31 Days of Happily Ever After – Day 23 – Back to the Wine Bottles

It’s been more than a few days, but we’re back to the wine bottles we used in the wedding centerpieces. I talked about preparation of the bottles and getting started on decorating them here.

Each wine bottle was different, and there were lots of positive comments and compliments on all of them. Several people asked to take one home. There are a few I want to keep, and some specifically for Jess and Scott, but we are more than happy to share the rest of them. That’s the ultimate compliment, to be asked to share. The ballroom manager was interested in them and told me that in the 20 years he’d been there, no one had ever used wine bottles with candles for their centerpieces. I don’t think he was complimenting or criticizing, he just was interested.

Like I said in my previous post (linked above), I started out by wrapping twine around the neck of most of the bottles. The original idea was print song lyric quotes on tags and attach to each bottle. We did that to several, and they looked great. Jess was given a couple of old keys, so we tied those on a few of them. This instagram photo was taken by one of the groom’s best friends from high school. She took this one home, and raved about them on Facebook.

 

Jess had also started collecting vintage brooches, thinking maybe she wanted to make a brooch bouquet to carry instead of fresh flowers. After starting this project, I was in the antique mall/flea market, and found a very pretty vintage brooch. When I got home, I just pinned it to the twine on a wine bottle so I would remember to show it to her. That was the beginning of adding brooches to them. The photo is small, but I circled the brooch. It’s my favorite one.

You can see that we also etched some of the bottles with designs. Some have the monogram Jess chose to use on her invitations, others have just random curly-q’s  or flowers. I cut borders from contact paper using my Cricut, then used etching cream from Hobby Lobby. It’s really an easy project.

Lastly, we used the burlap rosettes we made, just wrapping twine around the middle of the bottle and using hot glue to attach the rosette.

These were a relatively easy and inexpensive project for the centerpieces, and seemed to be a big hit at the wedding. I can’t wait to see the photographer’s pictures of them -  they were really excited about all the handmade touches we had.

 

The Nester's 31 Day Series

 

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 14 – Back to the Burlap

A few posts back I told you there were a dozen burlap rosettes. I used one on the card box, four for the junior bridesmaids’ dresses (photos to come after the wedding), and there were seven left. We opted to use those on some of the wine bottles and they turned out great!

We added small jeweled buttons to some, a pearl, and a broken dragonfly pin to others. The one on the right in the second row from the top is actually part of an earring that belonged to my grandmother.

We like the look so much I’m going to add a pearl to the rest of them for the junior bridesmaids and on the card box.

Here’s what they look like on the wine bottles. You can’t really see in this photo, but the bottles were first wrapped with twine around the center section of the body.

These are a bit “bolder” than the other wine bottles we decorated, but I think they’ll look great in those centerpieces.

 

The Nester’s 31 Day Series

 

 

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 9 – Hanging Them Up

Sorry for my tardiness in posting today. Yesterday got away from me, and today was the last full day Jess and I had together to finish up wedding details. We crafted for six straight hours, and I’m probably parked at the dining room table again tomorrow for most of the day. I feel pretty good about where we are, though, and if we had to have the wedding with no more preparation, we’d be okay. Now, on to today’s post:

Last June, Jessica was a bridesmaid in her cousin Sara’s wedding. One of the gifts the bride gave her girls was a personalized clothes hanger for their dress. Jess loved it and wanted to do the same for her maids. We started looking on Etsy, where Sara told us she ordered her hangers.

Counting bridesmaids, junior bridesmaids, and Jess, we needed ten names. Prices on Etsy ranged between $8 and $25 for completed hangers, and even the least expensive was out of our budget for the quantity required. I found a site that sells just the wire names, and we picked up some wooden hangers at the local WM store. Our cost per hanger was $5.50 and a little bit of our time.

I didn’t get a photo of the hangers as they came from the store, but they had a wooden rod on the bottom that was just tacked on. Those rods popped right off the hanger, and after we pulled out the little brad that had held them on, Greg had a perfect marker for drilling. We had him drill shallow holes to fit the ends of the wires in, and Jess trimmed each name, then trimmed the wire to length, and hot glued the wire in the holes.

They came out really nice and Jess was happy with the heavy wire used and how well it kept it’s shape as she handled each of them. I have to give kudos to Kitty and Kevin for such a good quality product, and their service was fast and friendly.

The hanger Jess got from Sara had a pretty green ribbon bow tied onto it (I don’t have a photo…) and Jess liked how that dressed it up. She decided to make some small burlap rosettes to glue on, and added a little pearl to the center. Then we tied on a brown satin ribbon bow, and they are finished.

The Nester’s 31 Day Series

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 7 – The Card Box

A favorite piece of mine for this wedding is the card box for the gift table.  This was a very simple and inexpensive project. We used a brown kraft “paper mache” box from Hobby Lobby that was 50% off, so I think it was $3 or $4.
My husband cut the slot in the top using a utility knife. Then I wrapped the lid and around the box with burlap ribbon and satin ribbon. Again with the Hobby Lobby, but that’s where we got pretty much all of our wedding crafting supplies.

It’s topped with a  homemade burlap rosette and a small banner in front.
The banner used small canvas triangles with grommets purchased at Hobby Lobby, some small diameter twine, and letters cut from brown vinyl using my Cricut.  You can see how I tied knots between the letters to keep them put, but ended up putting a dot of hot glue behind each triangle so they’d hang straight.




We didn’t glue the top onto the box, but I will rubberband it all together before we transport it home, just to be sure it doesn’t pop open and spill out the contents.

It was a simple and very inexpensive project. We looked on Etsy and these were priced between $25-35 + shipping. I think we have about $6 in it.
This is one of the eight burlap rosettes left of the dozen I made. The other seven have been used in one of my favorite projects for this celebration and I’m anxious to show those to you this next week!
The Nester 31 Day Series

 

31 Days to Happily Ever After – Day 6 – Burlap Rosettes

One of the rustic elements in my daughter’s “rustic elegance” theme for her wedding is the use of burlap. While we’re trying not to make it look like the ballroom is bathed in burlap, we’ve used it in several places, all of which I’ll show you here over these 31 days. The first project I’m showing you is the burlap rosette, made originally to replace the white silk flowers on the flower girl dresses.

 

I looked at a few tutorials for making burlap flowers, and settled on the rosette since it did not involve lots of raveling and messy strings. Click here to see the tutorial I based my rosettes on, though I didn’t pin anything down, just hot glued as I went. Then I flipped it over and glued a circle of felt to the back. These are fairly large, about 4” or so across. I found them really simple to make, just twisting and gluing the burlap strip in a circle.

 

I made a dozen rosettes, and put pin backs on the four needed for the dresses. The remaining eight have been used in other projects, and those will be posted in the next few days.

 

Two weeks from today is the BIG DAY. It will all get done and what’s not done by that day, doesn’t have to be (this is what I’m telling myself so I won’t stress out).