Category Archives: Make

pocket square perfection

I have been searching for pocket squares for weeks. I knew I wanted a variety of patterns. I knew I was going to sew a little something on them. I found these squares at Hugh & Crye. I really liked the fun patterns, and the great price, so I snatched up a bunch of them.

I wanted to make them a gift for the men in the wedding. I cut out some little hearts, and sewed them into the corner of each square. What was once just a pocket square is now a special gift, because I put a little heart into it. (get it??)

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making invites

So real talk: It took me a very long time to make our wedding invites. Now, I did choose something crazy, and I totally knew what I was getting into, but there were times when I thought that they I wouldn’t be done until after we were already married. They kept me up at night. I thought about them all day. But even though they haunted my dreams, I loved making them. The guy would leave me sweet little notes of encouragement on top of my supplies. They gave my hands something to do instead of worrying about weddings and stuff. I was a little sad when I finished them, because the time in my life when I made our wedding invitations in my every spare moment was now over. So here is a little photo timeline of our wedding invites in the making.

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our save the dates

Things I learned about save the dates:

1. If you have an idea in your head of what you want, just go for it.

2. If you make them yourself, something will probably go wrong, and you should just remember that it would be a boring story if everything went perfect.

3. Sometimes it is cheaper to make something yourself, but you have to be willing to spend more time.

4. No matter how soon you send them out, you are already late (fashionably).

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Basically, I searched the internet for over a month looking for save the dates that caught my eye. While there are gorgeous options out there, I really wanted something that was “us” (don’t we all).

Anyway, I doodle a lot at work to keep my hands busy, and one day, my doodles reminded me of the middle school notebook when you doodle a cute boy’s name all over it. I thought that might be a cute idea for a save the date.

So we spent an evening making little drawings and doodles. I spent about one movie making all the doodles into tiny pictures on the computer. We bought paper and envelopes from Paper Source, and some washi tape from various Etsy stores. We got into a big fight with our printer. We won. We mailed them only 5 months in advance, and no one freaked out too badly. And this was one of my most favorite art projects of all time.

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bridesmaid cards

1. I like sewing on paper. 2. I haven’t sewed on paper in a while.

And that is how the idea of these cards came to be. I sewed the little card pockets together, then added the middle insert. I like the extra element of suspense and surprise. And in case you were nervous, they all said yes.

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And the quote is from Bridesmaids, of course.

resourcefulness

Have you ever played with mural.ly? It is designed for online visual collaborations. I used it once a few months ago, and when I was trying to imagine wedding colors, it came to my mind again. The guy can’t imagine colors quite as easily as I can, so I wanted to make something visual that he could play around with.

I started by taking screenshots of individual color swatches. I used the cute heart swatches from here. I added them into a mural.ly board, and then started mixing and matching! It made it super easy to move colors around and try different combinations, compare the “feel” of each palette, and it was much easier for the guy to see what I was talking about.

I don’t know if the people at mural.ly envisioned the tool being used for wedding planning, but I could definitely see myself narrowing down my wedding pinterest board into one mood board to share with the guy for inspiration!

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flowers and dump trucks

I am lucky that I babysit two of the cutest kids in the world. I have known them since they were born, so it has been a treat to watch them grow into tiny 4-year-old and 2-year-old people.

Little Miss Zoe was a no-brainer here, since she loves pink and girly things, which is perfect for a flower girl. She already thinks she gets to be a princess in the wedding.flower girl

But Noah was a bit of a thinker. There are no good ring-bearer things, since weddings are a little girly anyway, and two-year-old boys like cars and throwing things. So I came up with a little dump truck, and went with the “carry” theme. Get it???ring bearer truck