Wedding craftings

So, the last couple weeks - rather, the last several months - I have been very distracted helping put together my sister's wedding.  I bound five books for her - four small journals and a guest book, put together some flower pens to go with her guest book, helped her fiance - now husband - make a cool ceramic pitcher as a bride's gift, and put together a bachelorette lingerie party which ended up being full of crafting projects.  It was a lot of fun.  I wasn't planning to craft so much for the bachelorette party, but I got really tired of spending money and had a lot of crafting stuff I could use already.

First up... homemade straws!  I got this idea from the website Look At What I Made.  I was able to use all things I already had at home, though I substituted beeswax for the paraffin, and I chose to make the cornstarch paste from the recipe listed on the page.  Check it out here!

These are the blank books I made for my sister - they are all hard cover and long stitch with a cut out in the spine.  This is my favorite way to make books because it is easy and elegant -- and I like the binding strings and pages both being displayed on the spine.

Here is the guest book... I printed the pages on the inside, then trimmed, folded, and bound them onto the cover I made.  This book is the same style as the blank journals.

Fun craft at the bachelorette party -- decorating undies with advice for the bride...

Another station at the party -- hearts to write date night ideas on, a mat to sign, and photo booth props to take silly pictures.  I got the photo props as a free download from Poptastic Bride.  I wish I had found these sooner!  It ended up being a last minute addition to the party, and it would have been fun to incorporate photo booth silliness into the reception if we had planned it early enough.

A "From Miss to Mrs" banner.  I was looking at ideas on Pinterest for the party and loved this one.

My delightful "Plant a Kiss on the Stud" poster and game - sort of like pin the tail on the donkey!  I got the idea for this from Party City - they had one of these pre-made, but I opted to draw my own instead.  It's a bit of a rough drawing done quickly, but it turned out ok and was fun to play.  We gave prizes out for the kiss closest to the lips and the one with the most "interesting" placement.  For the kisses to be planted on the stud, I found a kiss graphic on google images, printed out several, cut them out, and put tape on the back.  Blindfold each guest, spin them around, then direct them with their paper kiss to the poster to plant one on it.

Last but not least I give you food crafting!  I made blue velvet cupcakes and added food coloring to turn the blue more green - per the bride's wedding colors.  I piped vanilla frosting on half of them and key lime frosting on the other half.  Ahead of time I rolled out and colored fondant then cut it in various lingerie shapes and decorated those with white edible pearls.  The most successful, I thought, were the "I DO" and "I <3 U" panties.  They were fairly easy shapes to cut out, and the simplicity of the design was good.  If I were to do this again, I would probably find mini cookie cutters and use those to cut out the fondant decorations.  This would save a lot of time and make the shapes more consistent.

This beautiful chocolate cake was made with a chocolate cake mix - I was short on time, otherwise it would have been from scratch - but I added a cup of chocolate chips to the mix.  The frosting is a chocolate buttercream that I added whipped cream and a bit of coffee to to make it a mocha frosting.

Now that my sister's wedding is over, I look forward to having more time again to make more stuff and post more about it here.


Jennifer

If only clay would not shrink; but since it does, make a rainbow ruler!

I love spending hours at a time sitting at a pottery wheel, throwing pots, and every once in awhile I throw something impressively large and wonderful and I'm filled with glee.  Then it dries.  And it is smaller.  Then I put it through a bisque firing.  It is smaller.  Then I glaze it.  Perhaps it is pretty, but it is even smaller!  It's a little bit depressing to see how much a piece can shrink from something of wonder to something of "eh."

To attempt to counter this problem and plan better for the shrinkage, I made a stoneware ruler out of the same clay I make my pieces from.  When It was relatively wet I cut it down to about 12" and put marks at each inch.  I then fired it, glazed it, and fired it again.  I let it double as an underglaze color guide since I have 12 underglaze paints.

The beauty of this ruler is that you can measure a finished piece with it and figure out about how many inches it was when wet, then measure it with a proper ruler and figure out about how many inches it shrunk.  This way, I can find a piece I have made and have a better shot at duplicating it or perhaps making it a different size.  My finished ruler ended up about 11 inches, post firings, so 12 inches - for my clay and with my kiln (there are several variable involved) will shrink about an inch.

Jennifer