Getting Centered

When I was 14 years old, my neighbor got married. This wasn't just any neighbor, this was Liz. Liz moved in next door when I was 6. I think she was just out of college, which made her young by my current standards, but it gave her a goddess like status for me at the time. She was the coolest neighbor a girl could ever hope for. For my birthdays she would give me handmade gift certificates for things I could redeem all year: free slurpee, free dinner at Chi-Chi's, free ice cream cone, etc. I always loved the stuff, but the best part about those presents was getting to spend time with Liz. I wanted to grow up and be just like her. When I was 14 she got married and it was so exciting, it was one of the first grown up weddings I had been to and I loved every minute of it.

(neighbor Liz in the middle with her three boys at my wedding)

From where I stood she was the perfect bride: creative, crafty, beautiful and happy. It shouldn't surprise anyone that I thought of her wedding when I found out I would be having one of my own. One of the things from her wedding that I always remembered were her centerpieces. Liz could make anything. Her basement craft area used to be my favorite place to sit for hours. I would look at all of her materials and crafts while she worked away. She decided that she didn't want flowers as the traditional centerpiece and instead had lovely wicker like wreaths with beautiful ribbon bows around a candle in hurricane glass. Fast forward 22 years to my own wedding and I decided that I would have something similar.

I kept the wreath idea, and the candle in the hurricane class. I looked at many lovely wicker and wood like wreaths, but none of them looked the same way I remembered hers looking. Reading through many blogs I came across the idea I later settled on: a ribbon wreath. Beautiful and simple, made from grosgrain ribbon - it was perfect.

Here's my mom showing their elegance!

Again - these work great for a wedding, but they would work great for a number of occasions. Depending on the color of ribbon you choose, they could work as wreaths you hang on the wall for all holidays.

I have a few tips for you so that you can avoid come of the mistakes I made along the way.

The Supplies:

Grosgrain Ribbon 50-55 strips 16" in length (This is a lot of ribbon, but very affordable if bought in bulk at www.TheRibbonRetreatWholesale.com)

Styrofoam Wreath, Extruded Ring (available at Michael's for around $5)

Good Cutting Scissors

A Lighter

My mom was amazing and cut all of the ribbon for 15 wreaths for me. When I started to assemble the wreaths, I hit a road block. What is the one thing I have never liked about grosgrain ribbon, a fabric I otherwise couldn't live without? It frays! And on a wreath that is only made of one thing, the fraying was a big deal. After searching on line for advice, the only choice was to seal the ends with a lighter. It sounded daunting at first. 15 wreaths, 55 ribbons per wreath, 2 ends per ribbon meant sealing 1650 ends of ribbon. Luckily we learned this after the ribbon was bought and cut, or I might have backed out. I am so glad I didn't! In the end it took one evening plonked in front of the TV with my sister to get them sealed. And if you are making only one, it shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes. And you'll be so happy that you did it!

Instructions:

Cut Ribbon into 16inch strips

Heat seal with a lighter all of the ends (just run the edge of the ribbon close to, but not touching, the flame. It will immediately melt and seal ... in fact it becomes kind of addicting after a while. Beware if you get the ribbon too close to the flame, it can ignite or darken the ribbon if using a light color)

Once cut, take a strip of ribbon and tie it tightly around the ribbon. Following the same method (right over left or left over right), tie a second knot to secure. Repeat 50-54 times until wreath is full and beautiful.

That's it - it's that easy and the results are beautiful. We used the same color for all 55 strips, but at the end we ran out of one color and had to mix the ribbon colors. That looked great too. It might be fun to make a Halloween one out of black and orange or an Easter one out of pastel colors. The possibilities are endless!

(please excuse the can of Guinness, it was after all, an Irish wedding)!

Finding your Fortune

First let me apologize for a very long absence. I thought when I returned from the Honeymoon I would have more time and I think in the technical sense, that was probably true. I have learned though, that having more time can sometimes lead to getting less done. Does anyone else ever feel that way? Not that I wasn't busy for the last many (many) weeks, I was. Plus we got snow in Dublin. More snow than has ever been recorded in the history of this usually snow free capital city and right when we recovered from the snow, we got more snow. It was beautiful and frustrating and wonderful all at once. Annnnnd in my last defense of an excuse I have also been waiting for wedding pictures to come back to have good visuals for some of the crafts we used. Pictures are here, I am mentally back, and I am back to blogging!

For our wedding, we really wanted it to be a celebration of us as a couple with the people we love. We wanted the people who were making the effort to join us for this weekend to feel at every turn how much we appreciated them being with us. With that in mind we wanted our wedding budget to go towards great location, delicious food, rockin' music and lots of booze. We also wanted everything to be beautiful, but were shocked and amazed at the current price for mainstream beauty. So we were rebels and we bucked as much of the system as we could. This was our wedding and we were in charge. In the coming days I will be sharing with you ways that we cut on budget without compromising a beautiful and inviting wedding reception.

To ease in, we are starting with a small project that is applicable to all types of parties, not just weddings. Because I knew there would be a lot of people at the wedding who had not met Carl very often, we wanted to make sure that everyone felt like they knew us as a couple. Enter the fortune teller. Do you remember being small and making the little finger majiggies that you would put numbers and colors on and write in your fortune and spend hours playing with friends? I used to make them out of any type of paper laying around. And as I got older, I continued to make them and play with them out in bars and such. We decided they would be a perfect accent to the reception tables, as well as a great talking point for people who might not know each other that well.

They were easy enough to make. I made a template in InDesign, found some lovely and inexpensive marbled paper on line, and printed them in black and white. The total cost was $10.00 but the entertainment value was priceless!

These would be great at birthday parties, baby showers, training days, and even holiday dinners. They can be filled with fortunes, trivia questions, or fun facts. I am attaching the template that I used as a guide and photos of the final product.

Cheers!
Kathleen

Please forgive my absence!

I went away for nearly three weeks to get married and honeymoon. I have been back for a few days, but I don't think I will feel like myself until the weekend. In the meantime here are a few pictures from all of the festivities. Now that the wedding is over, there are several craft projects that I will be sharing from the day.