DIY Corsage

So I've asked 8 ladies to serve as hostesses on my big day. One is a friend that I met through work and grown close to over the years. The others are my buddies from college. Though we are spread out over the South, we have been thick as thieves through the years. And since we tend to travel in packs of 7 so we nicknamed ourselves the "The Septuplets" or the "The Tuplets" for short.

At any rate, each of these ladies has relentlessly teased me about my aversion to over-arching DIY projects involving feathers and sequins...so when it came time to order their corsages, I knew that an ordinary flower just would NOT do! At first, I toyed with a sassy wrist corsage but thought those would not make it past the Prelude. Plus, they would only shrivel up and die double plus, those things are PRICEY!

Belatedly, I enlisted some help for an Etsy search. But by the time I was ready to pull the trigger, my shipping window was busted. I searched The Hob and my home away from home, Michael's, for feathers, sequins and whatnots but came up empty handed. I was beginning to get frustrated! I really, really, really wanted some grey feathers and NONE could be found. I thought about buying a boa and pulling feathers off of it...but that seemed like a waste. I even had trouble find a reasonably priced decent bunch of pink flowers for my base.

But I lucked up on a trip to old faithful, The Dollar Tree. So with flower bunch, sparklies and glue gun in hand, this:

Became these:

These are still wanting for some over the top embellishment that I hope to find over the next two days. But it's a start. I'm hoping the girls will get a lifetime of jokes outta these!

Introducing....The Escort Board!

Well, that's what Michael's calls it! was looking for a stylish but easy to read option for displaying our placecards. On one of my MANY trips to Michael's s, I happened upon the "Wedding Project" display. You know that little flip-picture-binder thingee that can lull you into thinking that you can DIY every LAST detail of your wedding day? Yep, that one.

At any rate, I happened upon this jewel and said, "Self, now that's some DIY we can get behind!"

To macth my color scheme, I used a silver satin material from JoAnn's (super cheap), a broad navy ribbon with a skinny pink ribbon (both from The Hob) overlay. To make it easier to navigate, I glued the pink ribbon on to the blue. Else, I woulda needed another set of hands and those are generally in short supply at 4 AM!

I affixed all of this to a piece of foam poster board. To hide the backside construction, I centered a plain piece of white posterboard to the back. Everything was tacked on using packing tape. The instructions said to staple it but I could not get my head around how doing so wouldn't leave small punctures in the facing fabric. So I opted for the tape. I'm pretty anal so I felt confident eye-balling the spacing. The bottom row is drooping a bit in the pic but I have since tacked the blue ribbon onto the silver backing with a smidge of glue.

I also opted to run it horizontally because I'm sitting this on a knee wall. Running it vertically may have put the top rows out of reach for some of my vertically challenged guests. A verticaly run would have been fine for a table-side setup.

But enough yakking....

The hostesses will slide the placecards in between the ribbon so that the pink ribbon holds them in place. I have 7 rows which should be plenty to hold my ~130 cards.

Out of the ashes arose...

A Card Box!!!

Yeah, that's a little dramatic but this project was almost a basket as in, "I'm just gonna throw a basket on the gift table and call it a day!" But DC2 would have NONE of that! She'd already gifted me the cardboard boxes that went unused for her big day (she opted for round boxes) and the "H" was already spray painted (NO returns!). So it was time to get CRAFTY!!!

First, CTE pitched in and painted the boxes:

The smaller box had a grapevine imprint on it. Since that did not go with our theme, I needed to cover it up with a strip of wide blue ribbon (see above). That hid the vine action but looked really plain. So I topped it with a skinny pink ribbon and repeated the same on the larger box.

On one of our marathon Michael's run, DC2 & I had picked up some wooden letters to spell out "Hawkins". So I layed those out on a strip of blue painters tape and painted them "fuchsia". Don't believe me? Here it is:

Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me but this "fuchsia" looks more like "pepto bismol" pink to me...

Oh well! It's on there now (If I have time, I'll see if I can find a true "fuchsia" and paint it again but I AM NOT gonna worry about it)! Since I had a ton left over from the Table # project, I added the sparkly doodads to the corners.

Next up was the dreaded "H". I said dreaded because I initially wanted to cover it with our Engagement pics. But my initial project plan was thrown off when I printed the pictures vertically instead of horizontally. Plus, it turned out that I did not have enough unique shots to cover the whole thing. Double plus, I had underestimated navigating those corners! Though I fancy myself a crafty DIYer, this was only my second time popping open a jar of Modge Podge (MP) and I kept second guessing my plan. Triple plus, the dang price tag left a rough spot when I removed it. I probably wasted a good 2 weeks fretting about how I could cover that up - ribbon, spackle, sand it, start over, trash the "H"???

SO I kept procastinating about starting it...Even today, I left it to the end! But DC2 has been on TOP of my task list (that's another post) so T.H.A.N.K.S. to her, I can proudly say that I FORGED AHEAD!!!

First, I laid out the pics using blue painters tape. I left a little edge around each so the underlying silver could "frame" each image. Once I had a good layout, I cracked open the MP and went for it! Once the pics were in place, I went back to my overflowing stash of sparkly doodads (already open so again NO returns) and glued a row down each side. I have to say that after all that hemhawing around, this wasn't NEARLY as hard as I'd drummed up in my head. And, if I may so myself, turned out pretty darn good!

I haven't yet cut a hole in the box. I'm going to consult an expert (DC2) in the matter before I do. But I've done enought to o-fficially cross this off my "To Do" list! I am pleased with the final result. I am especially tickled that I managed to get her done WHILE writing a blog post about it!

DC2 - I hope you're proud of me!!!