little extras - waste of money or totally worth it?

i dont really know where to begin the recaps so i thought i would start small and talk about some of the little details while we await the professional photographs...

favors and escort cards were some of the details we included in our wedding that some cautioned were a waste of money - they would be left on tables and we would have a stock pile of wedding extras to deal with once we returned from the honeymoon. lucky for us this was not the case.

maybe it was knowing our audience? maybe it was how we incorporated the items into the overall vibe of the event? i dunno but we were thrilled that everyone took home the cd's we painstakingly* created and the keys we designated as escort cards. (in fact, we were a little disappointed because we were hoping to have some left over to hang on to as mementos ourselves.)

we have heard countless times, via phone, text and facebook since the wedding that our guests are listening to the cd we created on repeat in their cars re-living the weekend. how could we not smile proudly? even my mom who doesn't always compliment took the time to tell me yesterday that she knows it by heart now, that she loves how it tells the story of our relationship, and that she thinks i should start a business making wedding cd's for people ( not fully understanding that part of why it was a success is because it was so honestly us, but hey...)

on our way home from hawaii we stopped over in LA for a few days to see friends and family before returning to reality and we saw 3 keys in seperate households on display, and were told by one amazing guest how she already went out to find the perfect chain to turn her key into a new necklace. how cool is that?

in short i hope you can see that for us, it was worth it. i can understand that it might not be for everyone. whether it be money or time (because lets face it, if you dont have one you are going to make up for it with plenty of the other) i for one love to throw myself into a crafty project - and as the wedding approached i found comfort in the distractions that they provided. the fact that our guests responded so well was what we hoped for but with something creative you never really do know do you?

* the cds were a true labor of love, from hunting for vendors to supply the raw materials i envisioned, to the learning curve that came with teaching myself to silkscreen, to the monotonous labor involved in folding and glueing the cases. even stamping the thank you tags and donation info was a project but i was lucky to have a partner in crime ready to lend a hand and spend an evening in front of the tv with a bottle of wine and a bottle of rubber cement.

no cost recycled out of town bags

ok, let me preface this post by saying - i've been unemployed for a long long time now. so long i passed stir crazy weeks ago and have just today moved into the "act like an insane person when your fiance goes to work because you can't stand another day of nothing to do" phase. after apologizing for above referenced behavior i decided that today i was going to put on some records, finish a little gift i've been thinking about for a while and take a stab at making my own paper bags for no other reason than i needed a task to keep me busy.

since we have such a large number of guests flying in from California, Wisconsin, and well all over the world (Dublin and New Zealand!), we've made an effort to take good care of them in exchange for them spending their hard earned cash on attending our wedding. we've transformed the traditional rehearsal dinner into an out-of-towners feast and we want to provide our guests with at least a little something in their rooms to make them smile when they land if possible.

the thing is, the out of town bags keep moving down the priority list and the financial allotment list. what started as a dream to make fabulous one of a kind silk screened cloth bags started to look much more like a packet of useful info, a bottle of water, and a map.

somewhere in my online or design school classes someone mentioned making bags out of newspapers and i've been thinking about it ever since. mostly thinking about it in ways like -man i'd be insane to make 50 bags by hand... seems like a lot of effort to save a measly couple of bucks... people are just gonna throw them away... it's not greener than buying new if i buy bags made with recycled paper...who has the time for that really?

well today i came to terms with the fact that i have the time. so i took an old LA Weekly out of my stack of newspapers and magazines that i use for art projects and gave it a whirl. i watched a couple of different online tutorials and ended up using a hybrid of sorts using only the papers and two pieces of tape each.

i love the way they came out. i love that some have bright crazy bansky graffiti art on them while others have concert listings, one even has a huge flight of the concords poster on it, i just love them. the best part is, the LA Weekly was free to begin with and something i had and intended to use for art projects of some sort. it's a perfect size and i made about 15 double ply bags out of one paper. i'll be using the boston pheonix to finish out the lot i think...

aren't they cute? i really don't think i'll ever buy a gift bag ever again. are any of you interested in a how to??

crafty goodness

i've been a bad updater lately i know...but i have been a very good crafter. ( i kinda hate the term DIY kinda like STD i dunno why? but anyway...)

in addition to settling on a playlist and burning cd's for favors (with mikey's help of course) I've been making trolley tickets, designing cd covers, and welcome packets with important times and directions for our out of town guests - i've been playing around and making some of the fun stuff.

i've aged the key tags (stained with one morning's left over coffee) for our seating cards so that i was able to add names as the rsvp's came in. they were just a little too crisp and clean as they were...

after searching for a cheap collection of vintage slate chalk boards for table numbers without too much luck i found these cheap little wood frames at michael's (like 59 cents) that were actually a better size to not overpower our water pitcher centerpieces as well. so i got myself some chalkboard paint and stain to age a bit and made my own...

i'm not sure if i've ever mentioned this to you guys before, but our old landlord bequeathed the mother load of old ball jars, milk jars, and old medicine bottles to mike and i before she sold her house, she even gave them to us in a stack of amazing old wooden wine and milk crates. needless to say they will be a part of our decor. we decided to make a bunch of the old jars into candles (fearing that tea lights might not last all night and not wanting to mess with rocks or sand or any of that stuff to hold up the mini pillar candles) and the rest will be used as extra vases for the bars, cake table, gift table etc...

with the help of my mother and sister we made almost 70 candles for the price of the bulk wax (and the hours of pouring and patience needed to tie off wicks without pulling of the bottom)

i have to admit some of the jars are so cool i couldn't bring myself to make candles out of them at first, but then i had a pep talk with myself, they've been sitting in our basement for well over a year, if we didn't use them for our wedding would they just sit there forever? i decided it was a good life for the pretties...and the really really fragile looking ones (or the ones that had formed bubbles in the glass) i saved to use as vases instead.

so things are trucking along, and it feels really good to have these crafts done and in boxes ready for transport rather than hanging out on the to-do list.