Knot-tying Ceremony Cords
or (if you're religious) Handfasting cords
When we first met with our officiant, she had suggested a few unique, less used ceremonies that included a knot-tying ceremony. For more information, check out my entry Knot-tying Ceremony vs. Handfasting.
First, I started out using two contrasting colors of satin cord (aka. "rattail" cord.) You can find this in the ribbon section in Joann fabrics and possibly in that section of Hobby Lobby but don't waste your time looking at Michaels.
Using 4 satin cords, 2 of each color, I braided them using a 4 strand braiding technique. I tied one end to a key-ring while I braided and then tied off the end when I was finished. I removed the key-ring before adding my bead-work. The cord shown is my favorite. The charms are two fairy wishing doors. You write a wish on a small piece of paper and close the paper behind the door.
Simple and only takes about 3 hours to make each cord. I've seen handfasting cords made with 6 satin cords, and they look really nice, but I wanted the flat look that I got with the braid that I used.
The pictures are crappy because I used my cell-phone camera and it's a gray day in good old Washington. Sorry for the bad quality pics.
New Garters - Keepsake and Toss
I made new garters - keepsake and toss. I didn't like the garter I made a year ago. DIY instructions for a s/m garter - sew 24 inches of lace to 24in of ribbon. Sew ribbon and lace to 12 inches of 1/4 in. width elastic, making sure to gather stitch the lace to the elastic. Turn right sides together and sew the elastic and lace together, about 1/8-1/4 of an inch seam. Turn right side out and decorate with your desired embellishments. Voila!
Petticoat!
I'm pretty proud of this one. It's the first large item sewing project that I've done that wasn't either a quilt (I've made one and it sucked) or a ren fest costume (which I've done a fair few in the past 12 years.) I am not going to write a step-by-step of this because I cheated and used a pattern. This is going under my wedding gown and I plan on possibly using it again (ren fest?) so I didn't want to wing it. This one was Simplicity #5006. It cost me about $70 to make, not the least expensive thing to make but it was fun and is something that I created for myself. You can buy them for less than that. If you decide to make your own, I highly suggest using coupons as this was $70 for me with coupons. Also, you can choose different kinds/quality of fabric to save money.
It has a bit of a bustle-like poof at the back end but that was something I did. It's not actually part of the pattern. It's simple to do, just gather the fabric more towards the back and keep the front pleats fewer.
Wedding Favor and Place Card in One
or (if you're religious) Handfasting cords
When we first met with our officiant, she had suggested a few unique, less used ceremonies that included a knot-tying ceremony. For more information, check out my entry Knot-tying Ceremony vs. Handfasting.
First, I started out using two contrasting colors of satin cord (aka. "rattail" cord.) You can find this in the ribbon section in Joann fabrics and possibly in that section of Hobby Lobby but don't waste your time looking at Michaels.
Using 4 satin cords, 2 of each color, I braided them using a 4 strand braiding technique. I tied one end to a key-ring while I braided and then tied off the end when I was finished. I removed the key-ring before adding my bead-work. The cord shown is my favorite. The charms are two fairy wishing doors. You write a wish on a small piece of paper and close the paper behind the door.
Simple and only takes about 3 hours to make each cord. I've seen handfasting cords made with 6 satin cords, and they look really nice, but I wanted the flat look that I got with the braid that I used.
The pictures are crappy because I used my cell-phone camera and it's a gray day in good old Washington. Sorry for the bad quality pics.
New Garters - Keepsake and Toss
I made new garters - keepsake and toss. I didn't like the garter I made a year ago. DIY instructions for a s/m garter - sew 24 inches of lace to 24in of ribbon. Sew ribbon and lace to 12 inches of 1/4 in. width elastic, making sure to gather stitch the lace to the elastic. Turn right sides together and sew the elastic and lace together, about 1/8-1/4 of an inch seam. Turn right side out and decorate with your desired embellishments. Voila!
Petticoat!
I'm pretty proud of this one. It's the first large item sewing project that I've done that wasn't either a quilt (I've made one and it sucked) or a ren fest costume (which I've done a fair few in the past 12 years.) I am not going to write a step-by-step of this because I cheated and used a pattern. This is going under my wedding gown and I plan on possibly using it again (ren fest?) so I didn't want to wing it. This one was Simplicity #5006. It cost me about $70 to make, not the least expensive thing to make but it was fun and is something that I created for myself. You can buy them for less than that. If you decide to make your own, I highly suggest using coupons as this was $70 for me with coupons. Also, you can choose different kinds/quality of fabric to save money.
It has a bit of a bustle-like poof at the back end but that was something I did. It's not actually part of the pattern. It's simple to do, just gather the fabric more towards the back and keep the front pleats fewer.
Wedding Favor and Place Card in One
By: Me
We're having around 160 guests so that is how many I am making. This serves a double purpose. 1. It is our seating cards per person for the tables and 2. It's our wedding favor. We decided to do this wedding favor because a good portion of favors get left behind. I would advise against wedding favors that aren't edible or small like this particularly for that reason. Any hearts that are left behind we can plant in our garden so they won't be wasted.
Expect to spend at least a total of 5 hours making the seed paper, coming up with and printing the place cards, and pasting the seed paper shapes onto the place cards.
Need:
Seating cards
*Card stock
*utility knife (for scoring card stock so we can turn them into “tents”)
*Printer and ink
*calligraphy pen (we'll be writing in the names of the people by hand)
Seed Paper
*stencil or cookie cutter
*a large seed packet of your choice (we used a perennial mix)
*construction paper the color of your choice (ours: red, black, and white – separately, not all mixed together )
*water
*blender dedicated for paper-making only (all paper has toxic chemicals)
*Mesh screen and frame (window screen works and if you are doing small enough pieces of seed paper, it doesn't matter if it's a bit saggy. I used the top of a leopard terrarium that Andy made for our gecko when he was still a baby)
*paper towels
*drying racks
*radiator or heating vent, fan, hairdryer or sunlight (I used a fan and then the radiator in our dining room)
*something to stir the seeds into the paper pulp – I used a cheap chopstick that you get at Chinese food places
Other:
*What you want the front of each card to say
*Instructions for planting the seed paper (will be “inside” the tent)
Seed Paper:
Gather and set up all of your materials.
- Tear the pieces of paper into chunks.
- Toss the pieces of paper in the blender with about 3 cups of water. I used 8 pieces of red construction paper and I have a crappy blender so I needed the paper to be fairly saturated before it would blend well. It also required some stirring with the chopstick while the blender was running to stir it all up. This was more of a hassle than it needed to be so make sure your blender is a decent one. It doesn't have to be expensive, just make sure it runs smoothly.
- After you have the paper pulped well, pour it out into a container and add the seeds. Do not blend the seeds because you risk chopping them up and it's simple enough to stir them in with your chopstick.
- Place your mesh screen either over a sink or over a table that has newspaper or paper towels spread under the screen. I chose to use the table after I found out that doing it in the tub hurt my back and my sink wouldn't allow the screen frame to sit nicely and ended up dumping my hearts around. The mix will be watery, both in the dish and in the paper itself.
- My cookie cutter was about a half an inch to an inch large so I took about a marble-sized amount of the seed paper, squeezed most of the water out with my hands, then crammed it into the cookie cutter.
- I put the cookie cutter on the mesh, pressed the paper into the mold with the end of the chopstick to make it fit as well as to help push out as much of the water as I could. I did this until I had the desired amount of hearts that I needed for my place cards.
- After all the hearts were in place, I put a fan over my tub and set the mesh screen on top of it so that the air would help them dry out a bit faster. After about 2 hours, I switched it to the radiator and allowed it to dry overnight. In the morning, they were all dry. They reminded me of the marshmellows in Lucky Charms.
Place Cards:
- Come up with what you want to say. On the inside are printing instructions and on the outside is the quote “In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities” along with a line for the name, table number, and a space to write the table number. Design your layout and print it on the cardstock. (Mine has a typo but after printing out 120 of these cards, I wasn't about to start over. It says flower instead of heart.)
- Cut out the place cards and score the middle of each one so that they fold nicely.
- Paste the seed paper to the corner of the place card.
- Write the name of the person and their dedicated table on each card.
- After the seed paper has been pasted on and the paste has dried, you can fold the cards into tents if you want or leave them flat. Either way, put them in a box when you are done so that they stay nice.
And there you have it. Have fun and good luck!
Make Your Own Bridal Garter
By: Me
Note: If any pictures don't load completely, just click on them and it'll open the pic up for you.When I was looking online for bridal accessories, I came across garter sets (as is inevitable when you are browsing through page after page of bridal apparel.) Good quality garters are ridiculously expensive!!! So, I decided to make my own. I'm not a seamstress by far but I have made a good many renaissance festival costumes so a garter should be easy. And you know what? It is! If you have any amount of sewing skills at all - meaning that you know how to sew two things together in a straight line - you can make your own garters at a very reasonable price. I spent a grand total of $8.00 to make both my keepsake garter and my toss garter. I bought ribbon, feathers, lace, thread, and charms from Joann's. The average price for one keepsake garter is around $25.00 and can be as expensive as $40.00 for a keepsake/toss set. It's an unnecessary expense.
2. Do the same for the other lace ribbon across from the other piece of lace.
Wrong/inside
What you'll need:
2 twenty-four inch pieces of double-sided ribbon of your color choice. I used 1.5in width, red ribbon.
2 twenty-four inch lace ribbon (the design of your choice)
15 inches of 3/4in width elastic
thread and needle
sewing machine
embellishments (charms, bows, feathers, etc.)
hot glue
hot glue gun
safety pin
1. Take your first piece of ribbon and tack a piece of lace 1/4 inch in on one side. Make sure to back stitch the top and bottom.
2. Do the same for the other lace ribbon across from the other piece of lace.
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| Right/outside |
3. Stitch the other ribbon on top of the finished lace and ribbon piece, making sure that the lace is on the inside. We will not be turning this inside out. Instead, flip it over so you can see the initial stitches on the "right" or outside of the ribbon. You'll be sewing over the initial stitches. When finished, they'll form a tube.
4. Attach the safety pin on one end of the elastic and thread it through the tube, making sure to hold on to the other end of the elastic.
5. Tack one end of the elastic to the other, forming the garter.
6. Placing both ends together, sew down the middle, completing the garter. Straiten out the fabric until it is ruched the way you like it.
7. Decorate it the way you desire. I have not gotten to this part yet but when I do, if I have any more tips and tricks, I'll put them here.
6 hours later...
Well, tying the bow was a pain in the butt. I tried to do a series of different bows and finally just ended up doing a standard bow. I added a black feather and a key charm, hot gluing them to the garter. Voila!
I made a test garter and it did NOT work well. Use ribbon instead of folded over cloth. When the cloth is hemmed as if you were hemming the bottom of a shirt, it becomes too stiff and won't allow the fabric to ruche like it needs to. This is a photo of our cats "wearing" the prototype garter. Enjoy.
* * *
6 hours later...
Well, tying the bow was a pain in the butt. I tried to do a series of different bows and finally just ended up doing a standard bow. I added a black feather and a key charm, hot gluing them to the garter. Voila!
I made a test garter and it did NOT work well. Use ribbon instead of folded over cloth. When the cloth is hemmed as if you were hemming the bottom of a shirt, it becomes too stiff and won't allow the fabric to ruche like it needs to. This is a photo of our cats "wearing" the prototype garter. Enjoy.
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| Bradley with a beautiful red ribbon and white lace collar. |
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| Keeley and her very lovely girdle! |
Other links
www.save-on-crafts.com A website that has crafting supplies for reasonable prices.
This is such an awesome idea. It wouldn't go with our theme but I love this idea so much that I am adding it here. I got this DIY project from projectwedding.com.
