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I've only been to one wedding that had bathroom baskets before, but boy was I glad to find mints for after dinner and a hair scrunchie to tie up my hair for dancing!
So I figured I'd give our guests the same courtesy, and provide some essentials in the bathrooms, in case they forgot anything they might need to make them more comfortable during our reception. And, since none of the contents will go bad anytime soon, it was something that I could easily tackle way ahead of time.
After a visit to Michaels where I got 4 baskets for $20 on sale (the other 2 will be used for our guest book table and holding programs), and Target for all the stuff to go into the baskets ($153.96 before tax), I had everything I needed. Here's what went into the baskets:
Men's Bathroom Basket:
Mini travel lint roller
2 travel packs of Shout stain remover wipes
Trident mints
Orbits mints
2 Breathsavers mints
Orange Tic Tacs
Altoids smalls
Box of Kleenex (green)
Travel size Tums
Box of Bandaids
Neosporin To Go Spray
Travel pack of Q-Tips
Claritin
Excedrin Migraine
Halls
Travel Lotion
Travel Purel
Spray on Degree Antiperspirant
Women's Bathroom Basket:
Mini travel lint roller
2 travel packs of Shout stain remover wipes
Trident mints
Orbits mints
2 Breathsavers mints
Orange Tic Tacs
Altoids smalls
Box of Kleenex (purple)
Travel size Tums
Box of Bandaids
Neosporin To Go Spray
Travel pack of Q-Tips
Claritin
Excedrin Migraine
Halls
Travel Lotion
Travel Purel
Spray on Secret Antiperspirant
2 nail files
2 scented body mists
Hairspray
Bobby pins
Hair scrunchies
Brush and comb
Clear nail polish
Travel packs of pads and tampons
At first I was going to just stick everything in the baskets, but because of the uneven woven bottom, things didn't stay arranged very well.
So I made little dividers out of cardboard, and covered them with purple left over paper.
Then all that was left to do was to wrap the baskets in ribbon (I used a layer of purple satin on top of a layer of chocolate grosgrain), and make little signs saying "In Case You Forgot Something...."
So there you have it, bathroom baskets, ready to be boxed up until June! And, if there are any left overs, which there likely will be, most of this stuff will get used up by Mr. Cola and I, so overall, I think it was a good little investment, and will hopefully make some of our forgetful guests happy we thought of them.
Will you be doing bathroom baskets at your reception? What useful things did you decide to put in them?
(all pictures in this post were taken by me)
So, I'm not sure if putting disposable cameras on the reception tables is a dated trend or not. I never hear about anyone doing them on blogs anymore, but I still see the cheesy wedding decorated ones for sale online everywhere. Well, either way, I decided I wanted to do them! I'm also planning to ask everyone to upload their digital pictures for us, but I think enough of my family members still don't have digital cameras to warrant the disposable ones on the table. Plus, I've had some fun with them myself at weddings, and I'm hoping to get some interesting candids that we wouldn't get otherwise.
After making this decision though, I simply couldn't find a disposable wedding camera that I liked, and I didn't want to put ugly undecorated ones on my tables. So it was time for another DIY template!
I started by buying a 10 pack from Amazon of Fuji 400 speed cameras with the built in flash, for $34.75 before shipping, plus 1 extra camera from the drug store. We're hoping to have a total of 12 tables, and the head table doesn't need one, so 11 cameras should be just fine. Worst case we'll have 13 tables, and then the parent's table can sacrifice their camera!
After receiving my cameras, I carefully took the green cardboard sleeve off the camera, and taped it to my cutting mat, so I could photograph it with a reference to its dimensions.
Next, I opened the photo with Illustrator and resized it until it was to scale, with the inches on my cutting mat lined up with the ruler bar in the program, as shown in the purple circle below. You should be able to do this in Word, or any program that has a ruler bar.
I then traced the outline of the camera sleeve on top of the picture in Illustrator (see red lines below).
Next, I deleted the picture from Illustrator, leaving only the red outline of the sleeve, inserted my graphics, and printed the graphics on the front and the outline on the back (and be sure to make sure the printer doesn't scale it when you print, so the sleeve is the exact size you traced it).
I then just cut out the outline of the sleeve with scissors and used my x-acto knife to cut out the shapes in the middle.
Yup, I used the sexy wood grain paper for these too! I wanted to add another element in wood to the tables, and these cameras were the perfect opportunity. Then all that was left to do was glue them to the naked cameras. I used hair bands to hold them while they dried, which seemed to work well.
So there you have it, an easy way to make a template for custom camera sleeves, that will work with any type of disposable camera!
Will you be putting disposable cameras on your reception tables?
The second x-acto knife intensive project I recently completed was a sign that will go on the escort card table, showing guests where to find their table on the deck.
If you remember from my crazy PhotoShop post, the layout of our reception will look very much like this, with the escort card table on the grass next to the two level deck:
At the suggestion of our DOC, I not only will number our tables in order of table placement (not in order of who's more important and sitting at that table), but I also made a diagram to put on the table, so people can look at their table assignment, then look at the diagram to see where to find their table.
Similar to my Bride and Groom chair signs, I started by printing the inverse of all my shapes out on the back of the paper (all pics were taken by me):
Then I spent an entire afternoon using my x-acto knife to cut everything out:
I then glued the table numbers together, using a layer of green paper and an offset second layer of brown (printed on the green paper). These numbers match my table numbers that I finally decided on, and will share soon:
Next, the wood grain paper strips got glued together in layers, to create "steps" on the deck, and the numbers got glued to purple punched flowers, which got glued to the round tables:
Then everything except the tables were glued to the wood "decks" on a 10" x 8" sheet of purple, to show how the tables will be arranged. (And yes, that is the gorgeous paper that Miss Apple Cider used! I spent months looking for the right color of wood grain paper to incorporate into our plans, even toying with the idea of using thin veneer, until I found the answer, on Weddingbee, of course!). For the tables I used double sided tape to attach them to the deck, just in case we need to later add or delete a table for some reason.
You can see the layers and texture a little better from the side:
I then put it in a frame that matches the framed sign with our favor table, and it's done!
Do you plan to make a sign showing how the tables are laid out at your reception, to help guests locate their assigned table?
How do I wish I had a Cricut (or wasn't too lazy to go in to Mr. Cola's office to use the laser cutter!) after these projects I'll share over the next two days. The knuckle on my right index finger hates me after using the x-acto knife, it's still swollen and red!
First up, the Bride and Groom chair signs! Yet another unnecessary project, but it was fun to make (not for my knuckle), and I'm really digging working with our paper to tie everything together!
To start, I gathered my supplies, and printed out the inverse of "Bride" and "Groom" on the back of my butter cream cardstock (all pics in this post were taken by me):
Then painstakingly I cut out the words with my x-acto knife (I have no idea what I'll do with the cut out words, but am saving them for something now that I have them!):
Next I cut out green and purple paper to 5" x 8.5," punched the purple paper with the same punch that was used on our Paper Bag Luminaries, cut out and rounded the butter cream paper, and glued them all together:
I then punched four holes in each sign:
And thread two strings of ribbon through:
And then....well, that's it! Super easy (except the cutting out of the words)! This is what it will look like on the (nicer, less dirty) chairs at our reception, since we'll be facing our guests at the head table, the signs will only be seen when we're not in them.
Have you put your x-acto knife to good use with your wedding crafting?
Yet another craft idea I stole from the web! This was featured on Project Wedding, and I pretty much copied the text from this version.
It's a sign to hang on our hotel suite door knob, which will serve to 1) let people know which room is ours for the after party and 2) double as a Do Not Disturb sign. It was really easy, and probably a frivolous, unnecessary project that I wouldn't have bothered with if I didn't have so much time still before the wedding. But that's the beauty of planning early, I have time for fun and silly additions!
Here is a close shot of the front:
And the back:
All the purple and green paper and the ribbon are leftovers from our STDs, so this project was basically free. The purple card stock is cut to 5.25 x 8.5, the green is cut to 4.55 x 7.8, and the white (a sample from LCI) is 4.25 x 7.5. Add a couple hole punches at the top, thread the ribbon through and tie, and you're done!
Will you be doing any cute and fun, but unnecessary projects for your wedding?
Alright, alright, I know I've made you wait long enough. Without further ado, here is the fully assembled cupcake stand!
Isn't it about the most awesome thing you've ever seen? Can you just imagine all the yummy cupcakes that will adorn the stand (9 dozen regular and 18 dozen minis, plus a jumbo one on the top shelf, as laid out in this post), and the flowers at each corner, plus the pretty lavender satin ribbon I will add later to the edge of each shelf? I think with some flowers on each of the four corners of each shelf and the lavender ribbon it will be decorated enough, since I don't want to detract from the pretty cupcake designs (we'll have brightly colored, intricate frosting designs from Sibby's Cupcakery, but more on those details later).
Must needed shots taken from lying on the floor and then standing on the bed:
So, now that you've seen it, here are some more details on how we made this bad boy. Let's start with the dimensions. Here is the breakdown, with the top shelf being 6" x 6" and the bottom shelf being 38" x 38". There's 6" between each of the shelves, but we cut the center support boxes to 6.5", to allow for the quarter inch high tabs on each end that fit into the 'L' notch in the shelves, which holds it all together.
Now, for the price tag. Here are the supplies we bought and the cost of each.
6 sheets of 4' x 8' MDF wood: $131.70
Cutting charges to fit it in our car: $8.00
3 1/4" x 3' dowels for pegs: $1.17
3 Drydex putty/spackling: $11.07
17 Semi-Gloss white spray paint: $58.72
Wood glue, large: $8.29
Hand sandpaper holder: $4.95
Sand paper: $3.58
Sand paper for electric sander: $2.69
10' x 12' painting tarp: $8.49
Grand total: $238.66 before tax
All in all, we spent about 9 hours each day of our three day Labor Day weekend, plus about 8 hours on the following Saturday to build this. And it was totally worth it!
I was so sad to have to take the stand down, carefully wrap it in garbage bags, and store the shelves safely under the bed in our 3rd bedroom. We'll take it out and set it up again about a month before the wedding, just to make sure nothing has warped, and I'll put the lavender ribbon around the edge of the shelves with double sided tape then.
Would you consider building a cupcake stand for yourself, or would you opt to go with the cardboard versions, or maybe just use what your baker provides?
On day three of this project we did a LOT of sanding, puttying and painting. The first step after everything was glued was to sand the edges to remove some of the black singed wood that is a product of the laser cutter. Paint and putty won't stick as well to the singed parts.
I then started puttying, here are my supplies, putty, the wood and a scrapper (which I didn't end up using, my finger worked best).
Look how pretty and pink the putty was! When it was dry it turned white, but it made me happy to put it on in the bubblegum pink color.
I puttied down the sides of the center support boxes, covering all the cracks where the pieces of wood met with a thick layer.
I also had to putty all the peg holes in the shelves, as well as the seams and the edges.
It almost looked like sloppy pink frosting on the edges!
After the putty dried and was sanded down flush with the wood, I could finally start painting. This is what we used, and it covered very well with only three coats.
Waiting for paint to dry in the parking lot at Mr. Cola's office, very exciting!
We used A LOT of paint!
A close up of one of the fully painted center support boxes (this center support suffered the only mishap of the project, two of the 'L' notches are kind of messed up. It was my fault, I wasn't careful enough when pulling the shelf off of it; since everything is cut to fit with laser precision, if you don't pull straight up, CRACK! But it's going to be hidden, and structurally doesn't matter very much, so we decided not to redo it.):
While I was killing my back by bending over and painting for hours, Mr. Cola was finishing up the bottom support box inside.
The bottom support box and the bottom shelf had to dry overnight, so it wasn't until day 4 that we got to putty and paint them.
Up next, we assemble the finished cupcake stand, and I'll share the cost breakdown and more detailed specs. I know you can't wait to see what this monster looks like all put together!
Did you, or do you plan to do any woodworking or painting with your DIY wedding projects?
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