 5 lengths of ribbon are tied around your hoop, gather them up in your hand so that they all meet in the middle and let the hoop and paper circles dangle securely below. Tie all the ribbons in your hand into one large knot, and hang it up from the ceiling. TA-DA! You're done! Now do that with each remaining hoop, and then take a hot bath, enjoying the fact that you are a handmade maverick-- a creative genius! With a beautiful wedding looming at almost no decorative cost! Yay for you!