Woa. Yesterday was wild. The biggest wedding crafts day that I’ve initiated so far. Only 54 days to go until the big day, so my still-to-do list is heating up:
- Create a chalkboard menu display for buffet out of a vintage frame
- Spray paint lots of vintage frames in bright colors to set on tables denoting where gifts go, favors, etc.
- DIY favors
- Decorate a vintage suitcase for the guest book
- Secure a coral flower hair clip for my up do
- Meeting with florist to talk flowers
- Purchase burlap for table runners
- Make about a million more paper pinwheels
- Create some kind of ribbon garland
- Am I forgetting anything? Probably…
Source: DIY with Stef
The idea was to buy glass test tubes (the kind topped with natural cork stoppers) and fill them with something fun that guests would enjoy taking home – None of that monogrammed stuff for us that guests likely won’t use, will toss or will get stuffed in a junk drawer somewhere. Instead, I decided to fill our glass test tubes with three different options, that way guests can choose exactly what they’d like to take home with them. Here are my fillers:
- Wildflower seeds
- Mini M&M candies
- Homemade lavender-scented bath salts
In addition to the test tubes and the various fillers, we also needed a funnel to make “stuffing them” a little bit easier. Mom forgot to bring hers, but we made one out of tape and a piece of computer paper – Worked like a charm!
Truth be told, the only filler we had on hand yesterday was the wildflower seed, but I figured we could at least get the process started. Once my mom and her friend, Kim, have time to make the bath salts and we are able to track down some mini M&M’s, we’ll fill up the remainder of the test tubes to complete the process.
Here are the completed tubes of wildflower seeds – I love how natural they look and hope that guests will enjoy sprinkling their gardens with the seeds after our wedding!
The last step before calling this project done (for now) was to add those tags I mentioned. A few weeks ago, I went ahead and made little paper labels for my test tubes. All I did was type up a couple of pages of the words in a Word document on my computer and then printed them out on different colored pieces of paper. “Indulge” got yellow paper, “Grow” got green and “Relax” got blue. After cutting them out with a pair of scissors, I finished off the edge with a quick hole punch for a small piece of twine that would eventually hold the tag to the test tube.
So yesterday, my mom, sister and I started a quick assembly line where my sister cut the twine using a templated string of about 3 inches, my mom threaded the twine through the hole punched in the tags, giving it a quick knot near the paper, and then I snipped off the excess. We had to make the twine a little long or else tying the knot would have been a nightmare.
In my Pinspiration image, you may have seen that the tags they used were just tied around the glass test tube – I didn’t think that would be strong enough to stay in place, but wasn’t really sure what our other options were. Mom came to the rescue though with the idea of putting the twine inside the test tube and then squeezing the cork in place on top to hold it in place. It worked like a charm!
Although, word to the wise – I broke four test tubes because I tried to slip the cork all the way back into place, not taking into account that the twine needed a little extra room. So if you try this at home, just be very gentle with this step or else you’ll get super frustrated like I did – It’s not fun to be around a frustrated bride, just ask my mom and sister…
Live and learn! Hopefully stuffing the rest of the tubes will go more smoothly (with fewer casualties). I’ll be sharing the details on the rest of the many projects we did on the blog Wednesday and Friday, so stay tuned.
What do you guys think?? Would you all appreciate something like this as a favor? I wish I could make one for all of YOU guys! You all have been so sweet and supportive of our upcoming wedding…
Hope you have a great Monday!
